The Boy Born with a Key

Normally, my primary demographic is women between the ages of 13 and 35.  My oldest heroine was Paige Waters in my novel, Rose Red.  She was 27.  Because I write for that demographic, and because my author portrait is intentionally flattering, I feel like a bit of a phony admitting that I'm over 35... and an old boot of a woman to boot.  

It really sucks to be Snow White's mother.  Ugh... I was so pretty for so long.  So talented, so accomplished for my age... Damn it!  I was the fairest in the land.

So, now I have to scooch over and admit that I have a teenage daughter and she's brilliant, beautiful and beyond ANYTHING I COULD HAVE IMAGINED.

My daughter, Kaitlynn, is a talented graphic illustrator.  We've worked together on projects before.  She drew the covers for my books  Whenever You Want and If I Tie U Down.  I dabble in graphic design myself.  I do the graphic design work on my novels even if I get someone else to do the illustration.  Because I'm like this, I've been getting Kaitlynn to practice her graphic illustration and graphic design skills by giving her projects.  I've helped her get short-term contracts to draw caricatures of people and cars aside from book covers.  This book is the largest project I've ever given her.

I had an idea that I should write a children's book and get her to illustrate it, but I'm an idiot.  What could I write about and get her to draw?  I had an idea simmering in my head, and one morning I woke up and I KNEW what I needed to write.  I snapped up a book and started working on the rough draft.  It had to be short because though she might be able to illustrate something much larger eventually, she needed to begin with a short book.  Something within her reach.  She was 15 years old.  I worked on it.  Fifteen minutes later, I had tears rolling down my face.  I also had the final draft.  

Now this time frame is important.  I have always felt that giving the author of a children's book credit before the illustrator was ONE OF THE EVILEST THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE.  It took me 15 minutes to write the book.  It took her an average of five hours to complete each picture.  Also, I didn't whip her into working.  Like me, she has a strong passion for what she wants to create and though we talked about what she should draw when she got stuck, she did these illustrations herself.  It probably took her a hundred hours.  No one made her do it.

And now we have created this beautiful thing together!  I feel like a publisher because I really had to stretch what I knew about publishing to bring this book to life and she has something that is FINISHED!  Think about that word.  Isn't it beautiful?  She has finished a book and it is published!  

As a side note, all profits go to her and her future.  Whether that future is art school or a chocolate bar... we'll see.  

Here's the Amazon link!  And Kaitlynn's Instagram link, if you want to follow her!  Her handle is MissMagicCat.  Enjoy!

Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Boy.../dp/1990217052/ref=sr_1_8...

INSTAGRAM:

https://www.instagram.com/miss.magicat/

  

My Girls

A few weeks ago, I wrote up a piece about how I made my boys for my books.  Today is the corresponding article about my girls.  I don't have a single word to describe them to center their characters.  Something like that would be awfully convenient.  However, I didn't think to do that at the time.  Instead, I'll say what I was thinking of when I wrote them.

Christina Witten - Whenever You Want: I don't know about you, but I have always thought that if being an escort was actually only escorting shy men around, that it might be an interesting career.  Using that idea as the premise, I imagined a girl who got roped into being an escort somewhat against her will.  People are always curious about how much of myself goes into my characters - especially the female protagonist.  In the case of Christina... she's not much like me.  She doesn't look like me or think like me and only a random line escapes her mouth that betrays who is supplying her with her dialogue.

Juliet Hudson - Kiss of Tragedy: Juliet is based on young adults I met when I first left home.  I kept staring at them and wondering, "Is this your first time out from under your parents' thumb?  Is that why you're acting like this?"  The way Juliet acts at the beginning of the book is almost incomprehensible to me, except that I saw other young women, fresh from their mother's apron strings, do things way less sensible than Juliet.  She might be a personification of what I would do if I had no brain, but I enjoy that in a weird sort of way.  It's kind of interesting to let go.  Of course, eventually, the innocence is gone and experience comes into play.  That's when she becomes more, even more than I am.

