Lorelei Bell's Writing Revolution

I don't know if any of you are following the Huge Howey theory of how Indie authors are making more in ebook sales than trad published authors. I've been getting a lot of the story through the blog "The Passive Voice" Here is only one of those posts about it. If you want to read up on it, go over to The Kill Zone to find a bunch of links about it--the arguments against, for, and the up-in-arms posts. People are arguing over his stats on this.
Actually I couldn't care less about what someone I've never heard of say in regards to publishing. I don't even care if his stats are right or wrong. It matters not to me.
Really. I've probably spent more years writing and being rejected than he's been alive.

But I do agree with one thing Howey says and I'm quoting from what I grabbed over at The Kill Zone with James Scott Bell. It goes like this:

“There’s no guarantee you’ll get rich from self-publishing. There’s less guarantee you’ll get rich from querying agents. My contention is this: Most people will be happier getting their works out in the wild and moving on to the next project than they will reading rejection letters.

“The real choice is that 99% of you can write a novel, pour your heart into it, and watch as every agent you query rejects the thing. And then you can give up. Feel like a failure. Walk away from your dream.

“Or you can self-publish, have the pride of having done so, hold a copy of a physical book you wrote in your hands, see your e-book up on Amazon, get a sale or two, hear from a reader, and want to write more.

“It isn’t about getting rich. It’s about having the opportunity to feel pride of accomplishment.” - Huge Howey

I'm in total agreement about this. I spent 40 years trying to do it the traditional way. I failed every time with an agent or publisher. It was a horrible wait for a horrible out-come: REJECTION! When I turned 50 and had not yet landed an agent, I said "enough". I self-published Spell of the Black Unicorn. Granted, it wasn't edited, and it needed it. And I did pay a "vanity" publisher, but their price wasn't ridiculous, and I made the money back, and a little over, but I certainly didn't get anywhere near rich on it. 

What it did was boosted my morale, I validated myself as someone who wrote a book and people LOVED it. They were readers not writers. To most of them any problems with the book's mistakes was over-looked. What they wanted was an entertaining read--which they got. And I got my reward by having a book signing at Borders (thank goodness they were 2-3 years away from closing).

While this self-pubbed writer, Huge Howey is making noise all over the place trying to--I don't know, gain more readers by being controversial (because they say that bad publicity is better than no publicity), I've already had my go-around with agents and publishers.

Before I had even written Spell of the Black Unicorn, I'd written gobs and gobs of other novels, and half-finished ones. Hey, 35 years of writing is a lot of writing. I wrote "Vampire Legacy" back in 1982-'83. I joined a writing group (which I had to travel 3 hours to), and had high hopes with it. Problem was, I was still really green. I was so green, I think the apple hadn't even developed, in fact. I had great ideas for the book, or thought I did. I had a lot of high hopes, thinking I'd get a break with writers who had already been published, and the teacher had an agent. But that wasn't to be. I couldn't keep on traveling to meet with these people every week, so had to quit. Not that it would net me any great out-come. I was just too new and needed to learn how to plot and basics of writing.

Of course since then, Spell of the Black Unicorn has been re-written/edited and now available in eBook on Amazon. And I paid not one red cent to do it, I didn't have to go through any publisher or agent. I LOVE that part!

So, where am I today? My thoughts about this "Writing Revolution" is this: It's about time we writers have a place to publish and someone isn't taking advantage of our desire to have a book out there where people can buy it, whether it's ebooks or a physical book. No matter what, when I decided to take the plunge to self-publish my first book, I had said good-bye to the query.

 I'm doing whatever I want with my books, and getting them out there for people to enjoy. I may not make a lot of money, but I'm able to get my books out there, and when someone tells me they enjoyed it, that is my reward.

When I tried to find an agent for Vampire Legacy, I thought I nearly had one. The vampire genre was really going strong, with Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire", and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was big on TV. She told me to cut the book in half (it was 800 pages long. Yeah. Sort of over did it. I cut it in half and tried to make some adjustments, and sent it back to her, and she decided against it, saying "vampire stories are hard to sell", and so I wasted about a half a year both working on the book and waiting for the slow response. It was/is really devastating to a person who is hopeful, and waiting for word. It's like your whole life hangs in that delicate balance. 

So, now I can say this revised version of "Vampire Legacy" renamed "Dhampir Legacy" will see the light of day, and will be published this year at some point. 

So, here it is. My rejection to all agents and publishers. I DON'T NEED YOU!

