Tapestry of Life - On the Road #3

Hey y’all,

Every time I'm on the road, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly friendships are bonded and easily untied - especially as the need arises.  There's something about traveling - being suspended from the day to day life of jobs, rent, bills, social obligations, community service, and established groups - that suspends the usual rules of how people interact with each other. Boundaries are lifted, discretion is almost an insult when making friends and forming temporary community from town to town.

I met Ann at the Amped Cafe in Homer, the day after I arrived in town. She's torn between career and more school, and which way to turn. There was an immediate bond that forged itself when she mentioned living in her truck, with a dog, and a Holly Golightly-style best friend that was halibut fishing with a new fling who "wore his mullet well," and thus, was currently unavailable.

What a coincidence! I'm also living in my truck.  

Ann talked me into doing a reading at the open mike that night to get warmed up for the Concert on the Lawn that first weekend. The next morning, she met me at 8:30 to help me set up my booth and was in and out every so often, as the need arose.

Hey, she got into the concert for free. After the weekend, she felt comfortable enough to let me stay in a tent outside the mullet-fisherman's house and I had a place to reorganize my truck and make coffee in the morning.

At the Concert on the Lawn, a volunteer named Lia offered to let me park my truck and sleep in her van with a double bed if I needed a place to stay. She was widowed from the love of her life two years before, and she had done her fair share of adventuring in her youth. She was also letting a young man stay on her property that was on a spiritual path of Buddhism and daily meditation, so it was really no big deal. But she felt the need to assure me that she wasn't coming on to me and that the young man was not her lover. 

When Ann moved on to Seward to look into a possible dream job, I gave Lia a call and after it took her a moment to remember me...

"Oh yes, the Scheherazade..." she said. (I totally dug that compliment) before giving me directions to her house. 

She got a little reluctant about using her van, but I had a place to park, and a kitchen to make my coffee, and an outhouse to do my business, and my body was scrunched again into my truck's proportions.

She told me her story, and it turns we have much in common.

"We are all interconnected," she said. 

If she ever comes to Juneau, of course she'll have a place to stay.

Ann's sweet dog was hit by a car on Saturday night and killed, so she left Seward by the time I got there and the Holly Golightly-style best friend met her in Anchorage. I doubt I'll see her much from here on out, but I have a couple of pieces of mail and her PO box key. I'm sure we'll keep in touch and all, but I suspect that Ann was my Homer friend.

So here I am in Seward to do table to table storytelling at the Resurrect Art Coffee House in Seward. I'm staying at the hostel and it feels like high luxury accommodation to be able to stretch out in sleep and have a place to put food.

This morning I was looking forward to coffee in the communal kitchen and writing in my journal when a born-again Christian wrecked the peace of my morning today when she had to tell me her story of giving her life to the Lord and how happy she was that she didn't have to be good enough to get into heaven, because God sent his Son to die on a cross for her. It's incredible that Christians never stop to think how sadistic and cruel that is... 

I felt my energy being sucked dry...dammit, I knew I should have kept my distance.

When I couldn't take anymore of her being saved speeches, I got up and told her abruptly that I had gotten screwed by the same system that had done so much for her, and would she please stop. She said, yes of course and we made banal chit chat and wished each other a good day.

I'm only one thread on the tapestry of life, and these intersections are only a moment and some are a part of beautiful patterns and others...are not.  

But then my thread runs on, as does theirs.

As Lia said, we are all connected.

Peace,

Montgomery

PS: This is the 3rd email from my DIY booktour roadtrip that started in the summer of 2005. Ann was the first friend I made on the road, and her sweet dog, Wiley, snuggled against me one night when I was feeling lonely and sad, and maybe a touch of anguish. As amazing an adventure as this was, there were some things that were going on in my personal life that weighed heavy on my heart. I realized Wiley could feel my pain and was trying to comfort me. Later, it hurt so badly to hear that that sweet dog had been killed (frankly, from Ann's carelessness), that I couldn't bring myself to include that moment in this email at the time I wrote it. I regret that. So better late than never that Wiley was remembered as the awesome being that she was. I hope that dog reincarnated to a more responsible owner. Wiley also proved the point of how all of us are interconnected.

PPS: I never saw Ann again, and we didn't keep in touch.

Writing Prompts! Come and Get 'Em!

Hey y’all,

Are you a writer? Or someone who likes to write?

Do you love fantasy?

Do you love fables and myths?

Do you love the idea of taking fables and myths in a different direction?

Did you like that prompt above?

If so, have a look-see at these bits of inspiration to get your creative juices flowing! Some are also rather pleasing to look at, if I say so myself. ;-)

Most of these are take-offs on myths and fables, but there are also two suspense prompts, and Rogue and Babe promise to make a romp of a romance – or a spoof of a romance if that’s how you roll.

The possibilities are endless…

FYI, these prompts are original and unconnected to my creative work, so use them however you like and enjoy!

Happy writing,

Montgomery

If only women would think like this more often...

The best treasures are intangible...

Scheherazade deserved so much better...

True love will challenge you...

Come on...run with this. I dare you.

Bloody murder mystery? Or suspense? Race against time!

I'd be terrified too if I had to rely on the police.

Great Expectations and the Death of Common Sense - On the Road #2

This 2nd email from my road trip journal is of the first event I did on a year long booktour roadtrip of telling stories and selling a book out of my rig - the Beast. Looking back, I can't believe my mindset. I really was half cocked and had no idea what I was doing! It is a huge regret of my life that I did not get any pictures from that time. These photos here are much more luxurious than what I had to work with at that time, but they evoke the "vibe" I was going for in setting up my first booth for my first attempt at DIY writer/storyteller glory. Enjoy!

Oh Expectation!

That enemy of common sense, I had a mighty vision of massive book sales dancing in my head as I drove my poor, little, injured Brown Beast to the end of the road - also known as Homer, Alaska. There was a Concert on the Lawn weekend event happening in a town that was known for its artistic hippies. It was my first stop. How could anything go wrong? I pushed my broken Beast to the limit to get there.

The bands were my first clue that my vision and reality were not in alignment. Many of the bands playing were the baby-faced offspring of the artistic hippies. Therefore, most people in the audience were...kids.