Sweeper - The Blood that Flows: As I have explained before, this book was published ten years ago and is out of circulation.  It is not a romance novel, and I don't think I gave Sweeper a last name.  The Blood that Flows is a novel about two sisters.  One is a vampire teetering toward destruction and the other is Sweeper, a clever girl who is trying desperately to save her sister.  Though Sweeper is going through something difficult that is vastly more violent than any of my experiences, the book is a thought experiment I did to sort through something that was actually happening to me.  That doesn't make Sweeper me.  There are no parallels for the other characters in real life. Maybe I wrote the whole thing as therapy.  In the end, I have become the sort of person who will not stop someone from ruining their life.  Go... ruin your life... if that's what you really want.

Paige Waters - Rose Red: When I think of Paige, I think of what could have happened to me if I had chosen the wrong man.  Not that anything as crazy as what happens in Rose Red was actually on the table in real life, but how she feels.  How she holds herself back from happiness because of her own expectations.  She expects love to be dirty because that's all she's known.  She doesn't think anything amazing could happen because it feels like nothing amazing has happened so far.  Amazing things must not be real, even when they're happening in front of her face.

Sarah Reagan - Behind His Mask: With all my heart... Sarah is not me.  But I've met dozens of versions of her.  She's a girl sitting next to me in chemistry class.  She's telling me about how she's babysitting that weekend.  She's telling me she has a crush on a guy who is out of her league and who she clearly does not understand at all.  She's telling me how she's friends with his mother.  She's blushing and very pretty, but the guy she wants doesn't see her.  If he came up to her at that very moment, he would merely deliver a piece of information and saunter off, completely unaware of the mad beating of her heart.  AND I GOT TIRED OF IT.  Sheesh... I can't stand it another minute.  I want to haul her off to finishing school.  NOT DUMB-TIRED-ASS 1800's finishing school, but finishing school by Stephanie.  There, I would teach her how to get the attention of that guy (make him look at her like she's a romantic option), but also how to get him to tell her all about himself, so she knows whether or not she wants to be with him because right now, she knows nothing about him.  NOW OBVIOUSLY, that is not what happens in the book.  Sarah gets Evander to see her as a woman and gets him to tell her all those private things about himself without me ripping her personality out from under her.  *pant... pant*  BUT the outlandishness of the story has to be there because otherwise, our girl is not going to get what she wants.  After deep study and contemplation, there was no way for her to get that guy without a MASSIVE INTERVENTION.  So, I became Emi and messed everything up.

Beth Coldwell - His 16th Face: Beth is based on a little girl crying her face off at my wedding.  Her arms and legs are wrapped around my husband and she is bawling like the world is coming to an end.  I had been aware that this little girl was in love with my boyfriend for a few years, but she was very little and how much she adored him was genuinely interesting.  I stood there in my wedding dress and watched curiously.  Truthfully, I wasn't even a bit annoyed.  The man she was crying over was made of pure gold from his crooked smile, to his widow's peak, to the kindness that sparkled in his eyes.  She wept like he was dead.  And I wondered, how many things would have to be different in order for her to get him?  Well, it was a lot.  Almost everything.  Scratch that.  Everything would need to be different.  And I made Beth. 

Veda Fastille - Hidden Library: Veda is the closest approximation of what I'm like in real life.  The largest difference is that she's a witch and I am not.  I'm a novelist.  Otherwise, it's not that different.

Shannon Bilx - If I Tie U Down: I love Shannon.  She is everything I can't be.  I want to write on everything, but I'm so friggin' prim and proper in my damn pantihose that I can't take a fat silver marker and write 'nothing else matters' on the side of a bus shelter... or anywhere else.  Shannon does everything I can't do.  Bless her!  Bless her!

As a proper little story spinner, I have five novels I'm supposed to be writing after If Diamonds Could Talk.  It's really amazing how all the girls coming up are so different from each other.  It's a smorgasbord of feminine charm.  Look out for my next book!

My Boys

Sometimes I think my writing career really began with my book Whenever You Want.  It was my 14th book, but most of what I wrote before that was not very good, so I started my career with Whenever You Want.  Today's post is about my main male characters and how I built them.  

What I like to do when I'm making a man for the audience to fall in love with at the same time as our heroine, I like to choose a word to describe him to help center his character.  Today, I'm going to share the words I used to build my men.  Let's get started.

