Humans: They Amuse Me

April, my loves. April has come with all of its busy glory and I have to say that the front half of it has been impossibly full. For one thing, my hours at work were slightly beefed, I snuck down to Atlanta to surprise my best friend, Katie (Lady Alis of The Windy Side of Care), Easter happened while I was down there, and then I came back to play hostess and fundraiser and help my sisters organize, prep, create art for and throw a swanky soiree silent-auction to benefit our upcoming missions trip to Romania. All that to say, I have not written anything except people-watching sketches this month. I feel slightly bad for even admitting that until I realized that living life also qualifies as research. Meeting and appreciating new people helps one build realistic characters. Hashing through life situations with friends helps one understand and portray nuances. And I think we're all on board with the idea that travel broadens the horizons of one's mind an awful lot. So maybe April has been full of useful and unusual methods of research.

I am currently in the mood to ask each of you to drop what you are doing and start up a people-watching journal. I can't tell you what a treat it was to drag mine out on the flight from Norfolk to Atlanta and read back on all of the wonderful humans I have come in contact with since I began to write about them in December. It is such a treasure because each description, however slight, never fails to conjure up an exact image of that moment in that place. Take this, for example:

"A man with shy eyes an a gentle smile and his young daughter are sitting across from me. He has good hair and is in his prime but has no ring. His daugher is shy around him, leading me to believe he is divorced, not widowed. Very handsome but sad-looking, somehow. His daughter has his profile and their eyes share the same quiet humor. She is about twelve, he probably in the late half of his thirties."

When I read this, I can picture the exact table in the Busch Gardens Fest Haus at which I sat when I encountered this man. It is a fascinating way to retain experiences as well as practice one's descriptive powers.

"The man is so terribly conscious of himself. Not self-conscious, but apparently confident that all eyes are ever upon him. I dislike him so strongly and I am unsure whether it is mainly his real character I despise or whether I merely resent the fact that he expects homage paid...One fears to ask oneself what sort of life he leads that he can afford to leave all so flippantly and gang tae the hielands on his ridiculous whims. (He) is proud of being a dilettante and I have no patience for it."

My entries range from the frustrated (above) to the amused (below) and everywhere in between. But all through I find myself content with playing the game of capturing likenesses of as many people as I can in words. I think of it as my hobby, sort of in the same manner as photographer Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York project.

"...When we finally ordered, Maryanna mentioned a shrimp allergy and he grew so incredibly excited.
'Oh, I totally understand,' he crooned. 'I'm allergic to everything under the sun--lactose intolerant, gluten intolerant--I'm also a bit of a hypochondriac. And I was eating shrimp the other day and my lips started itching and I am so worried I am developing a shellfish allergy.'"

I usually keep the entries brief, though some require longer explanations if I take time to set the stage of the interaction. Of course it is inconvenient to keep such a thing up; I realize that. I learned the discipline required in the first year I went to Romania and religiously kept my travel journal. But I count my people-watching book a valuable tool. Not only does it serve as an opportunity to improve my non-fiction writing skills and keep my goal of writing something every day, but it also gives me an entire volume of characters to choose at will for my stories. Do I need someone unusual, or a funny interaction for a scene? With a people-watching journal kept faithfully, I ought to have plenty from which to choose a case that fits. Let it be a lesson, dear folks: there are many reasons keeping your eyes and ears open (and remembering what you see and hear) is of value. Also, never underestimate the power of smiling at strangers and looking approachable. You never can tell what sort of interesting humans are waiting for a chance to meet you!