But, I get ahead of myself...

I made a new friend at a coffee shop. Something about living in your rig really makes for fast and furious bonding glue when you meet somebody who's doing the same thing. Ann had arrived in Homer four weeks before from Montana. She's one of those who always needs something to do, so Ann was more than happy to play the role of my lovely assistant in setting up the cheap Wal-Mart special that was my canopy, and lining it with silk tapestries and sarongs, and putting blankets and pillows on the ground, as well as scented candles to make our booth smell nice. The idea was to make our space more appealing to the passerby. Our master plan was that people would be lured in by the atmosphere, would want to come in and sit for a spell while I captivate them with stories about my heart-eating anti-heroine. My mythical audience would be so enthralled they would have to buy the book. Of course, they would. To find out what happens next.

It didn’t exactly work out that way.

One thing I didn’t consider was how loud the music would be blaring into my cozy, seductive, storytelling space. Kind of hard to create a mesmerizing-sit-down-and-chill-so-you-will-buy-my-stories vibe when the background music is the off key screeching of 14-year-old punk rockers. They might have even been twelve.

As the day passed, several people asked how much the sarongs were. Even though there were books displayed with price tags. Many commented on how cozy we looked as they passed by. One guy offered me ten dollars to sit under the booth while Laura Love was playing, if it started to rain. He did end up being my last sale of the day.

But that's not the point.

Three teenage girls came up to the booth and said: "Okay, we're gonna do it. How much for all three of us?" Fortunately, by that time, word came around that everybody thought I was fortune teller reading tarot cards, so at least I wasn't caught off guard. When I told the girls I was a writer selling a book, they sneered and walked off. These kids wanted face paint, exoticism, and angsty teenage punk rock played by kids who had been doted on by their parents.

Enough said.

A red-headed Tinkerbell who came to my booth, declared she had participated in

the love-ins of the 60’s. She said that's what my booth reminded her of. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but decided to take it as a compliment.

An artist/writer named Nancy said "Eeewww" when I told her what Ella Bandita was about. Her disgust about my character was not enough to repel her away from my booth, however. Nancy proceeded to tell stories from her own life, about how much she had gotten jacked. She took up all the space – physically and psychically – and managed to repel any people who came by and showed some interest in my booth and my book. Possible customers craned their necks around her, but couldn’t seem to fit past the chip on her shoulder. So they moved on. After a few minutes of me saying: “Thanks for stopping by, Nancy. Nice to meet you! And have a great day!” Nancy finally left, after telling me she didn’t like to receive hugs from “strange women.”

I hadn’t been inspired to hug her.

A very sweet Swiss guy named Remo bought a book on CD after buying the collection of stories. He is in Homer, living in his van and staying out on the spit. Really, the fellowship of homeless travelers is pretty gorgeous. The next day, Remo brought me people to buy my book. One dude he roped in didn’t buy anything, but he sold me the “Key to Art” for $50. This Key to Art was mixed with chocolate, so it would even taste better.

Day one. 10 “Ella Bandita and other stories” sold. 2 “Why Roses Have Thorns” and 1 book on CD of “Ella Bandita.” That morning, I had had grand visions of 50 books a day. That evening, I knew that was unrealistic. It’s good to have dreams, I suppose. But it’s not so good to be attached to them.

The 2nd day came with tempered expectations and a more reasonable sense of promise. A guy who had stopped by the booth at the Concert on the Lawn, and had shown interest in the book but didn’t buy it was at the coffee shop that morning. I was there to brush my teeth and recharge my battery with a frothing mocha. His sister prompted him to buy the book before I got the Concert on the Lawn.

Ann and I rearranged the interior to make it more open. People were stopping by for a reading earlier and things were looking up. Around 3pm, I noticed a common trend that much of the interest coming my way was not exactly from my target market. It seemed a lot of interest was from 55 year old men who wanted to know me better. I’m no complaining. At least, not really.

In all, I sold 22 books. One was an exchange with the Reverend Poor Child and his CD of love songs. I didn’t have the heart to say no to a trade. Within hours, somebody told me that the Reverend Poor Child was considered the bad seed in town, and to “stay the f*** away from him.”

Oh gossip! Oh small towns! A friend in Juneau who knew the Reverend Poor Child from Anchorage didn’t go quite that far. But she did say that he was a prick.

This is an adventure. I’m meeting lots of really cool people and having a lot of fun.

Miss y’all.

Montgomery

Ode to the Brown Beast, King of Resilience - On the Road #1

In 2005, I was extremely blessed to receive a grant from the Rasmussen Foundation in Anchorage, Alaska to self-publish a collection of original fairy tales and hit the road, telling stories and selling a book out of the back of my truck. I was on the road for a year. It was one of the greatest adventures of my life. I kept an email journal that I sent out to my friends, which eventually became a blog due to one of my friends being into it on Juneaumusic.com. I don't know if that site is still up, but if it is, my blog is not there. And self-publishing has changed a lot since then. We rely far more on the internet and more people are doing what I did now. Whereas no other writers were then. Anyway, it seems fitting as adventures in self-publishing continue to resurrect those stories from that time. Enjoy!

Ode to the Brown Beast
King of Resilience
(At least, I hope so)

Cursed be the blockhead that twisted the oil cap too
lightly,

The Brown Beast lost precious blood on the first run
of his long journey.

Clanking its death rattle into Tok, Alaska,
the rider of the Brown Beast was alarmed to
receive the news from a twelve year old with braces
that the Brown Beast would be lucky to make it to
Anchorage...

The Brown Beast would need bypass surgery, if not a
transplant...

"It's got an old heart, and old hearts get tired," 
said the shaman grandfather of the boy.

The boy offered to buy the Brown Beast, if the rider
cared to sell...

No, the rider most certainly did not.
Fear not! 

The Brown Beast rattled and rolled its way out of Tok,

determined to make its way to the City of Muck.

The death rattles wound down to an occasional clank on
slowing to a walk and stop, and the rider was
reassured. Sort of.

The Brown Beast made its way to the city, coming to
life when called upon to do its duty.