Mark Lewis - Whenever You Want: The goal with Mark was simple.  I wanted to make a man who was a REASONABLE man to be Christina's first love.  In a lot of ways, everything that I wrote before this book was nothing more than practice, and I knew that, so I wanted to keep my expectations low.  When I read the book as a more mature novelist, I see that I accomplished what I set out to do.  However, I also prefer Dominic to Mark (even though he is the antagonist), and whenever I do a public reading for this book, I always choose to highlight a scene where Dominic brings it all out.  Actually, I see myself grabbing Dominic by the neck like he's a kitten and using him as a main male lead in another story.  I don't know when that will be, but I love him so much, I might just do that someday.

Seth Halkias - Kiss of Tragedy: His word may surprise a few of you.  It's OBEDIENCE.  This book is organized like it's paying tribute to Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake.  So, in the first half of the book our main girl, Juliet is acting like a baby and she's not getting the best out of Seth because she's still expecting him to lead her.  By the second half of the book, we know all that is wrong, and our girl has taken complete control.  By this point in the book, Seth will do anything she asks of him.  I'm not sure how many women get to experience this because men are so often insistent on being dominant, but having someone be willing to obey your every word because they love you completely is an element of romance I wanted to explore.

Tate Crosswood - The Blood that Flows: This book was published ten years ago and is now out of circulation.  I may re-release it if I see a decent enough gap in my writing schedule that I have the time to polish it up a bit.  His word is DEPENDABILITY.  This book is not a romance novel.  It has a few elements of a romance novel, but the resolution does not have anything to do with falling in love, or being in love, or being together.  Tate makes it his responsibility to be there for our girl when she needs him the most.  Like the best film noir, you fall in love, get hit hard, but by the end, the world has changed so completely that when the story fades out at the end, everyone must reconstruct their reality.  Maybe he and Sweeper get together in that new world and maybe they don't.

Harrison Fox - Rose Red: Harrison's word has a double meaning.  His word is APPRECIATION.  It means that he's grateful.  He's so incredibly grateful to have Paige in his life, it almost brings me to tears thinking about it.  The second meaning for the word is: gaining in value.  He appreciates.  As I was reading some fresh comments about Rose Red, I began to wonder how many women feel appreciated in their lives.  His character also improves as the story progresses, so you can see Paige's influence on him.  By the end, he's golden.

Evander Chaney - Behind His Mask: Evander was built a bit differently than most of my other male leads.  His word is STRIPPED.  If you read the book, you'll see how he is literally and figuratively stripped in the book.  Part of the goal of his character is to change the minds and hearts of the reader.  He begins the story by being everything that is usually portrayed in a romance novel hero.  He's intelligent, muscular, affluent, rich, and good-looking.  By the end of the book, all that is gone.  He's so enraged, he can't think and he's partly crazy as he scribbles on the wall.  His muscles have been ridiculed because he's been a jester, not a knight.  Not only that, but his muscles are a bit of a threat to our girl, Serena (Sarah) because she would not like to be forced into a deeper physical relationship.  By the end, his family is revealed as a complete mess.  His poverty is uncovered, and his good looks are lost because he begins to look like his father, which Sarah finds completely repellant.  The reason this book is supposed to change the minds and hearts of the reader is that the standard man that is created for the entertainment of romance novel readers... he's a fantasy.  This book is meant to encourage the reader to have a real-life romance with a real man without the false expectations that are created by unrealistic but constantly repeated male characters.  Good luck, girls! 

Christian Henderson - His 16th Face: Christian is the best male character I've ever written.  In order to make him, I had to use four body models and three character models.  That's a lot.  The most I had ever used before this was five models to make Evander.  Sometimes, I don't even have to use any.  My man just pops into my head like he was there all along.  Christian is my masterpiece.  His word is SACRIFICE.  I'm working on the sequel, If Diamonds Could Talk, right now, so I'm not in a great place to talk about Christian, so I'll leave it at that.

