Hidden Library: The Second Spell Book Launch

It's snowing today. My cat sits by the window and growls at the falling snow.  I guess he doesn't remember the last time it snowed.

Today is release day for Hidden Library.  I started writing this book five or six years ago.  When I wrote Behind His Mask, I had no thought of it being a series and, truthfully, I don't know if there will be another Spell Book.  I started writing it thinking about a girl, who was like Emi, but not Emi.  What would happen to her if she had to make a similar choice?

The back of the book is not a synopsis.  It's a character reveal.  Here's how it goes:

The Christmas Rat that Tried to Ruin My Life

    The first thing you must understand about my tale is I don’t really enjoy Christmas.  It’s no one’s fault.  I don’t like looking at red, white, and green together.  I find the color scheme jarring and ugly.  I don’t like Christmas music.  I find it repetitive and boring.  I don’t like decorating for Christmas, because any kind of interior decorating stresses me out.  I’m not good at it.    

This leads me to a moment sometime this last summer where my husband and I were talking about our artificial Christmas tree.  It was HUGE and there was no place for it in the garage.  After some discussion, we decided we could put it in the loft of one of our sheds.  Up it went.  

Fast forward to ten days ago, my kids wanted to put up the Christmas tree.  I declined any involvement and left the whole thing to my husband and kids.  They got the tree out of the shed and brought it into the house.    

I wasn’t even home, but my husband called me.  

An animal had been living in the Christmas tree box.  It was too big to be a mouse and it was loose in my house.  Our son thought it was a rat, and he was the only person who had seen it.

I got home and promptly (and stupidly) started tearing my living room apart to try to find it.  I found it and it raced for the deck door… which stupidly, was not open.  Why did I look for it when I had no plan for what to do when I found it?

I trapped it in the laundry room.

My husband and I are humans and we figured out a plan to get it out of the laundry room.  We made a rat run so that when my husband chased it out of the laundry room, it would run along a path, straight to the deck doors and out of the house.

He went in with the broom.

The rat was a rat and had a completely different plan.  It got under the fridge and no matter what my husband did, he couldn’t get the rat to come out.

Now is time for a quick lesson on what kind of a rat it was.  Being from Alberta, this was the first rat I had ever seen.  It was brownish, which meant it was a roof rat.  It climbs trees and gets into people’s attics, which was why it was in the loft of our shed.

We trapped the rat in the laundry room and bought traps.  It wasn’t long before we found out it had chewed a hole in the wall and was hiding there.  Over the next few days, he also chewed a hole in a tube under my washing machine to get water, which flooded the laundry room and meant I could no longer do laundry.  Then the central vac died.  It’s still unclear as to whether or not that was the work of the rat.

Let’s talk about first-world fear.  Every time I heard a scratching sound, I thought about where that rat could be chewing and what parts of the house he could get into.  Being a rat, he's super dirty and my laundry room smelled like rat poop and pee.  Plus, he was tearing my insulation and sticking it outside his hole.  I couldn’t stop thinking about rat babies and what would happen if that rat was a pregnant mother.  I wasn't sleeping.  Every time I heard a scratching sound, my whole nervous system was set on fire and my heart pounded painfully.

I called a pest control company and they set out a dozen traps in my laundry room.

Then the rat started setting off the traps without getting caught in them.  Then I didn’t just hear the scratching, but the traps going off half the night.  There was evidence that he was getting stuck on the glue boards, but he was simply chewing his way out of them.

I have a book coming out next week and this whole situation has felt like the universe hoped to stall it because my brain was completely taken over by my rat.  How am I supposed to think of snow-covered love like the whisper of unseen worlds when I can’t stop thinking about what wires that little devil might be chewing?

It’s true that I don’t particularly enjoy the festival that Christmas has become, half celebrating winter and half celebrating Christ as a baby.  I am a Christian and I don’t get it.  When I think about Christ, I think of a man who understood human grief, who understood suffering, with nail prints in his palms, wrists, and side.  I think of the King of All, who conquered the trap that this world is and showed us the way through this life to the next.  He’s not a warm, soft baby.  That moment was so brief in the timeline of our world, it deserves celebrating… but I’ve never been good at celebrating.

However, I am good at praying and the God I pray to is good at answering.  

My daughter had to stay home from school one day, and she has a very strong stomach for a teenage girl.  So, she helped me dispose of the artificial Christmas tree that was littered with rat poop and smelling of rat pee.  She was there with me while I lifted up the branches and checked the box for more rats.  We learned that there was no rat’s nest in the box so it was unlikely that our rat is a pregnant female.  My daughter helped me clear out the rest of the mess in the shed and take it to the eco-center.  Having her there was a huge comfort.  She is not afraid of the things I am.

Then, my husband, who loves Christmas much more than I do, took me out to buy a new Christmas tree.  It’s a green tree that looks like it has been snowed on, which is quite nice here since there is no snow.  It’s also quite a bit smaller, so we won’t have problems storing it.  He took me to buy ornaments, which is something I’ve never done.  I’ve always made our Christmas ornaments.  My new ornaments are baby pink, chartreuse, navy, and so much silver and glass (okay, it’s plastic. I still have kids and a cat). 

And the Christmas decorations are actually pretty because everything old is gone.

Those are the little blessings.  Here’s the big one.  After a few days, I started praying that I would be able to calm down over this whole thing.  That rat was not going to be driven out of my house in one day, maybe not even in a week, and I needed to calm down.  And I have.  I calmed down enough that I completed the finishing touches on my book.  I have been able to sleep and get on with my life without terror or heart palpitations with every scratching sound.

What happened to my rat?

Yes, he’s still in the wall.  We’re still working on it, but the kind of inner peace I have felt has been the true gift of Christmas.  No, life isn’t perfect.  There are rats in some people’s walls, and some people wish their problem was that they had a rat in their wall instead of what they have to face. But whatever our problem, peace is there for those who are willing to ask and trust.

Merry Christmas!  

I’m going to go take a nap.

My Newest Novel - Hidden Library

Hello, My Dearest Readers!