But the need for a doctor is imminent, if not
immediate...

Will the Brown Beast ride again, valiantly to the end
of the road, holding out for the Carnival?

Or is it a terminal case?

Either way it sucks that my emergency fund is needed,
oh... immediately.

At least I had a place to crash...

Peace,
Montgomery

Why Do We Pin?

Hey y’all,

It is overwhelming taking the helm and learning the steps of the social media dance that Jessica set up in the last four years. On one hand, I’ve never been a huge fan of social media. Yet, on the other hand, I use it in my personal life and I’m a little addicted – my partner would say I’m addicted A LOT. Be that as it may, I might as well use it for my work and work with it until I “get it,” which I really don’t right now.

I will learn a lot in the coming months. I’m pinning on Pinterest without a clear idea as to why I should do this. I’ve heard that it has helped with driving traffic towards my website, where people can find out I exist and about my work, etc. So I’m going through these images and pinning, without really understand what I’m doing.

Also, this lovely young woman I interviewed - who is likely to be the book designer for The Golden Pedestal - said she used to use Pinterest as a knitter, but she has found it to be full of ads and not as useful as a marketing tool. I'm scared she may be right, but I don't know enough to know that yet. So I continue to pin on a daily basis, and hopefully that will do something wonderful. And if it doesn't, I'm sure another social media site will come up and maybe I'll get in on that as the wave is coming up, not after it has peaked and crested and fallen down.

But I'm here now and I can see why people get really into Pinterest. It’s pretty amazing all the stuff I am finding there. In fact, it's fascinating enough that it’s distracting me from what I should really be doing.

Which is writing…

Any extra insights on how and why to use Pinterest would be gratefully appreciated. Thoughts?

Peace,

Montgomery  

Tiny Victory and Giant Satisfaction!

Hey y’all,

Something wonderful happened for me on June 30th and I’m so excited!

For the first time, somebody bought an ebook off of my website!!!

As silly as I feel getting euphoric over 1 penny less than a dollar, it is so thrilling to have made a sale off my website and not Amazon.

How did this happen? I look forward to the day when I won’t be certain of the answer to this question. But in this instance, I do know.

I was browsing a royalty free website for pictures that might work for a video I’m putting together. Yet instead of taking advantage of the free pictures, I donated a dollar per picture to all the photographers. As a writer who has done my fair share of giving away excerpts and doing storytelling for donations, I prefer to support other artists who are in the same boat as me. Any sale, no matter how small, gives me a boost. It gives me hope that maybe…someday…this will actually work and I will actually make a livable salary off work I love to do. Out of all the photographers who I supported, one came back to my website and supported me with a purchase.

It made my day! I was high off the sale, but it warmed my heart that another artist came back and supported me.

So to anybody who reads this and is tempted…well, go ahead and check out my ebooks and get the one that looks good to you.

Which ebook did the photographer pick? The sexy one. Of course. He picked “Challenge,” the ebook that is censored by Amazon because they don’t like sensuality and skin.

That also made me happy.

Peace,

Montgomery

How to Grow as a Writer (and Get Outside Your Comfort Zone)

No matter how hard you try, you can't stay in the same place. The thing is, you can either choose to let life's whims direct you, or you can grab the bull by the horns and see how you are at steering.

If you want to choose your own adventures as a writer that will help you learn more, grow more, and write more (and more better), you should be thinking about ways to push out of your comfort zone and give your creativity more room to wiggle.

I once heard someone talking about growth. He used an interesting metaphor: the lobster. When a lobster grows, he begins to push against his shell. It becomes uncomfortable.

Once the discomfort becomes too great, the lobster retreats to a safe place and sheds his shell, so he can regrow a newer, more roomy shell.

The process repeats.

Growth comes from doing things outside your comfort zone.

This post is all about how to break out of rut of familiarity and routine and into new realms of creativity, growth, and progress.

Routine is good. Routine is bad.

Routine, that thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, has you eat three regular meals a day (or six, like me), and has you brush your teeth before bed.

But routine, when it breeds familiarity and comfort, can be bad.

Creativity benefits from outside perspectives. If you go to the same cafés to write, or hole up in your writing space, you'll suffer from a lack of "fresh air" that can really blow your abilities up.

The fix?

Do | Learn | Discover new things.

You can change up the location of your writing space and see what new influences you can find to stimulate your story.

You can invest in a community college course that will inform you of new ideas, perspectives, and challenge old assumptions.

Make a list of all the things you'd love to do but don't have time for, and DO one of them.

Experiment with a hobby one of your characters has.

Dress like the opposite gender for a day.

Take a day trip to a town you've never been before.

Practice silence. Dedicate a day to complete silence. Even texting.

Read outside your genre. Love mystery and hate romance? Give a top rated romance novel a whirl!

You can come up with your own ideas for how to break out of your comfort zone. And when you do, interesting things will happen.

Leave a comment below with your own suggestion for pushing past your comfort zone!

How to Keep Motivation High While Working Alone

The writer's life is a lonely one.

Especially as a self-published author, you are your own boss, responsible for your own deadlines and schedule.

When you've got a new idea for a book, it's easy to get fired up and spend hours on end writing your heart out. But I've often found that many authors experience a slump in the middle of writing a novel. When all that brand new excitement has drained out into thousands of black marks on a page.

When difficulty sets in.

When you really have to start figuring out plot devices and how to reconcile issues, or even realizing that the tense is wrong for what you're about to undertake.

Or maybe life rears its complicated hydra-heads and you cut back on your writer hours in favor of focusing on your family, your work, or anything else.

For whatever reason, if you've found motivation and passion for writing isn't at the level you'd like it to be, here are a few ways to keep your motivation revving, even when you're feeling overwhelmed.

How to Keep Motivation High While Working Alone

Work Out Your Passion Muscles

Stephen King famously said that waiting around for your muse to show up isn't the job a writer. The job a writer is to write. If you show up every day, on time, and get down to work, you're doing the writer's job. But let's be honest, not every day is going to be filled with the same level of motivation and excitement. The key here is to not fall into a slump where you've been so unmotivated for so long that writing begins to feel like a drag.

