Fantasy is Still My Favorite

The first Wednesday of every month, the IWSG posts an optional question, encouraging members to read and comment on each other’s blogs. June's Question is: June 5 question: Of all the genres you read and write, which is your favorite to write in and why?

 Fantasy is and always has been my favorite genre to write in. I think this is simply because I like making things up and I don't like being bound by rules about what is and isn't possible. Sure, fantasy worlds have their own sets of rules, but as the author, I get to make up what those rules are and how far they can bend before the break.

I grew up playing games with my mom were arm chairs could time travel if they spun fast enough and people could turn into mannequins of they made eye contact with mannequins for too long. Every time I watched TV show that had an ounce of magic in it, I'd make up my own stories about the the characters, continuing their story and adding myself to it. Back then, the word fanfiction wasn't part of my vocabulary, but that is the best word to describe my early stories, even if I never wrote them down.

 Fantasy was the genre that made me want to read. For many years, I thought I liked historic fiction, and I also thought I hated reading. However, when I read Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Star Wars Expanded Universe(technically science fantasy), and The Chronicles of the Deryni, and Wicked, that was when I started to love reading. And was before I discovered urban fantasy novels like Tithe and The Dresden Files.

 Whether I'm reading or writing, my mind just gravitates towards fantasy. I enjoy the occasional hard science fiction or contemporary novel, but often, a story needs to have some kind of magic to really win me over. The same goes for writing. There is always something magical, something that doesn't quite follow the laws of physics or at least the rules of what is possible. I love infusing the real world with magic, and my best writing has been urban fantasy. Creating new worlds is fun, but it is more time consuming. Patiences hasn't always been my biggest strength. Sometimes I try to write science fiction, but it mostly turns into science fantasy.

 I could ramble on and on about why I like fantasy, but what it comes down to is freedom to let my mind run wild, and to just make stuff up.

 

  The first Wednesday of every month, the IWSG posts an optional question, encouraging members to read and comment on each other’s blogs. March's Question is: Whose perspective do you like to write from best, the hero (protagonist) or the villain (antagonist)? And why?

My favorite characters to write are the ones who are both hero and villain. Power Surge is a great example of this. The whole book is from Erin Evanstar’s point of view, and the conflict with the most tension is Erin versus Erin. Technically speaking, there is mysterious demon stalking Erin who eventually plays the role of the villain Erin has to fight. But honestly? For most of the book, Erin is in more danger of hurting  themself than they are of being seriously wounded or murdered by the demon. After all, the demon wants to capture Erin alive, and while it isn’t shown on the page, readers know that Erin has attempted suicide at least once in the past two years. Danger factor aside, the demon villain isn’t on page as much as a villain should be and doesn’t take as much action as a true antagonist would. He’s not even the real big bag behind the apocalypse, but an agent of that big bad.

 

Erin is their own antagonist. In the relationship subplot between Erin and José, Erin is the biggest obstacle Erin has to overcome. José isn’t perfect. He says and does some stupid things because he is a mess, but inside, he really is a sweet guy who selflessly loves Erin. As much as Erin loves him too, there are times where they treat him horribly. If the relationship is going to work, Erin needs to defeat Erin.They need kick their dark, selfish side’s ass. I have written heroes who are actually decent human beings and have actuall villains to defeat, and I’ve enjoyed writing them, but not as much as I’ve enjoyed Erin and other characters like Erin. I love the necromancer, succubus, troll, and human-eating alien farmer that have doubled as antagonists and protagonists in my short stories. I think I know why. The stories and characters I become the most invested in are the ones inspired by my fears. There are plenty of things I’m afraid of. Serial killers, bad dog owners, parking garages at night, elevators, crowds, sexual predators, and the dark are just a few items on a long, long list.

   

 But the darkness I fear most is the one that quietly lurks inside of me. What would happen if it got too loud? Who could I hurt? What lines would I cross? Would there be any chance of redemption? I write this darkness into my characters. I make it worse. I give them less self control. I make their upbringing rough and filled with tragedy and a lack of good mentors, and with things I imagine would have pushed me over to the dark side. Soon enough, the characters take on a life of their own. When I start to get that feeling that they are growing independently of me and making their own choices, it is time to get plotting. I want to see how long they can hold their own darkness off for. I want to see what happens when they fail. What lines will they cross? Can they come back once they cross those lines?   

Interested in Power Surge?

