Tag Archives: indie author

Guest Post: Catrina Taylor “Knights of the Immortals”

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Knights of the Immortals“Knights of the Immortals” is based on the question “What IF there were other hominid species that continued until today? What would they be like?” The answer might surprise you, it did me. When I started the first thing I did was look into the possibility that humans of today once walked with other hominids and according to scientists we have! At least three other hominid species co-existed with humans as we know them. Additionally, when you reflect on historical storytelling, some of them may have lead to mythological creations.

The most recent discovery confirms the prior existence of Hobbits. Yes, I said Hobbits. Smaller humanoid people that created tools, hunted and so much we still don’t know. This was discovered some time ago, but reaffirmed only recently when a prior ancestor was discovered as well. For a fun tidbit on these hobbits, not from the shire, check out this video from SciShow.

 

Once I learned our humans have existed alongside other hominid species, I researched mythology. It’s amazing what you can learn from ancient stories. Did you know that mermaids off the cost of Ireland and Scotland were vicious creatures that needed to lure in handsome men and women to live? Were you aware that both the Amazons and the Celts were thought to have attacked the islands of Atlantis? They did this not long before the island nation is thought to have disappeared. Neither group fared well against the famed children of the gods.

Here’s where the two mix to create the universe of “Knights of the Immortals.” Let’s imagine instead of being children of a god like Poseidon, they are a technologically advanced society of tribes who have agreed to co-habit the same island chain. Some of these hominid tribes would pass as the ever growing homo-sapien species over populating the Earth. There would be others who don’t pass for different reasons. Maybe some have an aversion to light, or are far shorter than most, or are bald by nature. Each tribe or species would have another benefit that the others don’t have. Let’s then imagine how a long lived group of technologically advanced peoples might look to homo-sapiens at around 10 to 20 thousand BCE. They would seem like the children of gods and maybe even seem like demons, monsters, or immortals.

It’s been a fun ride. With season one of “Knights of the Immortals” nearly released, I’m excited to get started on season two. If you’d like to get the first glimpse at the series for free, book one is available at http://theladywrites.com/

The Quick and Dirty

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So where have I been and where’s that book I promised you – a year ago?

Truth of the matter is, my dear dedicated reader, that it’s been a long nasty road that I’m not done traveling yet and I can confirm has been seeded liberally with landmines.  The gist of it? I picked up a part time job because editing is expensive. Various important appliances (computers, cars, you know the things I need to live) have broken down and been jury rigged into a state of “please don’t die just yet.” My grandmother has had a stroke, recovered and gone home, had another and resigned herself to hospice care for what will very possibly be the rest of her life. Mom made great strides in her own health that all came crashing down like a castle of cards as soon as her mother got sick and I didn’t help matters much by immediately catching a flu so bad it reminded us both that people can still die from the common cold.

It’s been bad, dear dedicated, and it’s likely nowhere near done being bad just yet. While I’ve been occupied with all of that I’ve gone and let this vital lifeline grow dangerously thin and that’s not helped matters one bit. A writer that isn’t writing is a very unstable and hazardous person indeed. So in the interest of getting healthier (while still recovering from that monster flu) I’m preping “Toxic Ash” for paperback release and working on the rewrites of “Tasting Ash.” It’s slow going, a little like an athlete that’s been out of competition for a long while, gained a bit of a gut and a lot of self hate, before finally starting to train again more for their sanity than for any love of the game itself.

I don’t love editing. Editing is a very special kind of hell that’s only true competition is the dreaded formatting for paperback publication that will come next. But there’s a very special kind of healing magic to be found in reading your old work over again. A kind of wonder and ego boosting pride to read a few pages that aren’t half bad and realize that maybe you don’t suck half as bad as the mangled manuscript you’ve been wrestling with off and on for a year has led you to believe. That maybe, just maybe, you can polish this old turd into a diamond after all. You’re not entirely sure of the exact alchemy you’ll have to perform, to transform turds to diamonds, but there before you is the proof that you’ve done it before and you’ll do it again and again and again.

Probably.

So long as you can just keep with it long enough.

What the Azathoth is Going On Here?