"Dear Agent. Thanks for looking at my book, but really I don't need you. I don't need you to tell me 'this isn't just right for us' or 'good luck in placing this with someone else'. No. I've had it up to my eyeballs putting up with your lame excuses as to why you don't think my book is right for you. The fact is YOU are NOT RIGHT FOR ME! \

My first self-published book is available on Amaxon

WORDS & PHRASES, and WIP

Oh. It's Sunday already?

Time flies when your... uh... back to work.

Hey, everyone! I'm trying to get into a posting schedule here. I thought I would make Sunday the day to post here at the Journal. This is where I spew things about writing, and about my WIP. When I first started this it was merely an exercise in yammering about writing. And then people came and began to follow. I even get a comment or two, which is great, and I thank you so much for stopping by in your busy day.

Hey, do you do this? I often write down words, phrases (or a whole sentence) into a spiral notebook from books that I read. I might like the way the author phrased something. It might be something that helps me down the road when I come to some point in my writing where I need something that describes a feeling, or some physical act. I can't tell you how many notebooks I have on this. Some are rather small, and I have a ringed binder or two that I might pull out from time to time to help my tired (scatter-brained) mind to jostle it into working.

Last night, I think it was before I went to bed, I had a line come to me, and I wrote it down so that it wouldn't loop around in my brain all night, and keep me up.

A stab of recognition jarred him.

Okay, that was nice. But I looked at it this morning and began changing it.

A jolt of recognition jarred him.

Or:

Sudden recognition jolted him.

I like to play around with a line because the meaning can change with the words, like these verbs above. The first line is fine, but the word jolt really defines it and placement in that last sentence helps to show that whoever is doing the recognizing, it's really blind-sided them.

Descriptions of Characters

When it comes to description it's good to have something handy to put down. Since I'm working on my detective's character and description in this story, I needed some handy phrases to consider. Is he granet-jawed? Yeah. That's a good one to have. My detective, Jan Vladislav has Gypsy blood and so his eyes are a little different. I also have the color rather extraordinary, since he's a dhampire. I mean he has to be special, otherwise he'd be boring. So, his eyes are tilted at an exotic Slavic angle. And he wears brown-tinted contacts because the color of his eyes are like a lions--gold. That would definitely put people off seeing golden eyes, wouldn't it? And as background, I wrote that his eyes began changing from hazel to whiskey by age 15.

Yesterday I decided to write up something that happened when he was 15, since I'd barely wrote of it in my original manuscript--and it came way too far back in the book. I wrote the scene (a flash-back), when his uncle explained to him the events before he was born and what it means. Since the book's title is now Dhampire Legacy, I had to bring in somewhere in the first 1/4 of the book what the word means, and that Jan is the off-spring of his father who was turned into a vampire--which was something he didn't know, so this revelations is jarring to him. His father, who became a vampire, went to his mother and had carnal relations with her, and that was how Jan came to be born. The word dhampire is Romanian, and it basically means exactly that, the off-spring of a vampire. It also means vampire slayer. He is someone who would recognize a vampire when he sees one, and is the only human strong enough to fight a vampire. At this point in Jan's life, he doesn't believe in all of this, but he's been schooled in the idea that it is possible, and his belief system is about to get a little shock, since he abandoned the Gypsy beliefs of his family. Also, his uncle had given him a tattoo that night that will help thwart a vampire's thrall--it's the equivalent of an evil-eye to a vampire.

I have gone back to add a few things to the beginning. I couldn't continue with the climax until I got all this other stuff down in the manuscript. I don't know. It was like seeing a picture on the wall askew and I had to go and fix it. So, I'm working through the beginning to add some description to some of the main characters. Today I think I'll try and work on Vince Tobin, the senior detective. Decided he's a John Wayne fan, and wears cowboy boots. He also has the habit of snapping his fingers, but the sound is more like a popping noise because his fingers are large and blunt-ended. He also gives people nick-names. Jan's is "Vlad". Once I decided on that, I could see him in my mind. The original had him slightly different, but not strong enough of a character, and so I'm working on his description.

I'm sure that everyone is different when it comes time to describe your characters, how you decide what they should look like, their foibles (strange behavior, particular to an individual), and other traits. With this book, since I'd written it many years ago, it needed a boost in some of these characters, so, that's something I need to address when I feel ready.

What do you do to figure out what your major characters will look like, act like, belief systems, etc.