Fact: your mood is made up largely by your physiology.

Imagine this: you're sitting at your desk, slumped down in your chair, neck forming double, triple chins where there weren't any before. Your fingers smack the keyboard sloppily. How are you feeling about your writing? How can you possibly feel anything but unmotivated, tired, and bored?

Now imagine this: you're sitting at your desk, feet planted solidly on the floor, your back erect and your chin jutting out as if you're a Royal espousing a new decree. Your fingers hit each key with confidence and vigor. How are you feeling about your writing? Even if your head is saying, "this sucks, I suck" you won't be stuck there for long. You can't be.

Harvard social psychologist Amy Cuddy has revealed that the way you carry your posture actually affects the amount of hormones in your body. You're not simply tricking your body to be more motivated, alert, and powerful when you adopt a particular body posture, you're changing your physical and mental landscape.

So the next time you're feeling lackluster about writing, try changing your posture to one that's brimming with power, energy, and excitement.

Practice this daily. As often as you can. Someone once said if you think you can go around your day feeling 80% unmotivated and disinterested, it's ridiculous to expect you can turn on passion and drive for the 20% when you really need it.

Bring passion and excitement into everything you do and it will spill naturally over to those more difficult tasks, like writing.

Enlist a Buddy

If you're finding writing alone is a lonely pursuit, and you'd rather not be stuck at home alone or in a noisy café anonymously plugging away at the keyboard, enlist a writing buddy or join a writers group. You may thinking of this as a non-option because working with a friend or in a group would mean you're too distracted, but if you establish a few ground rules at the beginning, like using the first 5-10 minutes to chat and catch up, and then 20-30 of uninterrupted writing time, you've successfully navigated that problem.

Writing buddies or groups can help you hold yourself accountable. You don't even need a physical buddy to do this. You can have a writer friend that you've met online hold you accountable by requiring you to send them x pages or chapters by a specific deadline.

Having someone else holding you accountable helps you not slack off, and can be a productive way to reinvigorate your motivation if you find it slipping.

Use Novelty

If your motivation is really flagging, change something! Your passion for writing has always been there, you know that. So when you're feeling unmotivated to write, just think: it's not me. Your environment can go a long way in affecting your motivation. Maybe you've been writing in your home office for the past few months and the routine environment is hacking away at your excitement.

To fix this, try switching things up, like working from a coffee shop, college library, or hotel lobby. I used to have a few specific places I could rotate through so that novelty stayed fresh and I wouldn't fall into boredom simply because I was too used to the locations I was writing from.

Novelty can work in other ways too. If you always write in the morning, try switching to writing at night. If you write on the computer, try switching to a notebook for a little while. These hacks can boost creativity and inspire you when you find yourself flagging.

Track Accomplishments

There's no better way to keep your motivation high than to acknowledge you're doing good work and making progress. After all, one you've written the book your ultimate goal is over. That moment of true completion is so brief, so your motivation better not be coming from the idea of having a book finished or you're doomed. 99% of your time is spent on writing, so your achievements are coming not by finishing the book, but by making progress.

Log your accomplishments at the end of each day and you'll be inspired to continue every day. After a while, those achievements are going to add up: 30 pages, 50 pages, 100 pages...so give yourself a boost of happiness by celebrating certain milestones you set for yourself.

Stay inspired. Stay writing.

Please share any other motivation tips you've used in the comments below!

Replyerotica

Are you ready to play?

The rules:

1) use one of the following prompts to begin your erotic tale. You can write as much or as little as you like.

2) send what you've written to info@freeflyingpress.com

3) We'll post your [attributed or anonymous] below the appropriate prompt.

4) Anyone can continue writing where you left off! Just browse the stories, write some more, and we'll keep adding!

It's collaborative erotica and it's a blast to play!

We can't wait to read & share what you've come up with!

The Prompts:

The continuation....

Author: Nonbinary Me

...he knew what I really wanted and I could see it in his eyes! I took flogger out and I could see he was excited. Lay down I tell him, NOW! Roll over! I start softly running the flogger up and down his bare back, then one flog on his firm ass, two flogs.... I know he was loving every minute of it .....

Send your contribution, short or long (size doesn't matter here) to info@freeflyingpress.com or using the form below!

How to Use NaNoWriMo to Write a Novel You Can Actually Publish

NaNoWriMo was established in 1999 to help writers get the damn words out. One of our biggest hurdles as writers is to simply write. So a bunch of people got together and said, you know what? This November is going to be the month where we get all those words out. One month, 50,000 words.

The thing is, if you participate in NaNoWriMo and you manage to eke out 20-50k words, what then? What do you do in December? January? How do you turn those words into a draft you can actually tolerate to read?

Because when you’re writing for NaNoWriMo, quality doesn’t matter. Just the word count. And on one hand that’s a valuable practice for a writer….I mean, you should be paying attention to quality, but at a certain point it becomes more important to get words out so you can test your ideas, your characters, plot...make sure all of that’s working reasonably well before you start fine-tuning the language.

Plus, NaNoWriMo helps you get in the habit of writing every day. Which is a practice that is essential to being a writer. Writing isn’t something you do when you’re inspired. It’s the job you show up to day after day, getting your work done.

So that’s the great part about NaNoWriMo. But here’s the clincher. A lot of writers find that once they’ve finished their 50k words, they have a novel. Without revising. Without letting those words sit in a cold dark drawer for months and months collecting dust, to be brushed off at some future date when your brain is clear from the wash of excitement and sweat and can actually be a little more objective when going through for an edit.

NaNoWriMo is valuable for helping you to develop your work ethic. NaNoWriMo is helpful for testing out your ideas and pushing through the hard moments of plot failure, character tweaks, and communication issues. It’s a caffeine fueled binge for your craft.

But you need to remember that you’re practicing a craft. A cabinet maker doesn’t just slap some wood together in the shape of a cabinet and call it good. There are all of the other elements involved: the glue and clamps and perfectly fitted joints, hours of sanding and finishing and sanding and finishing again. There are the finishing touches, the carefully picked out brackets and handles. No aspect of the work gets ignored.

