Writer Ramblings + Caylee Snippet!

I've been feeling a little  a lot write-ish lately and upped the word count on Caylee from somewhere around 95k to 98k...ish. This may sound like I'm a bit full of myself, but I've sort of forged this new-found love for my characters. Wait. Before you get your knickers in a wad, please try and understand where I'm coming from.

I built these people. From the ground up and with everything I have in me, I let them go and do what they needed to do. They're still doing it, as I've not finished book two, but it takes a lot to open up and share this secret part of me. Ask any writer. Your characters are part of you. And I can only hope that one day soon I get to share them with you and you grow to love them as much as I do.

Well....maybe not as much as I do. But somewhere around the vicinity of that much. That'd be cool. In the meantime....get into a bit of Caylee and Nolan in the beginnings of a fight scene below! Leave me comments!

“If you say so CJ,” he laughed and shook his head. It started snowing then, so hard that we couldn’t see through the front window. Odd, I thought to myself. It wasn’t supposed to snow until next week. At least that was what the weatherman said. Beside me, Nolan took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring and his body taking on a stiff posture. “Damn it,” he muttered as he reached over to the glove compartment with one hand and fumbled around in it blindly.
    “What?” I asked, becoming alarmed. He pulled out a weird amethyst colored stone and held it in his hand for ten seconds before handing it to me.
    “Tell me when it gets too hot to hold.” He offered cryptically and stopped the car, pulling over to the side of the road.
    “What? Why?” I questioned, trying to hand him the stone back.
    “Do you trust me?” his blue eyes were intense as he looked at me, making me afraid about why he felt he needed to ask me that.
    “I trust you.” I answered without hesitation. He nodded and reached out to touch my face once.
    “Good, come with me.” He held his hand out and I took it, allowing him to lead me out the car from his side. My feet hit the ground and I slid in the several feet of snow that had impossibly started piling up in the few minutes it had been snowing. “Careful,” Nolan whispered as he righted me. “Only step where I step and stay close.”
    I gave him a nod and let him walk away without asking him anything even though I felt like I’d explode with questions. I said nothing in the hopes it would enforce what I’d said about trusting him. Which was true; I trusted him completely.
    Hopefully not to a fault.
    Stepping only in his boot prints like I was told, I followed him. Though not as fast, as his legs were a hell of a lot longer than mine.
    “Nolan, wait it’s – ahh!” I dropped the stone into the snow, the heat from it melting the snow around it immediately. Nolan turned as I dropped my head and tore the gloves off of my hands to examine them. “It burned my hands! Through my gloves!” The palms of my hands were turning red.
    “Caylee!” I heard Nolan shout and I looked up in time to see him lunge toward me. I opened my mouth to speak and out of nowhere, I was hit in the chest and knocked back into the car. The cracking sound of my skull against the door rang in my ears as I slid to the ground, landing on my side in the snow that just kept building. Nolan was a streak of dark movement as he leapt at – A high pitched cry of fear pierced the air and it took me a few moments to realize it was mine.

Leave me comments and happy things :D

And I'll toss in some rainbow gifs next post ;)

MORE Updates + Worse News + Even More Tears

Putie, le broken laptop is still dead in the water. I'm afraid I haven't ventured to get her fixed/serviced BUT I am still hoping that I can salvage my work on it. Because if not....yeah. We're not going to go there at all.

Any-whoozle-bees...I did write my four star review for Prayer For The Dead...it got deleted from my mom's laptop. SO, I have to rewrite that and eventually get it posted up here. I have also read Endless Knight: book two in Kresley Cole's Arcana Chronicles and ohh. myy. gahhh. It was probably the best book I've read this year next to Poison Princess and Prayer For The Dead. Like, yeah. Those books are officially in my top reads of 2013. So I'm going to get that review posted as well.

OH, I will absolutely be doing a "2013 Recap: My Year In Books" post in about a week once work dies down a bit. And this time when I say a week, I mean seven days...ish. ;)

Also, Author Of The Month has officially been put on hold due to my lack of access to a computer. :(

One And Two Star Book Reviews: Useless?

Evening! Fancy seeing me here again, eh?

