I do not. But as worried as I get about offending people, maybe I should!
I try to be respectful when writing about races, genders, and cultures beyond my personal experience, and do the best I can when it comes to research. I think I would probably consider a sensitivity reader or two if I wrote a book with a protagonist that was non-white and/or non-American.
Naming characters can be hard, even when they’re one-off side characters. This is even more true when you’re writing in a series, because every name you use… you can’t use again. Or, at least, you shouldn’t. Hell, even using the same first letter too often can create confusion for readers.
Ask me sometime about how long it took me to notice the “J” problem in Grant Wolves (Joey, Jon, Justin, Jessica, Jenny, Jack, Julie, and Jim—fortunately better known as Harding).
Okay, don’t ask me. I’ll tell you. It took me four books and a character spreadsheet to truly appreciate the scope of that one.
A lot goes into choosing a name at times. Sometimes, the name reflects a bit about their origins. Colt, for example, is a very southern name. Colt is from Texas. The Grant siblings (Samuel, Jonathan, Benjamin, and Josephine) all have old-timey names because their parents were 100+ years old before they were born. Emily, the witch without magic in my Secondhand Magic series, has a very plain name while her siblings (Daniel, Juliet, and Liam) have somewhat more dignified ones.
And sometimes, you just need a name for a random side character that may not appear again… but you don’t want to give them an awesome name you might want for a more evergreen character, and if you start re-using names, people email you to ask if that was the same Tim from book whatever.
Then there is the real-life connection problem. If you give a character the same name as someone you know, they tend to assume you named the character after them and should have something in common with them. For example, Matt, Emily’s ex-boyfriend and current bff. My husband is also named Matt, and he found it a little strange that I named my protagonist’s gay ex after him—but I didn’t name Matt after him. I named him after another Matt in my life—who is also not gay, but is one of my best friends. (I call him my Platonic Life Partner [PLP].)
Another worry? Using a character name that have become synonymous with an infamous character in another work. For example, I would never name an urban fantasy protagonist (especially a wizard) Harry… which makes me wonder: Which came first, Harry Potter or Harry Dresden? Hmm. Looks like the first Harry Potter book came out in 1997, and the first Dresden Files was in 2000. Interesting. The more you know!
I mentioned my spreadsheet earlier. I have a massive one for Grant Wolves (and a smaller one for Secondhand Magic) that contains the details of every character I’ve introduced, be they recurring or one-offs, so I can avoid future mishaps as much as possible. I didn’t create that spreadsheet until book 3 or 4, and that led to some amusing anecdotes, such as using the same last name for two recurring characters that weren’t related—which shouldn’t be a big deal. I mean, there are probably six million Smiths out there. But when it comes to fiction, when names get reused, readers have questions. I want readers engrossed in the story, so I avoid anything that throws them out of it.
Maybe I’ll make it a running gag in Secondhand Magic that every other Pueblo woman Emily meets is named Maria. That couldn’t possibly go wrong, right?
Don’t quit writing. In fact, write more.
Keep going until you finish the story; don’t let it languish unfinished on your hard drive.
Don’t be afraid to let others read what you’ve written—no one improves in a vacuum.
I threw this up on Facebook earlier this week, but I figure I might as well toss it out here too. I’ve put a few review copies of Ghost Magnet up on Booksprout, and there are some still available!
So, if your book budget is tight right now due to the pandemic—or just life in general—head on over to Booksprout and claim a copy of my latest release for the low, low price of an honest review.
If you don’t already have a Booksprout account, you’ll have to sign up for one. Don’t worry, it’s free. Booksprout is a great place to find books to review. I know quite a few indie authors who use it.
I sat down with the lovely Melissa Banczak of the Books Cubed Show recently to catch up and read a couple chapters from Ghost Magnet.
Check it out here: https://youtu.be/JPyOOEVaCrU
If you like what you see/hear, follow Books Cubed on YouTube or your Podcast app of choice for more interviews, raves, and reads!
Thanks for having me, Melissa! It was a pleasure to chat with you, as always.