Which means that NaNoWriMo is your time to get the words out, and the following months are used to hone the other parts of the craft: learning how to let it sit, revision, accepting critique, and editing.

These other aspects are instrumental in growing your abilities as a writer, and if you’re planning on shipping your manuscript off to an agent once you’re done, you’d better be sure you’ve followed through on these other steps.

NaNoWriMo Calendar to Get You a Bonafide Novel by June

December: READ other books

Reading is paramount for your success as a writer. It’s Stephen King, one of the highest grossing authors and a man who produces an insane amount of national best-selling books, who famously said, “If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all else. Write a lot and read a lot.”

If you’ve been grinding down to write your entire novel in the month of November, take December to catch up on your reading. Go as crazy as you did for NaNoWriMo. Set a goal, say, 10 books, and tear through them this month.

Reading other books will help inform your own writing. You’ll get ideas for how to revise your own novel. When you’re reading a well-regarded novel, you’re actually learning about writing from a master. So use this as a means to make your own writing better.

This month is also a time to let your manuscript sit in a dark drawer, away from prying eyes. You don’t get to read it. You don’t get to show it to other people...not yet. Distance yourself from your work (and from the rigor of the work) and let it simmer until you come back to it next month, in January, when you can read it over with perspective and a fresh set of eyes.

January: Revision

Your first phase of revision is your own. You still haven’t introduced your manuscript to other readers. Keep this round for yourself. Your head should be full of other people’s novels, so when you turn to your own you may better be able to hear rough patches or finicky plot twists.

February: Readers

NOW you get to show your work to some people whose opinion you respect. Ask them to read your novel and give you notes -- not edits; you’re not into the nitty gritty fine-tuning yet; you don’t care if you’ve misplaced a comma or if you have a tense out of place here or there. Just get broad notes on characterization, plot, language, dialogue, scenes, sense, etc.

Collect all your feedback and consider it. Many writers I’ve come across have a hard time taking in their reader’s feedback, feeling like their work is too precious, or the reader just doesn’t “get” the work, or any number of reasons.

But the truth is, as a writer, you’re not writing for yourself, you’re writing for them, for your readers. So if your readers are struggling with something, take a step back and pull your ego out of it and change the damn thing.

You’re supposed to pick writers whose opinions you trust, so there’s no reason why you should back out of that trust once you get their feedback.

March: Revision

Round 2 of revisions! Now that you have reader feedback it’s time to make those changes. Run through and fix what your readers have asked of you (as long as you agree, and you’ve taken your ego out of it!) and then run through it one more time reading your entire manuscript out loud.

Reading aloud lets you actually hear how things are sounding outside of your head, instead of locking you inside your own brain where things generally sound better and make more sense.

April: READ!

You’re almost done! So put your manuscript down and let it sit again in that dark drawer that’s becoming more comfortable and friendly by now. Read more books and learn more so that when the time next month for critique and final edits, you have more knowledge and more writers in your head to help you error correct.

May: Edits and Critique

This is your final round of edits, so instead of finding readers among your friend group, send this round off to people who are actual writers or editors. If you don’t know someone who is a professional writer or editor, hire somebody. You’ve just spent MONTHS working on a novel that you want to actually be able to publish? Spend some cash to get it professionally edited! If you believe in your work you’re making a worthy investment. If you don’t believe in your work, that dark drawer will be happy to hold onto your manuscript until you’re ready to grow a pair and make it good.

Make your final edits per your editor’s notes, give it a final read through, and accept that it’s not going to be or do everything you wanted. I remember Zadie Smith saying something like, “the best time to revise a novel is several months after it’s published.” You’re never going to catch everything; you’re not going to be 100% satisfied.

And hey, you’re still probably not done. Next month you’re going to send it off to agents and publishing houses and you’re going to get rejection letter after rejection letter. It’s likely going to take several months for an agent to want to pick up your work. Stick to it; learn from rejection. If you’re lucky enough to get feedback, incorporate that into your revisions and keep on sending.

If you're going the route of independent publishing, you can be sure that your work is ready for the public at this stage.

Following these steps may not seem as romantic as churning out 50k words for NaNoWriMo but they’re going to give you a manuscript you can be proud of, knowing you actually put in the work.

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Enter now to win our Fall Fantasy Romance Bundle and find new authors to take you on incredible adventures.

Enticing Blurbs to Tantalize Your Reading Buds:

To Conquer Heaven: by Felix Long

Jeremy Wang, an astrophysicist completing his PhD at Cambridge, discovers a clue to the secret location of an ancient tomb; the final resting place of Qin Shi Huang, the bloody-thirsty tyrant who in 220BC forged the empire of China from the total destruction of six ancient kingdoms.

Terrified of the fate awaiting him in the afterlife, Qin Shi Huang combined the emerging science of alchemy with the deepest secrets of Taoist lore to create the Elixir of Life.

The Emperor drank too deep and fell into torpor. And so he waits in his hidden tomb; the apex of an entire civilization’s art, science, and magic.

Fans of 80s action adventure cinema ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ and the Indiana Jones series will love To Conquer Heaven.

A Darker Shade of Sorcery: by William Collins

Evan Umbra is the newest Venator to enter Veneseron, the school for demon hunters, only demons are the ones hunting him.

A Venator is a wizard, a spy and a demon hunter rolled into one. They’re taught how to wield their sorcery and enchanted weaponry by orcs, elfpires and aliens alike. Their missions range from battling monsters and saving countless lives in the multiple worlds, to wrangling killer unicorns and calming down drunken yetis. Being a Venator is perilous and every new mission could be their last.

Whilst learning how to manipulate the elements, summon magical creatures and shoot Spellzookas, Evan encounters a dangerous rival and meets a girl who makes him feel nauseous; but in a good way. He makes the first friends he’s ever had in the carefree Jed and the reckless Brooke. Whilst Jed gets on the wrong side of a rival Venator, Brooke finds herself falling for the enigmatic demon hunter who brought her to Veneseron, not knowing he isn't quite human. But it soon becomes apparent that Evan is more than just a Venator. Everyone wants to kill or capture him, from demons to Dark-Venators and even people he’s supposed to be able to trust.

Evan reckons he probably won’t survive his first year at Veneseron.