As some of you may know, I'm set to release the second spell book, Hidden Library by Winter Solstice 2020. 

This is the sequel to Behind His Mask, except the main characters are not Sarah and Evander.   This time, we go to Emi's old coven where her cousin Veda is having troubles of her own.  Veda dreams of the day when she'll have one of her books included in her coven's hidden library, a special place for housing spell books.  Except before such a thing can happen, Salinger strides in with his newly authored spell book.  He thinks nothing of the honor of having his spell book included in their sacred place, and only which girl from Veda's coven he can spirit up north.  

I love romance.  I love this romance.

Of all the books I've written, I feel that this one captures the spirit of my hometown.  Those of you who know of the sleepy little prairie town where I grew up will undoubtedly find all the witches, conjuring, spells, switchblades, and needles in this story surprising.  But to me, it feels perfectly natural.  There weren't the exact things portrayed in the book, but there were bats swooping, Venus shining like a diamond over the horizon, white clouds lit by moonlight, and cousins everywhere.  I had way more cousins than Veda.  

I wrote this book at the lowest point I've had in 25 years of writing.  As I worked and reworked it, I had a deep fear growing inside me that it would be my last.  I wish I could explain how I found the time and how the book turned itself ever so slightly so that I was able to finish it.

It's a special book to me because the whole time I was writing it, I was thinking that it couldn't be about this one thing.  When I got to the part where I was supposed to put the twist in, the twist was nowhere near good enough.  I had to pause, figure out who I was, what I had to write, and what this book was really going to be about.  At first, I shied away from how great this story could be because I was scared to talk about something I feel so strongly about, but in the end... it was about the thing that made me uncomfortable.  It's about a lot of things that make me uncomfortable.  

That's where it is brilliant.  

This story takes me in its arms and whispers in my ear that it understands my struggles, fears, and disappointments.  I cry at the end of Behind His Mask and I cry when I read certain passages in Hidden Library.  It's funny because I don't do that.  I don't cry when I write like a sap... until I do.  So far, I have written 22 books and these two are the only ones I cry in.  

Here's the link to preorder the ebook on Amazon.com.

https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Library-Second-Spell-Book-ebook/dp/B08P6LKC5B/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1606855048&refinements=p_27%3AStephanie+Van+Orman&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Stephanie+Van+Orman

The Final Screwup

The final screwup is my screwup and it's the screwup I always make when I screwup.

I began writing because I discovered a world where I could express myself until I was finished.  That luxury is not available for very many people very often.  You have something you want to say?  A coffee date with your friend will end.  Someone's ear will get sore on the telephone.  Your therapist's buzzer will ring.  It will get dark.  Someone will fall asleep.  Someone will reach the limits of what they can stand to listen to and snap.  

I can talk longer than anyone can stand to listen.  

And I get it.

When I'm the listener, I'm like that too.  Someone wants to go off on a rant that literally goes on for hours?  I can't stand it.  I might be very happy to hear everything they have to say in manageable ten-minute chunks, but not a neverending verbal tirade.  

So, I shut my mouth and opened my hands.  Through a novel format, I can talk about whatever I want for as long as I want.  I can go over the text and perfect it, smooth out the wrinkles, make it more interesting, and say exactly what I want to say in exactly the right way.  It's beautiful.  So often I say the wrong thing, but when I write it, it's as close to perfect as it's going to get.  

It's also extremely pleasurable to write the book I want to read, but it has a downswing, which is the screwup I'm alluding to.  I have very little interest in reading other people's books.  My husband reads to me for at least one date night a week.  Anything he reads is cloaked in the power of his personal mystique and doused in his credibility, even if the writing is trite, but I rarely read anything by myself.  I have probably read four books this year.  This makes me feel like an incredibly selfish writer.  

People often want me to look at their work, or tell me about their work, and offer my opinion.  It makes me want to look around to see if there's anything I can use to light myself on fire.  Stopping, dropping, and rolling is an effective ender of conversations if there ever was one.  Mostly, there's nothing handy and I have to endure the conversation or the paper stuffed in my hands.

This is usually what happens.  I look over the first page and notice a lot of problems with their writing on a technical level.  If I were to get out my handy red pen and start marking it up, I would make the author cry, because they would have looked over it carefully to make sure there were no grammatical errors.  Yet, effective writing is not merely free of grammatical errors.  Notice I did not say 'creative writing'.  I said 'effective writing'.  I was not trained in 'creative writing'.  I was trained in 'effective writing'.  Thus, when I edit, I cut anything that doesn't move.  Think of it as throwing out anything that doesn't spark joy and doesn't serve a strong purpose.  

Naturally, I can't say what I think or mark up the paper.  I'll crush their soul or piss them off.  Little do they know that when I'm alone with my manuscript, I make it bleed and refuse to listen no matter how hard it screams.  I can't even explain that to the person who is showing me their work.  They won't believe that I take my precious words and cut them viciously.  Going soft on my edits will not produce extraordinary work.  But the person in front of me is very new to writing and very tender.  They don't understand the bigger reasons for the edits and unless I am carefully diplomatic, they'll think I'm a monster.

Of course, I am a monster, but let's not get into that now.

Instead, let's talk for a moment about the mistakes I have printed into books that I have sold (or tried to sell) in bookstores.  YES!  There have been mistakes because I used to go easier on myself.  There will always be mistakes, but I wouldn't be a novelist if I didn't grind myself to dust trying to remove them.  Whoever is showing me their work is merely enjoying the creative process and is unprepared for what I have to do a manuscript to get it up to snuff.  There isn't just one round of brutal editing.  There are FIVE!  And more if I don't think the book is ready.  If I find too many mistakes during the last round, then we go again.

The long and short of it is that their writing isn't good enough and I can't tell them.  I don't know if that isn't also true about my writing no matter how much effort I put into it, and I don't feel like being persecuted because I'm in the middle of the learning process.  What I do know is that no matter how much someone claims to be ready to hear criticism, they're not.  I can't walk around setting people on fire and then trying to put it out with my spit.  They need encouragement, not criticism.  AND SO DO I.