Anyway, I was involved in a heated discussion on a bookish page from my personal fb last night - and this morning - and the question was:

"Those of you who write book reviews, will you NOT leave a review if you rate it less than a certain number of stars? Authors, do you prefer that readers/reviewers not leave a review if it's less than a specific number of stars? What's the "cut off point" for you?"

I was astonished to see quite a few reviewers - some well known among the fb AND goodreads bookish circles - saying that they don't post reviews under three stars. 

What? Well, why the hell not? 

As a reviewer, is it or is it not your duty to inform me - the reader - of the contents of a book BEFORE I read it? Isn't your purpose to tell everyone how good - OR BAD, which was where the problem arises - this book was before I go and spend X amount of dollars and numerous hours I cannot get refunded on this beast? Why be a book blogger if the only reviews you post are for "good" books? How can you consider yourself a reviewer if you never have a negative opinion about a book you read? We know all of them aren't gems. We're reading bad books, too! And as the consumer - the most important person in this whole publishing/reading scenario - we owe it to the author to tell them whether or not their books need work. If we don't, they'll never grow and continue to write crap books.

Am I the only one outraged over this?!

I must be. Because when I mentioned that I don't descriminate between good and bad books; that they alllll get a review posted, most of everyone there almost shat their pants. You do everyone involved a disservice when you only post 4 or 5 star book reviews. Because to the unsuspecting public, it looks like you LURVE all the books you read. How am I susposed to believe the word of someone who doesn't dislike anything? We don't get to see that email you send to the author giving them your thoughts and critiques. We don't know any of that is happening. To us, you just look dishonest. And to be frank, your opinion on every book you've ever read has just been called into question. You've taken the honesty out of book reviewing. And I shant read another you write.

So, readers and reviewers alike, I ask you now.....would you review a book you rated less than three stars? And if not, why? 

--A.

Writing w/Your Reader In Mind

What exactly do I mean, you ask? I mean write a book you want to read. One that you can follow easily but it will still keep you wondering what's going to come next. One that will keep you on the edge of your seat wondering if s/he really will kiss her/him or whip out a knife yelling - SURPRISE! I'm the bad guy! One where - if you're into that sorta thing - the frigid and hulking vampire actually has a softer/secret side and knits little bunny mittens for underprivileged inner-city children.

Okay, maybe I took that a bit too far. My apologies.

But never one where you're reading one sentence and the very next one has nada to do with the previous. As the author, we know everything that happens in our books; we know that nothing is said errantly, everything means something in the end. BUT our readers do not. We can't have them playing too much of a guessing game during their reading or else their attentions will stray. Instead of reading, they'll stop and wonder what we mean or make up explanations of their own in their mind. And as writers, I feel it is our responsibility that any leaps in logic our readers have to make are just and not big enough to fit inside the grand canyon.

Thankfully, there's a somewhat easy fix.

Read. 'Tis all. Read lots and lots of books. Read great books. See how the words flow, observe how the author segues into different chapters. See what their grammar looks like and take note of their writing style. Read bad books so you know what doesn't work. So you know what you don't want your book to sound like.

Writing is not a sprint. It's a marathon. And how many times have I told you that you can't run a marathon without putting a couple band-aids on your nipples?*

Sorry, I was watching Horrible Bosses earlier. Kevin Spacey rocks. And Jason Bateman is one of the handsomest men I've seen in a good while.

Moral of the story: Take it slow. Your novel will not decrease in awesomeness or value if you spend more time to "perfect" it. Do your research, get to know your characters inside and out and TRUST in your own creative voice. That is the most important, I believe. You could write one of the most amazing and insightful books ever but it means nothing if you don't believe in it.

*Quote copyright to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.

Fraudulent Beta Readers?

Beta Reader - a person who reads a written work, generally fiction, with what has been described as "a critical eye, with the aim of improving grammar, spelling, characterization, and general style of a story prior to its release to the general public."

                        ^^^Straight from Wiki^^^

My take : someone who reads a WIP with the intention of finding and correcting grammar, punctuation, spelling and any mistakes/faux pas that may be within. 

What I expected: An unbiased someone to critique my work, tell me if it flows nicely. If the characters stay true to their personalities. Tell me if I made any grammar, spelling or punctuation mistakes and GIVE ME FEEDBACK.

What I got: Ignored from ONE beta reader who has not replied to any of my messages.

