This is an important and interesting article. It primarily focuses on traditional publishing, but it does highlight the challenges inherent in marketing. I'm not good at pretending to be someone or something I'm not, especially in the service of my art.
#PhantastikPrompts 30.5.: "Was ist auf dem Cover deines Buches abgebildet? Wer hat es erstellt?"
Da ich gerade mit Connor spiele, der in meine Wolf Shifter Serie gehört, sind natürlich Wölfe auf dem Cover.
Aber meine beiden Hauptfiguren sind auch drauf, Connor und Ashley. Ich freue mich sehr, weil meine Designerin sie so gut getroffen hat. (germancreative auf Fiverr)
Das Kanu im unteren Teil kommt in der Geschichte auch vor. Ich hatte darum gebeten.
If you’re a fan of #podcasts, there are over dozen of them dedicated to #JaneAusten and the Brontes. If I’m missing any, let me know so I can update the list!
Can you find what you're looking for at the bottom of a bottle? I suppose it depends on what you put in there.... Time to start your education on brews and distillation!
Are we vehicles
to propagate
nucleic acids,
or scaffolding
for feet that they
might erode the
topsoil, create
riverbeds, canyons,
or are we a chassis
for lungs that exhale
and push air and
move butterflies
effectively?
#PennedPossibilities 330 How does your MC go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality?
Any expression of sexuality is largely accidental. Whenever it is on purpose, she's not subtle about it and bluntly drops her clothes mid-conversation.
She accidentally reveals her attraction to Cedric by beating him in combat training and restraining him on his knees with a couple of ghost vines. The mutual blush on their faces was a little too obvious to ignore.
It took a little getting used to and some in-depth interviews with my three-year-old nephew (Did you know happiness is made of grandma and pancakes?), but I finally managed to write Freya as a two-year-old, including a train of thought that matches her age.
I'm comfortable with it, but it certainly is not easy. I like child characters to have personalities, but I also dislike it when they're portrayed as adults.
#WritersCoffeeClub 30/5: How do you achieve a sense of wonder in your stories?
Uh.
This is not something I plan and plot on purpose. I just go and explore the world and watch my characters run into trouble and try to survive it.
All of my worlds have some kind of magic in it (or science, which is close enough), and all of them have an element of discovery, of something hidden and unknown to be revealed.
I suppose that works for me, and I hope it works for the readers.
#PennedPossibilities 330 — How does your MC go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality?
Connor enjoys the occasional tryst, certainly. He's also confident about his looks, but so far has not considered a relationship.
Ashley would love to get some. She's impressed by her cousin's adventures, but doesn't quite dare to go there yet. Connor fascinates her and she wants to conquer him, but... he won't give in to her advances.
#wordweavers 30/5: Are you comfortable writing from the POV of a child? Written any?
I haven’t published anything with POV younger than about 19, but I have unpublished work that takes in considerably younger characters. One who is about ten, for example. It doesn’t feel too hard. I used to be ten, after all.
The risk, I think, is making the character too ‘childish’, not too grown up. #writingCommunity#ThreeKindsofNorth#TheSunderingWall#VowsAndWatersheds#writing#books
#PennedPossibilities 330 — How does your MC go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality? CW: Sexuality?
Intellectually? Tactically?
She was reputed to have the kiss of death, but that gets ahead of that she used it to control the Doña's underlings in the mob. She even arranged for her own teacher, a mob lieutenant, after she'd throughly studied for the test and felt she was ready. She didn't kill him, don't worry! She found she enjoyed kissing, and used it aggressively on men (and women) as a tool until she discovered the whole thing could be fun—then incidentally found herself "expressive" with two boyfriends in two days.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 30 — How do you achieve a sense of wonder in your stories? CW: Intimacy
I don't have a formula, and it isn't something I try to create arbitrarily. It's usually written by accident (or incidentally), and almost always requires tuning of the found passage to make it truly wondrous. It's the right words in the right order. [Not helpful, R.S.!] If anything, wonder is usually tied up with emotion, a sense of achievement, or something well deserved, maybe even something so perfectly crafted by people or nature that it would make a person stare or feel goosebumps. However, I find simply being human can evoke the best sense of wonder—for example:
I woke to dawn rays filtering through lace draperies. A cool jasmine-scented breeze tussled the soft fuzz on my arms and brought the sounds of twittering robins and sparrows. My bombastic bedmate had not molested me. Perhaps she had heard me when I said I preferred men. That, however, did not prevent her from snugging up to me in her sleep.
