Category: Random

Random Writerly Thoughts

I had a great time in Houston. The reception the Honors College put together was one of the nicest experiences I’ve ever had as a writer, and I think it was for a couple of reasons. One, it was fun and I was introduced by a great friend of mine, Dr. Jesse Rainbow, who was hilarious and set a great tone for the evening. And two, the questions that the students (it was mostly attended by writing students) had were, for the most part, phenomenal. It’s a pure pleasure to talk with young people who are receptive, thoughtful, and curious. They asked great questions, and I have no doubt in my mind that I will be seeing some of their names on the front of great books in the future.

I wish I’d had time to talk to more one-on-one. There was a student who came up to me at the very end and I didn’t have much time to talk to her, but I wish I’d had more, because she was asking about taking a more traditional publication route in this new era of publishing. And I got the feeling that she was asking if that was still worth it. (If you happen to be reading this, and I misunderstood, then I do apologize.) It’s something I want to address at a later date, though, because it’s a great question.

Random: Have you seen these splat balls? I got some for SmallBoy in Houston. They’re hilarious. Just don’t throw them on the ceiling. Trust me on this.

Reception for THE SCRIBE continues to be really positive, which is gratifying. I’ve had such a good response from readers, when in complete truth, I was kind of expecting some backlash for choices I’d made in the plot. I never give you all enough credit. Silly me. I should know by now that you’re amazing.

Moving this month has been easier than I’d imagined, but it’s still pretty busy. The hard thing is not being able to write regularly because I feel really scattered. And not writing makes me feel unproductive and cranky. But writing crap makes me feel even worse, so I’ve kind of resigned myself to just taking a break until life calms down a little. (I always tell myself I’m going to take a break and then I never do, so this is probably a good thing.) No worries, THE SINGER hasn’t left my mind at all, so once I’m back in the groove, I think it’s going to come really fast. I’m still planning on a release for Spring of next year.

Random: SmallBoy bought me a mini pumpkin when I was in Houston. He named it Henry. Which is an excellent pumpkin name, in my opinion.

I’ll be happy to be home. As in, my own home. For real. No renting. This is the first house I’ve bought on my own (my ex bought ours right before we were married), but it’s been a great, if a little overwhelming, experience. It’s an old house with lots of character, so I’ll be sure to post pictures of the new place when I’m settled.

I walked into that house, particularly into the office, which has great windows and opens right into the back garden, and I thought, “I could write good books here.” Atmosphere is important. Feeling centered is important. I think I’m going to feel very centered in that house, if that makes sense, so good books will be written there, I have no doubt. If they’re not, I know you’ll let me know.

Just wanted to touch base. I should probably do some big Halloween post or something because “Hey! Paranormal writer!” but I have a lot going on, so I’ll leave you with a picture of Henry.

Screen Shot 2013-10-29 at 2.35.08 PM

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Metaphor, Guy Clark, and The Cape

I’m in awe of good songwriters. A good song is a complete story told in three or four minutes. Set to music. Now, I’m a decent writer, but I hold a certain reverence for those talented individuals who can tell a story, put it to music, and often, sing it too. That, my friends, is talent.

I listened to a variety of music growing up, from the Statler Brothers to Led Zeppelin, folk music of all kinds and classical music, too. My own musical training was classical (voice and piano) but I always had an affection for traditional country music. When I went to school in Houston, I fell in love with Texas songwriters. Lyle Lovett was the first, quickly followed by Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

Now, a lot of you may never have heard of Guy Clark (or Van Zandt, which is a crime), but you’ve probably heard his songs. They’ve been covered by some of the biggest names in country music. However, if you’ve never heard Clark sing, you’re missing out. I’ve heard him described as a musician’s musician. He builds guitars and often plays them. He’s a songwriter, a mentor, and he’s probably one of the most emotionally evocative performers I’ve ever seen with nothing more on stage than himself and a guitar. If you think I’m exaggerating, here’s a video of Clark performing his song, Dublin Blues, last year:

Okay, this has kind of turned into a Guy Clark Appreciation Post (which is fine) but I wanted to get back to the idea of songs as really tiny, efficient stories and what we can learn from that as prose writers. One of the reasons songwriters can get away with telling big stories in tiny settings is effective use of metaphor. Continue reading “Metaphor, Guy Clark, and The Cape”

Author Tribute: L.C. Evans

I just wanted to post quickly today to highlight a tribute to indie author L.C. Evans, who passed away earlier this month from cancer. Thanks to David Gaughran for posting about the tribute give-away and thanks to Simon Royle at The Indie View for organizing it. Though L.C. has passed, her family still benefits from the sale of her books and today, if you buy any of her titles, you’ll receive another book from a contributing author for free. In short, if you were thinking of purchasing a new book today, try one of L.C.’s!

