Guess what, my dears? The Black Parade is having another giveaway, and this time it’s the paperback version. All you have to do is enter here and you have the chance to win yourself a signed copy of my novel. It only takes a second.
Don’t be afraid to spread the word. You have until January 31st to enter. Enjoy!
Kyoko
So I finished the final installment to The Black Parade series a few days ago.
Hoo boy.
Prior to the third book, whose working title is The Holy Dark if you must know, I’ve written and finished three books–two novels and a novella. However, I’ve never written a series before and the first thing I have to say is, God bless the crazy sons of bitches who write long running series. I mean, seriously, The Black Parade series is just a trilogy, and I had the HARDEST time keeping everything in line. I think as authors we tend to take certain things for granted when we write. For instance, I didn’t realize just how long The Holy Dark was until I went through and began formatting it and doing the superficial edit.
The Holy Dark’s first draft is 168,197 words. Let’s do a comparison, shall we?
The Hobbit: 95,022 words
The Fellowship of the Ring: 177,227 words
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 190,637 words
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 198,227 words
Are you beginning to see my plight here? I’m nowhere near as good as the above authors, but my word count is approaching their glorious numbers and it’s slightly terrifying. However, when I researched word counts of famous novel series, I did notice a trend. They do increase in word count the longer on they continue, and I think it has a lot to do with the process of writing towards the end of a series.
As I wrote The Holy Dark, there were all kinds of things that I had to keep in mind to tie up by the conclusion of the novel. Jordan and Michael’s stories span three books, and several storylines intersect with each other. We also meet new characters in the second and third novels who also have their own lives and stories and backstories. It’s like balancing spinning plates after a certain point. The reason why The Holy Dark took me so long to write (I started it in May 2013 and finished it just after New Years) is because I didn’t fully understand what it takes to end a series. There’s so much material to cover. There are your individual character arcs, the romantic character growth between Jordan/Michael and Jordan/Belial, the series long arc of the battle between the Seers and the demons, the ramifications of what happened in the previous novels, and then the actual plot of the current novel. Does your head hurt yet? Mine certainly does.
Endings, to me, are usually a little easier than beginnings. The original beginning to The Black Parade was Jordan reliving the night she killed Mr. N, but two separate critique groups talked me out of it because action-heavy beginnings with no context tend to work better in movies than in novels. Thus, we had our quiet but tense opening with Jordan waking up and starting her day as a Seer. However, the ending to The Black Parade was pretty much set in my head in general terms. I knew where her character would end up. Same deal for She Who Fights Monsters. The Holy Dark’s ending was a vague concept in my head, but how I got there was nothing short of a doozy. This is the first novel I’ve ever written where the beginning was a lot easier than the ending.
For instance, the first draft of THD is actually the second draft. The first time I wrote it, I got to 50,000 words in about two months. Then I stopped, read it, and panicked because the pacing was dreadful. The plot stopped and started and coughed and wheezed and begged to be put out of its misery. Thus, I had a long chat with my writing sensei and he helped figure out why the novel had such horrendous pacing issues. I had so many scenes that I wanted to write before the series ended that the flow of the novel felt unnatural and stilted. I took everything back to the drawing board, deleted big chunks, altered the narrative, and started up again. I did well for several months and then the end of the year hit. I had so many hours at my retail day job that I missed my 2013 deadline because so much of the story had piled up that I didn’t have time to type it all out. My fingers just weren’t fast enough.
What I’ve learned over the course of writing this first draft is that endings can be difficult because one worries about satisfaction. Is the end of the series satisfying? Where does everyone end up after their three book long journey? What have they learned? What have they gone through? How has it changed them? Is the conflict real and personal? Is it something readers will relate to and cherish? There are so many expectations that consciously and unconsciously crop up when you read the final novel in a series.