Salinger Meriwa - Hidden Library: Hidden Library is the sequel to Behind His Mask, and so Salinger has a tough act to follow with everything that happened to Evander and Sarah in the first book.  His word is DOGGEDNESS.  Salinger has a plan and his plan is in direct opposition to Veda's plan.  He wants to win her over, but she's determined to slam the door in his face.  For quite a large percentage of the book, what he tries to do in order to connect with her doesn't work.  He has to keep trying and trying in order to get through to her.  When he finally gets there, it's quite glorious.

Fletch Litman - If I Tie U Down: This character is so vivid to me, I worry that he'll be annoyed if I say something about him that he doesn't like.  His word is FLEXIBILITY.  Fletch is not thrown by changes in circumstance.  He's very willing to do all kinds of things, like a person who doesn't know his limits.  His flexibility is so intense that his attitude changes on a dime as he sticks to his priorities.  Honestly, I feel a little in love with him whenever he talks and I have great hopes that this book will eventually enjoy as much success as Whenever You Want.

These are the men from the books that I've released.  I have five unfinished projects at the moment.  When I say 'unfinished projects', I mean books that do not have a complete first draft yet.  I'm on draft three for If Diamonds Could Talk.  But, as a teensy sneak peek into the project I have in mind for after I finish up Diamonds, the word for my latest man is GAMBLER.  I could squeal, I'm so excited.  He's going to set the world on fire!

Here's a link to my bookstore on Amazon, in case you haven't read any of my books and you'd like to.  I sell them cheap!

https://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Van-Orman/e/B07YBTPPGQ?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1628525527&sr=8-1

Whenever You Want

With pride and enthusiasm, I am here to announce the addition of my novel 'Whenever You Want' to the Galatea publishing platform.  Here's a link:

https://www.inkitt.com/galatea-app

Here's the publishing story.  This is going to be long.  

If I ran a publishing company, I wouldn't accept submissions.  I would headhunt authors who already have a following, who have already proven that they know how to write, and keep a close eye on their statistics.  I wouldn't choose anyone who hadn't written at least four novels and they would have to post regular updates to prove that they weren't flaky.  If I could sign someone who knows how to hit it out of the park over and over again, it's all the better, since readers like familiar authors.  Then it's just icing all the way to the bank.

But I'm a writer.

After my first deal with a publishing company, I gave up looking for a new one and became an independent novelist.  If you're a nobody and nobody reads your books, you could sign a deal with a publishing company, but they'd have all the leverage.  You wouldn't have any other option than to do what they said, whether you liked it or not.  You have to prove that people like your writing the way it is if you want to call the shots.

With that in mind, I made accounts on all the free sites and posted the same three books on all of them: 'Whenever You Want', 'Kiss of Tragedy', and 'Behind His Mask'.  My plan had teeth and this whole summer, I was absolutely flooded with offers from publishings apps.  I was starting to lose hope as most of those contracts were not quite good enough.  I didn't like the way their apps looked.  I didn't trust them.  Their contracts seemed sketchy.  I couldn't get clear answers out of their representatives.  I was feeling very frustrated.

When it became clear that I could sign Galatea's offer, it was like morning had finally come.  I want to publish somewhere where my work has a chance of being enjoyed.  Getting a wrong fit with a publishing company/app can make you feel like you failed, when, actually, you just pitched to the wrong crowd.  I also want to maintain creative control.  I had already succeeded on their sister site, Inkitt, so I had already proven that my book could succeed with their readers without major overhauls.   

I am forteen kinds of delighted.  So, here's what's going to happen.  I'm going to post 'His 16th Face' and 'If I Tie U Down' on Inkitt and see if I get any bites.  If you'd like to read either of those books for free, now is a great time.  Here's the link to my profile.  Every hit helps.

https://www.inkitt.com/StephanieVanOrman 

 

May you Never be the Reason

Take a look at this quote:

May you never be the reason why someone who loved to sing doesn't anymore.  Or why someone who dressed so differently now wears standard clothing.  Or why someone who always spoke of their dreams so wildly is now silent about them.  May you never be the reason for someone giving up a part of themselves because you were demotivating, non-appreciative, or even worse sarcastic about it.  

- Shorouk Mostafa Ibrahim

I don't agree with the punctuation in that quote, but that's the way it was displayed, so we'll use it as is.