The ebook is on sale at Smashwords for $3.25: http://bit.ly/PSSmash
You can get the paper back on amazon:https://amzn.to/2VEQjbq

Book Review: Year of the Knife

A few months ago, Meerkat Press had giveaway running: sign up for their newsletter and get a free ebook. I signed up and got a copy of The Year of the Knife  It sat on my kindle for a while, on my growing list of things to read. After a big stretch of reading YA, I finally wanted to read something “adult” again, so I picked up this. I started it just before dinner and finished a little after midnight. 

I loved the explosive magic, a hard boiled lesbian witch main character, and the fast paced plot with a mostly well set up twist. The magic system in the book was my favorite kind.It had well established rules, limits and costs, and an almost mathematical set up, but the way the author showed it on paged in a way that didn’t bore me with the technical details of actually showing all the calculations. There would be a sentence or two more focused on what was going through Sully's head while she did calculations, but the reader didn't actually see the numbers or symbols.  

  Speaking of the main character, Sully, is quite the badass. If you ever read the Dresden Files, picture if Harry Dresden and Karin Murphy were actually one character only more Irish and queer. Throughout the book, Sully is following a string of murders where victims don't stay dead. The middle of the book, when Sully is knee deep in zombies and demons, was my favorite part. Sully was strongest when her back was against the ropes and she was grasping for leads. 

  The opening wasn’t fantastic, but it did its job. It showed Sully's strength and battle madness with one serial killer hunt, set something up for the end, and then introduced the case shortly after.  I was a little disappointed that the one non-binary character, the only character with a they/them pronoun, was in the book for a few pages then died.

 There were frequent mentions of the sexism the Sully faced, but it never seemed to affect her much, and just seemed there for the sake of being there.

 Most pieces of the twist and the end were well set up for, but a couple things seemed a little too convenient, and one thing I was expecting never happened, even though a few things early on almost promised me it would. Still, there are two more books in the series, so perhaps some of the breadcrumbs left uneaten are just setting up for things yet to come. I'm willing to wait and see. I really am looking forward to the next installment in this series, which comes out later this year. 

 So if you read Year of the Knife now, you won't have too long to wait!

IWSG Day: Writerly Questions: The Good, The Bad, and The Awkward

 

  The first Wednesday of every month, the IWSG posts an optional question, encouraging members to read and comment on each other’s blogs. January 2: What are your favorite and least favorite questions people ask you about your writing?  

The Good:

I love answering questions about writing and publishing. How did you decide to write a book? What did you have to do to get published? What type of things do you do when you revise? What are your favorite editing strategies? What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

 The above questions are among my favorite conversation topics. I love talking about the hows and whys of writing and publishing. As a writing teacher, I've spent a lot of time thinking about and researching how to help people (including myself) improve their writing. I've found one way to do this is to develop a good writing process, and as a result, I spend a lot of time observing, analyzing and tweaking my writing process. I love hearing how other people write as much as I love sharing what I do, what works about it, and what bugs I am still trying to work out. Publishing is another topic I've spent countless hours researching. I still have a lot to learn, but I have a good base of industry knowledge that is growing every day and love answering questions about it. Whether I'm talking about process or publishing, I find that I learn though explaining.

Answering questions helps come to new  realizations and see things I didn't know I knew. It prompts me to fill in gaps in my knowledge, to look at things from different perspectives, and to synthesize in new ways.

The Bad:

How is your book doing? How many copies have you sold?

 If you have a writer friend or relative you care about, just do not ask them these questions. It might be okay if the book is on the NYT or USA Today Best Seller List. In any other situation, it probably sucks.

 First off all, the writer probably doesn't really know how their books are doing, especially if they are not self-published. Amazon tells the "publisher" how many copies were sold, so if a writer isn't self published, they have to wait for monthly, or in some cases, quarterly statements to see how many copies sold in a set period of time. It's frustrating enough not knowing how many copies I have sold. It's worse when I constantly have people asking me about it.

 Friends and family have been asking me about Power Surge's sales since a few days after it came out in the begining of October. I can make some guesses based off of the Amazon sales rank. For example, if I looked on Amazon and saw Power Surge ranked around 100,000, I could assume I sold one book today on Amazon. However, I have no clue if someone buys a book from iBooks, from Barnes and Noble, from my local indie book store, or directly from the publisher's website, until I get my royalty statements.

The Awkward:

In the face to face world, I get pretty awkward pretty fast when people ask my what my book is about. Online, if asked the same question, I can refer people to the blurb or take my time adapting a pre-made pitch for the question. But ask me face to face? You get mumbled fragments about teenagers, Maine, and Demon Hunters, and my most awkward of all: "paranormal things." I'm pretty sure I'd sell more books if I got better at talking it up to the people at the dog park.