I did not know L.C. personally, but one of the things I like best about the indie publishing community is that it is, in fact, a community. It’s a diverse group of people from all over the world, and I’m extremely proud to be a part of it. I’d like to take a moment to thank all of you who have joined me in this journey, and I thought it would be an appropriate time to share the dedication to my next book.

For my dear friends:

to those who inspire me

to those who challenge me

for all I have met along the way

Thank you for reading, and be sure to check out this tribute for a lovely member of our indie community.

Elizabeth

Ten Things I Learned About Independent Publishing in 2011

Stitched Panorama by Nevit

1. It can be done. This may seem obvious to many of you, but a year ago, the thought of doing this wasn’t even on my radar. I can thank my friend, Lydia (thanks, Lydia!), for pointing to this phenomenon that was starting to make news. The plain truth of it is, I was only writing as a hobby then, but once she mentioned it, the idea was planted, and I decided it was something I wanted. And that’s important. It has to be something you want. Like anything, success in indie book publishing is often determined by how much you want it. However…

2. Anyone can publish, not everyone should. Can anyone write a book? My husband would tell you, “No.” Kindle Direct Publishing will tell you, “Yes!” The real answer lies somewhere closer to my husband, I think. If putting words into an epub or mobi format is all that it takes to publish a book, then yes, anyone can. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of crap books out there. Let’s be honest, a lot of the books that are self-published are first drafts. Some of them are just a bad idea to begin with. I would never go on American Idol to try out on national television; some people would. If you don’t take yourself (and your work) seriously, no one will. That’s why…

3. Surrounding yourself with the right people is crucial. And by that, I mean you need a healthy balance of cheerleading and honesty. The ideal is an honest cheerleader. I thank them in every book, but the pre-reading and editing superpowers of Kristy, Kelli, Lindsay, Sarah, Molly, Sandra, Caroline, Toni, and Amy are a large part of what make my books not suck. They’re the ones that point out when a character sounds “off.” They’re the ones that point out when I use the word “murmur” fifteen times in one chapter. (Yeah, that happened once.) They point out plot holes and weak characterizations; they also pat my head when I feel like the worst writer in the world and give me hugs, even from thousands of miles away.

4. Forget the naysayers, this market is nowhere near saturated. It’s only growing. Forget people who say the e-book market is “flooded.” Please. How many people do you know that got e-readers this Christmas? How many people do you know who admit they read more since getting their Nook or Kindle or iPad? People are reading. They’re reading a lot. People are also reading a greater variety of story forms. Want to know the last time I read a graphic novel before I got my iPad? Years. Now, I can access thousands of them online, and I do. Short stories? I don’t want to pay $8-10 for an anthology of writers I’m not interested in to get the one I want. But I’m more than happy to pay a couple dollars for the e-book version. E-books have the power to reinvigorate the short story form. Poetry? Don’t get me started. Continue reading “Ten Things I Learned About Independent Publishing in 2011”

The Christmas Vacation Post

A Hunter Family Christmas! (just kidding, I would never hold a goat)

So, my husband woke up this morning and announced that Christmas vacation started today. This may seem presumptuous, but since we live in a strange self-employed/artist/writer/home-schooling/LEGO addict commune-type household, these kind of formalities are generally met with blinks of confusion.

See, our family spends a lot of time together. While you’d think that being self-employed and working from home would mean we worked less because we don’t have long commutes and can make our own hours, what actually seems to happen is we work all the time.

“Are you still editing? It’s two am.”

“I’ll sleep in tomorrow.”

“Okay, I have a photo shoot at eight. I’ll be sure to give the boy coffee before I go.”

“I hate you.”

But, since both of us like our work, it’s not all bad. And since we homeschool our kid (which works for us, but I readily admit is not for everyone) we tend to turn almost everything into a learning opportunity.

“Mom, have you seen this LEGO piece?”

“I see it here, now what shape is this?”

“It’s an octagon, Mom.”

“And why do we call it an octagon?”