I grew aware of warmth against my back. I commended myself for not flinging myself from the bed like a crazy person this time, but instead lifted my head and looked back. She lay there, sheets kicked off by one of us, her golden back against my paler one, making us a pair of Cs. Her usually poofy hair matted against her face and spread out in night-sweat glued-together curly tresses across her pillow. She snored imperceptibly, and somewhat daintily for such a large-boned woman.
When I shimmied to break contact, she began to shiver. Even after I gently replaced the sheets over us, she continued. She twitched. After a few moments, I heard the faintest whimper.
I lay my head on the pillow and felt bad. I shimmied back, until our skin made contact. In a minute she quieted and fell deeply asleep. I didn't move. Didn't want to. Because, I knew. She had felt terribly alone—worse, I realized, so had I.
I admit, looking back, there were a number of red flags for depression. I should have reached out. I should have cared. But one of the things about depression is you don’t care. It’s not all tears and rage, sometimes it’s simply an emptiness. I couldn’t summon the will to care, so I hadn’t. And there’d been no one else to pick up the pieces.
#WordWeavers 2405.30 — Are you comfortable writing from the POV of a child? Written any?
I'll answer it this way: I recently wrote a novelette in the POV of a headstrong 7-year old girl. The story was neither medieval nor urban, simply modern, with the child convincing herself she's been both tricked into being where she doesn't want to be, and lied to. In a make-a-wish scenario, circumstances grants her the djinn's powers. I found it easy to write since I had a good feel for her mentality and her understanding of "pretend" aka "the magic." I kept having to rein in my vocabulary, however. It wasn't a matter of dumbing it down so much getting her clever sophistication right.
Oh, yeah... And she was the first person narrator. Rather than making it harder, it helped narrow everything down to a singular often exasperated voice that made the twist that much more heart-rending.
Wrote 700 words for Sun this morning. Very glad to slide back into building my habit.
Poor Sun said the wrong thing and got knocked out again. And yeah, things will get even worse from that - before they get better.
Also finished another batch of proofreading, cooked food, took a nap and played Valheim. Had a good conversation here on Mastodon. It's been a fine day.
#PennedPossibilities 329 — How is your SC typically seen by others? Does it ring true to who they really are?
The roommate SC in a previous story is seen by others as an imperious arrogant bully who is always correcting people and not at all friendly. To say her adoptive mother runs things is an understatement of epic dimensions. The SC, as a controlling person by nature, accepts and amplifies the sense of power her mother lends her. Since she is rarely, if ever, seen around her adoptive mother and then seems both cowed and agitated in her presence, many consider her a bossy blow hard. She's proven herself the smartest student in school and holds a TA position in practical magical arts.
Is this who she is inside?
Hardly.
She has the expected problems with self-esteem. Her mother is her mentor, but she's unable to demand attention despite needing it, and instead drinks (and will take drugs). She feels horribly lonely. Boys run away at their first opportunity, despite the status they could acquire befriending her. She even considers letting herself be used—not that anyone would have the temerity to try, which turns it into a fools quest.
The MC ends up in a situation where the SC offers her a bed when the MC loses her job (okay, quit the mob) along with her apartment (which becomes unsafe). A bed. Literally. The SC's.
The MC discovers her roommate only sleeps well when held.
FIYAH Lit Mag's subs open up June 1st with guest editor Kerine Wint themed: SPACEFARING AUNTIES.
Looking for a wide spectrum of women- queer, disabled, etc. – without feeding into the “Strong Black Woman ™” tropes that often dehumanize and stifle characters.