Mistakes vs. Learning Opportunities

I've mentioned in a few places that I've made a decision to change the cover of ExtraNormal. The decision did not come easily, and I still wax and wane over it. (Now that I put that it writing I'm not absolutely sure what it means - doesn't waxing involve some type of housework?)

Anyway, I try to live by the philosophy that there are no mistakes, only learning opportunities. I also happen to have tons of learning opportunities. It's too early to tell the full story behind this particular one. There are contracts to sign and what not. But suffice it to say I will--hopefully--have an exciting announcement to make soon.

I can say that what I've learned is to be a bit leery of stock photos for covers. Not that they are inherently bad. Many great covers are made from stock photos. In fact, my former publisher used stock photos for my last incredible cover. But the downside is that it doesn't belong to you. Anyone can come along and use the same photo and BAM you're no longer original. Plus you might find your product being confused with something that makes you kind of uncomfortable.

In this case I'm grateful for the opportunity to come up with something a hundred times better. And we'll leave it at that.

In the meantime, I'm a little flummoxed. (Another word that looks funny in writing--isn't a flummox related to a cow?)  Anyway, for the last several weeks I've been working toward the goal of preparing my ARC. Well, wouldn't you know I finally have it ready, (hooray!) but I'm missing the little detail of a cover. That's not a huge problem. ARCs don't have to have a cover. But I'd like to include my announcement with the invite to read the ARC. Plus, I'm won't know how or when to schedule a blog tour until I know the date for my new cover reveal.

So after weeks of rush, rush, rush, I'm now trying to figure out what to do with my time. Not that there's any shortage of projects. They're just out of sequence from my original plan.

As you can see I've changed my blog header. (Photoshop is providing TONS of learning ops, bless it.). After writing this blog...I don't know. I'll figure it out. Hopefully whatever it is won't have too big of a learning curve.

Oh, and if you're a blogger who doesn't mind a cover-less read, let me know. I've got a fantastic ARC sitting here twiddling its thumbs.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

Today is Christmas Eve! And the Twelfth Day of Christmas! And the day that Sarah Belliston tells me I FINALLY get to announce my winner as part of the Twelve Days of Christmas Giveaway!

First I have to say that I had a blast watching all the entries. Some of you came back so often (VIVIIIIIIEN!!!) that I started wishing I could give out multiple prizes. (CHANTEL!) (Chantel's name isn't quite as fun to yell. Dang it.)

But alas there could only be one winner. And the name is............................

(Ahem, twelve drums please start your drum roll.)

And the winner is.........................

Well, maybe first I'll tell you that the winner is a writer, and a reader, and wants an entire Barnes & Noble store for Christmas. And loves chocolate. Therefore I am a big fan.

So without further ado I'm pleased to announce that  Cassie Mae will be receiving a signed ARC of ExtraNormal. Sorry I couldn't provide the whole store.

Oh, and for anyone reading this - what the heck are you doing here? It's Christmas Eve! Back away from the computer and go find a loved one and some mistletoe. And have a Merry Christmas!

Yes, I Believe

This is a re-post from my other blog. It's totally off-topic, but in the spirit of the Season I thought it would be appropriate to post it here.

I have seen mention in the news lately of “Santa Wars”, with the question of whether Santa is taking over Christmas. And with our youngest now twelve, I’ve also been asked what it’s like to have a house full of non-believers. Non-believers? Santa has no place in Christmas? Hum Bug.

Many, many years ago, my oldest daughter came of the age that she began to question the logistics of Santa’s Christmas Eve journey. When she came to me with those questions, I gave her an answer that crushed her little spirit—as if I’d touched my finger to the Christmas spark in her eye. 

The image of that disappointed little child caused me to ponder the appropriate place of Santa Claus in our Christmas celebration. And to reevaluate my response to my subsequent children. I doubt if any of those children recall a conversation like I had with my oldest—which by the way was fairly approximate to the one I’d had with my mother a generation earlier—because that conversation never took place again.

And here is why:

First, it’s important to remember that Christ taught in parables. He told stories that sounded simple to the simple minded. Fishermen, shepherds, farmers and widows were among his cast of characters. There was always a second and deeper meaning to his stories, understood by his faithful followers who were ready to hear and understand.