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Posts have been few and far between for a while now, culminating in a long period of seeming silence. I haven’t updated anyone on what’s going on with the books or posted anything of use on the blog, facebook, twitter or tumblr. A few particularly astute readers have taken the time to track me down and demand answers but I’ve been cagey even then.

The truth of the matter is, many nasty things have happened in the last six months or so added up with recurring bouts of problems with my hands and fingers that have really put a hurt on my writing work. Not all of what’s happen only concerns me and my affairs so I’m not even at the liberty to divulge them all (except for the knowledge that my Grandmother had a stroke earlier this month – and we’re lucky that she’s recovering nicely) that have left me psychically and mentally fatigued.

I keep trying to put off saying that I’m exhausted, depressed and looking at a complete rewrite for “Tasting Ash.” Shortening the projected story line has ruined the flow and it needs serious work before I can release it to anyone. Meanwhile I’ve lost one of my first readers to mysterious (and worrisome) circumstances. I’ve also been casting about for a new editor to go over the second books in both the Eldritch Elysium series and The Four Horsemen series, in preparation to committing them both to paperback.

All in all I’m a bit overwhelmed and tired, I had some awesome plans for the new year (setting up a proper newsletter, taking the site to it’s own page, offering up a few ecourses on self publishing) but now I’m cutting my project list waaay back and just trying to keep my head above water for the nonce. Books will be published, stories will be written – it’s just going to take a lot more time and right now I feel like I’m at the bottom of the hill looking up with a giant boulder in front of me that needs pushing.

“Writers Write” Is That Really Too Much To Ask?

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I’m in the middle of NaNoWriMo and polishing off a novel I’ve been struggling with for about two years now but something was making the rounds of my independent author feeds the other day that rubbed me such a wrong way I stopped what I was doing and took a minute to reply that turned into an hour and several paragraphs. Ain’t no one got time for that shit in that format so I had to snip it out and bring it here.

Basically it’s the idea that the golden rule of being a writer, the simple life affirming maxim that “writers write,” was just too much. Inspiring guilt and angst in people with *gasp* actual lives and responsibilities outside of their writing.  Because failing to write, every day, every second. Every. Possible. Moment. Brings with it such horrible feelings of guilt and sorrow.

I don’t have any problems with the phrase “writers write.” There’s nothing in that short phrase that sets your potential pace; it simply, succinctly, draws you to put words to paper; again and again, put words to paper.

Your pace is your own, there are some well renowned novelists that couldn’t manage more than a single word a day, maybe a paragraph a month. Do you think they sat in front of their blank pages staring at them constantly for the entirety of that time? No. They lived their lives. They went to work, took care of their families, went to war or walked across the country. Did they feel guilty for every moment that they weren’t putting words on paper? Who knows, most of them are dead now so we can’t ask but I highly doubt that they did.

If the phrase, “writers write” is causing you some distress it’s because of your own issues with how much you write. It means you know you could find time to write a little bit more often but you’re not, hence the guilt. If you’re really doing all you can and truly don’t have the time for your writing, there won’t be room for guilt.

However if you know you could have written but instead you watched another episode of your favorite TV show, read another chapter of someone else’s work or did something else that’s trivial instead of feeding the beast within you that is your writing, then you’ll feel guilty. You’ll feel guilty because you betrayed yourself, that phrase didn’t betray you. “Writers write” didn’t set the bar so high that you couldn’t help but fail to meet it, that would be you doing that. So stop, reevaluate and either put that bar someplace you can actually reach or stretch and make sure you meet your own expectations.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s 5 p.m. and I’ve got two thousand more words to get out of my head and onto paper.

Look Ma! No Hands!

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I’ve been having a few nagging pains in my three of the fingers on each hand. When that pain progressed to my thumb and wrist I started to worry and when I woke up one morning and realized the fingers on my wright hand were swollen like sausages – I realized it was time to take an extended break from writing anything.

Since then I’ve iced, braced and rested till the swelling and pain has pretty much gone back into a more manageable box. Of course now that I’ve got my normal dexterity back I’m not taking it for granted! Right up till the point where I had to put everything I love on hold so I could heal and perhaps manage to keep on doing it a little bit longer, I didn’t really hold much truck with the idea that even writers get occupational injuries.

