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Book Blurbs: A Quick Question

Here is yet another challenge. Once the book is finished, how do you write a blurb that’ll draw attention, be true to the book, and entice others to read it? Sometimes there are character limits, too. It’s work, and yet another skill to learn. QE has some helpful ideas and points to good resources.

Good resources are a valuable tool in the writer’s toolbox.

Corey Truax's avatarCorey Truax

book blurb problems.jpgFor those of you who were worried I was blown away by the Hurricane Hermine, I’m still here.  We weren’t forced to evacuate but we sure did get pounded by wind and rain.  There’s a little bit of flooding here and there, but nothing too extreme.  With that being said, I wanted to jump right into today’s post.  It will be a short one (I’m going to drive around the neighborhood and help pick up debris).

What makes a good book blurb?  If you can get someone to pick up your book thanks to the awesome cover art you’ve won a single battle.  The second battle comes when they flip it over and read the back blurb.  I need to train for the back cover battle.

Now thatWastelander has been drafted and I’ve started working on the other facets of the production, I’ve began to research different book…

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Finishing a Book is a Skill

Millo Ho’s post is so true. Writing is a continual path of learning in phases. First, how to write fiction – plotting, characters, story arc, pacing, dialogue. And then into editing and revising, making it more dynamic, aligning it all. Finishing novels becomes a powerful challenge. You’ve lived with it, loving it, caring for it, and then, finished with a draft, only to learn as you begin revising it, more work is required. You keep changing hats, from writer to editor to reader to critic, back to writer, moving through the phases.

Yet, this is the same lesson to be learned about everything. Things are rarely fully finished. There’s often more that can be done to improve them, and learning to say, I’m done and accept what you’ve accomplished, is one of the ongoing challenges.

So is learning not to stop too soon. It’s a balance on a rocking sea.

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‘Phooon Party

Okay, first for the schmaltz alert. This post will get schmaltzy.

Like many, Gene Wilder’s demise dredged up memories. I associate specific music, movies, actors and events with epochal life moments. Gene Wilder is a large swatch of the moments because his rising fame coincided with VCRs rising and my long term assignment to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.

Arriving in May of 1981, base housing wasn’t immediately available. We put ourselves on the wait list and then found an off-base residence in Kadena City. The apartment building was a fort-like three story cement structure with minimal windows and external doors. The owner/managers lived in a bottom residence, and American service personnel and their dependents occupied the ten apartments spread throughout the rest. Keeping with the local way, none of these domiciles were large, but they were well built. A water cistern was on the roof. With it and the stout walls, the building was great for enduring earthquakes, typhoons and droughts.

Typhoon watching was almost a sport. Armed Forces Radio and Television Services provided us with our news and entertainment, and we tracked the storms across the Pacific and through the various seas. Which base was it going to hit? Hickam in Hawaii, Anderson on Guam, Clark in the PI? Or was it heading our way in Japan, or north to Korea?

Whichever place it struck was a cause for intense business on the base. If it was heading for us, we scrambled to launch the aircraft out of the typhoon’s path while securing the base. If you were on duty when the typhoon struck, you were on for the duration. Otherwise, you stocked up on food, water and things to do, and settled in at home.

This all took planning. Lines grew everywhere, but especially at the Commissary where we bought our food, and the USO where we rented our movies.

That’s where Gene Wilder enters. As AFRTS didn’t offer exciting programming options and often went off the air during a ‘phoon, we bought a VHS player. A huge, toploading Magnavox unit, it cost a grand, weighed over fifty pounds and took up the top of our twenty-five inch console television. But with it, we could rent movies from the USO. Thus we could sign out ‘Blazing Saddles’, ‘The Producers’, ‘Young Frankenstein’, ‘Silverstreak’, and ‘Stir Crazy’, along with movies like ‘Blues Brothers’. ‘Absence of Malice’. ‘Body Heat’. ‘Pennies from Heaven’. ‘Eye of the Needle’. The offerings were not broad, and it was serving the entire base population stalking entertainment, so you grabbed what you could, and then traded with others in the building, watching movie after movie and trying to catch some sleep as rain deluged the island and the wind hurled items through the charcoal skies.

Back on base, working in the Command Post, it wasn’t so good. We were pretty limited to what was available to watch. Scrambling aircraft and dealing with the emergencies, nobody raced out to rent movies. Then once that was done, the phones and radios went still as our status changed to monitoring the passing storm and waiting for it to clear. We watched what was on hand. How many times did I see ‘Silverstreak’, ‘Young Frankenstein’, ‘Blazing Saddles’ and ‘Stir Crazy’? Enough that we would start going stir crazy. Enough that I remember the characters and who played them, and whole scenes of dialogue.

Yet, now, watching scenes from these movies as I remember Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and the others, I laugh and laugh, again. Remembering these things last night with my beer buddies, we just had to mention a character or a line from his movies to trigger laughter.