For example, I’m not a fan of Mockingjay because it felt overstuffed and convoluted. I liked The Hunger Games the best out of the novels because it was succinct and profound. It also had much less of the Peeta/Katniss/Gale love triangle, which I personally find to be pointless. Katniss is not the kind of girl who needs to be torn over two boys. It’s quite clear that she has romantic feelings for Peeta, not Gale, and I worry that Suzanne Collins dragged the love triangle out for the sake of drama, and not because it needed to be there. Now, granted, I’m sure I will get the same criticism in the future because I’ve got my own love triangle going in my series, but I’m just being honest. Either way, The Hunger Games is still one of the best contemporary novel series of all time. I bring it up because my expectations for where the story would end up was way different from how it actually did. I don’t think that authors should pander to their audiences and fret over what they would enjoy reading, but I do think it’s part of the writing experience anyway. It’s what I struggled with during the epilogue of THD because I had scenes that I wanted to write that I felt the readers would enjoy, but since they weren’t plot relevant, I felt the urge to leave them out. After all, nothing gets people crankier than a too-sweet happy ending. I tend to lean towards bittersweet endings because they are more realistic. It’s the same reason why Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ epilogue is so controversial–a lot of it reads like lousy fanfiction. Being too saccharine in your ending can color the whole series. Hell, my mother and I discussed this last night with the movie Sweet November. We actually liked the movie itself…until the ending. The ending blew it. It just blew. It was a dumb, unsatisfying cop out. That ending ruined the entire experience and cost the people who made it a sale (I found the movie for cheap at a game store and thought about buying it, but then I remember that FUBAR ending and chose not to instead). It’s the same with novels. You can write something beautiful and emotionally crippling, but if you screw up the ending, it can poison your entire series.
Now compact everything I’ve said and shove it inside your ear. That’s how my brain feels right now. Endings are a pain in the ass. This is a shout out to every single author who has ended a novel series: you are incredible and I hope you know that with all your heart. My stories aren’t nearly as complex as something like George R. R. Martin or J.K. Rowling, and they somehow have endings. I will absorb these authors’ wisdom into my own body like an amoeba before I start the first round of editing.
The nice thing about being an author is that you can always change. You can move chapters around. You can delete them. You can expand. You can chase down new plot threads and character arcs and nail them into place. As a wise Autobot once said, freedom is the right of all sentient beings, and I think that is most true with writing. The Holy Dark kicked my skinny ass up and down the year 2013, but it taught me more than I think the first two novels combined. It’s scary to think I won’t be writing about Jordan, Michael, Gabriel, and Belial in the future, but these characters have been beyond fun to write over the past five years. I think that’s also why the ending was so difficult. I wanted to put them to rest with all the respect that I could because they’ve been keeping me company for so long. I suppose that’s sentimental (and borderline clinically insane), but hey, that’s how I roll.
Welcome to 2014, people. Big things are in our future. Stay tuned for more.
-Kyoko
“What do you mean 50 Shades of Grey out-sold Harry Potter?!”
This past week, a buddy of mine and I somehow got into a conversation about representation of women, particularly in science fiction and fantasy movies. At some point, he pointed out how sad it is that rape is too often used as an excuse to show how “evil” a villain is when in fact there are plenty of other ways to indicate it without demeaning women and dredging up unnecessary and unpleasant implications. This discussion really got me thinking about one of the most difficult hurdles I’ve been facing both writing and marketing The Black Parade.
First off, let me just say that I still can’t believe sexism is a thing. Seriously. Women are just people without penises. Why is that hard to comprehend? Anyway, moving on—one of the most commons issues in sci-fi and fantasy is the characterization of the fairer sex. It can fall short for several reasons—stereotyping, laziness, misunderstanding the traits that make women who they are, good old fashioned misogyny—and it’s not limited to urban fantasy, nor is it specific to novels.
For instance, allow me to make a really large group of nerds angry: I don’t like how George Lucas writes women. I truly don’t. I don’t think he’s the worst guy out there, but I actually spent an hour debating with my writing sensei about the characterization of Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark. For the longest time, I never understood why fans of the movies worshipped Marion and yet they hated Willie from Temple of Doom with a purple passion. I rewatched Raiders recently and I still found Marion to be a useless, shrieking harpy, and I find the fact that people call her an “Action Girl” insulting. She had exactly one useful trait and that was that she had the medallion. Otherwise, there was no reason to write her into the film because they never fully explore her backstory and so she has no personal stake in the story. People point out that they hate Willie because she bitches and moan at every opportunity (and she was doing the director and that’s how she was cast, which I get), but watch the movie again and count how many times Marion whines about something or shrieks Indy’s name. It’s kind of a lot. Plus, all she does is get rescued over and over again throughout the movie, and I don’t think that I should give her points for trying to escape because it still doesn’t make her useful or likable. She talks shit to the bad guys without being able to back it up and she has a serious attitude problem that made me want her face to get melted by the end of the movie.
Now, my Marion Ravenwood rant isn’t here just to enrage some nerds. I’m making a point. I think she was poorly written and executed, but I also think that Lucas did a much better job with Elsa from The Last Crusade. Consider this: she was beautiful, educated, motivated, useful, and cunning. She had her own thoughts and beliefs that were independent from Indy, whereas the other two girls just followed him around and did everything he told them to. She actively disagreed with him and even had the acting chops to trick him into giving her what she wanted. She was a slimy, selfish, ambitious hussy. And guess what? That was fantastic writing. Elsa was a bad girl, one of the worst, and that’s why I liked her. She was still gorgeous and feminine, but she was complicated and layered. With Marion and Willie, what you see is what you get. Not so with Elsa.