To the very young, Santa is just a really amazing guy who sneaks into their house and brings gifts on Christmas Eve. As those youngsters grow in wisdom, some of the deeper meanings begin to (or can begin to) form in their minds. 
Some are fairly obvious: Santa dresses in red to symbolize the blood Christ shed in our behalf. Santa has a snowy white beard, to represent Christ’s purity. 
But the correlations don’t stop there. Santa is full of cheer, symbolic of the Christ’s mission to bring joy to all mankind. Santa gives gifts, symbolic of the ultimate gift of life Christ gave to us. Both Santa and Christ dedicate their entire being to serving mankind.

It requires extreme faith on the part of a young child to believe that a fat guy they have never seen is going to fly to their rooftop with a sleigh pulled by reindeer, slide down their chimney and leave presents just for them. But it makes them feel awfully special.

It also takes faith to believe that a lowly carpenter born in a manger was actually a king who was able to atone for each of our sins and give us the gift of eternal life. This faith also makes us understand how special we are in the eyes of God.
Yes it is true that faith in Christ is ever so much more important than faith in Santa. But for those who understand the nature of parables, the difference is obvious.

At some point in time we all reach an age where we begin to see outside of ourselves to the world around us. We come to realize that Santa couldn’t possibly complete his mission on his own. He needs helpers across the globe to ensure that no child is forgotten. 

Christ, too, needs helpers. While he is mindful of our needs, he can’t physically make a phone call to the lonely and harried young mother. Or visit the sick. Or prepare food and provide clothing to the homeless. Or tell a young child that he or she is loved.

Since Christ cannot do all these things himself, he needs angels. He needs us. 
Just as Santa needs us to be his elves.

Santa is not just for children. He is a reminder to us all that when in the service of our fellowman, we are actually in the service of our God.

And that is why in my house we will always believe.

On Roadblocks, Stepping Stones & Scrooge

A recent flurry of Christmas festivities have forced a dramatic slowing in my social media activity. Which is just fine. Real life beats cyber life any time.

Little Wonder Boy has been singing and swinging his adorable self at about four Christmas hot spots a week for the last three weeks. That's in addition to the events we're actually invited to as guests rather than entertainment. Oh and there's the multiple birthdays and an anniversary. December's a happening place at our house.

Amidst all this partying, I've been using every spare minute to get ExtraNormal polished and ready for release.While the manuscript is just about there, I'm amazed and mind-blown at my to-do list. Make swag, prepare blog tour, send out ARCs. I'm not complaining in the least. This is a great journey that I'm on. But I have hit a few bumps in the road in the last week that have me wringing my hands and wiping my brow.

Most of these bumps are small--like yesterday when I naively clicked a button that I didn't notice made major changes to all 202 pages of my manuscript, then clicked the save button, then spent the next two precious  hours repairing those changes. Sigh.

There was also the matter of a one-star review. Every author has to be prepared for bad reviews. They do and will happen. Because humans are blessed with a variety of tastes, even the most highly-acclaimed works of literature receives an occasional bad review. Thank goodness, or we'd have to write a story about our messed up dystopian society where everyone thinks the same. And while I personally don't write reviews or rank stories that I don't like, I realize that some folks consider it a public service to warn others away from bad writing.

With all that said, however, I was not expecting a one-star ranking from someone who has not even read the book. I can't even come up with the thought process of someone who would just look at a cover and blurb of a book and decide that the world needs to know that they think it stinks. But I would hate to live with their karma. I'm guessing this might be the same person (or kind of person) who flips one off while cutting them off in traffic. Or maybe the person who jumps to the front of a long line at amusement parks. Or maybe the infamous baby candy stealers.  It's a scary world out there. But I must feel pity. Anger takes up too much energy.

Which leads to the big stumbling block that I crashed into last week. (Still cleaning up the road rash.) This post is all ready too long, so I'll give the quickie version. A book was released last week with essentially my same cover. And while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that, I kind of like the idea of my book being unique. Cause it is. So after much of that hand wringing and brow wiping, I have decided that the cover needs to be revamped before the release. This has made me very sad, because I love the cover and have received great feedback.