Thanks, Gene Wilder. It was a memorable stint with you through the many, many typhoons.

 

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Knots, Life Particles & Tachyons and FT…what?

So in thinking about ‘Long Summer’, the sequel to the science fiction novel, ‘Returnee’, much reading about theories of relativity and unified theories, tachyons, chronons and parity symmetry is being indulged. Fascinating that tachyons would lose speed as they gain energy…hmmm, which was a worthwhile direction for thought.And they travel faster than light, with their slowest speed being the speed of light. Hmmm…yes….

Meanwhile, watching the final final final ‘Inspector Lewis’ (and I enjoyed the ending, with its gentle knotting of different directions and issues), knots became key to me. I’d been thinking about matters in terms of valance and atomic structure, but there’s no reason for that, is there? Not when knots also exist out there as part of the interaction of existence….

It’s all coming together, stirring up that exciting stew of writing creativity. Of course, on the negative side – because, in this physical universe, we mostly live in a parity symmetrical existence, especially when dealing with social relationships (and marriage) – the positives and negatives directly affect one another and a balance is sought – I’m listing too far into the writing side, growing quieter and quieter, more distant to others as the stories unfold in the universe of my mind(s?). Greater attention and energy is needed to untangle the knots so I understand them, and then tangle them back up to make an interesting story.

Over on the sequel side of the Lessons with Savanna mystery series, things are getting darker. That’s giving me pause; do I embrace that darkness and run with it? My instincts urge me to go for it, and I usually give into them. That will make ‘Personal Lessons with Savanna’ a much darker novel than ‘Life Lessons with Savanna’ and ‘Road Lessons with Savanna’. Yet, that’s where the roads are taking me, so here I go. As I conceptualize it, the fourth novel in that series acquires greater structure, too.

Other tasks remain on the todo list. ‘Everything in Black & White’ is awaiting its publishing process. Love to get it out before the year’s end, and a dozen other books require editing/revising while more clamor in my head to be written. I’ve not really touched ‘Fix Everything’ since I finished writing it, what, one, two years ago? Poor ‘Peerless’ and ‘Spider City’ have been out there longer, awaiting editing and revising. There’s the whole advertising thing for all that’s already published, too, but bleah, and people asking, what’s going on with Lessons? When is the next book coming out?

Socially, in the real world, my walking is curtailed by smoke drifting in from the Gap fire down by Happy Camp, in California. The smoke is keeping the air temperature cooler, and gifting us with glowing red sunsets. I wish all the people and animals safe passage.

Visitors are coming, and the end of summer picnic is coming up with bullet train speed. Cats are sick, with some sort of flu like problem passing among them, Meep being the latest victim. Each have endured it by not eating and sleeping long hours, but it’s so worrisome when they go off eating. This smoke is affecting Tucker, too, and he’s very snotty yesterday and today.

I must also clean this laptop screen. Apparently I sneezed while eating or something, from the evidence.

Minor problems, fortunately, knock on wood, which I do. Life is so very knotty.

 

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Signs of Change

We saw ‘Captain Fantastic’ yesterday. Although we’re Vigga M fans, the story didn’t draw us. However, the writer & director, Matt Ross, is an Oregon product, a graduate of a little town’s high school, so there was a lot of local hype.

I won’t say that ‘Captain Fantastic’ was enjoyable, because that’s not really a word (if you’ve seen the movie, you understand) or interesting, for the same reasons, but the actors were well cast, with excellent deliveries, and the story compelled me to follow and root for Captain Fantastic (Vigga) and his children, and wonder, what will happen? Some scenes caused post movie discussions. It was two well spent hours, and I recommend taking it in.

Afterwards, we went to Louie’s on the Plaza by the creek for food, as we’re both off the green cleansing smooths, where I enjoyed my first beer in two weeks and a wrap. My wife will continue on a modified cleansing smooth beginning today. I might do the same, something I need to decide later today.

There are sign that the seasons are changing and tempus fugit. Looking around, I’ve discovered we’re almost at the August’s finishing line. The schools’ marquees have announced the first days, and they begin tomorrow with new student orientations, full orientation following the day after.

My wife is planning an end of summer picnic in Lithia Park. We’ve scouted locations and brainstormed ideas. She checked a few schedules for vetting and then launched invitations. Friends are planning overnight visits, so an attention list has been compiled, that is, a list of things requiring our attention before they arrive.

Cooler weather is gracing us, and the temperature has stopped stirring itself past 95F. Importantly, the temps drop into the low fifties at night so windows can be opened to air us out. Most of our area fires are contained or out. We watch and worry about those in other areas, especially down in SoCal, which is suffering a terrible season.