Warning, this novel contains goblin soap-operas, elvish boybands and banshee bananas, read at your own risk!

Chase: By Elle Harte

The man you want is chasing you but everything about him ticks off all the wrong boxes.

Blayne Worthington thinks every man will end up like her ex and doesn't want a relationship.
Chase Cooper wants Blayne and even though he has a history of running away from relationships, he doesn't want that anymore, because Blayne is the perfect woman for him.
Will they keep running from their destiny or will they finally be able to trust each other long enough to let love heal them?

Exchanged: by Daniel Silva and Vanessa Mozes

Aubriel has always admired the esteemed paladin Elston, but when it comes time for him to choose between her and the treasure she unwittingly leads him to, he chooses the treasure. Elston’s betrayal puts Aubriel in the path of a powerful fey lord—Callannon Thray—whose invasion of her dreams assures Aubriel that he has plans for her. But she refuses to be used again. Unable to return home with the possibility of facing Elston there, Aubriel follows Lord Callannon Thray to a realm of great magic and even greater danger.

When Callannon arrives to defend his treasure, he’s surprised to find a beautiful elven woman already defending it for him. Aubriel is everything he’s wanted but failed to find in a fey woman—kind, honest, trustworthy—but there’s one problem: she’s mortal. When she agrees to go with him to the fey realm, Callannon has no choice but to hide her mortality to protect her from those who would use her against him. The captain of the king’s guard is one such person, and she won’t rest until she sees Callannon stripped of everything he has.

Among enemies and in the midst of political turmoil, Callannon and Aubriel must hide the truth of her mortality or risk Callannon’s ruin and Aubriel’s freedom.

The Bard Speaks: by Montgomery Mahaffey

Ella Bandita is a deadly seductress. Her peculiar tastes are for the hearts of men. She preys on those men who's concerns are only for themselves: the Gambler, the Rogue, the Charmer.

These are men who are greedy, womanizing, and proud. Yet when Ella Bandita claims her victims, she fires up rage in the people of the villages she plunders for licentious men. When Ella Bandita claims the Charmer, the women grow jealous and full of rage. They hire a Bounty Hunter to stop her thieving their men.

Ella Bandita is now an outlaw.

No wonder she's the Bard's favorite Villainess.

By the fireside the Bard weaves tales for the children of the village about Ella Bandita's conquests. How she makes one great man fall after another. He urges the children of the village to hold onto their greatest power. To always listen to their hearts.

Even with the Bard's warning, no one is safe. Ella Bandita is still an Outlaw somewhere. With such unstoppable power, will there come a man who can stand up to the infamous Thief of Hearts?

How to Make a Best-Selling Book Cover

What goes into making a book cover really stand out?

Among the best selling bookshelves of today’s book stores, it’s hard to determine what exactly pushes books to the top lists -- other than incredible reviews, marketing, and authors with hot names. But what if a book is stripped away of the other stuff -- what if you’re an indie author trying to make a name for yourself with limited marketing collateral and no big push from a publishing company?

They say don’t judge a book by it’s cover, yet that’s the very first impression your book gives off. What else is going to compel a person to pick up your book from the shelf and turn it over to read the blurb?

The book cover.

First impressions are everything in sales. If you’re going to convince a reader in 2.5 seconds whether or not to flip through your book on the shelf, you need to have a stand-out book cover.

There are different reasons people choose a certain book cover over others:

Mood

Some great book covers evoke a particular mood. Horror is a genre that does this quite well. Promoting feelings of fear by using dark or high contrast images, scratchy text, and the combination of red and black are at the top of the bag of tricks for compelling horror covers.

Matching your book’s mood to what the cover evokes is one way to grab your reader’s attention and show them the contents of the book before they even read what’s inside.

Many romance novels’ covers look exactly the same: some big muscular man with no shirt on and the wind blowing through his hair, often clutching a fair maid in his arms.

Do you know how many romance book covers Fabio graced? Hint: it's A LOT.

Why are they so often the same? Because it’s a style that works. It tells the reader what the book is (especially if we’re talking about generic paperback romance novels) and what to expect -- that it’s going to be similar to the other books the reader has read and loved.

How you can capture Mood in your novel cover

Create a Pinterest MoodBoard

Pinterest is a treasure trove for image inspiration. You can search for and collect images that reflect a certain mood, theme, or that revolve around a particular image, like a crystal ball or wolf.

You can follow my fantasy inspiration board here for some incredible pictures of sexy dark fantasy (hint: it’s my most popular board on Pinterest!)

Inspiration

Get inspired by other authors writing in your genre. Find covers that you’re drawn to and save them (either in a folder on your computer, or by using Pinterest).

Pull Key Themes

Bear down on your novel and pull out key themes from it. These can be general themes, like grief, forbidden love, vengeance, etc. Or they can be more nuanced, like reflections of a particular culture, musings about the end of humanity, or imaginations of the future.

Use these themes to direct your image search and your cover art.

Ask yourself, what is essential to convey?

From the moment your potential reader picks up your book, what do you want them to know about it?

Design/Branding

If images aren’t really your thing, the design and branding of your book cover can do a lot to convey the story to a potential reader.

Typography is an art unto itself. Similar to images, you can establish mood with typography. By themselves (and with a good eye for color to enhance this) fonts can set the tone for how your work is received.
 

Ruta Jamenis' designs for His Dark Materials on Behance.

Curiosity

If you don’t want to divulge your book’s secrets on the cover, you can use curiosity to pique your potential reader’s interest.

This is usually done by choosing a title that teases a reader into wondering what it means or how the story will unfold.

Like Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and Gone Girl, Paula Braxton’s The Witch’s Daughter, and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, titles can intrigue a reader and need minimal cover design to get the point across: you want to read this book.

Novelty

The last in the bag of tricks for how to get your book cover noticed is to use novelty. If you want to stand out, do something different!

There are endless books on the shelf that look the same. If you look at sci fi covers from the 1970s they all start to blend in with one another.

If you want to stand out, take a look at the styles of contemporary covers that are prevalent in your genre and notice what you can do to stand out.