 However, the most awkward questions of all are things like: Are any of the characters based off of yourself? What parts? Is anything in the book based off of something that really happened? The main character self-harms. Is that something you do? Now, a more general question, like "what inspired you to write this?" is perfectly fine. However, when people start trying to use the book as a way to learn private things about my personal life, it gets very very awkward.

 I know by calling the book "own voices" I am acknowledging that some the things that marginalize the narrator are also things I've experienced, but that doesn't mean I want people walking up to me at a party and grilling me about which parts, especially if they are family. The last thing I want is people to think is that they can some how psychoanalyze me through my fiction.

Wrap-Up

If you want to talk to me about writing, I'm always happy to answer questions about writing itself, about the process and different ways to publish. I'm working on getting better at pitching Power Surge face to face. However, I prefer not to have to answer questions about sales I can't really answer, and don't want people using my fiction as an excuse to pry into my personal life.

  The first Wednesday of every month, the IWSG posts an optional question, encouraging members to read and comment on each other’s blogs. December's Question is:

What are five objects we'd find in your writing space?

My writing space changes with the season. April through September, I wrote on my screened-in-porch, or, on really nice days, the picnic table by the lake.

Tavi thinks he is a cat

  

 When heat becomes necessary, I move to the kitchen table. No matter which space I'm using, my laptop is always there because it's what I write on. For the sake of this list, I'll focus on things unique to the space.

The Meowditor-In-Cheif is hard at work

Winter Space (aka a mess)

1. Teapot.
2. Blanket.
3. Salt Shaker
4. Dog Bowl
5. Cat's Brush

Summer Space (aka heaven)

1. Beach Towel
2. Pitcher
3. Notebook
4. Sunscreen
5. Chuck-it toys

No matter where I am writing, Goose the Cat aka The Meowditor-In-Cheif, is near-by. He likes to the delete words. Nothing is allowed to be fluffier than him.

Over a decade in the making, there are only a few days left before Power Surge is set lose into the wild. Right now, you can pre-order the E-book from my publisher, NineStar Press, or on Smsashwords. Both ebook and paperbooks will be available on Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, and other major book retailers soon!

Book Review of Given To the Earth by Mindy McGinnis

Given To the Earth by Mindy McGinnis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Given to the Earth is a continuation of the events in Given to the Earth. I’ll refrain from describing the plot in this review because I’m not sure I can do so without spoilers or copying too much for the blurb.

On the sentence level, the writing was lovely. I never had trouble picturing anything, and felt every time the writer stopped to describe something in detail, it was relevant and layered with meaning. However, that wasn’t enough for me to be drawn in the book like I expected to be.

As much as I loved the cast of the Given Duet, I had a hard time getting into Given to the Earth. I wanted to spend more time with the characters and to find out what happened to them, but the short chapters quickly jumping from one character to the next made it hard for to settle into a rhythm and engage with the story.

I also found I had a hard time keeping track of who was narrating when and found myself flipping back to the beginning of chapters (at least with the first half of the book) to remind myself who was narrating. I always knew when Khosa or Dara was narrating, but there were a few instances where I thought I was reading Vincent but after a couple paragraphs, realized it was Donil when he said Vincent’s name or thought about his sister, Dara.

However, when I was a little over half-way through the book, that problem stopped. I found the rhythm of each characters voice and the rapid fire switching from one narrator to the next became a good thing because I wanted to know how everyone’s narratives fit together and how a string of good and bad decisions were going to play out in the end. I was engaged with the narrative that couldn’t fall asleep and got up to finish the book.

As I got closer to the end, I realized that this book was doing something that I love and hate: showing how dozens of decisions each characters make turn into mistakes because of their timing and a lack of communication, bring the characters so close to what could’ve been a peaceful or happy ending (for most of them) only to have it completely turned over by one thing that they overlooked.

There were a few surprises along the way, mostly, the narrative ended exactly how I knew it would and hoped it wouldn’t. It became too familiar. There were a few moments where I was thinking things like “ok I guess ___ had to ___ in order for ___ and ___ to have a happy ending” but after a good night's sleep and reflection on how this compared to the book I read before it, I realized it didn’t have to end that way. The author could’ve broken the trope and come up with a more creative ending were more people live happily with each other. I know this is vague, but being any more specific would mean spoilers, which I don’t want to include.

Given to the Earth may not be the best sequel I’ve ever read, but if you read Given to the Sea and enjoyed it, this is still worth reading. It’s well written and well paced once you get into the rhythm of the narrators and their voices. And if you’re okay with teary traditional endings to fantasy novels with almost Arthurian love triangles, them maybe you won’t have the same problem with this that I did.


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