I've recently had a problem with one beta reader for Caylee. Or, at least it has the potential to be quite a problem. About six or seven months ago when I'd had all but the final chapter finished for The Descendant, I sent off a bit of the book to four or five different beta readers of different ages, with different tastes in reading to see if my writing better suited my target audience or if I needed to tweak some things a bit more.

Almost all of my beta readers responded to me with feedback in a timely manner. Two haven't but one of them, I've spoken to and things are okay there. For the one person who didn't contact me with feedback and still hasn't contacted me, things are definitely not okay. I've sent her two messages in the last week or so and one back in November. I haven't gotten a single reply from any of them. It will be seven months exactly tomorrow since I've sent the chapters off to her. Seven months is BEYOND ample time to read five-six chapters.

I've heard many a horror stories about an author's unpublished, copyright free work being posted on fan-fic sites being passed off as another's words and I am just hoping that is not the case with me. I knew this beta reader. Or at least, I thought I did and if this is even a possibility of what could've happened, I definitely don't want it to happen to anyone else. 

I know, I know. I should've been more careful who I trusted with my babies and should've only sent it to people I really trust. But, I made a mistake. An error of judgement on my part. One, I assure you, I will not ever be making again. I will not mention her name, because I believe it to be unprofessional and moot, to be honest. She has my chapters and if she decides to do something with them, then she will. I will, however, urge people to be extremely cautious when allowing others to read copyright free pieces of your own creation. People are not what they seem.

So please, please for the love of books, be careful who you ask to beta read for you.

--A.

Roadblocks =x

I find that once I'm in a writing rut, it's damn hard to dig myself out. With that said, I feel like I'm pulling my hair out trying to drag more than five to six hundred words out of myself. It is damn frustrating. And discouraging.

It sucks.

Also, I've stopped writing queries for a while now. For about two-three months, at least. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm trying to focus on a couple different things right now. I will be attending the Winter/Spring 2013 Semester at my local college and I still have TONS of things to do for that so I apologize right now for my lack of blog posts/updates. I think I've been successfully pulled from my reading rut, too.

Currently, I'm reading Glory In Death by J.D Robb. For those of you who may not know, J.D Robb is a pseudonym for Nora Roberts. The first in this series, I have to admit, didn't really do much for me. I didn't hate it but I wasn't in love with it either. The first book was published in the late 90's and as of now, there are 40-plus books planned for this series with no end in sight. For me, that is a bit excessive. How many books do I want to read about a Cop finding murderers in the year 2058 with her rich, ex-badass man on her arm? Yeah. I don't really want to read more than ten, to be completely honest.

Anysnooch, I'll update as much as I can. No promises, but I will try.  --A.

Writer's Block & a Quick Update

Recently, I've been going through quite a loooong bout of writer's block.

*DUN DUN DUUUNNNN*  Yes, I know. Booo, hiss and all that jazz. That being said, I do believe I've gotten over it. Or I'm pushing through it, at the very least. And I have to say that I am very pleased with the writing I've gotten done. It isn't much but, what I have gotten done feels like it'll be key to the progress of Caleb's first book.

The title of this series hasn't come to me just yet. However, it will include Death or some variation of the word, as Caleb will die once, if not more, in each book. I plan to have six books, but as of now, I do not expect this series to exceed seven books. Alas, things change and I may want to add ten more.

And now, a quick snippet of some of the things I've just written for Caleb! 

“Are you sure you want me to come upstairs, Caleb? I mean, I am Jailbait and all that.” She pulled the left corner of her bottom lip into her mouth then, her teeth making an appearance for the briefest moment.
    “Let me see some identification.” I’d leaned into the desk by now, putting my face about a foot from hers. She grinned full on and pulled out her wallet, sliding her ID onto the counter between us. I picked it up, examining it unnecessarily. I’d already known she was legal. I also knew she liked that I was a cop. “I think I’ll hold onto this. You’ll get it back in the morning.”
    “That’s assuming I’ll be there until the morning.”
    “Oh, you will.” Giving her my best charming smile, I pushed away from the counter and swaggered  my way to the elevators, closing the doors and riding it up to my floor. I had every confidence that she’d be knocking at my door in less than twenty.
    As it turns out, I was wrong. She made it in less than ten.