4 Ways to Boost Your Reading

As a person whose sole job in the world is not "reading books," my reading habits are sporadic at best. I empathize with people who say they've "just had to let reading drop" while real life happens. I understand that person. Sometimes I am that person. But though I forget it sometimes, reading is truly one of life's greatest pleasures. I don't know how I manage to forget it because reading used to be my sole passion in life. I cannot tell you how often as a child I read and read and read until I was pulled out of the book by the call to chores or a meal or bed. I can still get back that intoxicated, bleary-eyed bliss if I let myself sit without a bit of technology in a quiet place with a good story for an hour. Just an hour. Just an hour and I can find my Paradise lost of childhood reading. It's a beautiful feeling and I can be drawn in by the champagne tones of a light old favorite, the wine-heavy tongue of a Dickens, the brandy-flavored wording of Mark Twain, or the gin-and-tonic Wodehouse. It's easy for me to admit that I'm a "book drunkard," as Lucy Maud Montgomery had it. Now that I've waxed poetic and probably showed my ignorance of all forms of alcohol (interesting fact: the only times I've had it were accidental doses of Communion wine), I'll get on with the body of this post. Ways to Improve Your Reading Times. Because we all know that it's much harder to read than it is to talk about reading. I even find it ironic that I'm sitting here blogging with an ignored copy of Chesterton's The Innocence of Father Brown at my elbow and Captain America: The Winter Soldier playing on the TV across the living room from where I sit. I ought to be reading my book instead of blogging or watching a (very good) action flick. Maybe later I will. Just bear with my hypocrisy one moment longer. Below, I've compiled a list of tactics that help me fit in consistent reading even when life gets shockingly busy.

1.) Use a bookmark: if I can't find my spot in a book, I am much less likely to go back to that book if I have only a few moments. It takes too long to figure out where I left off and get back into the story. On the other hand, if I have my place clearly marked, it isn't hard to pick up the book and read a paragraph or two. Which leads me to my next tip...
2.) Don't wait for a free hour to start reading: I feel as if I've mentioned this before, but I recall reading about some Englishman who ended up making his way through a massive collection of law volumes in his lifetime by picking them up every time he used the bathroom. Don't judge me. Bathroom time is essentially the perfect time to sneak in a paragraph or two of a book. It's quiet. It's private. No one will bother you and no one will shame you for taking a while. There are other good moments to sneak in reading time...waiting to pick up a sibling from dance practice? Take a book along. Have a half-hour at the coffee shop? Read a book instead of browsing Facebook on your phone. Now for Tip Three...
3.) Be not so attached to technology: Sometimes the best way to free up time you thought you didn't have is to leave your phone, tablet, or iPad in a different room. I blush to think of how many hours I would have to devote to reading if I decided to disconnect from the WiFi and devote my attention to my book rather than my messages. I have this obsession with clearing notifications. If I see a notification pop up on my phone, I have to type in my password, open the app, check the notification, and clear it off the list. I hate seeing un-looked-at push-button notifications. Come to think of it, I ought to turn that setting off and see how it helped me.
4.) Read a book with a friend: I'm not saying you have to start up a book club. I'm not even sure what you're supposed to do at a book-club. But when I know a friend is depending on me to text quotes back and forth with her from a book we are both reading, I'm much more likely to keep at it. I will now give an embarrassed shrug to my friend Joanna who is waiting on me for a Pride & Prejudice re-read. Author Clara Thompson and I are all set to begin reading Ivanhoe together whenever she manages to get a copy. It's double the fun of reading alone: you get to read a book, and you get to share your experience of that book with a friends. It's like live-time Goodreads.

This is just the beginning of many ways (some cleverer than mine!) that there are to improve the consistancy of your reading schedule. Leave your favorite method for frequent reading in a comment below and share with the rest of us your method to a happy reading life.

Write by Hand: a good look at the old method

There are very few patterns I notice in my writing process. I don't stick to one genre, my stories don't come to me all in the same way. I don't craft the same characters or use the same setting or otherwise follow some mystical set of regulations that make me tick as a writer. We discussed my complete dissimilitude to classic stereotypes back in September with "I'm Not a Real Writer I Guess."  I'm one of those people who thrives on spontaneity, creativity, and impulses. ENFP's, baby. Gotta love us. We don't like being predictable.

I was cleaning my house on the second day of this new year, putting away Christmas, trying to scrub toilets, finding that my older (yes, older) brother had flushed a ball down the toilet by accident and that's why it wasn't exactly an opportune moment to clean the toilets just then, putting a sign on the bathroom door so no one else would make the discovery...you get the picture. The house was in disarray, the January day and myself were looking like one hot mess of seventy degrees and Pine-Sol. I moved a stack of papers to the stairs, intending to take it up with me when I had gathered my courage enough to tackle the project of my bedroom which I'd left in rather a state the day before after primping for the annual Civil War Charity Ball. Shifting the papers aside, curious to see which letter I had forgotten to finish and send off this time, the words on the first page caught my eye:

"Dear Mavis:
It is twelve days before Christmas and my true love has given me nothing..."