I’m still working hard on Grave Rites, the sixth and final installment of Chris and Joey’s story. This book has been a long time coming. I started it, tossed it, rebooted my outline and started again, set it aside for a few months…
Yeah, it’s been a beast to write. It’s going to be worth it in the end, but I think I have more blood, sweat, and tears in this one than anything else I’ve written. People sometimes ask me if I’m going to be sad to move on, and I don’t know what to say. Right now, it feels like I’ll be so relieved to finally be done that I won’t have time for anything else!
They’re not all a piece of cake, that’s for sure. But I think the one that stands out for me on an emotional level was a eulogy I had to write for Grant Wolves #4. (No spoilers here!)
I’m blessed in that I have yet to experience the loss of someone incredibly close to me, so the scene was hard to write in part because I hadn’t experienced that kind of grief myself. It was also difficult because it got me thinking about the people in my life that I love and how I could lose any of them at any moment.
I cried a little while I wrote it, but I think I got that emotional resonance on the page, too. It helped that the character’s last words—which I gave absolutely no thought to as “last words” when I wrote them—were particularly poignant.
I spent far too much time last weekend trolling for something to watch. It turns out, my Netflix queue is pretty dark, and I wasn’t in the mood for anything too grim. I ended up picking up The Magicians again, which is a show I have a bit of an on-again off-again relationship with. Whenever I come back to it, I fall in and wonder why I kept putting off watching it.
In case you haven’t heard of The Magicians, here’s what IMDB has to say: “After being recruited to a secretive academy, a group of students discover that the magic they read about as children is very real-and more dangerous than they ever imagined.” That… sums it up rather nicely. I wish I’d thought to check IMDB for the other shows I summed up awkwardly. What can I say, long form is more my thing. 😉
I’ve tried watching The Magicians when it airs on Syfy, but as you may recall from a previous post… weekly viewings are not my favorite way to consume TV shows. So, I tend to wait until a new season pops up on Netflix to catch up. I’m not sure how long Season 4 was available before I realized it, but apparently Season 5 wrapped up this month, so… I’m a bit behind. I started watching Season 4 but after few episodes ended up rolling it all the way back to the beginning of Season 1.
Watching the pilot, I remembered how I stopped and started it a few times, having trouble getting into it until the very last scene… which completely hooked me. If you’ve ever tried watching The Magicians and couldn’t get through the first episode, I urge you to try again. Watch it all the way through, and if you still don’t want to advance to Episode 2, then the show may not be for you.
There’s something about re-watching a series you like that’s almost magical, especially if it’s been a while. I discovered I’d forgotten so much of what happened that it was almost like watching it for the first time again. And yet, I still noticed things that I didn’t pick up the first time around and reasons behind things that happened that I didn’t quite get before, probably because there were long gaps between binges.
But I think the thing I like most about The Magicians is it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Sure, it can get tense, but there are quips and pop culture references that make it entertaining, relatable, and relevant. If I had a nickel for every Star Trek or Game of Thrones reference… okay, I’d probably have about a dollar. But they do pop up. The show is also inclusive, with one of the principal characters being gay, and it doesn’t shy away from depictions of love between men. (Granted, poor Eliot sure has bad luck when it comes to love.) It also has a unique magic system involving mathematics and hand gestures that is super cool.
In the end, The Magicians may not be Emmy-winning television, but it is one of my favorite shows. And I’m glad I discovered two new seasons waiting for me when I needed something a little lighter. (Not that it doesn’t get pretty dark at times, but there’s always light to be found somewhere!)
Counting works in progress for current series (as of April 2020)… four.
One is the first novel I ever wrote, which may never see the light of day. It’s about a man searching for his missing wife. The fact that she’s a vampire and he’s not just makes things all the more complicated.
The other is a second Dean Torres novel, which may or may not happen some day. If you want to read one, let me know!
Okay, technically this is what I was watching until I accidentally caught up to where we’re at in the current season. All I have to say about that is: I’ve come to loathe episodic time-gated television. Netflix has spoiled me. I like to binge entire seasons. As a result, I tend to fall behind on things that air over the course of a traditional (outdated) season of programming and catch up on them once the season is finished.