This happens when I'm supposed to read other people's work online too.  I start reading something and I'm supposed to offer a favorable critique, but I can't. So I say nothing.

This is my greatest screwup as a writer.  

I will never build a strong group of author buddies who love my work, share it, I love their work, share it, and we're all enriched by each other's fan bases.  

No matter how well I write, this will always bite me in the bum and handicap me - the greatest screwup of all.

Hopefully, next time I'll be closer to being ready to release 'Hidden Library' and I'll have something to promote.  Hopefully.  

The Eighth Screwup

Let's talk about advertising, marketing, book reviews, and awards.

This is where we separate those that have money for their project and those who do not.  You need the talent to write your book.  You need to practice to bring your craft to a whole new level...  AND you need to have a secret hoard of dragon gold to pay to advertise it when you're finished.

There are a lot of people who are willing to take your money in order to market your book.  I get emails from them, telling me they think my new book is marvelous (there's no way they've read it) and they think the readers on their mailing list would love to buy my book.  A spot in their newsletter only costs $25.  Websites that promote books do this too.  Cover slot only $35, and they'll send out information about your book in their next newsletter.  Promotional packages cost between $10 and $400.

Stuff like this.

I don't know how well any of that stuff works.  My Facebook feed is full of people who have tried all this stuff for promotion and got nowhere.

Remember those digital publishing companies I mentioned in my post about ebooks?  Yeah, they won't help you much with advertising.  They'll put it all on your shoulders.  You know why?  Because this sort of thing is super expensive and very much like playing random games in a casino.  Who knows what's going to stick?

Now let's talk about book reviews.  Getting them is an enormous pain in the rear.  Finding someone who is willing to sign their name to a review, saying your writing is good is rare.  Also, Amazon really cracks down on reviews that have been paid for, and A LOT OF AUTHORS PAY FOR REVIEWS.  I've been working hard at getting reviews in 2020 and I'm starting to get better at it.  It does mean giving away a lot of books and doing a lot of begging.  Turns out, I'm not that bad at either one of those things.  

Now let's talk about book awards.  If I decided to be in charge of a book award program, it would become my part-time job, and here's how I would run it.  I would charge $40 for each book to be entered into the contest.  The top award would be $500 with three lesser prizes of $200, plus another ten honorable mentions.  This means I would only need 28 people to enter in order to pay for the program, but let's be real.  There are 5,000 ebooks published a day.  So many people are desperate to become authors that more than 28 people would enter with an entry deposit of only $40.  That's less than a lot of the ad campaigns I mentioned above.  I would send each of the entries a banner to put on their social media advertising the award and get a boatload of free advertising directly to the writing community (they're my customers).  After the submission deadline, I pick up the manuscripts and anything I can stand to read gets shortlisted.  I can drop anything I don't like without reading it to the end.  I can weed through thousands of manuscripts this way, by dropping anything that rubs me wrong immediately.  Chances are I would only like a few books well enough to finish them.  I'd sort through those and choose my big winner and my three runners up.  It would also be pretty easy to choose ten honorable mentions.  I'd make them all banners to put up on their social media so they give me more free advertising.  And cablooee!  I keep all the extra money!

Okay, I would never do this.  I hate reading.  I wrote the above because that's what my internal monologue says whenever I read the info packets for writing awards.  I'm staring at the deposit amount versus the prize amount and I think it doesn't add up.  The entries are probably generating a lot more money than what they're offering as prizes.  They can argue that they're paying the selection committee and I could argue that for myself with my setup above.  I just find it hard to believe that it could be a fair contest since the judges could stop reading with one mislaid sentence.  Reading stuff that sucks is soooo hard.

By the way, not all literary awards ask for a deposit.  Those awards don't offer a cash prize either, but those people are going to heaven FOR SURE.

Soooo... Advertising... you'll lose money.

The Seventh Screwup

I promised we could talk about ebooks and today we will.  

Let's start with digital publishing companies.  They don't publish print books and they don't prep manuscripts or covers for print-on-demand.

Do you know how long it takes to do the graphic design for an ebook cover once the art is complete?  Not long.  It's an absolute cakewalk compared to making a cover that wraps around a paperback.  Along the same lines, do you know how easy it is to prepare an ebook for publication compared to something that has to go to print?  Again, it's a snap.

Digital publishing companies prey upon writers who know how to write but do not know how to independently publish a book.  They'll lend you a hand with editing without being too handsy (unlike traditional publishing houses who are risking a lot and can get very handsy), they'll help you with a polished looking cover, and they'll do all the technical things you have no interest learning.  They'll skim a little off the profits on your ebook for themselves and everyone is happy.

These guys are less choosy than a traditional publisher.  You're way more likely to get a publishing deal with one of them.  Their standards are a lot lower because they have a lot less on the line.  They have invested very little capital in you (just what they paid for your cover art).  They'll put a few minutes into your manuscript in order to prep it for publication, they're tech-savvy and they're building an empire, so the more manuscripts the better.

Because their standards are lower, if you get turned down by one of them, it may mean that you are not ready to be a published author.  

However, do not despair.  Even if they turn you down, and you're done working on your manuscript, it's okay.  Go to a free writing website like Inkitt, Wattpad, Fictionpress, and post your writing there.  You can work with sample audiences there and get a feel for what people like.  You will have to write more than one book... but you were always going to have to write more than one book.  

The Sixth Screwup

Should I go with a traditional publisher or should I self publish?

If you are a new author and a publishing company is willing to publish you... something is probably wrong.  It might not be anything much, but whatever it is... it will probably amount to you not making much money.  It's actually pretty likely that you'll lose money.  

I see stuff all the time where new authors are asking if it's normal for publishing houses to ask their authors to put up money to get the ball rolling.  No, this is not normal.  Do not work with them.  

Here's how publishing works roughly.

You go into Chapters (or another book store), and you buy a book that costs $20.  Immediately, 40% (or $8) of that is going directly to Chapters just to keep your book on the shelf.  Of that $20, approximately $3 is paying for the book to be printed, $2 is paying for the shipping from the printer to the store, $5 is going to the publisher (which pays for the editing, cover art, design, marketing, and ads), $2 goes to the author (less if the author has a literary agent). 