But I’m on a treadmill, walking, writing, eating and sleeping, with ancillary tasks like cleaning and feeding the cats, and other chores, taken care of but not really my focus. Sable posted about his ToDo list and its lackings. Between that and Kate’s post about the business side and my awakening that time has pissed by without me really attending the business side, I’m creating my own Todo list for the business side. JR’s comments about not doing those things caused me to think more deeply about what I’ve done and not done, but more, why I’ve not done these things.

So with the signs of change taking place – the NFL season almost upon us, school starting, the leaves turning, the nights cooling, the World Series shaping up, Formula 1 moving toward the schedule’s bottom half, and eight out of the twelve months gone for another year – time to do more than just cross my fingers, write like crazy and hope for the best. I must work on the dreaded reviews, the dreaded marketing and advertising, and the dreaded website.

Time to begin addressing the business of writing.

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Tying Lines Together

Again, so the lines follow the characters, or the characters follow the lines. First up is Pram, the Colossus, who is employed as a terraformer despite his wealth. That’s how he enjoys spending his time, turning uninhabitable planets into places where humans and animals can live and breed.

Brett has a separate story line, and we know how Pram and Brett’s paths cross. Now, we also know how Brett and Kimi originally interacted via virtual mail in ‘Returnee’, where Kimi explained their relationship to Brett as Brett coped with being shipwrecked on Earth, his lost memory and malfunctioning Backhand (who insisted on calling him Stephane, which actually made sense later). So that’s all understood. What must be sorted here and now (or sometime in the course of writing this mangled tangle) is what’s going on with Tauren and Kimi? (Keep in mind Tauren’s true identity, which Kimi suspects but can’t yet prove.) (Also keep in mind what Tauren did to Brett, although Brett doesn’t know that – yet, but that’s one of the things he’s to learn – need to define, refine and capture his learning process, too – do a snapshot.) What happens on Kimi’s mission on behalf of Tauren that takes him to Pram in search of Brett? (Oh, does he find out the truth? Interesting thought.)

Last, I must figure out the relationship between humanity’s increasing fear of death (even though they no longer die, because they’re continually resuscitated, thereby causing a proclamation that they’ve now conquered death and space (false and false)) and Tang, and his agenda.

(And what exactly did happen with Tauren? That must be clarified for myself. I need to write a Tauren snapshot. I see the need for several snapshots.)

And the next last is that other piece regarding Brett’s recovered knowledge (about the Willow Glen attack) and how that’s folded into the next sequel. (See, that’s another snapshot.)

What about the diamonds? Good question. Another snapshot is needed about them.

I think I’ll also create a snapshot of the terraforming process Pram follows so those details can be incorporated.

Okay, it’s all becoming clear-er-ish. Time to write like crazy, one more time, and see where these characters and their lines take me.

Giddy up.

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So Proud

Little victories count highly when the days roll on in dull hot and cold repetition, challenging me with tedium and boredom. Being an optimistic, though, I remind myself, at least I’m not under fire, fleeing a wildfire, fighting off zombies, dealing with disease, flooding and pestilence, or enduring anything discomforting.

I, on the computer, at the desk, hot coffee in a mug, cool wind through the screen at my back, was thinking through last night’s strange dream, wherein I was collecting health reports on my mother and faxing them off while helping other relatives handle exuberant dogs. Quinn, my personal feline attendant, completing his morning checklist, was beside me asleep on the desk. Suddenly –

Rising, he jumped down to the floor. Sensing something amiss, I tensed, not breathing, for several seconds.

Quinn began his upchuck routine.

Here’s where procrastination pays.

Leaping into action, I seized yesterday’s paper, which should have already been moved to the recycle but I hadn’t because the Zika virus! And Trump! And Hillary’s emails! And ISIS! And Giant Pearl!

Gently seizing Quinn, I spread the paper in front of him and held him as he brought up a hairball. Now my cat forensics rewarded me, as I knew Quinn does not stop with one. No, moving to one side, he began another. I slid the paper over and held onto him.

Once that was done, I let him go off, folding the paper with its ‘prize’. But Quinn wasn’t finished. A third seemed imminent. Folded paper in hand, I joined him, keeping him in place with gentle hands on either side, talking to him and stroking as I placed the paper beneath his head.

Fini, at last.

And I was so satisfied, so pleased and proud, because my cat had brought up a hairball with his morning meal, and I had intercepted it all, getting nothing on the floor, without either of us becoming freaked. Woo hoo, aren’t I great?

There was no one around to share my joy.

Quinn didn’t care. He moved to the window sill to enjoy the jays pondering the day. I, inspired by my MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT, cleaned the litter box.

Still, it’s a great day, isn’t it? Yes sir, no hairball on the floor. Call the news services. Set up a conference. Issue a press release.

And my coffee is still hot. Ish.

Woo hoo.