Alas, this time I was… impatient? More like unobservant. I don’t find Outlander to be completely riveting, but it does have its charms. (And by charms I mostly mean Sam Heughan with his shirt off. And the accent! Shiver.) I mean, there are reasons why I stopped reading the books, and I suspect I’ll probably lose interest in the live action version once we get to that point too. But for now… I’m still on board. For infrequent subscribe-for-a-month-and-binge sessions.
So, here I am. Caught up and waiting for the next installment. There are only 2-3 episodes left in the season, so it’s not like this is going to drag on indefinitely. But it still sticks in my craw.
Outlander. Okay, so if you just crawled out from under a rock… Outlander is a historical time travel series involving a woman who travels back in time a couple hundred years. While she’s there, she ends up meeting the love of her life and they absolutely do not live happily ever after. That’s why I’d never call Outlander a romance. I mean, the relationship between Claire and Jamie is the foundation of the show, but the story gets so much bigger…
And that’s where the original material lost me. I was all in on Jamie and Claire and their story against the backdrop of history, but as the story got more complicated with trying to also tell a secondary love story (I won’t spoil anything) involving another pair of time travelers… it started to lose me. It lost me even more when a certain side character came of age and earned himself a POV. Sigh.
One of the things the show/series does well is take some of the romance out of time travel. By that, I mean, the characters recognize just how dangerous the past really is, how it lacks all the conveniences that we take for granted, like running water, medicine, and not having to grow our own food. There’s a lot of hard work involved, and fortunately our heroine(s) aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Still, it doesn’t seem to bother them as much as you’d think. Why? Love.
I’m not sure there ever was red-headed highlander compelling enough to get me to stay in the 18th century. It’s dirty, it’s scary, and it’s a lot of damn work. I have enough trouble motivating myself to do the minimal tasks that are required of me as a modern day human. What if I had to carry all my laundry down to the creek to wash, and then back to the house to… hang it out to dry? Ugh. What if cooking dinner meant growing the vegetables and butchering the pig first?
Yeah, I am so spoiled. And not just by Netflix.
On average, it takes me about 2 months for the first draft.
With that said, every book is a little bit different, and some take more or less time than others. The Grant Wolves books often take a little more time because they trend longer, with most clocking in the 80-90k range, and because they require a bit more coordination with Joey and Chris both vying for page time.
I am fully capable of writing 50,000 words in 30 days (thanks, NaNoWriMo) but I find that my quality is better—and the editing process goes more smoothly—when I set a more relaxed pace.
I met someone once who felt they had to preface a lot of statements with “No offense, but…” At the time, I found it amusing because a lot of the things that followed that little disclaimer were fairly innocuous and unlikely to cause offense. But I remember thinking that throwing that out there before saying something truly offensive to someone probably wouldn’t help. It’s like saying, “I’m not racist, but damn those n-words.”
That’s just an example, for the record. Not something I actually think. But the fact that I feel a need to explicitly tell you that was just an example and in no way reflects the views and opinions of yours truly underscores what’s on my mind today: I worry a lot (probably too much) about offending people.
Oddly, that worry doesn’t seem to extend to my writing all that much. That’s fiction. My characters aren’t always politically correct. The cuss and fight and make poor decisions and have their own ideas about everything. Where it crops up for me is where I’m speaking or writing for/as myself, whether that’s here in this blog, on social media, in an email, or in person.
I used to go out of my way to avoid talking about anything of substance on Facebook. Politics? Nope. Religion? Hell Heck no. After the 2016 election, I told myself (and my Facebook friends/family): No more! I’m going to speak my mind and champion the causes that are important to me. Period.
Did I? Eh. Timidly. For a while. In the end, I just don’t like to make waves. I don’t want to get involved in those infamous Facebook arguments. I just wanted to look at cat memes and recipes and photos of family and friends living their lives.
Yesterday, I was preparing a promotion announcement for my author page. The theme of the promotion is “dead things.” Vampires, necromancers, ghosts, etc. I came up with something I thought was reasonably clever, but when I read through it again… I was suddenly plagued with worries that it might offend someone at a time when people are dying left and right of COVID-19.