So maybe I’m not crazy about Lucas writing women. There are oodles of other beautiful ladies out there kicking butt, right? Of course. I’m proud to see the frothing sea of awesome women in fiction, from books to plays to anime to movies. Hell, I’ve even pointed out my favorite ones before. However, the reason why I felt the need to make a post is because we’re approaching some sort of horizon where the sexism in fiction is going to have to face a major shift.
I made a recent post about the importance of Katniss Everdeen both as a character and as a representation of a sadly underappreciated demographic of women. The current problem in our society is that for every fantastic, well written female protagonist, we have bucketfuls of awful ones. The fact that Bella Swan and Ana Steele will go down in history as two of the most profitable female characters in our history makes me want to Hulk Out and thrash someone Loki-style. Is it true that some women are doormats and hopelessly codependent? Sure. Should we be glorifying it to young, impressionable teens? HELL NO.
And while we’re on the subject, I’ll have to bring up another point that enrages me to the depths of my soul. The third installment to the Chronicles of Riddick series came out a few months ago. Did you see it? I bet you a nickel that you didn’t. Why? It was poorly done and no one cared because Pitch Black was perfect and didn’t need sequels. But that’s not my point.
The Mary Sue made an excellent article that pointed out how unacceptably misogynistic Riddick was and there were tons of comments supporting it, mine included. How is it that the writers/director wrote a movie about a bunch of mercenaries hunting a serial killer on a planet infested with killer aliens…and somehow came out with rampant sexism? The sole female character in the film is constantly verbally harassed by her male counterparts, is the only one to have a pointless topless scene, and contributes little to nothing to the overall story. Oh, and her name sounds like the word “doll.” If you’ve seen Pitch Black, this should make you absolutely furious. Richard B. Riddick is not sexist. Hell, the only reason he doesn’t leave Jack and Imam to die on the planet alone in Pitch Black is because of Carolyn Fry’s bravery and willingness to redeem herself. He actually sheds a tear when she sacrifices herself to save his life at the end. Are you kidding me? How could one possibly make a film so excellent and then write a sequel that is insulting to the very memory of the awesome female characters in Pitch Black?
My attempts to explain this phenomenon unfortunately bring me no comfort. The only reasons I can rationalize are (1) the writers/director decided that it was more important to pander to the He-Man Woman Hater side of the fanbase who thinks women are just things to be objectified (2) they failed to realize that writing a rapist into a story with only one female character makes you look like an insensitive sexist jerkoff. Rape is not to be taken lightly, and it is way too overused in the sci-fi/fantasy genres. There are other ways of presenting threats that don’t have anything to do with sexual interest. This is not to say that no one should ever discuss the subject, (it comes up in my work in small doses) but when it’s used for lazy purposes, it can be insulting to the characters and make the audience angry or uncomfortable. When used that way, it brings up the nasty idea that women can never be the equals with men because most men will never have to worry about the threat of rape unless they go to jail. There are plenty of differences between the male and female experiences. We are obligated as writers to explore them, but that is where the problem with equality in gender representation comes into play. Writing rape as a backstory should never be a shortcut just to squeeze a few tears out of the readers, nor should it just be an easy way to show that a bad guy is really bad.
One last distressing notion is women who are sexist against other women in fiction. It sounds confusing out loud, but sadly, there are a lot of female authors who talk shit about certain kinds of women whom they dislike for whatever reason. It’s time that I draw a line in the sand. If any of you have seen my Youtube series, you know that I greatly dislike the recent works of Laurell K. Hamilton, author of the Anita Blake vampire hunter series. I say recent because the first nine books, while not perfect, are pretty damn good. I grew up reading them. Then I got to Narcissus in Chains and it all came crashing down.