So it was a letter--many actually. The first several days of John Out-the-Window shifted under the acres of mess since I first began the project and transferred it to the computer to share with you. Then a ray of light shone through the dust motes I'd stirred up while shuffling papers and sweeping old Christmas tree needles and I recognized the one component shared by every successful story I've written:

They all began on paper.

On the heels of this thought came the recollection of something author Anne Elisabeth Stengl said recently in a blog post about the fluidness and lucidity of things written by hand. She mentioned being able to tell if something had its humble beginnings with pen and paper strictly by its tone. Anon, Sir, Anon began as a scrawl in my purple hodge-podge journal. Fly Away Home began on a yellow legal pad, I believe. John Out-the-Window and many a piece of well-received flash fiction also started old-school. Even Cottleston Pie has its origins in flattened wood pulp and ink. The stories that have not begun on paper have not gone far. At all. What is there about a pen and paper that inspires me more than a bald page of Microsoft Word? And why does the act of writing my words long-hand insure their success?
Unsure what the deal was with this phenomenon and calling to mind long-past mentions of famous authors who insist on writing their first drafts by hand, I did a little research. One common theme suggested was the obvious fact that when you are not on an electronic device, your chances of being distracted by web-browsing, Facebook, Pinterest, or emails is majorly minimized. If you've silence your phone and put it across the room and your laptop is powered down, you won't be trying to hold (very interesting) chats with a writing friend about character development, update your best friend on what happened over the weekend, research mid-winter temperatures in the South Island of New Zealand, and re-tweet your own blog post and seven others, while very contentedly hashtagging "#amwriting" when you are, in reality, doing everything but #amwriting. And then there were deeper, more philosophical/biological reasons. In an article at Writing Corner, Mia Zachary hypothesizes:

"Hand writing compels you to move forward across an entire connected gesture and integrates three distinct brain processes: visual, motor, and cognitive. Writing by hand requires executing sequential finger movements that activate brain regions involved with thought, language, and short-term memory--the mind's system for temporarily storing and managing small pieces of information."

She finishes her article with a quote by Stephen King that sums up my experience with at least beginning first drafts by hand:

"Writing longhand...brought the act of writing back to this very basic level, where you actually have to take something in your fist and make the letters on the page...It slows you down. It makes you think about each word as you write it, and it also gives you more of a chance so that you're able--the sentences compose themselves in your head. It's like hearing music, only it's words. But you see more ahead because you can't go fast."

I identify with the concept of hearing it like music. "...the sentences compose themselves in your head." My brain runs ahead of what my hands are capable of writing and because my hand is flying to keep up, the theme flows. I can't delete what I've written. I can scratch it out but it will still be there, a theme explored further by Sarah Selecky in her article, "Why You Should Write by Hand." Now, Selecky takes a bit more of a mystical approach to her reasoning, saying that as you are writing that first draft you are, "...divining your story as you go, you need these markers to guide your subconscious. They are your material! Taking them away is cruel..."
 Her second point is the one that I believe is the main answer for me:

"To your brain, writing by hand feels more like making art."

I believe the act of physically writing something down versus typing it into a sterile page of a Google Drive document does tap into a piece of my brain that is not otherwise brought into the picture. I enjoy creating art. I do typography, watercolor painting, sketching, and drawing. Sometimes I fiddle around with clay or acrylics on canvas. It's a creative release and lets me rest the verbally creative part of my brain that blinks at a computer screen and summons words from thin air. But when I put a pen to paper, I am drawing and creating and tangibly making art with my words. It's a beautiful feeling, and freeing. Even if I'm not writing as quickly as I would on a keyboard, I have a physical sensation of the words flying out of me, following my rampant cursive letters following a vague idea that I must hunt behind or lose forever. Selecky suggests this exercise:

Try this: on a blank piece of paper, write a list of words that start with the letter “B.” Write the words very slowly, as they come to you. Print them in all capital letters, or make your cursive ribbon-like, as though you were a calligraphist. Line them up one under the other to make a word tower. Continue to play with the shapes of your letters as you write the words. Experience the peaceful, exciting bloom of creativity as it floods your right hemisphere. You’re working with language, yes, but you’re also playing, you’re drawing.