“Mortality is overrated.”
“If death is a doorway, are you ready to see what’s on the other side?”
Is it good ad copy, or in poor taste? Where is that line, now or any other time?
I also ran into trouble with my recent post about The Handmaid’s Tale. The original draft had a reference to Mormon polygamists and child brides. But there’s more than one type of polygamy out there, and what consenting adults do I generally consider none of my business. And if I didn’t word it right, I’d piss off Mormons in general, most of whom do not practice polygamy at all.
Lather, rinse, repeat. This shit tumbles around in my mind like towels in a dryer, day in and day out.
If I tell you I like goth music, will you hold it against me? What if I hate dogs? What if I am indifferent to disinterested in Star Wars? What if I said Sting makes me want to claw my ears out? What if I prefer Pepsi to Coke? What if I read bigfoot erotica? (I don’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with— Gah, I did it again!)
No offense, but sometimes I hate being so empathetic.
Picked up a free 30-day Hulu subscription recently, and I’ve been using it to catch up on seasons 2 & 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale. I was skeptical about the show continuing past the original book, but they’ve done a really good job.
In case you haven’t read the book or watched any of the series, here’s a (very) brief overview: The nation of Gilead exists in much of what was once the United States. They are governed by the Commanders, Christian extremists that have established a new world order when it comes to the women in their country. Women are no longer permitted to read, write, or have jobs. They serve as wives, domestic servants, aunts (handmaid jailors/trainers), slave labor, or whores. And then there are handmaids, proven fertile women who are unfit to be wives for whatever reason but are still valued for their ability to bear children in a world where fertility has been in steep decline. Handmaids are assigned to commanders and expected to bear children for them to raise with their wives.
This may sound extreme. It is. The handmaids are imprisoned, reconditioned, and tortured. Their children are stolen from them. Anyone who steps out of line suffers horrifying consequences, including disfigurement and, for the worst offenses, death. But at its core, The Handmaid’s Tale is a story of the human spirit, of the bonds between mothers and their children, and of one woman’s refusal to be fully broken no matter what they throw at her.
I’m always impressed by shows/films that can bring me to tears. I don’t cry super easily, but this show hits me in the feels. It makes me angry. It makes me sad. At times, it horrifies me. It makes me grateful for the life and freedom I have, and keenly aware of how much I take for granted.
Women are still second-class citizens in some cultures. They’re kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery all over the world. It’s totally okay for men to beat their wives in some countries. Women are cruelly mutilated or disfigured for breaking religious laws. Even in the USA, women are frequently victimized by men in positions of power.
And I won’t even go into the rights and privileges that I, as a heterosexual woman, enjoy that the LGBTQ+ crowd don’t.
I don’t always like tv shows or movies that make me think too much. I show up to be entertained, and I’m not usually looking for deeper meaning or to explore the human condition. This one is a glaring exception. I think what troubles me the most is how easy it is to see parallels between how Gilead justifies its actions and the rhetoric I see flying around on the internet today.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily realistic that the United States could become like Gilead. But when it comes to giving up your rights… it’s a slippery slope. Be vigilant, ladies.
I’ve released a couple of Grant Wolves related things outside the core series, so in case you like to read chronologically… this is what I’d recommend!
What’s a funeral without a few extra bodies?
The Grant Wolves are still reeling from the loss of their matriarch, and Joey has some dauntingly large shoes to fill.
But when the funeral of the century becomes a fight for survival, can Joey and Chris keep it together while everything falls apart?
Buy or borrow Grave Legacy today!
P.S. Early Grave is discounted to 99 cents in celebration of Grave Legacy’s release. If you’ve been on the fence about diving into this series, this is an excellent time to test the waters!
I’ve been thinking a lot about cliffhangers lately. As a reader, I used to hate them. But over time I came to realize that I didn’t really hate them. If I could gleefully dive into the next book to find out what happened next, I was okay. What I hated was the long wait between books if I reached the end of an in-progress series, spending weeks, months, even years to find out what the resolution would be.