The problem with authors like Hamilton is that they think they are part of the solution when they are in fact part of the problem. For instance, in Cerulean Sins (the novel following Narcissus in Chains), Anita says that one of her clients is not a “liberated woman” because she prefers to be called by her husband’s last name and likes being a wife and mother. Anita’s vastly ignorant statement is not satire or criticism or a character flaw. This bitch actually believes that housewives aren’t “liberated women.” Let that sink in for a minute or two, and then please feel free to flood the author’s Inbox with hatemail at your leisure. In addition to that nonsense, Anita actively bashes feminine women (particularly tall blondes since she is a short brunette), and her author makes a point to show every other woman as either a psychotic kinky slut or a jealous whiner who hates that Anita has a huge harem of supernatural men who follow her around begging her to have awesome sex with them all the time. She makes sure that the male characters constantly dump undeserved praise all over Anita and the only time men don’t want in her pants is when they are gay. All of this is done in a vain attempt to prove how “tough” and “special” Anita is as a character, but all it truly does is make me want to take all of the books after NiC and have a bonfire out in my front yard with them.
Slut shaming is a huge problem in urban fantasy fiction where the female protagonists often have multiple love interests and steamy sex scenes. Sleeping with a bunch of guys can be ill-advised and dangerous, but there is no reason to try to reverse this problem by absolving a main character from any wrongdoing related to sex by making it forced on her by magic. Anita Blake is now a canon serial rapist thanks to vampire mumbo jumbo that forces her to bang her harem boys every day or she’ll die. She’s essentially a succubus with a serious chip on her shoulder. This is and always has been unacceptable. She’s nothing but a Straw Feminist. Hamilton builds up easy targets so she can mow them down with insulting, snotty comments that she thinks make her a feminist and a “liberated woman.” Don’t believe me? Watch the following.
The final point is this: the only way to combat sexism and misogyny in our favorite fiction is to simply speak up about it. Any authors worth their salt hungrily devour their readers’ comments, and if they are well-meaning authors, they can address these issues. Few writers go into a project wanting to make enemies. For the most part, they want their readership to be happy with what they’ve done. That’s why it’s so important to stand up for things that are generally awful like Riddick and Narcissus in Chains. That’s why it’s important for authors to read lots of material and recognize the signs of bad female characterization. It may happen by accident, but it’s still something that can be remedied. Everyone wants to be represented fairly. Women are no different. We’re fantastic and flawed. Write us that way.
-Kyoko
Hey, guys! The Black Parade is now entered in the Match Book program with Amazon. This means that if you bought the paperback version of the novel, you can get the eBook for just .99 cents! And just in time for the holidays!
In other news, I’m considering having a holiday giveaway for the eBook where you can get it for free on Amazon and Smashwords from December 23rd to the 29th, It’s my Christmas gift to you. Be sure to spread the word. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season.
Kyoko
This lady knows.
Self-publishing is a lot of things. It’s scary, exciting, and still in its toddler stages, stumbling around bumping into tables and giggling as it spins around in circles with a bucket on its head. However, with the rise of self-published fiction smashing through the bestsellers lists, there is also a huge section of mass media devoted to exploiting it. Particularly, the sleazy jerks who keep perpetuating myths about self-publishing in order to sucker new authors into giving them money. I’ve been a self-published author for almost five and a half months. I’m going to give you the skinny on some of the bullcrap I’ve heard from these snake oil salesmen in the hopes that it may someday help a newbie author avoid falling under their spells.
8. “You’ll be the next E.L. James!” Not that you’ll write terrible smut based on terrible teen vampire fiction, but your self-published novel will fly off shelves and sell a billion copies and you’ll be a household name overnight and you’ll have so much money that you can swim through it like Scrooge McDuck. Nu-uh. There are hundreds of websites and spambots out there lurking with links to teach you how to become a bestseller, but don’t you dare listen to them. What I’m about to say is disheartening, but it’s totally true: there is no magic bean that you can plant and grow your novel into a bestseller. There just isn’t. You’re going to be tempted by all kinds of Twitter accounts and blog posts that swear they can teach you how to become E. L. James, but while they might be able to help you get exposure, it ain’t gonna happen. There is no bonafide, 100% definite way to become a self-published bestseller. Get that thought out of your head first before you do anything else. Otherwise, it will only hurt you more.
7. “You can totally design the cover yourself. You don’t need a professional graphic designer or artist!” NO. STOP THAT. NO. *whaps you on the nose with a newspaper* This is just plain offensive to me. You know that old saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover”? That only applies to people, not actual books. Ironic, but true. Do not—I repeat, DO NOT—open Microsoft Word or Paint and fart around for two hours and claim that you’ve got a good enough cover to sell to people for actual money. You must be an advanced user of Photoshop, or any of the other massively successful art design software, in order to make your own cover for your book. I don’t care if you only write short stories or anthologies or autobiographies. Do not shortchange an entire industry’s worth of madly talented people by thinking it’s just a “do-it-yourself” project.