When I first read this, I felt sick.  Sick to my stomach.  Ill to the bone.  The thing is... I am always the reason why people give up writing.  I don't tease them.  I don't make fun of them, but I have had concourses of people approach me and ask me questions about how I write novels.  They approach me and say with bold confidence proclaiming that they are a WRITER!  A few minutes later, they withdraw from me mumbling to themselves, 'Why did I say I was a writer?'

I'm not trying to scare them off.  I'm not trying to hurt their feelings.  They ask me a question and I answer it with realism, but I am treated like I told a toddler there was no such thing as Santa Claus.  Here's how it goes: 

Me:  I didn't write a good novel until my twelfth.

Them:  You wrote eleven novels before you wrote a good one?

Me:  Yes.  How many novels have you written?

Them: ... One.

Me: How many words is it?

Them: Eighteen thousand.

Me:  That's not a novel.  The bar for novels is 40,000 words.  What you've got there is a short story, or if you're being fancy, a novelette, but it's not a novel.

I promise you, absolutely no one likes being told that what they thought was a novel is a short story.  These people who approach me like to lie to me as well.  They like to act like they are already novelists and have already conquered the literary world.  I don't enjoy these conversations either because they will pin me against a wall at a party and tell me their ideas until the lights go out.  I've found a couple of ways to diffuse them:

Me: Here's my business card.  You can buy print and ebook copies of my books on that website.  Where can I buy your books?

Them: ... They're not for sale yet.

Alternatively--

Me:  How old were you when you wrote your first 100,000-word book?

Them:  I haven't yet.

Me:  That's okay.  That's not for everybody.  How old were you when you wrote your first book over 60,000 words?

Them: ... Uh... not yet.

Me: 40,000?

Them:  How old were you when you wrote your first book over 100k words?

Me:  Eighteen.

If you saw their face, you'd know that they believe with all their souls that I am being unbearably mean to them.  Yet, I did not tease them.  I didn't make fun of them.  All I did was sprinkle a dash of reality on their fantasy, which most of the time, THEY ARE DOING NOTHING TO REALIZE.  Sometimes I wonder if their dream is to pin me against a wall like a butterfly being pinned to a board.  They don't want to write a novel, they want to talk about writing a novel.  

I was at a wedding recently where someone told me they had an idea for a book.  I shook my head and told them that they didn't need my permission or approval to write a novel.  They should just go ahead and write whatever they'd like.  They replied, "I just have to tell someone my idea for this book tonight."

I was so stressed out, I walked straight out of the building, leaving the reception, never to return.  

The thing is... dreams are a luxury.  They are a big padded luxury.  Not everyone gets to sing.  I have had enough choir directors point in my direction and say, 'Someone over there is off.'  Not everyone gets to dress the way they want.  They must wear a uniform.  And anyone who wants to tell me about their dreams had better be telling me about their new kitchen cabinets because I can only take so much before I snap.  

I can't make aspiring writers' dreams come true.  I can't promise them that their idea is going to be a bestseller.  I can't guarantee that they will not waste their time.  Those are things that are decided by them as an individual or on mass.  Do what you want.  You don't need anyone's permission or approval and likewise, if you don't want to be influenced by the negativity of others, then don't be!  There is no reason for you to blame the person who popped your bubble!  Get a grip and blow another bubble!

Should I Wear a T-Shirt?

One of the marketing gimmicks struggling writers employ is wearing a T-Shirt advertising their books.  I've seen at least a dozen such attempts on the internet.  Sometimes the person is wearing their ad and sometimes it's just a picture of the shirt just coming out of the box.  I had never seen one in person until this last weekend.

I was in an airport, waiting for my bag to come off the carousel when I spotted him.  He was wearing a red shirt with a bunch of book names down the back of it.  He stood right in front of me and I read the list of seven books over and over trying to figure out if the ad was working.  

Did I want to buy his books?  

Did I think I could sell my books if I made up a T-shirt with my stuff on it?

Welp, there was a couple of things wrong with his ad.  A bland list of book titles wasn't going to do anything for me.  There has only been one book that I wanted to read based on the title alone and that book was 'Out of the Soylent Planet' by Robert Kroese.  It was hilarious by the way, but I bet that a list of my book titles is only going to set me on fire without igniting anyone around me.  

