Painting With Light

2021 – A Year for Innovation

January 31, 2021

For me, and many other indie authors, the global pandemic meant no in-person book launches. No speaking honorariums. No presentations at book industry events. Last year had a very sparse feeling to it. So, to try and keep things moving, I explored virtual readings, interviews and presentations. It wasn’t the same, but it helped.

Many indie authors were knocked off balance, and 2020 might best be remembered as the year they began innovating. They need to carry a similar “can do” spirit into the new year. Because, until vaccinations take control of the global pandemic, it’s going to be important to jettison old habits and embrace ideas that may be new to most of us.

Also a Year of Discovery
Hopefully, with a little continued innovation, and a willingness to keep moving forward, we will discover new possibilities. One of the things I discovered in my conversations with other indies was how strongly some still feel it’s a detriment to be listed in online product details as “independently published.”

Some mask the fact that they’re self-publishing by creating their own publishing imprint because, like it or not, they feel there’s a bias against self-published books.

I disagree.

I think a well-written book stands on its own, however it’s published. Successful novelists don’t let labels, or the lack of them, limit their efforts. I don’t go as far as creating my own bogus publishing imprint, because it’s not worth the cost, time and effort. But I do make certain to register each book with the Library of Congress.

The hard part, after all, is in the marketing, since there’s no publishing house to use their 85% of the proceeds to foot the bills for advertising.

Explore Promotional Tactics
Recognize a good idea when you see it. Rather than looking at something and saying, “Oh, that’s a clever idea, but it’s coming from a nonfiction author, so it won’t help me.” Instead, train yourself to say, “That is clever. How can I use it to market my novel?” Reshape it to apply to your situation and you might be surprised by how many effective tactics are suddenly available to you.

Take it a step further and study how major consumer product brands handle marketing. Can you learn anything from them, too? For example, more and more consumer brands are showing social responsibility by aligning with causes. Can you build goodwill with your ideal readers by doing the same?

Get to Know Your Readers as People
When you invest time in meaningful discovery, you can also learn what’s happening in the lives of potential readers. This gives you insights and situations you can use to improve your stories so they resonate with your target audience. The more you know about your readers, the better able you are to write books they will love and…more importantly…talk about.

Shake Things Up in 2021
If you’re an indie author, remember, I’ve mentioned before your book must have a professional cover design that meets the genre style, professional editing and proofreading, and beta reader input for feedback on the story, characters and dialogue.

Vow to make the coming year one that sees you reaching new success milestones. Instead of talking about what you can’t do to market your novel, make a list of what you can do. Be open-minded. There are more options available than you might think.

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Gentle Readers, my books have all garnered some terrific reviews. You can see all of them by using the Amazon link below. Check them out. Better yet, buy one and read it. You just might like it.

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You’re invited to visit my author’s website, BROKEN GLASS to hear the remarkable radio interview about my novel “Blood Lake” on The Authors Show, or see my three local television interviews. You can also like my Book of Face page, find me on Goodreads, or follow my shorter ramblings on The Twitter.

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Comments posted below will be read, greatly appreciated and perhaps even answered.

Tags: award-winning author, award-winning writing, book marketing, indie writers
Posted in Award-Winning Fiction, Storytelling | 2 Comments »

Holiday Writing During the 2020 Pandemic

November 24, 2020

What? It’s Almost December?
When time becomes hazy and slippery, as it has for many of us during our almost year-long quarantine, it can stop being the primary force by which we organize our lives. Think about it.

Beginnings and endings, of just about everything, become harder to pinpoint, and our internal narrative structure changes. For instance, I sometimes have trouble remembering what day it is. Plus, I don’t sleep well enough to dream anymore.

I’ve noticed, however, that around here we suddenly seem to have a lot more dirty dishes.

So, when most everything is getting so muddled, what happens to writers, who depend on their imaginations?

Well, I started making lists just to have something to do. If you’re an author, and anything like me, you may also have started writing in short bursts and fragments, looking for different ways to tell a story. Hoping the muse would awaken.

Unfortunately, during many of these long weeks of quarantine, I didn’t write at all. I admit I’ve been very anxious about the larger situation, and watching news about it constantly.

I’ve mentioned before, I was working on three different novels before the pandemic hit. But, suddenly, nothing I was writing down was holding my attention. Worse, when I got stuck, I had no idea what direction to take to fix the problem.

Since I began writing in earnest, I’ve never had to deal with writer’s block quite like this before.

Good Advice
I’ve had one of my novels in my head for years. But the idea is still a big sprawling mess, made up of interconnecting parts that may, or may not, make any sense together someday.