 

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Writing BIZ-ness

Just read Kate Colby’s post on writing every day. And I’m going to post an excerpt here from her:

And as an independent author, I mean B–capital IZ–ness. There’s a lot to do. I’m currently editing my second novel, plus writing and publishing a series of nonfiction booklets. Add in this blog, my author newsletter, social media, organizing promotional opportunities, emailing my cover designer … you get the point. There’s a lot of shit to do (I say “shit” lovingly – being an author really is the best job in the world to me).

So, can I find time to write every day? Yes. And you can, too. If you really simplify your schedule and overcome your laziness, you can write every single day. And we absolutely should. Every word we write makes us better.

And I’m like, yes, absolutely. My problem is the converse: making/finding/dedicating the time to the business end.

There is the website. Nothing done on it. Marketing. Well, I’ve poked a few FB ads, some Amazon ads, with a smattering of results. Haven’t pursued reviews, haven’t gotten more aggressive about it.

It comes down to this basic dichotomy within me. I enjoy reading and writing, and all the books out there are manna to me, but I dislike the grubby business side. I’m a retiring guy, self-effacing, who shuns the spotlight.

Yet I want the spotlight, too, want to be validated by other writers and readers as contributing something worthwhile to this eternal conversation about what is, was, might have been, and what might never be. Plus, my steadfast wife deserves rewards, like some payment back for the moody, snarling hours when she wants to do something — or say something — and I clip her with, HELLO, I’M WRITING. Even the cats are subjected to this response (although they, one, do not accept my response, and two, seem to know when I’m writing, like they’ve been put on alert to stop me). I’ve become better at not acting like this (because my awareness increased, not only of my behavior, but its impact on my life and relationships) but my writing brain never seems to be completely turned off. It – they – the writers, editors and readers within – are always pouncing on things seen, read, heard, thought, felt, and treat it like a gold medal starting gun, racing away.

And I know all of this about myself, see it as clearly the Perseids over Crater Lake in the dark morning’s softest hours, but I seem to be able to change it as much as I can change that sky.

Yet I know…I must. It doesn’t make me happy.

Yeah, in my dream world, I have dual, even triple lives, where I’m writing all the time, I’m published and receiving income and doing all the right accomplished author shit (borrowing from Kate), and yet I’m still living a full and healthy life as a functioning husband, and not a writing zombie.

Colby finishes her post with encouragement:

Editing counts. Revising counts. Outlining counts. Writing that dreaded book description counts.

The only thing that doesn’t count? Ignoring your book and denying the world your art.

There you have them, your marching orders. Now go move forward today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I read you, Kate. But for now, I’m going to drink my mocha – four shots, thank you – and write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Pram

Pram is my new character. He emerged out of nowhere while I writing “Long Summer”, a sequel to “Returnee”. 

I love Pram. This is a guy who used modern technology to make himself into a replica of the Colossus of Rhodes, because he was fulfilling his father’s encouragement to think big. Remember, this is science fiction.

But Pram and his evolving story didn’t fit into LS. LS itself was losing coherency and consistency. Floundering, I was looking for a life preserver but today’s rough waters kept throwing me about. I couldn’t find any orientation. Change was needed.

I decided to jettison LS. I would instead focus on Pram. But what was Pram’s story? I have a character I enjoy with nowhere to go.

Donning my writing gear, I headed out. The coffee shop is two miles away, my normal walk. I’d been eschewing it with the 100+ degree weather these past ten days but today is cooler. The night fell to 52F and the day is expected to rise only to 93F. It was 70F when I set out. Walking always helps my writing, and I was desperately in need of something now. Instead of taking the direct route to the coffee shop, I headed in another direction, guaranteeing I was adding another mile. I needed it.

“What is Pram’s story?” became my walking mantra. “What is Pram’s story?” I thought of what I’d already written about him, and what I’d written about LS, and my original intentions about LS and why they were no longer working. Then I went back to Pram’s background and what I’d established about him, again, and back to LS. I wove back and forth across a loom, looking for the yarn. Then,

Eureka.

With a mile remaining to the coffee shop, direction pierced my fog. Suddenly I knew, ah, this is what happened to Brett, and this is how Pram fits in, and here is the novel’s direction.

So it’s cool for today, thank the walking and writing gods. Back at the kb, drinking mocha, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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The Wormhole in My Mocha

Got a quad shot mocha for my writing drink today. The baristas are so earnest about their art. It’s become a habit for me to play critic with the outcomes.

Shannon finished my mocha with a central daisy, with two hearts rising on either side. Cool. I complimented her work. They always brim my drink so I always take the first swallows at the counter before walking away. This time, after doing so, I looked down to see how the art had changed, and discovered a worm hole, such as you’d see in Star Trek.

I pointed it out to Shannon. “That totally does,” she answered. “Are you going to use it in your next story?”

I laughed. “Of course.”

“I want royalties.”

I laughed more. “So do I.”

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