Most people choose to look at a book up close based on the cover. It’s all about your color scheme and who or what appears there. If you don’t believe me, check out your own bookshelf. Pick about five books and spread them out over your bed. Which ones did you pick? How did you notice them in order? Do you remember the story behind how you bought it? I guarantee that at least three out of the five books you pick were chosen because of a vibrant cover.
Your cover is like a tiny little boat you send out on the ocean. You don’t want a boat full of holes that is duct taped together. You want it to be sea-worthy. No one said you had to empty out your piggy bank and buy the most expensive, lavish cover of all time. You simply need to have a legit, eye-catching, professional cover. There are affordable options out there for you to use, so please, PLEASE use them. Nothing kills your chances better than a crappy cover. NOTHING.
6. “You don’t need an editor! You can totally self-edit!” NO. What did I say? *whaps you on the tuchus with newspaper* This is also very hard to hear when you’ve got shallow pockets and have lived as a broke ass college student for years. Many people think they are good editors. Many authors think they can catch their own mistakes. To quote our beloved Lex Luthor… “WROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!”
We are human. We have eyeballs. We also have a skewed perception of our own writing. If you’re a novelist like I am, when you read your own work, you often enter the state of mind you were in while you were writing the draft. This causes a phenomenon where your eyes will see what you thought you wrote, and not what is on the paper. This is exactly why experts like Chuck Wendig and Stephen King suggest either reading your work out loud or printing it out and following along with a red pen and your finger. If you stare a computer screen for a living, chances are, your eyes are filtering out a LOT of stuff. You’re never going to be able to catch all your own mistakes, no matter how talented you are, no matter how sharp your eyesight is, no matter how baller your B.A. in English Literature might be. Short of being a god, you can’t do it.
Authors are stubborn people. Most of them don’t want to hear this, but it’s the truth. However, the good news is that editing is also something that isn’t as hard to find as one thinks. The nice thing is that many professional editors and copy writers and beta readers are willing to work out a payment plan. You can have them edit sections and pay them for what you can afford rather than breaking the bank.
The only way to be a successful, professional self-published author is to present professional work. No matter how spunky and awesome your main character is, or how fresh your poetry sounds, no one is going to give a crap if you have run on sentences and dangling participles and comma diarrhea. Editing is your friend. Your best friend. Your hot best friend you have unresolved feelings for in your pants. Indulge them.
5. “Social media is optional. All you need to do is write the book and it sells itself.” Have you ever seen a television show that doesn’t have commercials for it? No? Then why in blue perfect hell would anyone think you can sell a book without marketing it? I know it sucks. I know it’s hard. I know it’s like screaming into a black hole. However, it’s necessary.
Without a publisher or a literary agent, you are the focal point. Every success is going to be on your shoulders, and thus, every failure will also be on your shoulders. Social media is often difficult and frustrating to navigate, but the reward is worth the trouble.
However, let’s take an aside and discuss the difference between marketing a self-published novel and hawking a self-published novel. Your goal is to create interest through conversation and engagement. You are not the old janitor on that Chappelle’s Show sketch going, “HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA I’M TRYNA HOLLA ATCHA BITCH DONCHA HEAR ME?!” That is irritating and it’s not going to get you anywhere. For unknown authors, it takes a year minimum to build anything resembling a following for your book, no matter what genre it’s in. There are all kinds of social media suited for your needs—starting with Twitter and Facebook and expanding outward to Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest, and Youtube. You have plenty of chances to test them out and see which one works best for you. It’s all about trial and error. Some people will run right out and buy your book. Thousands will pass. Some will put in on their shelf to read later. Don’t cry. It’s all a part of the game. If you write a good book and you take the time to learn how to engage people, you’ll get there. Be patient. Be stubborn. Believe.
4. “Reviews will pour in unprovoked. Just give it time.” So I’ve already mentioned how vital it is to get a good, professional cover for your book. It’s enormously important. However, one thing people sometimes gloss over is reviews for a book. This applies in particular to online retailers like Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and iBookstore. Most people who are considering whether or not to buy a book need a tipping point. This refers to a number of good reviews, or a number of reviews in general, that confirm their belief about if they want to take a chance on your book or not.
Sadly, lack of reviews is no reflection on the quality of a book. Neither is a surplus of reviews. (I mean, come on, look at how many reviews Twilight has. Jeebus.) However, it is still an important numerical figure that will impact your potential readers whether you like it or not. How do you fix this problem? Fortunately, it’s not impossible to find a solution.