In my mind, carpal tunnel was something other people got. Something other people had to worry about because they worked their body to the limit, twisting it all out of reasonable shape. But of course, I was different.

I pay attention to my body. I don’t push it too far. I hydrate like a fiend. I rest and stretch and do yoga; even when i felt the first twinges in my wrists while moving through upward and downward dog I just wrote it off as a mistake in my technique. Serious repetitive motion issues were for other people – not me.

Funny thing is I’ve worked my hands into a pretty bad state before – and I probably will again. And again. Until one day I can’t recover with a few days of book rest and lots of bracing. Not because I’m unaware of the risks and not because I’m not trying to be careful but because it’s a hazard of the occupation. Thankfully I know enough to stop as soon as things get bad and wait till I’ve healed but I’ve seen lots of writers and artists who push themselves past that point until they need surgery to be honest I might have been one of them if I thought for a second I could afford to let my body get that far gone. Right now the cost of stopping to recover is a lot more reasonable than the risk of pushing through till I don’t have that option.

Ah well, lots of rambling to explain where I’ve been and why I’m slow with updates on “Tasting Ash.” Funny how at one point this month I honestly thought I’d be done with the novel by the 30th. Now I know I’m only about halfway done with the manuscript. Thousands of words to go before I sleep.

A Vital Reminder

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This last year has been a not so great time for me. I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on family (often at the expense of my writing) while my family minimizes my written work and suggests with full candor that I would be better off doing literally anything else. I might be a stone cold bitch that habitually writes about getting away with murder but that still hurts, a lot.

Thankfully other writers are always there to remind me that awful as that is, it’s also kind of normal. We all have to fight for the time and space to do that thing that no one else really understands and seems largely composed of staring at blank walls from time to time. And we’re all here to help each other out and deepen our craft as we go.

So let’s do a relink of some of the more visited posts on my blog that are full of helpful tips for other struggling Indie Authors out there.

Starting with the most important step:

Once you’ve got that you should update your series “bible” before tackling the beast that is formatting for paperback.

There you go Indies, a recap of everything that I’ve written on writing in this digital era that should prove useful to anyone looking for the information. Sign up for updates if you would like to keep abreast of anything new going on with my books or on the blog. Keep strong, keep your heads up and for the sake of the old gods’ keep writing!

“There’s No Such Thing As Magic”

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Hamartia by Junedays on DeviantArt

Here I am, deep into book three of the Eldritch Elysium series, “Tasting Ash,” and I’m already coming up against the great thorny caltrop I laid down to wreck myself in “Toxic Ash.” I knew damn well that in a story dotted with shape shifting boyfriends and their poisonously beautiful sister and an old lover suffering under a debilitating curse that sooner or later I’d want to just toss in a little of the old razzle dazzle and let it explain away all my ills.

So I made sure to state it clearly once and for all so i couldn’t go back and add in a big ol sorting hat later on. Now that Ash is stuck deep behind enemy lines and is learning far more than she ever wanted to know about Caine, Caliban, Jeb, Klyde and Ophelia’s very messed up heritage I really really wish I could just wave a magic wand over the whole thing and call it done rather than wading through science journals and websites looking up the minutia of science that explains only half of anything and only half of the Corporation for that matter.

Because while there might be no such thing as magic, there certainly is something going on that’s beyond the realm of science. It’s in the gap between the first Helen’s brain surgery and impregnation, it’s in the extra bit of DNA that makes Ophelia kin to Blanche and it’s running lose and unfettered in the halls of the Corporation where scientists work in their pristine labs to distill something monstrous useful mundanity.

I feel a little like the parent, diligently informing their child that there’s no monster in their closet or under the bed–while checking the bars over the windows and doors as well as the handgun under their pillow. A monster by any other name is still gonna kill your ass.

Now go to bed.

Two Steps Forward and Three Back

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So my monitor died some time ago and I didn’t realize how much of a ginormous hit that was to my productivity until I got it replaced and immediately felt like a weight was lifted from my writing that I’d never even dared contemplate was there before. Which should mean that I’m cranking out chapters like no one’s business – but. There’s always a but isn’t there? Just as I got close to replacing my monitor I lost large chunks of my Scivener project for the Eldritch Elysium series.