In general, my opinion of hand-writing manuscripts has aligned with the (temporarily) immortal words of Sweet Brown:

"Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!"

At many times, writing by hand is inefficient. I might write for twenty minutes and get only half of what I'd have if I'd sat at my keyboard and typed. My hand cramps. It was not for nothing that a monk scrawled in the margins of an illuminated manuscript: "Oh, my hand!" If I'm pushing for word count, writing long-hand frustrates that goal. So when I start a story, I generally only write by hand long enough for the story to get rolling, my mind to leap far ahead of the cursive letters pelting after it, and the coals to be stoked around my imagination. At this point, I transfer to the computer and continue in peace.

Now that I've recognized this pattern in my work, I think I'll respect it. I also am willing to bet that if I reach a point in the story where I'm stuck, a return to the Write by Hand method might just be the kick in the pants I need to get it on its feet once more.

5 Ways To Become Your Author's Favorite Reader

Ever read a book and enjoyed it so much that begin to wish you knew the author in real life? Ever become a little bit of a fan-girl and wondered if there was more than stalking their Facebook account and blog back-pages that you could do to support their career? Ever wanted to be more than "that one guy who always comments" in your favorite author's mind?

Good news: I have a list for you. 

Of course this list doesn't help you a bit if your favorite authors are dead, but we are supposing you have a modern author you admire. This, then, is the skinny:

#1: Buy their books. Look, we are flattered when you borrow one of our books from a friend and love it, but it does very little for sales. What really helps is you buying our books for yourself, putting them on your birthday and Christmas lists, and buying them for friends who are having birthdays or Christmases. Buy. Our. Books. It's super helpful. It makes them go up in the ranking on Amazon. It gets them on the New York Times Best-Seller list. It's helpful.
#2: Review their books intelligently. When someone is waffling about Position No. One, they might click on the reviews tab for that book on Amazon, or look it up on Goodreads. I know I do. And when I look up a review, I don't want to see all caps-lock, "OH MY GOSH IT WAS THEBESTTHINGEVERRRRRRR." I am looking for someone who actually seemed to have their wits about them while they were reading, who can tell me something (but no spoilers) about the plot, the quality of the writing, and what I liked best. I love hearing what other people liked best...and if it happens to be something I'm inclined to like best, I'll probably end up buying the book.
#3: Start a blaze. Carefully. No, please don't burn our books. But if you tell your friends enough about the book (and buy a copy for them, maybe) then they'll read the book, and if they read the book and enjoy it, they'll tell their friends, and pretty soon you'll have started a wildfire which is extremely helpful for your favorite authors who are, in this way, fans of pyromaniacs.
#4: Give them a hand on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. I can't tell you how much I love a few of my followers on Twitter who, no matter what sorts of links I share, will share them from me. And not just retweets, but an actual, "I went to the site and tweeted it myself" sort of thing, while still mentioning my name. Those people are valuable because they care enough about what you said today in a blog post, or what you recommend they read next, or whatever it is. They care enough about it to share it in their own words and ways. It's precious. (Also, liking a post on Facebook brings it up in other peoples' feed. That's actually how I've found several of my favorite pages to follow. It works on authors' feeds too! ;)
#5: Surprise them. Several times since my debut novel, readers have surprised me with an email in my inbox, writing about what they enjoyed in my book, or how they came to read it, or something else interesting. One reader emailed me an amazing drawing she'd done of the main character (I happen to already be a fan of this girl's art. It was good). Sometimes a reader will post on the page, or message you via Facebook or Twitter, or something else. It's uplifting to the author to get a message like that and not expect it. We don't need the reader to gush, but it is heartening to hear that, independent of your reach, a new reader got hold of your book and enjoyed it. We thrive on approval ratings.