The first step is politely asking friends and family to read and review the book. This may make you uncomfortable and insecure, but it’s usually the easiest way to get about three to ten positive reviews for free. After all, in the beginning, it’s about getting the ball rolling. If your friends or family members are hesitant, tell them they don’t have to be detailed– just write a paragraph about what they liked or why they liked it. Most of them will say yes if you ask for something that simple.
The second step is to find a database of book bloggers and book reviewers who review your genre and create a wishlist for yourself. Read their submission terms from top to bottom and choose the ones you believe will read and enjoy your novel. Do not create a chain email and blast them all. You will not get a response. That’s rude and disrespectful. If you expect them to take the time to read your book, you must take the time to ask them in a professional manner. This is quite time consuming to do, though, so it’s best to knock it out a handful at a time. Do a couple a day throughout the week. Some will not respond, some will say no, but some will say yes, and they are very important for the future of your work. If you get them hooked and you’re writing a series, chances are that you can rely on them to review your second or third book when it comes out. Brand loyalty is a good thing, trust me.
The third step is to then post your book somewhere where reviews are frequently read and are detailed, like Good Reads. Most people on Amazon will pop by and read the best and worst reviews of a product. People on Good Reads do the same, but they expect quality rather than volume. They expect to find out exactly what went right or wrong with the novel instead of a general overview of the contents that you usually find on Amazon or other book retailers. This is going to be a slow burn as most self-published novels tend to get buried underneath the traditionally published ones on Good Reads, but it can definitely help your book get a good reputation. If people see that it is shelved and positively reviewed a lot, chances are they’ll put it on their own shelf to read someday.
3. “You don’t have to get a professional website/blog. Any one will do.” Jim Butcher once said, “Keep conducting yourself like a professional, and you’ll get someone to believe that you are one. If you’re lucky, maybe even yourself.” Traditionally published authors have to conduct themselves like professionals (unless they are Laurell K. Hamilton, but that’s a story for another day…) in order to keep selling books. People take them seriously because they have well-made book covers, nifty Twitter pages, and easy to use websites. You should do the same because while you may not have a big, wealthy publisher backing you up, you still need the same prestige and reputation that is entailed with being a professional author.
Websites can also get expensive and painful for your wallet, but the best thing to do is start small. Start with any of the free web domain hosts and work from there little by little. Include all the things that make you interesting and back-link your social media to land on your homepage. The website will eventually become the central hub for your online presence. You want it to become a Launchpad not only for your book, but also for any other activities that you do as an author, and as a person. Creative people typically have more than one outlet, and your website is the best way to show people that you can do stuff other than write about pretty men and sarcasm.
2. “Your book is unique and that’s why it’s going to sell millions!” Take a note from Tyler Durden, babies. “You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile.” As harsh as that sounds, it’s also the truth. There is nothing new under the sun. Your novel is not the most original thing on the earth. I promise you that you can Google the plot of your book and find it’s been done somewhere else. Hell, someone might even do it better. But that’s not my point.
My point is, so what? Why should I read your book? Why should anyone? What’s your angle? Why should anyone give a rat’s left buttcheek about what you have to say? That should be your main focus as a self-published author—separating yourself from the pack. People don’t buy McDonalds because it’s delicious and nutritious. They buy it because it’s hot, cheap, and fast. That is what makes Mickey D’s different from the other chains. What you have to do is create that distinction as a self-pub author. You have to create more than just a great book. You have to create your own experience, your own brand, in order to draw in readers.
Think about your favorite authors, not their work, but who they are as people. How many of them do you know on a personal level? Are they funny? Are they quirky? What makes you care about them, and subsequently care about their work? These are the things that create longevity for authors both traditionally and self-published. If you can prove to the readers that what you have to offer is worth their time, then they will stick with you regardless of if your work is “original” or not. You have to connect with them in order to get your book in their hands. It won’t happen by magic fairy fart gas. It’s you.
1. “Anyone can be a writer, even you!” So most people in the world have hands with all ten fingers, and they can take these fingers and use them to scribble with a pencil, or pen, or the blood of children, and create something called writing. Technically, anyone can perform the act of writing.
But that doesn’t mean that they should.
Yes, anyone CAN be a writer, but not everyone can be a GOOD writer. One of the greatest lies self-publishing has taught the world is that anyone can write and publish. This is horseshit. Total butt-droppings of epic proportions. For as many beautiful authors as there are out there, there are a hundred-thousand hacks who will flood the market with steaming dung-heaps. I mean, Stephen Colbert did a segment on a section of published fanfiction that features human on velociraptor action of the sexual nature. So, no. Everyone can’t be a writer. Everyone can’t even be sane, let alone write.