So, what if I did pictures of my books instead?  Maybe that would be better, but they're still going to be on my body... which poses a problem.  It did on that gentlemen's body as well.  He had a muffin top happening.  I'm not judging!  I also have a muffin top sometimes, but it means that both of us make rotten candidates for advertising our products. 

I have also seen people get stickers made up to advertise their book on the back window of their vehicle.  It's like 'Screw the stick figure family!  Buy my book!'  I have seen this done so that the ad doesn't look the least bit cheesy, but even with perfectly made stickers, you have a few problems.  Firstly, you'd better keep your SUV perfectly clean.  Secondly, you'd better never drive like a saint, otherwise, other drivers will be explaining to the cops, "The back window was an advertisement for 'The Devil's Remorse' by Kim Carol.  Have you experienced passion dark as Hell yet?"

"Oh yeah?  We've been getting a few complaints about her," the cop explains.  "She always gets off.  She's good at crying."  (NOT A REAL BOOK OR A REAL AUTHOR)

Anywhooooo... It's really hard to advertise your books.  It's no wonder people are stooping to these depths to get noticed.  

Rose Red

Welcome Ink Drinkers,

Today I announce the release of my new novel, Rose Red.  Here's the synopsis:

You can't buy a girl!

But in the year 2214, you can. She can whip you into shape, design your diet, be your personal stylist, and turn you from geek to chic in just one year.  After buying a model at Sleeping Beauty Inc. your life will never be the same. 

But what will happen when the model Harrison buys isn't exactly what he bargained for?

Okay, it's not a new novel.  It's been around for over ten years, but now it's in paperback format.  It had a lot of very heavy editing in order to be prepared for its paperback edition.  So, if you enjoyed it the first time around, you'll really enjoy it the second time.

Within myself, I categorize my novels under two columns.  On one side, I write serious novels that have depth and complexity and on the other, I write stuff that's just fun, fun, and more fun.  It could also be described as some of my books have blood splatter and some don't.  I do like to get a bit of blood on the walls.  

The Serious Books:

His 16th Face

Behind His Mask: The First Spell Book

Hidden Library: The Second Spell Book

The Blood that Flows

Kiss of Tragedy

The Silly Books:

If I Tie U Down

Whenever You Want

Rose Red

A Little Like Scarlett: A Partial Autobiography

When I sell books in person, I tend to sell the serious ones better and I have a really hard time selling the silly ones.  However, as soon as my back is turned and people on the internet can do whatever they want without being watched, my silly books get picked up like crazy.  My two most popular books, 'Whenever You Want' and 'Kiss of Tragedy', don't match up in download figures.  WYW kicks the crap out of KOT and, honestly, KOT is better. 

And then there are the ARCs.  Those are the Advanced Reader Copies I give out to get reviews in the ebook stores.  I did quite well with His 16th Face.  A handful of people who didn't sign up for the ARC left sparkling reviews.  H16F is one of my very best books.  It's a delight.  I read it for fun.  However, the reader response for If I Tie U Down was poor.  There are scads of discrepancies.  This book gets more notice here, and that one gets more notice there.  This book was successful in this way and that one was a failure in that way.  WHY ALL THE DIFFERENCES?

We've actually hit on the reason authors use more than one pen name.  The audience grows to expect certain things from their author.  People who have read Whenever You Want and enjoyed it will LOVE If I Tie U Down.  They will be delighted from cover to cover.  However, if you're expecting mind-bending creativity, you'll have to wait for If Diamonds Could Talk (the sequel to His 16th Face).  Otherwise, you'll have to enjoy a romantic comedy that asks for nothing from you.  

That's what Rose Red is.  It's mildly creative.  I use unusual elements to bring the story together and make strange things work alongside each other.  But at its heart, it's a warm story about how much a woman is worth even if she costs a fortune and never makes a penny.  

It's available now on Amazon and Smashwords.  It will appear on more and more sites as the days go on.  

Here's the Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1990217036/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Rose+Red+by+Stephanie+Van+Orman&qid=1626216232&sr=8-1

And here's the link to the YouTube trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoz1GJjn4so

Enjoy!  Love is all around the world, especially if you like to drink ink!