Please Don't Cry: How to Deal With Negative Reviews

"I'll wheel you outside where you can sit and crrrrrriticize everyone who passes by."
"Criticize? Now Miss Shirley, that's not Christian!"
-Anne of Avonlea

The release of a new book is such a mixed feed-bag of delight and terror. For the first few weeks, you don't worry so much and then the reviews start pouring in. Every review is different: some rave that your book is the best thing they've ever read, while others say it wasn't up to their standard, or they didn't enjoy it very much at all, or they've read better books. Of course they've read better books -- even I know that, and I'm partial to my stories.

I got my first two-star review of Fly Away Home the other day. 

Much as I'd like to say I didn't care, I really did. It's a terrible feeling as an author to see that someone who bought your book rather wishes they hadn't. You know in your head that not everyone will find your book to their taste but there is something in every writer's heart that wants to be loved by everyone in the whole wide world. This particular reader's review went something along the lines of, "I didn't know what to expect (not a romance), the plot didn't seem very original and I guess I was expecting a murder mystery, but don't let my prejudices turn you away if you like a good (mostly) clean romance." I could begin to counter these points (why, exactly, did she expect a murder mystery? Did I ever mention murder on the back-cover blurb? How could she not have known it was a romance?) but that isn't my prerogative. You know why? Because everyone is entitled to think what they think about my book just as I am entitled to the same.

Not everyone is going to like your book. 

I want you to know that because it's something I didn't really expect to encounter. But it's there and I have. There are people who will like other peoples' stories better (heads up, I'm sure it's happening even in the very recent release of Five Glass Slippers) and that's okay. Not to say it isn't disappointing. Gosh, it's terribly disappointing, especially for an indie author because you feel that you can't afford to disappoint a single reader. You don't have that many! How can you let one go? But it is going to happen. My grandmother told my mother, growing up:

"You're not going to like everyone, and everyone else isn't always going to like you."

As much as I wish it wasn't true, it is. There are people who didn't "get" Callie Harper and there are people who will, I'm sure, resent the fact that I took the hallowed story of Cinderella and irreverently turned it upside on its head to give a snarky miss the lead role. To the criticism issue first,  I would say this: be gracious and admit that you will not always be the preferred flavor of some people's palate and try not to beat yourself over the head because you failed to please one of your readers. If you take it upon yourself to write so that everyone and their blessed brother will adore you, you'll lose sight of who you are. I have readers who remark on the fact that all of my heroines have a bit more ... chutzpah than is realistic. To them, I would reply kindly that I based those aspects of both Callie Harper and Alisandra Carlisle on real-life friends and family members. In that case, their criticism is untrue because I can present real evidence that there are people with Callie's changeable moods and Alis' political brain.

But the real killer, the real thing that stings, is that sometimes your readers are just plain right.

This is the thing I sometimes like to ignore. This criticism stings not because it is unjust but because yeah, you actually botched up that aspect of a character, situation, plot, or whatever else the reader is mewling about. Maybe you really don't have enough suspects in your mystery, virtues in your villain, or your dialog really stinks. Here, you have two choices: give them a martyrous "God loves you and so I must, though your opinion is wrong," (which is gratifying to the feelings, somehow) or you can get your big-girl panties on and say, "You know what, you're correct. Next book I write, I'll keep an eye out for this sort of thing and try to do better." The former is, of course, my favorite choice because it feels so good to think you're right and to justify your rightness in the eyes of God and man and it feels so worm-ridden to let that arrow hit home and make you work. Odd thing is, I don't know of any person who has become a better whatever-they-are by staying at the same skill-level their whole lives.

Reader-reviews are the equivalent of a teacher's red pen: they mark the places that seem wrong and give you a place to begin thinking.

I want to thank my readers who have taken or will take the time to review Fly Away Home, The Windy Side of Care, and all my future work. I actually do read those reviews and I take them quite seriously. You can make me feel crummy or elated and in either case, I go back and read your review a second, third, even fourth time to weigh it in the balance and sort out the things I'll choose to take home. All of you are, in some way, helping to build my career as a writer. If you kept mum and never said a thing, I'd go along complacently at rest in the current puddle of my skill-set, never growing, never branching out. You keep me sharp, you keep me cross and inspired by turns, and you're an integral part of what it means to have my books in the public's view. So thanks to everyone, even to Miss Two-Star & Co.