For example, looking at these Sci Fi covers from the ‘70s I can see that a stark cover with no illustration and just bold text would really stand out. Or something that includes only a single element, like this one from Sylvan Neuvel’s Waking Gods.

To get your perfect book cover, don’t be afraid to try new things and constantly tweak the cover you’re working with.

For Ella Bandita and the Wanderer and its attendant novelettes I was lucky enough to work with an extremely talented artist BANE, who knew just what I wanted to convey.

We started with a concept for the cover for the novelette Challenge:

 

The Wanderer is faceless in both of these because we hadn’t figured out what he looked like.  But the ferocity of Ella Bandita’s 3/4 profile was so much more powerful as just a portrait. And oh Lawdy!  That pose! Too cool.

Just because I liked it didn’t mean we didn’t go through several iterations on the final cover.

Here’s what BANE delivered next:

Here, she’s in a huntress pose. But what is she hunting for? She looks very sexy, but the problem is she also looks a little too gorgeous. The point of the character is her animal magnetism. Here she looks like a supermodel. Or Michelle Pfeiffer in her prime.

I also don’t care for it that the characters are not interacting with each other. What does Ella Bandita have to look so fierce about?  Needless to say, I’m so glad I stopped BANE before he kept going!

We worked on character sketches next to catch the Wanderer's face:

And here’s the final version- surprisingly different from the rest:

This section of the book is about the Wanderer’s seduction of the Seductress herself, Ella Bandita. I wanted to highlight their interaction and show the reader the nature of the novelette -- you’re sure to find a sex scene or two in this one.

I pulled a scene from the book that highlights an unusual moment shared between the two characters. If you’ve read any of the Ella Bandita and the Wanderer novelettes, you know Ella Bandita is a badass femme fatale who seduces the worst men and claims their hearts.

But when she meets the Wanderer, it’s not seduction on her mind. It’s how to get rid of this annoying upstart. How does someone seduce the ultimate seductress and melt down her ice cold guard?

You’ll have to read Challenge to find out!

Social Media for Authors who Hate Social Media

If you're an indie author who abhors social media, like me, there are ways you can boost your online presence without making your stomach churn. How can you use social media to your advantage even if you hate being on social media?

Let's be honest, social media takes up a lot of time. A lot of time you could be spending writing. Or going on adventures, y'know, for fodder to write about.

But in this overly-connected world, if you don't have a social media presence, you're basically dead in the water. No one will hear of you. You'll have no huge base of raving fans.

You either have to learn to love social media, or poke at it from a distance with a stick.

I like the former option, which keeps my time free for writing, and the agonizing time spent on social media low.

Here are a few of my most effective tips for managing a social media presence without having to put in much work.

 Choosing the lesser of the evils

or, how to find the right platform for you

socialmediahate

If there's a platform that seems less vile than the others, by all means, use that platform as your sole social media. You don't need a twitter, facebook, instagram, pinterest, and goodreads account. You can cut the fat and just do one of them really well. This way, you'll be spending less time, stress, and frustration spread across multiple platforms, and you can more easily learn how to be effective at your one social media outlet.

Twitter

I learned that twitter, which is the worst of the worst in my mind, wasn't doing anything for my business. I would gain new followers, have some favorites and retweets each week, but none of that engagement was making any difference in my website views, or buys for my book.

Because twitter is the lowest converting social media platform (with a conversion rate of 0.5%) unless you LOVE twitter, or are a master at the 140 character sales pitch with a HUGE following, it's going to be the least effective way to spend your time on social media.

Goodreads

If you read a lot of books and like talking about it, goodreads is a platform that lets you engage with other readers and authors and promote your book in a non-salsey kind of way. You can host giveaways which gain you exposure, and you can enter review groups or find beta readers to help grow your amazon reviews. This isn't an incredible way to convert to sales, but it's awesome for boosting your online presence and gaining traction with amazon reviews.

You can also use goodreads to find authors who you can partner with in a webinar or email giveaway swap, so that you can expand both of your audience's together. More of a community than a sales tool, goodreads is perfect for you if you actually want to go deeper than other surface social media platforms, like twitter.

Instagram

It's hard to make instagram work for authors, but if you're on it, and you enjoy taking photos, you can use it as your social media outlet instead of the rest. Posting inspirational photos that remind you of a scene or setting in your book can generate interest in your novels -- especially if you're a good photo taker. You can caption an image with a compelling quote from your book. You can arrange your books with a cup of coffee and some items from around your house that are within the aesthetic of your novel, and drive people to the sales link. Or you can promote a giveaway through an image (remember, it doesn't always have to be a photograph - you can make a jpeg advertisement and upload that as well).

Instagram is actually a more versatile platform than you might thing for selling books, and there are lots of reader feeds and author feeds for you to follow to get more inspiration.

Here are some of my favorite bookish instagram users:

http://instagram.com/thebookpeople/

https://www.instagram.com/lilitslittlelibrary/

https://www.instagram.com/bookbaristas/

https://www.instagram.com/youngadultbookaddict/

Pinterest

This is the platform that I find has the highest conversion rates. Pinterest is an incredible visual marketing tool. I drive 80%+ of my web traffic from Pinterest. You have to have minimal design skills to use Pinterest so that you can create pins to link to your website, but this is easily done on Canva if you don't know a more designy program, like Photoshop.

Screen Shot 2016-09-06 at 1.46.55 PM

If you want the secret weapon for how to make Pinterest grow your fan base and lead to sales, I highly recommend Melyssa Griffin's course Pinfinite Growth. It will show you how to reach and attract your ideal audience, maintain motivation (cause even if you enjoy this particular bout of social media, putting it to work for you can be hard!), and how to raise your monthly page views.

Pinterest lets you target people who actually want to see your work -- giving you a higher chance of converting viewers in to sales.

Since I'm a visual person, I love spending time searching for new books and ways to help indie authors succeed. So Pinterest is a fun way to do that and build up my statistics so that I'm a formidable Pinterest presence!

Facebook

I have to admit, even though I despise being on facebook, I'm finding that it's a useful author platform to move from stage 1 indie author (who's just struggling to get the first book out) to a stage 2 indie author, who is focusing on cultivating a fan base.