But as of yesterday I'm getting excited again. The cover that's in the works blows the old one out of the water. That's right! This road block is turning into a stepping stone. I love when that happens! So watch for it - a new awesome and incredible cover release - coming out very soon!

Now if I can just put a positive spin on that one-star rating scandal.

Insecure Writers: Finding a Balance

In case you haven't found the Insecure Writer's Support Group, sponsored by Alex J. Cavanaugh, here's a little heads up. I stumbled across it last month and have been waiting for today to add my two cents. (They blog on the first Wednesday of each month.) As can be surmised from the title, it's a support group for writers--organized with the intent of helping us writer-types deal with our insecurities. And boy do writers have insecurities.

I read a quote once, and don't remember the author or exact wording (please forgive) but the gist was that every author needs to at times believe their work is of unparalleled genius and at others pure garbage. The first so that they have the courage to put it out there. The second so they have the humility to make it shine. 

When I'm in the process of editing (which is what I'm currently doing) I have a chorus of schizophrenic inner voices in my head. Sometimes I'll get so caught up in the page I'm editing that my confident inner voice is saying, "Brilliant! Genius! Readers will go wild for this stuff!" Then of course I gloss right over the missing word 'is' or the quotation mark that is pointed in the wrong direction. 

At other times I come to a screeching halt, usually at the sight of a grossly over-dramatized scene.

"Drivel! This is pure drivel!" Insecure Inner Voice shouts morosely. "What do I do?"

"Don't worry," Calming Inner Voice soothes. "Just remove all words ending in ly."

"What!?" screeches Insecure Inner Voice, kneading her hands--for the tenth time this chapter. "That will take weeks! And I have a deadline!"

"Hmm. I see this is worse than just an excessive use of adverbs," purrs Worried Inner Voice, spying the word 'distraught' three times in one paragraph.

And so goes the editing...up and down, back and forth, happy and sad, confident and insecure.

Hopefully all those voices serve a purpose in the end.

Now take a look at the members of this group below! Add yourself if you'd like to join. Cause we all need a little support dealing with our inner voices now and then.

Plugging Up Pesky Plot Holes

(Warning Twilight plot spoilers follow. If there is any such thing as a person who has not read or watched all the Twilights AND still plans to--then you--you one little hold out--please proceed with caution.)

Different stages of writing remind me of different occupations. Architect when building a new story structure. Designer when fleshing out details. Janitor when getting rid of excess commas and adverbs for the final touch.(That's the hat I'm wearing these days.) Today though I'm remembering when I had the job of construction worker--and hoping I did a good enough job with the important work of filling plot holes in my story. Because by now it's too late. If there are plot holes in ExtraNormal, the readers will just be falling into them.

What is a plot hole, you may ask? Readers stumble across them all the time, and they always know that something has happened. They just don't always know what.

In short: a plot hole is a big gaping hole in a story's logic. You know you've come across one when you stop reading, slap your forehead, and say, "Yeah, like that would really happen."

And the sad thing is they are almost never necessary. (I only say almost because I don't like absolutes. But honestly I can't actually think of a time that one would be necessary.)

Before I explain any further, let me put out some basic rules of fiction. One is that nothing just happens. Lots of things just happen in nonfiction. People get sick. They get in car accidents. They yell at their kids. They break a leg or step on a penny. It just happens and then we move on. But in fiction there has to be a reason for everything or readers won't believe it.

With my first novel, I had a character who left his family at a time of crisis--just jumped in his car and started driving. The reviewers came back saying, "A husband wouldn't really leave his family at a time like that." Which drove me nuts. Of course a husband would do that! Husbands around the world do it all the time! I vehemently explained this to said reviewers. What I didn't realize they were really saying was that I hadn't given the reader enough reasons to believe the husband would do that.

Which leads to a second rule of fiction. Anything can happen in fiction, anything at all, it just has to have a good explanation.

Now this is not referring to fantastical fiction where doors appear out of nowhere and animals talk. In fantasy, bizarre things do just happen and the reader just believes it. It's referred to a "suspending belief". But  that only pertains to the fantastical parts of a story. Even the structure of a fantasy has to make sense. Sure the local teenage hottie can grow fangs. No explanation needed. But the rest of the way he spends his days has got to make sense.