Perhaps next time I'll keep some of that chutzpah to myself.

Ten Ways to Know You've Found Your Voice

If finding your voice is so important, how is one to know when that goal has been mainly achieved? Below, I collected ten points that could help you decide if you've found your trademark:

Comperto vocem

1.) The tone creeps into everything you try to write

2.) You find yourself thinking of events that happen to you in the same flavor with which your stories end up on the page

3.) Someone reads an author whose work has definitely impacted yours and says that their book reminds them of you somehow

4.) You are never quite as easy in another tone as you are in the tone that is currently under surveillance

5.) The majority of your plots fit the style that has become yours

6.) The plots that don't fit the style fizzle out and you find you cannot do them justice, even if they are perfectly good plots

7.) You are writing in a manner that makes your project something that would catch your fancy, were you to see it in a bookstore

8.) You can easily discern similar voices to your own as you read, and mentally differentiate between a style you could write well and one you could not

9.) You find that describing your style in a query-letter (or conversation) comes quite easily after all, once you've properly started

10.) The tone carries into emails, letters, and the like without a conscious effort on your part

How To Survive Rewriting: the good, the bad, and the ugly

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In short, it was time to rewrite Fly Away Home.

After having sent the book to numerous beta-readers, the critiques started swinging back in and for the past several days I've been swamped with so much rewriting it nearly made me question my calling as a writer. (I jest, I jest....partly.) At first it was an overwhelming jungle of horrid mistakes, plotting, and things to correct. I stared at the sheets of closely-written notes from my grandmother, and at the lengthy emails from my long-suffering friends, and thought, "What the blazes have I got myself into?"

There is always this moment on the edge of editing and rewriting, and the question is, "What will you do with it?" Only the brave and true survive the process. Only the dedicated have the guts to go through with it.

With all humbleness, I am one of them.

I know that rewriting is only going to make my book better. It's daunting, terrifying, and wretched at times, yes. But there is also a sense of exhilaration. If you are one who is looking down on your work in progress and wondering how you'll ever make a sensible book out of the hash in your hands, you are at the right place. In this post I intend to make you laugh, make you groan, and show you a little of how I go about it. Ready?

All right.

After assembling my thoughts and girding myself with bravado I didn't feel, (and a deal of prayer I did feel) yesterday was the official re-write kick-off. Witness my Facebook postings throughout the day:

January 10, 12:13 p.m. :

That feeling of utter confusion, bewilderment, and terror when you realize "editing" is more like "rewriting" and you gulp, close your eyes, and plunge in the knife.

January 10, 12:19 p.m.:

The general consensus is that I need some yelling in my book. *feels shell-shocked, realizing she must now spend the day getting her characters into several arguments in several places*

January 10, 11:54 p.m.:

Because there are days when you can't escape editing, and a purple pen lessens the terror. A smidge.

So my first suggestion? Use a purple pen. Never use red. Red is the color of blood. Red is the color of guilt. Use anything but red, I beg you.

The first official step in Rewriting is to identify which pieces need a complete overhaul.

In my case there were two key scenes that several beta-readers had commented on. I knew I needed to completely redo these scenes, adding material, cutting material, changing characters, etc. This was extremely daunting and I hardly had the courage to start cutting in. But I knew it needed to be done. When have a head-to-head with a thing that screams "DEATH! DESTRUCTION! RUIN! CHAOS!" the best thing to do is ignore the fact that it's enormous. I went in with a scalpel rather than a broadsword, and began to make my correction little by little. Don't look at the big picture in these overwhelming moments. Go line upon line, precept upon precept (to hackney a phrase) and you'll soon find the thing is done. Rather than editing the original file though, I copied and pasted the sections into a separate document which immediately tamed the tigers.

Working in separate files gives you mental freedom to make changes, knowing you can always revert to the original if you must. Both of my sections were large and unwieldy and it took me all day, but I rewrote 7 or 8k words yesterday. I was so pleased with the outcome, I made the decision to edit the original file and ditch the old material.

It was a wonderful feeling. ^.^

After fixing those two beasts, the next step was to try my hand at the Post-it Note System. This is my version of a system introduced to me by author Stephanie Morrill. I had wanted to try it ever since seeing her example on Go Teen Writers, and today was my chance. I woke up bright and early, knowing that I wanted to get my Wall of Power made before breakfast so I could focus on editing the rest of the day.