If you self-publish, you pay all those fees yourself.  You pay for the printing, shipping, editing, cover art, design, marketing, and any ads.  If the bookstore fails to sell your book by a deadline, they may keep your book and sell it for whatever they can get for it.  As soon as a book in a bookstore is discounted, you can bet your booty-tailed-britches the author is no longer getting paid.  As a matter of fact, the author or the publishing company is losing money.  If the book store can't sell your books at all, a box of books to arrive at your house.  You may be able to sell them yourself, but also... maybe not.  Still losing money.

This means that a publishing company that does print books basically won't take you on unless they're certain you can bank.  These days, they mostly recruit independent authors who have already have a huge following.

Selling your own print books is a lot like selling Avon or Tupperware.  This means that people who love you and want to support you will buy your book. Once that dries up, you'll run out of people to sell to.  The people who know and love you probably won't enjoy reading your book.  I know that sounds rude, but it doesn't have much to do with your writing.  Reading things written by people you know is weird.  It's a weird experience.  They might not want to read any more of your books.  Don't take it personally.  You are going to need to find a bigger market than the people you know if you're going to survive.  

From the math I presented earlier, you've probably figured out that you are going to need to sell books into the tens of thousands in order to even make this worthwhile even as a side hustle or to come close to making minimum wage.

Put simply, you are not going to be able to find a publisher who isn't full of crap.  If you try, you will waste a lot of time trying... unless you already have an in with a publishing house.  

Personally, I think you should wait a bit before investing a lot of your resources in print books.  Sometimes they're flawed and you can't sell them.  Only order a few and see how it pans out.  

Next time we'll talk about ebooks.

The Fifth Screwup

A lot of writers think they don't need their own editor.  They think they're going to publish with a publishing company and it will take care of their editing for them.  It is true that a publishing company will probably get up in your business and ask you to make changes to your manuscript.  However, it's also true that a publishing company will not want to work with you if your work is unedited (they'll call it rough).  They want to work with hardened writers who are used to making compromises.

On the flip side, if you decide to go the indie route (self-publish without the financial backing of a publishing company), you're going to hit a roadblock.

Professional editing is expensive.

You're also very likely to despise your first editor with a potency that surprises you.  It's so expensive and time-consuming that you will want to bypass the whole process because writing a novel was supposed to make money, not cost you money.  Most editors that advertise on the internet have a rate of $5 for every 1,000 words.  This means that you will be very lucky to get your manuscript edited for less than $1,000.

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking that my math sucks because it should only cost $300 to have a 60,000-word manuscript edited.  I promise you, my math is impeccable.  It took me a long time to acknowledge this, but this is the truth: a manuscript needs a minimum of three rounds of editing.  You will be lucky if you only need three rounds.

Each round of editing has a different purpose.  Allow me to explain.

Content Editing

Imagine you're in an art class and your art teacher is explaining how to draw a perspective drawing.  You draw the vantage point and every line you put on that page is working with that point in one way or another.  Some lines hold up others, but everything is acknowledging that vantage point.  Content editing is like someone taking your perspective drawing and erasing every line that doesn't play to the vantage point in some way.

Every word that doesn't help the plot, continue the themes, entertain the reader, speed up the action, foreshadow what is to come, or emphasize a point has to go.  This means that your manuscript is going to suffer a very substantial drop in its word count.  If you have written exactly 40,000 words, it's going to feel like the editor has cut off your arm.  You had written a novel, and now it's a novella, and you won't be able to turn it back into a novel.  In my experience, content editing is irreversible.  You can't add more to your story after without needing to go back and do another round of content editing after the adds.  Granted, you may improve your product, but doing two rounds of one layer of editing is going to be hurtful to your morale and your budget.

Copy Editing

This is when the editor puts each individual sentence under a microscope and asks if that sentence is effective.  This means that all ambiguity that existed in your drafts has to go.

This process is another place where beginners suffer because a lot of the changes suggested by the editor are correcting sentences which may not be technically wrong.  Sadly, that doesn't mean they aren't wrong.  Writing needs to be snappy, and if it isn't, then it needs to be fixed.

Also, it can get overwhelming how many changes the editor suggests, especially when there are over a dozen changes on a single page and there are two hundred pages.  They think that if they were a good writer, there would be fewer corrections.

Proofreading

I find that proofreading needs a different set of eyes.  You can use the same editor for content editing and copy editing, but you need a different editor for proofreading.  One may be tempted to think that you could have a friend do your proofreading because what you need more than anything is a fresh set of eyes and they would charge less than a real editor.

And you would be wrong.  Here's why:

1. Unpaid proofreaders take forever.  They have other things to do that are important and your book is not number one on their list of things to do.

2. They won't find all the errors.  No proofreader (even professional ones) find all the errors.  Many professionally published books have mistakes in them.  I saw one today!

3. They think that because the book is not yet published that there is still time to make substantial changes.  There is not.  You are at the end of the project.  You will not make everyone happy with your project.

4. Your relationship with your friend is more important than any book.

In conclusion, you need an editor.  Everything you have done may end up being a wash if you don't have one.  HOWEVER... online editorial services tend to prey on the insecurity of new authors and make them feel as though they are failing because they didn't do enough rounds of editing.  This can be a bit much when the average self-published ebook sells fewer than 250 copies (which generates a lot less income than the $1,000 I mentioned earlier).

You're going to need to try different things to find your balance when you edit your manuscripts.  I have hired editors.  I've done it myself.  I've taken help from teenagers who have acted as beta readers (they were my fans).  I've printed my book out and marked the crap out of it.  I've read it out loud and put on bloody stage plays in my bedroom.  I've begged for help from English teachers.  I've taken multiple grammar courses at a college.  I've privately redone my child's grammar lessons by myself.  I've used different word processors to try to fix the errors.  I've worked with editors at publishing companies.  And I've spent more money on editors than I've made with my books.

I still have people come up to me and inform me that there was actually a mistake on page 215 of my book...