“Honey, just give him the LEGO piece.”

“He has to learn his Latin roots sometime!”

In short, our family has become kind of weird, but it’s a weird that works for us. We also tend to have various and sundry visitors drifting through. Right now, we have some older friends, a retired couple, visiting from Idaho for a few months and my best friend is coming on Saturday to spend Christmas with us. My father-in-law and my husband often work together, so he’s always kind of around, which our son loves; he’s very close to his grandpa.

So with work schedules being what we make them, an official Christmas vacation announcement was probably kind of necessary. Why am I telling you? No reason, really, I’m just kind of rambling. But I won’t be posting here for a week or so. I hope you’re able to visit friends, family, or whoever makes you happy and content this holiday season. Enjoy too many baked goods. Wear an ugly sweater (unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere). Tell your husband/wife/significant other you bought them a goat for Christmas and sent it to a family in Namibia. Knit a hat. Drink a glass of good whiskey.

I’ll be around. I’ll probably be online some while I’m crocheting/knitting/baking over the next week or so. Bestie got the Small Boy Ninjabread men cookie cutters last Christmas.

Oh, yeah, those are definitely going to happen.

Have a wonderful holiday season!

And, as always, thanks for reading,

Elizabeth

Top Five Family Movies (that won’t make you want to gouge out your eyes)

Phew! Second book is out, which means that I can get back to posting inane writing advice and random opinions about television, music, and movies. Now, Christmas is coming (according to my local Target, it’s been Christmas season for about three months now) but soon, the kids will be out of school, which means that parents everywhere, in addition to searching for that Lego Ninjago set that their kid just had to have that apparently every other kid in the country also had to have (just me?) …besides that, parents will be tearing their hair out trying to find things for their kids to do instead of bugging them.

Now, if I was a wholesome, smart blogger, I’d give you all sorts of uplifting, but thrifty, crafts that your kids can do. Ideally, you’d also be able to use these as Christmas presents for grandparents. Sadly for you, I am not that wholesome, so I’m just going to give you…

The top five family movies that won’t make you want to gouge your eyes out! (Because we all know that Christmas vacation really means letting the kids watch entirely too much TV.) Without further ado… Continue reading “Top Five Family Movies (that won’t make you want to gouge out your eyes)”

On landscape and The English Patient

photo by Wonker

“Still, some wanted their mark there. On that dry water-course, on this shingled knoll…. But I wanted to erase my name and the place I had come from. By the time war arrived, after ten years in the desert, it was easy for me to slip across borders, not to belong to anyone, to any nation.” (The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje, 1992)

I was talking with a few friends earlier about Michael Ondaatje’s book, The English Patient, much of which takes place in the desert, and other parts in war-damaged Italian villa. For me, the book is very much about grief. It’s a powerful book, one that stretches me thin, and one that I’ve come back to countless times over the years.

I read it for the first time the summer after a friend died traumatically when I was nineteen years old. I was working on the farm near where I grew up, which is on the West side of the San Joaquin Valley in California. It is flat and dry, unless you are in the middle of the cotton fields where the plants reach up and form a canopy. In places, the cotton can reach above your head, and you will drip with sweat in the peculiar humidity.

I took that book to work with me every day. I read it on my breaks. I read it when I came home at night. For that summer, The English Patient and the desert and ruins Ondaatje wrote about were my constant companions.

For me, the desert will always be a place of grief and healing. A place where, in my own life, I have stripped bare the tangles in my mind and cleared out the emotional sludge that can lay in wait and grab you unexpectedly. It is a place where, as my great-grandmother would say, I can “stretch my eyes” and rest. So it was fitting that, years later, Ondaatje’s book and the literary desert he evoked helped me to unbind myself from the grief that had held me frozen and tearless for months.

“In the desert, the most loved waters, like a lover’s name, are carried blue in your hands, enter your throat. One swallows absence. A woman in Cairo curves the white length of her body up from the bed and leans out of the window into a rainstorm to allow her nakedness to receive it.” (The English Patient, Ondaatje, 1992)

How are you using geography? Are you allowing the landscape around your characters to become a metaphor for who they are at a particular moment? Are you letting the desert mirror the desolation of grief? Where are they? A forest? A library? A paradise with dark corners? Use your setting for more than backdrop. Allow it to inform your writing, and let your readers bring some of themselves into it. They will anyway.