This is where you come in. You will have to do everything you can to make a life jacket to help your book float to the top of the shit-ocean. No one said you had to be Stephen King, but you have to know the actual craft of good writing before you even attempt to self-publish. You don’t have to have a fancy edumacation or anything, but you do need to know the basics. You need to know about grammar and language laws. You need to know about story arcs and character development. You need to read awesome literature and then read terrible literature, and then understand what makes them different. Do this and you will be a good writer who sells books. Don’t do this, and Godzilla will creep up on your someday and ejaculate into your eyes. You can quote me on that.
And those are the biggest myths that I’ve heard as a self-published author. This subject is still on going, though, so I suspect there will be a part two to this list in the not-too-distant future. However, don’t be discouraged by anything that I’ve said. All that I intend to do with this post is set the record straight and keep new authors from falling into the Rancor pit. Pick up your light saber, young Skywalker, and prepare for your journey.
-Kyoko
It is with a heavy heart that I announce this to be the last day of The Black Parade’s virtual blog tour. I had so much fun I don’t want it to end. Still, everything must end so here is our last blog stop: Mythical Books. This time, there’s another guest post by yours truly.
Remember: you still have another week to enter the free book giveaway via Rafflecopter.
Thank you for your support. Welcome, all new followers. Don’t be shy. Read the posts and comment as you see fit. I look forward to seeing you all for my next blog post.
Kyoko
Holy crap. It’s November. NaNoWriMo is here. HEAD FOR THE HILLS.
Ha, that was a joke. You’re not going anywhere, writers. I’ve chained you by the ankles and now you have to sit and listen as Grand Master Kyoko tells you about NaNoWriMo and why you should be doing it.
For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a competition in which we write a novel in a month, starting on November 1st and ending on November 30th of every year. What do you win? A cool little button from the official website and eternal bragging rights.
Now, if you’re not a writer, you might be thinking, big deal, it’s just a novel. Uh, no, newbie, let me shut you up right there. It’s not a book. You have to write exactly 50,000 words in thirty days. And no, John Bender, I don’t mean the same word repeated 50,000 times. You’ve read a novel before. That entire story typically takes a writer between four and eight months, depending on what level they’re on. And they are expected to do that within thirty days so you had damn well better respect it before I box you upside the ears.
Back to you, writers. As it says on most of my author profiles, I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2011 and actually completed it. But I’m not trying to brag when I mention it—I’m trying to add some authenticity to this post. That crazy, painful month taught me a lot and I’d like to share it with you to give you encouragement on your first day of writing.
Writing is f@#king hard. Now, granted, you already know this, authors, but trust me, NaNoWriMo is going to enforce it like a bouncer outside of a sexy night club. You’re going to feel like Judge Doom at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit—flattened while you flailed and screamed in a high-pitched voice. It’s hard enough to pound out 50,000 words a year for a paycheck (or for nothing if you’re an indie author like me hahaha it hurts to laugh), but cramming all of that process into a month is going to make you want to eat a bullet. But you’re not going to do that. Tuck in your skirt, lady.
Writing is hard because it’s worth it. You’re going to have days when you write the full 2,000 word a day quota, and then you’ll have days when you write two sentences and then eat a bucket of Americone Dream while sobbing that you are a total failure. You’re going to struggle over character motivations and action sequences and witty one liners and it’s going to suck. You’re going to stare at the clock and wonder how you ever thought this was a good idea. You’re going to curse God and try to make a deal with Lucifer in order to inspire you to reach that finish line.
And you know what?
That’s a good thing.
It’s all about pacing yourself. This is also a concept that is infinitely hard for writers because the creative process isn’t like the scientific method. There isn’t a quota or a calculation to writing. There is no formula. It’s all free ideas flowing constantly through your brain and your soul. It comes and goes. But you don’t have time for that hippie stuff when you only have a month to write a full on novel. What NaNoWriMo taught me is to simply let go: let go of the perfect dialogue, the flawless landscape of the plot, the meticulous character details, all of it. NaNoWriMo is all about raw materials. A diamond isn’t beautiful until it’s polished, but it’s still a diamond. No one said you had to pull it fully cut out of the ground—you simply have to dig for it and you’re there. Your draft is going to be total garbage at first, but that’s the entire point. NaNoWriMo is dumpster-diving, plain and simple. You learn to dig through different piles each and every day. You’ll find some yucky stuff and toss it aside, but you’ll also find buried treasures that you never thought you could find.