I wish my camera had captured the grandeur of the sunrise. It was so brilliant.

Sarah is out of town which has been great for my rewriting schedule because I can work at odd hours and not disturb anyone! After waking myself up with a shower, I sat and wrote a sticky note for each scene in my book. I was well-fortified with brightly colored Post-it notes, my purple pen, and my JJ Heller Pandora station.

Oh yes. And chocolate. Please don't forget the chocolate.

 Stephanie's system was a combo of index cards and sticky notes, but I went with only Post-it notes and created my own method that is working absolutely amazingly for me.

 Each color means something different:

Pink: Average scenes
Green: Key "turning-point" scenes
Blue: Possible scrap-scenes
White: Suggestions
Yellow: General comments

I ended up with 70-some "scenes" and it pleased my organized side to see that they squared up with precision when I stuck them to the wall. I was also pleased to find that--not including the two major rewrite-scenes yesterday--I had only a of couple scenes to consider cutting. (This will be my third edit on this book, so I got rid of, or rearranged several scenes in the former rounds) All the same, I reconsidered several scenes and replaced their sticky-notes with ones of a different shade where needed. After that I took out my white pieces and made lots of suggestions for various scenes such as...

Haha.

These suggestions are so helpful when you need a quick glance to remind you of what needed fixing in the given scene. Heighten tension? Add an argument? Mention this event? Incorporate a certain character? I was proud that I remembered to number the individual Post-its so that if they fell off the wall I could get them back in order without driving myself crazy.

I had fun with the cryptic descriptions of certain scenes....no one but myself need know what some of them mean...

;)

Here is the wall after rearranging and adding notes:

The awesome thing about this system is that you can literally see the flow of your story. If my key scenes are the green ones, I can see where I need to check tension in the lesser scenes, where I might need to relieve it in the intense blocks, etc. Since you're dealing with Post-it notes, you also have the freedom to play around with rearranging the various scenes. The yellow Post-its, again, are general things to remember throughout each scene and all the way through to the end. 

Another perk of the Wall of Power is that it allows you to easily identify, add, and follow "circularity"--a topic Jill Williamson touched on over at Go Teen Writers earlier this week.

Me standing against the Wall of Power. 

Or the Wall of Terror. 

Both were appropriate depending on when you caught me during the day. By lunchtime, my Facebook statuses were less than cheerful:

January 11, 12:13 p.m.

Historical accuracy makes me want to up and write fantasy. :P

-OR-

January 11, 1:19 p.m.

Waaaaaaaaa. Editing today is a Sudoku puzzle. Move one piece and the rest goes to shambles behind it.

After I came down to lunch, Mama listened to me rant about wishing there was a coffee shop that wasn't twenty-five minutes away, then calmly said, "Well, you could go anyway. It isn't that far."

I could, couldn't I? With computer in tow. 

It is a maxim of mine that a change of scenery does wonders. Therefore I toted my laptop full of its quibbles with Mr. Barnett, geography, Callie Harper, and 50's slang, and went to Panera. There, I ordered therapy in the form of a cinnamon roll and hazelnut coffee. I took a window seat and flipped open my computer. 

I heard Eric Hutchinson's "Rock Roll" and smiled.

It was a good spot for editing. 

And for taking awkward pictures with the self-shot of one's tablet.

And for embarrassing oneself by taking one's laptop from the laptop case borrowed from one's guitar-playing brother, and finding there is all a manner of horrid things springing out at you like strings and papers and pens and picks. And everyone stares at you tolerantly.

I was there an hour and a half and got nearly all the way through the list of corrections I'd copied down from my Wall of Power. YES! Along the way I was aided by a phone-call from a friend who has just been Sher-locked, and musing over just how amazing Steven Moffat is, and how he probably had to go through this self-same rewriting process for his genius. Tomorrow is Saturday, and therefore a day for cleaning house, but I expect to be right back to my Wall of Power on Monday, making corrections and giving Mr. Barnett a temper, and finding out just where in Manhattan The St. Evans' Post ought to be located, and doing all a manner of things. In fact, I'd rather not think about it. In the past two days I've taken huge leaps in the rewriting, and it's amazing to see what persistence and elbow-grease will do to a story. 