My focus is scattered. My emotions are all mixed up. I’m cheerful, anxious, irritable, giddy, desperate, and optimistic, often in the same afternoon. My equilibrium gets thrown off by how everyone else in the house is feeling. And I’m tired, even on days when I’ve done almost literally nothing.

The best piece of advice I received was: “When you come to the end of it, what would you like to be able to say you’ve done?”

It made me realize doing something is better than doing nothing, so I forced myself back into the habit of writing every day.

I’ve always said, as a writer, when you have an impulse, follow it. But, it’s hard when your severely restricted physical space collides with overburdened mental space.

Now, with the holidays upon us, but sadly separated from family, that mental space seems even more crowded.

However, I went back to the novel-in-progress that was the most finished and looked over what I’d already written. Then, I started to read my research notes again.

I realized I’m happy with my book idea. It closes out a series. I’m not sure it’s going to work the way I hope, or be done at the end of the year, but there’s no way to know if I don’t try. So, bit by bit, I began to write again.

Don’t get me wrong. The dishes are still very much an issue.

But writing is more important than ever.

Keep going. We need you.

Have a safe holiday.

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Gentle Readers, my books have all garnered some terrific reviews. You can see all of them by using the Amazon link below. Check them out. Better yet, buy one and read it. You just might like it.

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Comments posted below will be read, greatly appreciated and perhaps even answered.

Tags: award-winning author, storytelling, writer's block
Posted in Award-Winning Fiction, Storytelling, Writers Block | 2 Comments »

Fiction in the Pandemic

November 4, 2020

Literary arts have long served as humanity’s means of processing reality. But as we reel from continued global crises, what stories are going to emerge from these odd and troubled times?

As our own reality changes, what happens to the world a writer imagines? With so many of the arts hobbled by the pandemic, fiction should be thriving. Unlike any of the performing arts, writing is a solitary profession, one that does not require the physical presence of an audience.

Even more than pursuits like painting and photography, which can require some collaboration, writing is best done in isolation. We have the ultimate “work-from-home” profession. But even as it is, by nature, removed from the world, much of fiction relies on realism, or some semblance of it. We call it “world building”…creating credibility for our characters and their lives.

But what kind of world do we build now?

This is only one issue facing writers in this difficult time. In addition to the common necessities of wrangling everything from child care and schooling to health care and shopping, not to mention worrying about a Presidential election, many of us have had difficulty concentrating.

The subconscious, where so much plotting and character-building happens, has been taken over for many by a silent, screaming panic.

I’m sure the current pandemic is spurring some writers. In two years, I expect a bumper crop of dystopian fantasy (as if we want to live this year over again). However, no matter what our genre, we face a choice. Do we depict a world in which people interact as we did so blithely only eight months ago? Or, do we try to set our stories in a world of Zoom conferences and masked, distanced meetups?

No matter what our conscious choices, reality is bound to seep in. One author I know has posted on social media about his latest manuscript. Drafted largely before the pandemic, he talked about revising it, and removing handshakes and embraces, at least between non-family members. He said these scenes now make him uncomfortable.

For me, the choice has been somewhat predetermined. When the shutdown came, I was already deep into the drafts of several new stories. Not only did it feel wrong to change the settings, even as our reality was changing, it felt antithetical to the purpose of my tales.

I also had a practical concern. One work of mine is the fifth (and probably last) in a series. I have another, darker book that’s a sequel to one of my well-received horror stories. I tell myself it’s neither wise nor fair to my readers to change too much at this point, even though their real worlds have changed as much as mine.

If I revise, like my friend is talking about doing, am I going to remove the hugs and handshakes? I’m not sure yet. But I have noticed another element of reality creep in, because I tend to right the world I create as I write it.

By that, I mean I try to resolve the obstacles my protagonists experience. However, this time around, my characters keep straying from the direction I thought the story should go. The real world has made it tough to keep my concentration as I write.

I’ve always claimed to start with a “what if” and let the characters tell me where they’re going. Now, as I struggle with writer’s block for yet another month, perhaps it’s because I no longer feel my inventions are that much different than reality.

Be that as it may, I voted yesterday, as I hope you did, and I’m waiting (not very patiently) for final results. I won’t get into my political leanings, but I’m sure this whole year would make one hell of a story…except no one would believe it.

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Gentle Readers, my books have all garnered some terrific reviews. You can see all of them by using the Amazon link below. Check them out. Better yet, buy one and read it. You just might like it.

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Comments posted below will be read, greatly appreciated and perhaps even answered.