There are also plenty of resources to help you with pacing yourself each day. To total up to 50,000 words in a month, you basically have to write 2,000 words a day, but that’s rounding up. There is an exact number of words (around 1,600 or so), but I think it’s healthier to aim for 2,000 because then if you fall short one day, you’ll still be ahead by a little bit. That way, if you have a long day at work and you don’t have time to write, you can realistically catch up.
Let go of your inner perfectionist. I feel like such a hypocrite saying this, but it’s definitely a hard lesson that NaNoWriMo taught me. I get my perfectionist habits from my parents—a business consultant who is working on his Ph.D and a registered nurse who works in case management, respectively—and they aren’t easy to kick. I take it ten times more seriously in my writing than in my real life, too. I obsess over every single word and where it is and how it’s phrased and how I can make it so perfect that publishers will bang down my doors and filmmakers will run up to me begging to make my book into a movie so that I can finally achieve my dream of meeting Nathan Fillion and marrying him and oh wait I lost my point back there, didn’t I? Ahem. I fret over my own writing day and night. I think I’m substandard. I weep that I’m not Jim Butcher. I read my favorite novels over and over in vain attempts to soak up their greatness and squeeze it back out over my own manuscript.
But you can’t do that in a month.
A month gives you enough time to map out where you want to go and then you just trail-blaze, like Miguel and Tulio. Don’t stop for all the little stuff. You have words to write. It’s like cutting through vines in a jungle—you’ll get stuck if you stop every five minutes to clean the mud off your boots. You have to let go of all the things that make you want to stop and edit and erase what you’ve written. You can’t do that. You have to accept your faults and move on because this is about the end game. You’re heading for that pyramid with the huge diamond on top. You have a goal and by God, you’re going to reach it and don’t let that crazy person in your head talk you out of it no matter what.
The reward outshines the difficult journey. First of all, don’t you dare get down on yourself if you are unable to finish NaNoWriMo. You are NOT a failure. This is one of the hardest competitions any writer will ever face, so don’t even think for a second that you are less of an author if you don’t complete it in time. I’m not saying this to coddle you, either. The truth is that NaNoWriMo has more than one reward. It’s not just about the bragging rights. Even if you don’t finish on time, there are still great things to gain from it.
First of all, you still have an original idea in manuscript form. That’s fantastic. Once November is over, you’re free to go back to being a regular crazyface author and you can do whatever the bloody hell you want with your new story. You can chop it up into bite sized pieces, you can make it into a series, you can turn it into a screenplay, you can do anything. That’s an incredibly liberating notion, isn’t it? All the rules no longer apply and you can take it wherever you want, including nowhere if you don’t like it (like I did. The Starlight Contingency was a one time gig and I have no plans to finish it, but it’s still great that I did it. But if you’re curious, you can read the entire thing for free right here: The Starlight Contingency.)
Second of all, if you do win, you can always look back on that victory no matter what happens in your future career. No one, and I mean no one, can take away that fresh, exhilarating thrill when you think about the fact that you condensed months’ worth of work into thirty days. Not everyone can write a novel. Sure, some hacks can fart one out and become bestsellers, but they didn’t do it in a month. You did. You’re awesome. You’re a god. You’re Elvis. You’re one bonafide bad mother sucker.
And after you do it, take the time to celebrate. Strut down the street like you’re a sexy piece of ass and don’t let anyone tell you anything different. You did something worthwhile and that very few people could ever do. That’s the real reward of NaNoWriMo. It’s a celebration of the writing process and celebrating the brave souls who do it, whether just for a month or a year or for their entire lives.
And that might sound corny, but I truly think that is why every single writer should try it at least once in their lifetime. Whether you complete it or not, you’re going to learn something for free.
Who doesn’t want that?
Good luck, my darlings. Open that document and get started.
Don’t worry. I got your back.
-Kyoko
Happy belated Halloween!
In celebration of the holiday, we actually had a few different blog tour stops last night and this morning. Here’s the round up:
The Writerly Exploits of Mara Valderran
Fang Freakin’ Tastic Reviews* (* There is an actual full review of the novel with this post instead of just a spotlight. If you’re interested in the details of the plot and character, check this one out for sure. She did a great comprehensive review of the entire thing and I have to admit I am humbled by her kind words.)
And as always, don’t forget to pop in another entry for the free book giveaway.
The tour ends on November 4, 2013. Thank you so much for the support so far. Stay tuned. It’s November, and that means National Novel Writing Month. Get your pens and paper ready, my duckies.
Kyoko
We’ve got an all new excerpt up for you at Roxanne’s Realm! Enjoy!