No one can be perfect at this.

The only thing you need to remember is that there are going to be mistakes while learning to do this.  Handle your mistakes, either by fixing them or by forgiving yourself for them.  Then you can smile, even when there is a mistake on page 215... and 216.

The Fourth Screwup

Yes, we've arrived at the fourth place a novelist is likely to screw up.  This is at the end of the book.

I don't want to write a whole post about all the horrible things that can happen at the end of the book, but I do want to touch on one problem that happens at the end of nearly every project (book or not).  You're sitting at 97% complete and... you die.  I don't mean you literally die, but you die.  You've got like two chapters left to finish and you're scared, bored, and itching to move onto a new project, nothing looks right, you think you're stupid, and the last little bit is this unbelievable grind.

I find the only way to conquer this is to just sit down one day (without planning it) and just say, "Today, I'm finishing this!  If I get nothing else done today, that's fine.  Today, I'm finishing this!"  I sometimes accompany that wild declaration with an actual roar, but that's what I need to do to get pumped up.  So, sneak up on it, and don't let it go until you break its neck.

You are not to be trifled with.  You won't even be defeated by yourself.

But that's not the problem I wanted to address today.  The main purpose of this post is to talk about what happens after you've finished writing your first book.  In order to finish the book, you have used some time that you don't usually use to write, and that means that some of the things you usually do are lagging behind.  You write the glorious words The End, set down your manuscript, and abruptly realize you need to go make muffins, run a list of errands, follow up with other projects, and basically live your life the way you were leading it before the writing bug ate your heart.

It's quite some time before you make it back to your manuscript.  You have plans to submit it to an editor or a publishing company, but before you do either of those things (editors are expensive and there's a lot of stiff competition for publication), you decide to read over your manuscript to see if there's anything you can do to improve it by yourself.

Very wise.

Except you're about to get dropped on your bottom.  Psst!  It's going to hurt because your manuscript is not going to be as brilliant as it was when you left it.  When you get a bit of space from your project, you start to notice a few mistakes.  Scratch that... a lot of mistakes.  There are typos, to be sure, but there are also foundational mistakes.  Your writing style is not consistent.  You have not maintained reader sympathy with your characters.  Parts of the story are missing because they seemed so obvious in your head, so you didn't spell them out to the reader and on the re-read, you have no idea what you're eluding to with your careful prose.  And more.

It's very discouraging.

I recommend reading the manuscript again and writing two wish lists.

One list is about things you can see that are obvious fixes for this particular manuscript (cut this out, add this).

The second list is things you wish you did better generally.  This list refers to mistakes in your book that are so large, you can't possibly fix them without starting your manuscript over (things like voice or losing reader sympathy).  The thing is, no matter how brilliant your original idea was, by this point, you're done with it.  So, if you're going to correct this manuscript, you need to have written nothing on your second wish list.  If it's your first whack at writing a novel, you have to set this manuscript aside and label it as practice.  Then you have to start again with a new idea.

Coming up with a new idea terrifies some authors.

There is nothing to be afraid of.  As you get better at this, ideas will come easier and in larger quantities.  Sometimes people who approach me with an idea for a novel have no intention of writing out their idea themselves.  They want me to do it.  I always find it amusing that they think I'm starving for ideas.  I have made myself into an idea factory.

Your second attempt at a novel with a new story will be better than your first.  You'll figure out how to solve some of your fundamental problems while at the same time, correcting your writing style as you go so you don't keep making the same technical errors every step.  Don't be afraid.  You don't get something for nothing and the price of admission is practice.

The Third Screw Up

Of all the screwups, this one is my least favorite.  For all you novelists out there, this is not going to be news.  For everyone else, please know that bringing this up brings me no pleasure.  Remember that I was once a lowly writer who wanted to be a novelist... so, yes, the thing I am going to mention has happened to me.

Sometimes, someone tells me they've written a novel and they ask me to have a look at it.  They send over the electronic file and I open it.  Before I read any of the text, I check the word count because I'm concerned about this problem.

It's 15,000 words.

I write the author back and ask them where the rest of it is, hoping that there's more they haven't sent me for some reason.

There isn't more.  That's all of it.

Then I have the very non-fun job of informing them that their novel is not a novel.  It's a short story.

The author is confused.  There are chapters.  There are over twenty of them.

I get to explain that it doesn't matter that they cut their writing into chapters.  It's still not a novel.  To help explain, I start at the beginning.  500 - 20,000 words is a short story.  20,000 words to 40,000 words is a novella.  40,000 words to 60,000 words is a lazy man's novel (a lot of Harlequins are written in this range).  60,000 - 100,000 is a perfectly respectable novel with the sweet spot being at approximately 86,000 words.  100,000+ is for high fantasy authors who have really decent publishing companies backing them.  Independent authors can't market books of that length.  The word count is too large and there ends up being too much paper involved in the production of the book for it to be profitable. 

The author is embarrassed because they thought they'd written a novel.  Not only that but cracking out those 15,000 words was really hard for them.  I know.  Like I said, I've had this happen to me as well.

Getting past this problem requires a two-prong strategy.

First, you should think about the fire in your belly.  That fire inside you needs to burn long and hot.  Basically, this means that you have to angry.  You need to feel like books and their authors have let you down.  You need to want to make something different than anybody else.  If all you want to do is write the sorts of things you enjoy reading, you may not have enough fire to power your dream.  You need to believe that you have something to offer than no one else does, that your contribution to the writing world is INDISPENSABLE.  You need to be on fire.  If you feel this way, this setback will be nothing more than a blip and you'll soon pass over any embarrassment you felt writing a short story and trying to pass it off as a novel.

The second thing to note is that you are only at the beginning of your journey.  I'm an old hag and as an old hag, who has been doing this for twenty-five years, I can tell you, you're going to get better.  Things will flow better as you get more practice.  I can write 15,000 words in a day if I'm left alone to do it.  What was once rough will become smooth.

The Second Place a Novelist Screws Up

In my last blog, I talked about how even really good ideas have challenges attached to them.  I'm going to talk about that a little more today.