As in giant chunks of my manuscript for “Tasting Ash” were gone. Poof. Vanished into the aether.

Again.

This is the second time I’ve lost work thanks to using Dropbox coupled with Scrivener. Every now and again giant chunks of text just seem to vanish no matter what I do. Yes I was working on a different computer but I wasn’t opening the project on them both at the same time – at all – plus I lost bits of my notes from much older sections of the project (book 2 level old) which was both frustrating and utterly unacceptable.

Thankfully I have backups of my backups and now that I’m able to use the desktop again it wasn’t too hard for me to dig them out and get everything recovered. Unfortunately so frelling much was lost (that I really need) that instead of writing all kinds of awesome new stuff, I’m sitting around reentering old stuff.

Good news though, going through so many vital character notes has really helped clear away lots of my previous confusion with the manuscript for “Tasting Ash” bad new is I have parts of that to recover too and I’ve not gotten there yet.

Scrivener Series: Export Draft

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Scrivener-LogoThis is the sixth installment in my Scrivener Series, which showcases how I use Scrivener  write entire novel series. Be sure to check out my writing process post for quick links to the currently published posts and a preview of what I’m going to cover next.

In a perfect world (but unfortunately not the current reality) the novel in it’s umpteenth draft is finally complete and I’m ready to move it out of Scrivener for final edits prior to formatting. Why export now and not after the final edits? Two reasons.

Formatting

Ebooks have different formatting needs depending on your method of distribution and print on demand books have even more formatting hells to go through before you can hold your book in your hands. Scrivener is awesome in so very many ways but when it comes to the down and dirty of formatting the ‘nuclear’ option is usually the best possible starting point.

The ‘nuclear’ option is where you take your completed edited and beautiful novel in all it’s glory and strip it of all formatting, before painstakingly reapplying it all in a pre-approved method that works with the distributors guidelines.

Scrivener is an awesome tool and it’ll allow you to customize your formatting as you go and export just as you tell it to – but it only takes one little squiggle of errant coding to get your novel rejected by the distributor for puzzling and seemingly invisible reasons. To cut that headache out before it can grow roots deep into your precious gray matter, a preemptive strike is necessary.

A Different Perspective

It’s the second reason you’re going to export before you edit. Everyone’s editing process is different but many can agree that seeing your novel in a different way really helps you to find those stubborn errors and weed them out before sending things out to your editor. Some prefer to print the novel out in it’s entirety and work with a red pen directly on paper.

I on the other hand, find that a staggering waste of paper and ink. Simply exporting the novel into a different program is usually enough of a fresh view for me.

How To?

This is so wonderfully simple it makes all the formatting to come look like exactly what it is, a rather annoying uphill slog that takes lots and lots of time away from your writing your next novel (so if you’ve got the cash to spend you should totally have someone else do the final formatting for you but you’ll still need to export from Scrivener first).

In your Scrivener document, go to the first scene of the first chapter and look in the general metadata tab. Click the “Inlcude in Compile” option. You’ll have to do that for every scene in your novel. You can do it for every chapter as well but I find that the extra break was not actually useful in the final Word doc.

Once you’ve checked all the scenes in your novel go up to File->Compile. A window will pop up and you’ll have a chance to look over your entire Scrivener project file and make sure you’ve included everything you wanted to in the new document. You’ll see you can also fiddle with formatting and page layout but again I’d just ignore those options at this point. Compile as .doc for a Word compatible document and then hit “compile.”

Easy peasy.

So… I’m Still Here

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My birthday has come, passed, and for the first time in five years it’s done so without the release of a new novel or even the paperback release of an old novel. The world didn’t collapse in a sea of angst and fire, in fact the day was quite nice. Warm and quite, with a visit from a neighbor’s kitty and lots of love sent my way. Just no new novel.

Just.

Inside it hurts but outside it’s nothing, like so much of a writer’s life, the giant internal shakeups go quietly unremarked by those around me. There’s a world altering storm beneath the surface but outside it’s a rather pleasant day.

Nothing for it but to turn away from the outside, turn inward and begin to calm that storm with the only thing that can – the steady click click click of my keyboard in use.

An outline has been crafted, deemed utter rubbish and all but thrown out. Hopefully more substantial news soon.