Does a landscape evoke the same emotion in everyone? No. That’s part of why some books will always resonate more than others, but there are common elements in literature. Use your setting as another layer to build characterization and mood. Let the Earth (or whatever world you choose) become your accomplice.

Finally, I’ll leave you with one last quote from The English Patient. It’s a passage I’ve underlined in my copy. A passage that speaks to me. It’s something I’ve held on to for fifteen years.

“She stopped reading and looked up. Out of the quicksand. She was evolving. So power changed hands. Meanwhile, with the help of an anecdote, I fell in love.

Words, Caravaggio. They have power.”

Thanks for reading,

Elizabeth

A book by any other name…

Something exciting happened today.

I wrote a real book.

What? you ask. Aren’t you the one that’s been blabbing for months about your book and writing and e-publishing and all that jazz? Haven’t you said that e-readers are the way of the future, and that paper books, while remaining collectable, would eventually fade from wide-spread use over the years? Haven’t you maintained that e-books are real books?

Well…yeah, but now I have a paperback.

I’m mostly joking. I still believe all those things, and paper and ink does not a book make. Nonetheless, I have to admit a thrill from opening the box from CreateSpace and seeing my husband’s beautiful artwork on the cover of a paperback. I sported a grin cracking open that proof for the first time and seeing the words I’d spent so much time on printed on the page.

Is it vanity? I hope not. I think what I’m feeling as I sit next to this book (yes, it’s sitting right next to me on the kitchen table, and I keep glancing at it) is the memory of opening a new book for the first time. It’s the memory of wandering through my grandmother’s favorite bookstore, or passing a book around the table as we took turns reading after dinner when I was a child. It’s the first visit to the library. It’s digging through Half-Price Books in Houston looking for treasures and passing a well-worn paperback to a friend saying, “You just have to read this!” Books weren’t just something to read, they are their own kind of culture. Continue reading “A book by any other name…”

Thank you, and what a year it has been.

by XN

Dear Readers,

A little over a year ago, I was not writing.

Sure, I was writing small pieces for a local food column, and I was writing safety manuals and employee letters, but I was not writing creatively.

In a couple of weeks, I will independently publish my second novel. The third is already written.  I’m working on the fourth.

It’s been quite a year.

And I have a lot to be thankful for. Despite the fact that my husband and I haven’t taken a vacation in…not sure how long. Despite the fact that we’re managing on a lot less and working more, we are both doing things we love now. That is worth a lot.

Sometimes when you struggle, it’s hard to see the brighter side. Humor helps, and luckily, I’m married to a really funny guy.  Love helps more, and I am very loved.

This year, I’ve added another amazing thing to the mix. I am read. I wrote a book, and readers bought it and read it.  They loaned me their imagination for the length of that novel, and they allowed me to tell them a story.

It’s really hard to describe how thankful I am for that.

So, this Thanksgiving, I’d like to say thank you.

Thank you to my readers online and those who have bought my book.  Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your kind words. Thank you for reading.

Thank you to my friend, Lydia, who sat me down and told me about this amazing thing she heard about called “independent publishing.” She told me I should give it a try. Seriously, not even a year ago, I hadn’t even heard about it. Thanks, Lydia!

Thank you to my friend, Kristy, who told me that I had a gift, and I should keep writing.

Thank you to Kelli, who read the first fifteen chapters of A Hidden Fire and promptly told me off for making her dissatisfied with her library book and “Oh, by the way, where’s the rest of it, E?”

Thank you to Sandra, Molly, Caroline, Lindsay, and Sarah for being the most awesome group of pre-readers a writer could ask for. They don’t tell me what they think I want to hear, they tell me the truth, and truth is invaluable to a writer who wants to improve.

Thank you to my editor, Amy, who is endlessly patient with my abuse of ellipses, and for her enthusiasm and keen eye.

Thank you to the reviewers and bloggers who have read my work and asked for more. Thank you for the time in your very busy schedules, and thank you for telling others about the books.

And thank you to all my subscribers and blog readers! I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving.  I know that I have a lot to be grateful for, and I hope you do, too. May you have a blessed holiday weekend with family and friends. And to my international readers, find a group of Americans somewhere in your city or town.  They probably have turkey, and they’ll be in a sharing type of mood. If you’re lucky, they’ll have stuffing. If you’re really lucky, they’ll have pumpkin pie.

Thanks for reading,

Elizabeth