One time, I heard someone's idea for a novel.  It was an erotica parody and the idea itself was pretty entertaining, but the second I heard it, I knew the person who had that idea could not do it justice.  In order to write a successful parody, you can't just make fun of the genre.  That's not good enough.  If someone is familiar enough with a genre to get all the jabs, then it means your audience likes the genre.  You can't just slam it through a wall.  At the end of a successful parody, you finish with a love letter to the genre.  To pull it off, you have to love that genre.  I was betting that the guy with that hilarious idea for an erotic parody had absolutely no love for erotica, and thus would be unable to pull off the necessary second half.  Start with the jokes; finish with a kiss.

The disaster happens when the author sits down and starts writing.  They finish to the end of their introductory plot arch and then they're left scratching their head.  What are they supposed to do next?  They don't know.  They think they're blocked, and they are.  They aren't writing.

Writers get blocked when there's a disconnect between their expectations and their ability.

Sometimes it's because a writer notices a gap in popular storytelling, and they wonder why no one has written a story that follows the missed pattern.  They think that because they spotted it, they're the one to write it, but finding storytelling ideas this way does not account for a particular author's skills.  It's like applying for any job that's available, not your dream job.  You can plod away at it, but it might be like climbing a mountain with toothpicks.  It's going to take forever and it won't be very much fun. 

Other times, it's because an unpracticed novelist expects that because they have been writing adorable little projects for years that the skills they learned writing those can easily be transferred to a larger project.  They're going to find out that that isn't necessarily the case.  I always say that a novel is 60,000 words, but you can easily make more than 60,000 mistakes.  That's because it takes skill to manage multiple plot lines, character arches, ongoing themes, foreshadowing, and provide consistent writing throughout a piece.  Sometimes people who only write tiny pieces do not have a regular voice they write with.  They read back their writing and oops!  They're discouraged because when they read someone else's book, it looked so effortless; they thought they could easily write a novel too.

Those are just two ways that our expectations can murder us.  We want to be smart.  We want others to think we're smart.  We want to be creative about what we write about and how we write it.  Yet that is not coming through on the page.

We need to let go of our expectations.  Forget about planning a manuscript you think will be profitable.  Instead, write something from your heart, and don't worry about writing well.  For your first book, just try to make it to 40,000 words.  In your next manuscript, focus on getting to 60,000.  You'll be so much smarter about how to craft a plot after your first two attempts.

And I know no one wants to 'practice' writing.  Everyone dreams of getting it right the first time and being a huge success.  That's something else you're going to have to let go of.  No one writes their best stuff at the beginning of their career.  If you analyze why you're writing and it's because you want a ton of attention, fame, and money... maybe find something else to do.

The Very First Place a Novelist Screws Up

Conception.

You wouldn't think that a person could screw up on their writing before they've written a word, but I've found that that is the most likely place for a person to screw up.  Let me explain why.

Sometimes, I have people approach me and ask me if I'm a writer.  I reply that I am a novelist, and they proceed to tell me they have a great idea for a book.  At this point in the story, I'm inwardly groaning because there is no right way for me to respond to them.  Without having heard their idea, I know it's good.  People are smart, inventive, and creative.  A person would not sit a novelist down and tell them an idea for a book that wasn't going to appeal to someone.  They tell me their idea and it's great.

But even great ideas have challenges attached to them.  If I tell this aspiring author the troubles attached to their idea, they are going to feel deflated, defeated, and they'll give up. 

If I tell them their idea is great without attaching a specific warning, something else will happen that is equally bad.  They'll get really excited and they'll tell me a lot more about the story than the simple premise.  The creative pistons in their head will start firing and they'll tell me every part of their story that they've worked out.  This is a mistake, but I let this happen many times before I realized how big of a mistake it was. 

You see, talking is a form of expression.  So is writing.  If you performed an experiment by writing a fresh draft of the same short story every Friday for a month, then read them over to try to choose the best one... I bet you'd pick the first one.  I don't know why your first half-brained attempt is usually the best one, but it is.  I have written many things that were excellent, but for some dumb reason, I lost my first whack at it.  I've had to pick up the pieces and replace it with other text which isn't as good.  It's a second try instead of a first try.  Back to the aspiring writer, they've had their first whack at their story talking to a woman in a park, not on a page where it can be recorded, studied, and possibly improved. 

Months later, I run into this person again.  I slap them on the back (if they make me listen to their idea for a novel for more than five minutes, I reserve the right to slap them on the back), and I ask them how their novel is coming.  They look at me like I'm the body they buried in the woods last summer because they thought they were never going to see me again.  They choke their response.

They haven't worked on their book since we last spoke.

I slap them on the back again and remind them that there are lots of things in life that are more important than writing novels.  They shouldn't give it another thought... but they do.  A little later in the conversation, they'll sidle up to me and ask me timidly if I have finished writing the novel I was working on when we talked last.  I'll tell them I have, and they will be reduced to ashes at my feet.

You see, when we had our conversation about their perspective book, they felt a surge of validation as creative energy flowed through them.  They felt like they were a writer (without actually having any idea how much unpleasantness that word carries because all they can see is the elusive glamor attached to any artsy pursuit).  After all, they were having a conversation with a writer who was acknowledging them as a writer.  They felt talented, appreciated and their brain sealed the idea as fulfilled and finished because they had received their reward.

When I confronted them about the status of their project, I stripped them of all those lovely feelings about their idea, but also about themselves.  I've made them into a person who only knows how to run their mouth without actually buckling down and writing.  They're embarrassed.

I'm unhappy too because it was not my intent to embarrass them.  I was trying to be supportive and friendly.  Back in those days, I didn't yet recognize the cycle of people who like cornering authors in public and begging them for feedback on work that doesn't exist. 

The solution?  For me, I try to pull the plug on writers telling me their ideas.  I remind them that if they like their idea for a story, that's all they need.  Someone out there will like it.  They don't need anyone's permission to write.  Neither do I.  Neither do you.  So, go write. 

