Short Story: The Unfortunate Story of My Creation

April 9, 2012 in Story | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Summary: I was born because my master did a very unfortunate thing. And oh, how we all suffered for it.

Photo by Bruno Caimi

I was born because my first master did a very unfortunate thing. It is possibly the worst thing that a man could do. It drives him to wicked deeds that forever stain his hearts — if he has fortune on his side. At worst,he sacrifices the lives of those around him, tossing them aside like little more than a sandal with a broken strap.

My master was wicked to start with. When his father died, he left my master with a small castle and a few hundred acres of land. He led his people with a clenched fist harder than iron. He led them into war. He spared no one that could possibly threaten him, with their words, their deceitful actions or their swords. People were either his tools or nothing in this world.

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On My Former Misconceptions About Setting

March 26, 2012 in Setting | Leave a comment

Victorian Tailor at the London Museum

When I first started out writing, much less seriously than I am now, I thought setting was just long flowery descriptions of something dumb. Like a chair. Oooh, the chair was ebony and straight with four legs and a wooden back, and against the wall, and under a picture, and blah… and blah… and double daggedly blah.

Like plot is what happens, and character is how they act and react, and theme is… not something you have to worry about unless you’re writing crazy literary pieces that nobody ever reads, setting was just where things were. And really who cares if the chair has four legs? Most chairs do. It really wasn’t as important as say, characterization. (Plus, when you read a lot of stuff that says how all important character-driven plot is, you tend to focus on characters and plot — not that I’m making excuses.)

I could kick my younger self now.

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Author's Guide to Web Analytics – Campaign Tracking

March 19, 2012 in Writer's Tools | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Photo by mxruben

The last time that I seriously tried sharing my blog posts by Twitter, it seemed like I was sending my posts out into an unforgiving blackhole. I used BufferApp, which contains analytics for tracking how many people click on your link, but it was discouraging… to say the least. I’d see a click… but then what? Did they immediately regret clicking? Did they look at other posts? I would check my Google Analytics, but the click wouldn’t be there!

Only a portion of Twitter traffic happens on the web. Twitter, Facebook, and other social platforms have so many new ways to access them — whether from a desktop program like Tweetdeck or a mobile app.

Google Analytics (and most every analytics program currently existing) can’t figure out where that link is coming from. For all that it can tell, that visitor typed in that URL by memory. It looks like Direct Traffic, so it reports it as that.

Adding an extra campaign tracking parameters to the URLs that you tweet will fix that. The parameters tells Google Analytics explicitly that the visitor came from Twitter, or whatever you set. Once I implemented this and started tweeting my posts again, I started seeing that people did actually read my tweets, and wow, clicked on them to visit my blog.

And when promoting a book (and using a landing page to do it), campaign tracking will provide you with golden information on where to focus your efforts. Which social network results in more visits? Which social network clicks through the store most often? (Which is a topic for another day.)

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Featured Creature: Vampires – Sparkly, Bloodsucking Butterflies

March 5, 2012 in Mythological Creature | Leave a comment

I found him. Quite by accident, but I found him. I bet you didn’t think he existed. That you thought they were first. The missing link. The beginning.

The very first sparkly vampire!

Beef from Phantom of the Paradise

I have no problem with sparkly vampires. It’s perfect for branding. Whenever you hear “sparkly vampires”, you think “Twilight.” (Whether you think “yay Twilight” or “oh god no Twilight” is another issue.)

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The "404 Creature Not Found" Error in Urban Fantasy

February 27, 2012 in Mythological Creature, Setting | Leave a comment

Photo by Jan Messersmith

A character just said: “[This Creature] doesn’t exist.”

Blink. Gasp.

[This Creature] could be demons or ghosts or leprechaun. I’ll refuse to believe. Okay, I’ll believe leprechaun don’t exist, but anything else is fair game.

The author doesn’t make a character say this to build the tension. Oh no, demons can’t possibly exist — except they do and we have to come to grips with it in time to save everyone. Or a demon can’t possibly do that — except it is doing that right now and it’s killing everyone and can we go and kill it now because it is happening and people are dying.

Nope, the author is drawing the line to build their world. Vampires exist, incubi exist, but demons? Nope. That’s just human superstition.

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How can you see the dark if there is no light?

February 20, 2012 in Character Development | Leave a comment

photo by earl13

If you had turn to black magic at the cost of your soul to save lives, would you?

That’s one of the themes in Kim Harrison’s Pale Demon (Affiliate Link). Mind you, I’ve only read the one book in the series, and it’s not the first.Add that to actually finishing Laurell K. Hamilton’s Kiss of Shadows (Affiliate Link), and… well, there was a connection, and it’s not just these two books.

It’s a common theme. Why not? It’s such an easy source of conflict for main characters. They’re supposed to be strong — but are they becoming too strong? The protagonist can worry that she’s becoming a psychopath (she is), but she finds herself forced to take evil actions to defeat the bad guys.

She has to use black magic or the demons will win. She has to kill people to save others. She has to do naughty things to save the world.

That “has to” keeps her warm at night. She worries but always has this justification on hand. She has to be dead inside, or evil win. She can’t possibly do anything else, unless she wants everyone to be tortured, raped and killed.

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Write or Post? Develop craft or platform?

January 21, 2012 in Lessons I'm Learning | Leave a comment

Photo by Alvimann

Authors need author platforms. That’s how they sell books, especially for self-published, and that’s how they network and stay motivated and talk to other writers… well, the main benefit is to sell books.

But is it really necessary? Is that the best approach?

I haven’t been especially motivated to blog lately, mostly because I’ve been working on actual writing (and now have the Buffy and Angel series, but that’s neither here nor there). Then I start to worry – if I don’t work on my blog, I won’t get readers which means I can’t sell my first book when it’s finished.

Keep that in mind as you read the arguments going through my head.

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How I Use Pinterest for Writing

January 4, 2012 in Character Development, Mythological Creature | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

So I tried to think up a new character, starting with their species. I didn’t want to go with anything too standard… like kitsune. Kitsune has become my standard first-thought creature, even before vampire and catboy. You know me, I always want to try something new.

And I couldn’t think of a darn one. My mind utterly blanked.

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Hey, I Actually Achieved Something in 2011

January 3, 2012 in Lessons I'm Learning | Leave a comment

First Draft Revision on God Cursed

In 2011, I resolved to write at least 30 minutes every day. I hoped, by the end, I’d have… well, something. A proposal-ready book, a rough draft, pounds upon pounds of short stories. Okay, mostly a proposal-ready book.

Technically, I failed on that resolution. I didn’t write every day. I did, however, accomplish my goal in spirit!

See, I know I’d have a whole stack of rough draft or better novels if I’d just write continually. In the past, I’d go on a writing spree, lose interest, and quit for months on end. I didn’t improve because I didn’t practice and I had nothing to show for myself because I didn’t write. I felt terrible because I wasn’t a naturally brilliant writer. I had all these dreams — but where was the action? Where was the getting it done?

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Thirteen Japanese Superstitions

December 10, 2011 in Mythological Creature | Leave a comment

Photo by Kittenpuff1

Every culture has it’s superstitions (even the ones that balk at such things). Some of them can be really fun, and others… not so much. With number thirteen for example, you could match it with a low birth rate that year.

And why thirteen? Just because it’s an unlucky number ;)

 

 

 

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