Because in fiction, anything CAN happen, (your main character can join the circus, or mass murder his family or buy a kitten) he just has to have a very good reason for whatever the author wants him to do. He can't just do it for the sake of doing it.

Which leads us to those pesky plot holes. Now I am a great admirer of Stephenie Meyer I commend any author who can inspire hordes of  non-readers to pick up a book and get lost in the pages. Which is exactly what she has done. So I've taken great pains to not be critical of her work. But when it comes to plot holes there just isn't a better universal example. So with apologies to Steph, I'm going to point out a couple of the deepest.

The first starts right at the beginning of Twilight. Vamps who are stuck as teenagers for eternity decide to be eternal high school students. Seriously? They actually CHOOSE to be stuck in high school forever? High school was great and all for while it lasted, but can you even imagine never leaving?

Now Steph obviously felt she needed her vamps to be at the high school so that they could meet up with Bella. But the thing is she can do anything she wants (remember the rule) as long as she gives us a really good reason to do it. And the only reason she gave us was so that they were trying to avoid suspicion.

REALLY? A group of adult-looking beautiful people who are paired off try to pass themselves off as foster children at the local high school year after year and that WON'T attract attention?

Now remember, she can do anything she wants with her vamps. She can even have them be eternal high school students. She just has to bend over backwards to make it make sense. So she could have them be teachers. Or younger. Or she could have them trying a variety of things each year, with this one being the 'going back to high school' year.

But they really don't have to attend high school to meet Bella. They just have meet her once and then find a reason to be around her afterwards. So if Steph had come to me for advice, I would have told her to make those kid vamps college students. And just have them be friends of Carlisle's family. Definitely not foster children. She could have even done that, if she really wanted to, by making them younger and not paired off. But there was no need, so why not just friends of the family? And college kids have all kinds of flexibility. They can work, be looking for work, be studying online, or attending a local campus. Nobody really pays much attention once kids get out of high school since they're all off doing their own thing.

Now I probably would have kept Edward at the high school, since at least in the movie he does look younger than the others. But I would have made it a once in a while thing that he does. And this year he would have obviously felt "drawn" to the school, what with his crazy-smelling girlfriend there. It would also have been natural for those other vamps to start hanging out at the high school once they learned that their little brother had the hots for a human.

So there you go - plot hole filled. Head whacking can stop. Wasn't that easy Steph?

 I said I'd give a couple of examples, though this is getting pretty lengthy. So I'll just quickly mention my all-time favorite hole, which happened to be in the last of the Twilight series. With the babe. Now I don't have any problem with the existence of a baby. Steph can totally present a baby to the story if she wants. But here's where I not only slapped my head, but almost threw the book. Bella is being looked after by a genius doctor who has been practicing medicine for literally generations. She's also marrying into a family that has something like a hundred college degrees among them. And all these brilliant minds deduce that since a vampire has never gotten anyone pregnant, birth control is not necessary. But they don't consider the little tiny tidbit of information that no human has ever survived sex with a vampire. So maaaybeee, just maaaybee, that's why they haven't gotten pregnant. Because they're dead.

SERIOUSLY? Whack. Whack. Whack.

Okay, so Steph can throw in the baby, that's fine. She can do whatever she wants in this world she's building. But it has to make sense. More sense than in real life.

So let's just pretend that Dr. Genius gave Bella some birth control. Since a half-breed baby would be all kinds of horrible, let's just take that little tiny precaution, just in case Bella happens to survive her nuptials.

Now Bella can decide the pill makes her fat, or she can forget to bring them with her on her honeymoon, or it can turn out that vampire semen is just so darn tough that it doesn't care about measly human birth control. Whatever. There are all kinds of ways to fill a hole. But it just has to be filled.

I will be the first to say that it's hard for the author to spot holes. We know what needs to happen in our story and we make it happen. It takes some readers willing to plow through your early versions, whack their foreheads, and then tell you why. So the next time you slap your forehead and say, "Really?!? You seriously want me to believe that?!?" start looking for the plot hole, cause I'll bet you anything it's there. And if you really want to have some fun, figure out how it could have been filled.

I would ask for other examples--and suggestions for fixing them--but I don't want to trash any (more) authors since authors are my favorite peeps. But if you happen to have an example that doesn't offend anyone I'd love to hear it!