His 16th Face - The Introduction

Welcome!  This is probably the last post I will do about His 16th Face for a while.  It turns out my books are very popular for plagiarism, and fighting off the dogs will be quite the adventure.  Anyhoo, I wanted to give you lovely readers a taste of the excellent story that this is.  Also, I'm looking for reviewers. In particular, I need a couple readers to nominate me for awards and stuff like that.  So!  If you read the introduction and want to read more, I will supply you with a free ebook of His 16th Face in exchange for a few little promotional bones.  If you are interested, please PM me on Facebook or email me.  Whatever suits you best.  The book is 257 pages long and roughly 89,000 in case you are worried I'll be giving you something as hefty as Kiss of Tragedy. 

Without further ado:

THE INTRODUCTION

“What's going on?” I whispered, startled in the darkness.

“I'm holding you,” Christian explained evenly.

Though he was familiar, the feeling of his arms around me was not. He lifted me clean off the bed as if I weighed nothing. In the rocking chair, he settled my head into the space between his chin and his shoulder. His breath feathered down my nose to settle on the moist curves of my lips. 

I had to remain calm. If I showed I was excited, even with my heartbeat, the monitors would show it, the nurses would come in and the moment would be lost. I had to stay steady, pretend his warmth, his shape and his closeness meant nothing.

“Why would you do that?” I asked. Though I had never been given this much of him, already I wanted more—his voice. “Did the doctor tell you something about my surgery that he didn't tell me?”

“No,” Christian said, brushing my hair away from my face.

It was the blackest blue in the hospital room, but there were dashes of light everywhere: my monitors blinking my condition, the lights from the building across the courtyard, and the strip of yellow light under the door. We swayed in a waltzing rhythm in the rocking chair, almost like we were dancing. The chair was in the room because I was still young enough to be in the pediatric wing of the hospital. When I looked at it, I tried not to think about all the dead children who had been rocked, and felt their last moment of comfort, before they took those fateful steps into the world of spirits. I thought about the bodies they left behind and wondered how long children had continued to be rocked, even after they had left their fragile bodies behind.

Christian, my would-be guardian angel, held me like a princess in that chair, close to my monitors. He had never rocked me before, and certainly never visited me in the middle of the night. He should not have been there outside visiting hours, but he was there—the greatest gift I had ever been given. Nights alone in the hospital were the hardest. How many times had I dreamed someone was there with me, holding me? I shivered in my happiness. He pulled a blanket over my body and tucked me in like a little girl, except I was being tucked into his arms—enjoying every moment. He smelled expensive and like the grown-up man he was.

He was not holding me because of my girlish dreams. He simply didn't have the heart to stay away. Teenage girls dying of heart disease were irresistible, in that they couldn't be left alone. His feelings for me could not be what I wished. He sat in the chair and held me, a girl so perfectly on the cusp of womanhood, and rocked me as if to lull me to sleep.

If I had been dying under ordinary circumstances, perhaps he would not have visited me after midnight. My tragedy was deeper than the death that loomed ahead of me. Three months before, my parents had both been killed in a car crash. It was a thoughtless accident. My mother had been driving my father on a slick rainy night and while applying her lipstick, she slammed into the support beams of a bridge. She killed them both instantly.

The wreck never seemed real to me.

The problem was that I had never had much to do with my incredibly rich parents. I was always away from them, with nannies or tutors who tried to teach me ballet and how to play the piano. I was only mediocre at any of these paid-for activities. My mother wasn't good at anything, except looking pretty, which she was skilled at beyond belief. Sadly, I contrived to look nothing like her.

The closest I had ever been to my parents was when they first found out I was sick and that my life was in danger. They pawed over me and petted me, making a fuss. It didn't last. It couldn't last. Not only were children incredibly boring company for socialites, but the gloom that came with the frequent hospital stays took an incredible toll on them. They couldn't handle it. I wasn't getting better and my decline was not fast enough to be a source of drama meaty enough to feed them.

That was when my father gave me a gift. He didn't understand much about me or my specific needs, but he understood that I shouldn't be alone. He asked an acquaintance who worked near the hospital, Christian Henderson, to look out for me. Dad needed my companion to assume guardianship since neither of my parents lived in Edmonton, where I was receiving my treatment. He needed someone he could understand, so he didn't get another nanny. He gave me Christian.

And Christian was glorious. He was patient, thoughtful, bright, so charming and heart winning, it was impossible to explain. I liked him better than all the doctors. He was a young man, not yet thirty. He wore button-down vests that suggested lean muscles underneath and had a habit of turning his entire body into nothing but angles. He would rest his elbow on his knee and place his forefinger on his temple to make triangles and diamonds of his limbs. Speaking through breaks in his fingers, his words always sounded better. Sometimes he’d place one finger on his nose bridge and the other between his eyebrows and look at me through the angle of his fingers like he was looking at me through glass that helped him see better. Truthfully, I realized that until he looked at me that way, I had never been seen. When my eyes shly met his, I thought that neither my parents nor I were off to a terrible place in the hereafter. After all, there had to be a heaven since there was a Christian.

He took the news of my parents’ passing hard. I knew that was why he had snuck in that night. I had surgery coming up in a few days and there was a very real possibility that I might not wake up from it. He held me and I couldn't feel alone, because he was there.

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and said to him softly, “You don't have to worry about me this much. It doesn't matter.”

His eyes flicked toward me.

“It doesn't,” I said, continuing listlessly. “I'm going to die soon. You know the odds I'll live through my next operation aren't good. That was why my parents weren't here. My mother couldn't stand to watch me die, and now she won't. Like the little match girl, there will be plenty of people to greet me when I slip out of this world. It doesn't matter, because I was hardly even here.” I hoped my words would ease some of the pressure he felt, but I was only fourteen and didn't know how to spin it to make him feel the relief I wanted for him.

Christian looked at me and his eyes were all compassion and personal unrest. “And what if I was your fairy godfather and could twirl you around and make one final wish come true?”

I scowled. “The last thing I want is for you to be my father.” My chest hurt and I put a hand to it.

Christian lifted my free hand and took my heart rate. He never paid attention to the monitors and insisted on feeling my heart for himself. My body betrayed me by showing my enthusiasm. Christian could feel the difference. He didn't like the result and reached for the call button.