Then what did I do with Grant Wolves #1? I wrote a cliffhanger ending. I didn’t think of it as a cliffhanger when I wrote it. It wasn’t until I set some beta readers loose with it that I realized what I thought was a cool surprise was a total cliffhanger.
I published it that way anyway.
I’ve never regretted it. I was braced for backlash, but other than one semi-annoyed review the book was very well received. I still think it’s a great twist, and the book wouldn’t be the same without it. But I’ve shied away from cliffhangers since then. Grant Wolves #2 doesn’t have one. #3 almost had one, but the response from my critique partners was so strong that I decided to bump that scene to the next book.
Authors tend to fall into two camps when it comes to cliffhangers. Some say you should avoid them entirely because they just piss off readers. Others say they’re great tools to keep readers hooked, to make sure they want to buy the next book.
I think I lean more toward the “don’t piss off readers” end of the spectrum, but I can’t say I’ll never write another cliffhanger. I’ll write what the story needs, but I won’t go out of my way to leave readers hanging.
But, seriously, book one needed to end that way.
(Spoiler free, I promise!)
Had the good fortune to catch Ant-Man and the Wasp this week. Even though I’ve been a little burned out on superheroes, I enjoyed it a lot. I’ve been trying to nail down why, and I think I’ve figured it out:
The stakes are very high, but they’re also very personal—and not just for the protagonists.
This isn’t a “save the world” movie. There aren’t aliens invading or a powerful bad guy trying to conquer the world or unmake the universe. At it’s heart, it’s about family. It’s about decisions that come back to haunt you, and how they affect the people you care about—not to mention the people you didn’t even know.
I’m not saying it isn’t action-packed. It certainly is. But it’s character-focused in an extremely refreshing way. Even the antagonist is compelling, and not just because Hannah John-Kamen is amazing (which she is, and I’ll admit I’ve been nursing a girl crush on her since Killjoys Season 1).
In the end, it’s just nice to see a superhero movie where the stakes aren’t raised to comic (pun mostly not intended) levels.
I guess you could say that with Ant-Man they’ve never been smaller.
Today is July 4th, which doesn’t mean much outside the USA but it’s kind of a big deal around here. It was always a big deal for me when I was a kid, too. I remember family barbecues and going to watch the fireworks with my parents & cousins every year. We’d put the tailgate down on Dad’s truck, and we’d all pile in the back and joke about whether or not A Mountain would get set on fire again that year. (It did, more often than not.)
No, not just “a mountain” but the peak known as “A Mountain” to the locals on account of the giant “A” on it. Don’t believe me? Here’s a picture:
I didn’t know until just now that this peak is actually named Sentinel Peak. A Mountain had always been enough for me. Believe it or not, it’s not the only peak with a giant A on it in Arizona, either. Tempe Butte, which sits pretty much right in the middle of Tempe, AZ has a big A on it too.
Arizona, I tell ya. There are interesting stories behind both of these peaks and how they came to have A’s on them, but I’ll leave that to you to discover. I didn’t actually set out to talk about the Mountains A, that’s just where I ended up. (That’s kind of how my fiction writing goes too, more often than not.)
I wanted to talk about the Fourth of July. Independence Day. The day dogs don’t know they should fear until it’s too late and the big scary booms are going off. I don’t get together for family barbecues anymore, because I don’t have any family locally. My husband and I usually grill something (today he’s smoking pork ribs, yum) and when I start hearing the fireworks going off I’ll wander down to the end of the driveway to watch—a benefit of living a mile away from our town’s “Liberty Fest” site: I don’t have to do crowds or nature to get my fireworks on.
Anyway, the 4th is usually just a day off work, a day of rest, video games, and Netflix bingeing. This year, the 4th is a chance to catch up on writing (or write blog posts, ahem) and live my dream of working for myself for a day. I guess that’s kind of a celebration of independence, now that I think about it. Sitting at my favorite coffee shop in the middle of the week, drinking “freedom chai” and writing my ass off is a holiday tradition I could get behind.
Maybe later I’ll do something patriotic. For now, I should probably get some of that writing done.