Facebook allows you to connect with your readers. You can use facebook to host AMA's (ask me anything) where readers or authors can come to you and engage with you for an hour or so as you answer book or writing related questions.

You can host other kinds of events, like giveaways that stir up a comment and liking frenzy, or connect with another author to host a joint venture.

Facebook also offers ads that can be targeted to a particular readership, which leads to conversions. I'm just starting out with facebook, so I'm no master of it, but if you're interested in using this platform as your social media outlet, check out Nick Stephenson's free training for authors:

10kreaders

You'll learn a lot more than just how to use facebook, but, to be honest, this man has it down pat.

If there are other social media platforms you'd like discussed, or want to add a comment, chime in! I'd love to hear from you!

Want this post as a guide? Download the pdf!

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Not Sure How To Make Your Characters Come Alive?

Stand Out Books offers a great free investment for independent authors in the form of an email sign up. Once a week, they send out emails with the latest strategies to help you boost your sales and write better books.

Why we love them:

Stand Out Books offers insight into the mechanics of writing, publishing, and marketing indie books. They're humorous, yet their articles aren't filled with fluff. You'll get actionable advice that's easy to implement. Sign up for their email list and start improving your writing and make more sales today!

This week in my inbox came a nice little surprise with the subject line of: Not sure how to make your characters come alive?

Some people might thing they're beyond this...that they have no problem making their characters come alive. But feeling this way is limiting. We can all use a little more advice. Sometimes, I find it helpful to hear the basics over and over, from different sources, because each time I hear something again I get it a little more, or I find another perspective that I hadn't previously encountered.

Even if you feel like you're beyond this step in fiction writing, take a second to read through the article. You may discover something incredibly valuable that you'd otherwise miss.

From Stand-Out Books:

Not Sure How To Make Your Characters Come Alive?

There’s a secret to writing strong characters. It’s not about perfect dialogue, vivid description, or stirring emotion. Those are all important, but the most essential ingredient in making a character feel alive is an author’s insight into human nature. Without that, you’ll gravitate to stock characters and melodrama. Why do people do what they do? Why are their motives so often hidden and seemingly the opposite of their actions? What’s going on in their minds, beneath the façade they present to the world? What makes one person noble and another self-serving? And what role do a person’s backstory and environment play in shaping these aspects of their personality?

Read the full article here.

If you have other advice you'd like to share, please leave it in the comments below!

How to Write a Book Review

Book reviews are not all created equally. As a reviewer, you can gain raving fans who hang on your every word...if you know what kind of details to give them, that is. Want to know how to write better book reviews and earn followers?

Take Notes

When you're reading, keep a pencil handy. If you hate marking up the pages of your book, or if you're on a kindle, use a separate notebook. I like to highlight quotes I found particularly delicious, and make a general outline of the character relationships and plot. This will help you when you move onto step 2, which is creating a brief summary.

Often we read a book and then want to talk about it -- but can't remember the details. By taking notes you'll make it so much easier to jump into writing your review so that it's compelling, clear, and spot-on.

Offer a concise summary - but leave out the important details.

The best way I've found to do this is write the review as if it were a long-form blurb on the back of the book. You want to leave tension and mystery so that the reader will want to pick up the book and read it herself.

Look at the backs of other books and get inspiration for what kinds of information you could include and what you should leave out.

It's especially helpful to find a book blurb for inspiration that's in the same genre as the book you're reviewing. Each genre has its own way of appealing to an audience. Ie. a mystery is going to sound different than fantasy or sci-fi.

Putting a summary first lets the reader decide if they're interested in the book depending on the book's own merit, which is why I suggest leaving your personal opinion for after the summary.

If you start off saying "I liked it," or "I found it really dull," you cloud the reader's ability to decide for themselves whether a) they trust your opinion or not, and b) if the book's summary suggests the same.

Once you've laid out the landscape of the book, the reader can then seek your opinion. After hearing about the plot, what you thought about will make a lot more sense than if it came before.

Include personal details by explaining how the book as a whole affected you.

Was it fast or slow? Was the writing on point? Readers want to hear how you felt when you read the book. Once you've established credibility by writing a solid summary, you can offer your own thoughts about the fluidity of the writing or the stilted dialogue.

Be sure to temper your opinions and back them up with the contents of the summary -- you don't want to undermine your credibility by slamming the author when the summary seemed like everything was pretty good.

Go deep.

For a stand out review, go deeper than just stating the plot and how you felt about the book. Give the reader some tantalizing information by answering the question, "What really stood out?"

Character development? Plot twists?

Make sure your language is up to snuff. Readers judge reviews based on how well they read, so please please edit your review and make sure your grammar and spelling are on point.

Wrap it up with a strong call to action.

End by telling the readers what you want them to do. Kirkus review has a rubric their critics like to use:

Buy It = this is a can't-miss, fabulous book; Borrow It = not perfect, but we think you'll enjoy it; Skip It = critical miss

Follow this recipe for a review and you'll build up a stockhouse of raving fans in no time!

The Divorce of Vice and Virtue

Montgomery Mahaffey is the founder of Left Hanging, a half-hour radio show on KTOO FM in Juneau Alaska. Featuring folktales and fables from around the world – Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, the Arabian Nights, Norse Myths, Celtic fables, etc – Mahaffey hosted from January 2007 until August 2009 when she moved to Portland, Oregon.

Left Hanging opened with Mahaffey’s version of the tale of Scheherazade using storytelling and suspense to seduce and dissuade the King – who was rendered psychotic from the infidelity of his first wife – from beheading her at night’s end. Like Scheherazade, Mahaffey left the audience hanging so people would tune in the following week to find out what happened next. Besides ancient tales that have been told for thousands of years, Mahaffey also shared her original work – like the fable version of Ella Bandita and The Divorce of Vice and Virtue – as well as contemporary fiction.

Although Mahaffey found this form of storytelling to be a different experience from a live audience, she found it very rewarding and welcomed another way to express her love of the old myths and fairy tales that influenced her writing.

You can listen to a clip from the show here:

[audio mp3="http://freeflyingpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/02-Track-02.mp3"][/audio]

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