“Stop it,” I said, putting a hand to his chest. “Can't I have a different heart rate when you offer me a wish? What's your heart rate?”

He laughed slightly and offered me his wrist.

“Can I listen to your heart instead?” I whispered.

“Is that your wish?”

I nodded solemnly.

He smoothed out his shirt over his heart and allowed me to hear it. Listening to the soft pounding made my insides melt, but then another sharp pain flared in my chest.

I gasped and curled myself into a ball.

“Are you all right?”

“It's passing,” I gasped, rubbing my chest. “It's passing. It's okay.”

He put a hand to his forehead and tried to smooth out his concern. I had pains in my chest so often, and the small ones didn’t mean much. “I'm sorry, Beth. When your father asked me to watch over you, I hoped I'd bring you flowers once a week, along with some contraband, and we'd laugh a bit.”

“This level of tragedy was not what you expected?”

“No,” he breathed. “This is exactly what I expected. Exactly what I've already gone through many, many, times. Only this time, it feels worse. Like you're mine and I should be able to save you. Like I should be able to stand as a fortress between you and death, and I can't. I can't do anything.”

I had to think of something for him to do that would comfort him, and make him feel like he had done something for me. My brain settled on a thought I had every time I closed my eyes for a procedure. “If I can have one more wish. There is something I want. Something you can do.”

Christian's fingers ran in little patterns down my arm. “Tell me.”

“You could kiss me.”

“I can't,” he said, his voice clipped in the darkness.

“It's the middle of the night. No one would know. I would carry it to my grave. I don’t want to die without being kissed and there is nothing else I want.”

It was silent as I waited for his answer. Finally, he said, “If I do this, you can never tell anyone.”

I gave my promise.

He shook his head slightly like he didn't want to before he turned, bent his head, and touched his lips against mine. At first, he stayed perfectly still with his lips sealed shut and the slight fluttering of our breath intermingling. Then ever so slowly, he began moving his lips, and it was completely wonderful. He understood! I didn't want a little girl kiss like a peck on the forehead. I wanted a full-blown, romantic kiss that would leave me windblown long after it was finished. I responded by kissing him the way he kissed me. It was only seconds before he had taken it too far and my heart was hammering out of control. My monitors began beeping wildly and Christian suddenly let go of me.

He looked at my flushed cheeks and the smile on my face.

“This is wrong,” he said defiantly.

“I won't tell anyone,” I reassured him and tried to think of something to say that would make him kiss me again.

Before I could say another word, I was neatly deposited back in my bed, Christian had flicked my bed lamp on and a nurse had entered the room to check on me.

“I'm going to be moving Beth to a different hospital,” he informed her curtly.

“You can't,” she stuttered. She had been my nurse for a long time. “She can only be moved by her legal guardian.”

“That's me. I'll be removing her tonight.”

The nurse was appalled but took him to the front desk to make the necessary arrangements. There was a lot of work to do to get me transferred to a different hospital.

Something inside Christian had snapped. I had never seen him like that before. He had always been friendly. When my parents died, he had been both crestfallen and charming to make my pain less, but in those moments after he kissed me, he had changed completely to a man I didn't know. The boyish charm was gone in a single breath. Suddenly, he had become someone who knew all about action and even how to change the entire world.

My head was spinning as I was detached from my machines and bundled into the backseat of his car, where he had set up a bed for me. He buckled my seatbelt and closed the door. I pulled a gray wool blanket over my legs and gazed at him as he got behind the wheel. I had never felt so safe in my whole life. Then we were on the road with the stars being the only things moving as quickly as we were. Where we were going, I didn't know. Why he thought a different hospital would be better didn’t make sense to me. I was already at a better hospital, which was why I wasn't near my family in Toronto, but in Edmonton.

It didn't matter.

What happened next has always been a blur in my mind. I don't even remember getting out of the car. I remember green walls and the operating room lights in my eyes. Then, nothing. In my haze, I knew they were going to cut me and I didn't know if I would wake up again. I looked around for Christian, but I didn't see anyone. There seemed to be no one there but the doctor. Then the anesthetic kicked in and there was blackness.

That was my last operation. I had another scar down the center of my chest to add to my collection, but I never closed my eyes on an anesthetic again. My recovery felt slow, but was fast according to the new doctors in Mexico when I awoke. To my astonishment, I was recovering at a private hospital in a tiny village on the coast and spent most of my days lounging on the beach and sipping something cold.

What treatment did these doctors have that the doctors in Edmonton didn't? Aside from my scars, I felt perfect.

The whole while, Christian was there, reading to me, then diving into the water for a quick stretch. He needed a lot of quick stretches.

I asked him questions in those days. What happened? How was I healed? He always pretended he didn't hear me and if I pressed the question, he would walk away, promising to be back soon. I was too weak to hound him and eventually I understood that he would never tell me what happened, or what he had done.

In his silence, I finally understood that he had done something unthinkable, possibly criminal, something he did not believe he could do to stand as a fortress between me and death. It was a secret. He would look at me across a room and I could feel secrets simmering between us, secrets we had together and secrets we kept from each other.

My secret was the love I felt for him because my feelings for him had to be caged. We couldn’t be lovers. He was a man thirteen years older than me, and he had become my legal guardian. The reality of that fact meant that everyone believed that our relationship resembled parent and child, even if he was not my biological father. How unsavory it would be if the people around us got an inkling of my feverish longing. It had to be hidden from everyone: from him, from the world, and sometimes from myself.

Alone, I could acknowledge my true feelings. I loved him completely. I dreamed of the day when the secrets that stood between us would crumble to dust and only we would be left.

Thank you for reading!  I hope you enjoyed it.  In case you'd rather not have the pressure of helping me out with promotion, you can always buy your own copy.

His 16th Face is available for purchase at the following online bookstores:

Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1999249852?pf_rd_r=TEW9B4TE0TREZVS0J89K&pf_rd_p=6fc81c8c-2a38-41c6-a68a-f78c79e7253f

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