Sometimes the calm after the storm is just the eye of the hurricane.
It’s official! Grave Threat is live on Amazon, available for purchase and Kindle Unlimited borrowing.
You might also notice that the first two books have received a bit of a face lift. Each has a new title and a new jaw-dropping cover. (Thank you, Covers by Christian!) They’re still the same great books, just in new packaging.
Grave Threat picks up a few weeks after the conclusion of Shallow Grave. A lot of things are still up in the air for Chris and Joey, but they’re starting to settle into something resembling normal life. Then an old enemy resurfaces, and they’re forced into action once more. Can they survive the road trip from hell?
Buy or borrow Grave Threat today!
P.S. Early Grave (Grant Wolves #1) is discounted to 99 cents in celebration of Grave Threat’s launch. If you’ve been on the fence about diving into this series, now is an excellent time to test the waters!
Okay, stick with me here. This one’s a little random, but I got to thinking recently: Which came first? Ambien (the drug) or Ambient (the music)?
According to Wikipedia—yeah, yeah, I know it’s not a trusted source but this isn’t exactly scholarly research here—Ambient music has been around since the 1970s, while Ambien popped up in the early 1990s.
Now for the best news of the day. One of Google’s little search widgets is an etymology one. If you enter “<word> etymology” in google, it’ll pop up some interesting info about the word, including its definition, pronunciation, origins and use over time. So, check this out:
Congratulations, now we both know the origins of ambient as a word. (Don’t worry, chances are you’re still only half the “word nerd” that I am.)
Now, as for use over time:
Well, would you look there? Started seeing a big spike around… the 1970s. Gosh, I wonder why. 🙂
P.S. Here’s a nice Ambient playlist to go with your Ambien:
Are you a Kindle Unlimited subscriber? If so, you’re going to love this news! The Grant Wolves series is now available in the Kindle Unlimited lending library. If you’re not a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, don’t worry. The series is still available for purchase on Amazon.
Now, let me take a shot at answering some questions you might have.
Why did I decide to take the plunge with KU? It’s very difficult (and expensive) for an author to build an audience in four places at once. About 90% of my sales have been on Amazon, and when polled a solid 50% of my newsletter subscribers self-identified as KU subscribers. So I’ve decided to focus on Amazon for now.
What does this mean for non-Amazon readers? In order to enroll in Kindle Unlimited, I had to pull the eBook version of these titles from other retailers. However, iBooks, Nook & Kobo readers take heart! You’ll still have a chance at book three before it goes into KU. Join my pack so you don’t miss out on that announcement.
Will these books ever be available outside Amazon again? Absolutely. My long term goal is to make my books available everywhere, to anyone who wants to read them. I’m not sure when that will be at this point. It might be when the series is finished, or maybe in six months, or a year. Right now, I just don’t know.
What does this mean for ARC readers? You’ll still get your ARC copies in whatever format you want, so you can load them onto any eReader.
If you have any other questions, feel free to comment below or reach out to me via email.
Is your daily commute killing you?
I don’t want to sound dramatic, but stress has been linked to all sorts of health problems, physical and mental. I recently came to the realization that a significant source of stress in my life is my daily commute.
For the last ten years or so, I’ve been spending roughly 2 hours per day, Monday through Friday, sitting in traffic. I’ve managed to turn an awful, boring, stressful activity into an opportunity for brainstorming and self-improvement (through podcasts on writing & publishing).
You know what? That daily drive is still stressful.
This week, I did something about it. No, I didn’t quit my job (yet). I started riding the bus. Austin has these great commuter buses that go to/from the ‘burbs. They’re more like riding a Greyhound than a city bus. It’s reasonably comfy and not as crowded as the train tends to get during rush hour.
Now I have an hour in the morning and afternoon to look forward to instead of dread. I can still listen to podcasts. I can still brainstorm. Heck, I could even write if I want to get ahead. I’ve taken these two hours of my life back, and said goodbye to all that stress.
I may not live significantly longer as a result of this small change, but I’m going to be a whole lot happier.
I challenge you to pick one thing that stresses you out and try to figure out a way to alleviate it.