Rewriting isn't easy, and I'm not trying to make it out to be a lark, but it is helpful to have tips and tricks. I hope I've encouraged some of you with a peep at my system, and I assure you it helps. Just get down and get your hands dirty, and it'll all come right in the end. 

We hope. ;)

"Of some other metal than earth."

Leonato: "Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband."

Beatrice: "Not till God make man of some other metal than earth."

-Much Ado About Nothing

It seems that romance is as much a virus in the online world as it is in reality. In my everyday life people have been making matches of themselves at an alarming rate. I foresee many weddings in the next year or two... *feels dazed*... And the plague, as I said, has not limited itself to reality. It's crept onto the blogs beginning with Mirriam and quickly followed by Jenny with their respective posts on romance and How To Write It. I was not intending to follow suit. Not at all. But then I was looking through my copy of the screenplay of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and came across Beatrice's vow and then I thought of something I've been meaning to write about and since it slightly aligns with the topic touched upon by Jenny and Mirriam, I'm giving it to you.

I bring up the topic of your Hero.

If there is one error Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell made (perhaps) it is that their heroes are so....heroic. Let me rephrase that. Their heroes don't really have any obvious flaws. (Their female leads do....funny.) We women love Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightly and Mr. Thornton and Roger Hamley. The only problems with those men are that two are misunderstood, one is a little critical, and one is a little blind. I love these fictional fellows as much as the next girl, but the transition from paper-to-reality is detrimental.

As humans we are all hopelessly flawed without Christ. There is no way a one of us would say that we don't have any faults.

Why, then, do we write characters who can boast near-perfection?

People say that fiction is a way to meet people where they are, take them along a fictional journey, and bring them out at the other end changed in some way. But how can you relate to a character and a journey that has nothing to do with your own life? Sure, a perfect man would be amazing, but I'm not a perfect woman so even if there were perfect men I wouldn't be the best help-meet to one of them.

One thing I've noticed is that Male Leads written by male authors always have plenty of faults...
Jean Valjean
Capt. Jack Aubrey
David Balfour
Benedick
Bilbo Baggins
Eustace Clarence Scrubb
Ebeneezer Scrooge
All of these men are flawed, and yet we identify with them. Why is it that women are the only ones who will write perfect men into fiction? It's strange. If a man portrayed his fictional men as archangels, the feminists would throw back their heads and howl, "UNFAIR!" but we women will create our own Mr. Darcy's and Mr. Knightley's and defy anyone who would point out their unrealistic points. The men aren't the ones crazy about Pride and Prejudice. Obviously they don't find perfect men realistic and honest enough to bother reading about. We don't write perfect women characters, do we? No. Our women all have bad tempers, or resentful hearts, or scabby pasts, or hidden fears--things that make them real. It's because we're easy on ourselves and aren't trying to boast perfection because we know we don't measure up. Then why do we hold men to a different standard?

Though this post is somewhat rambling, it does have a main point: I'd caution all writers to make sure that your male "hero" in your story has his own flaws. You don't want a one-dimensional character. You don't want a perfect man that will drive away other men from reading the book.

Look to the men in your life. The men around you. Look to your brothers and fathers and pastors and neighbors. Your uncles and the guy down the street. Goodness--look to Taylor the Latte Boy if you must, but let's cast aside the Perfect-Man syndrome.

It's not going to help women to idealize Mr. Darcy's perfections, only to find they can't be satisfied with a single real man. It's an age-old problem that even Shakespeare addressed when he wrote Beatrice's refusal of marriage:

"Not till God make man of some other metal than earth."

Till she reaches Heaven, perhaps? Ah--but then it will be too late. Better to conform our ideas of fictional and earth-men to the mold we have here and now. Men made in the image of God, flawed as we all are, reaching upward to Christ a little more each day, denying their flesh and seeking Him.

After all, despite what Jane Austen might say, that's the true definition of heroism.

Chomping at the bit.

I may have been silent and-or insipid on this blog the past couple of weeks, but I have good excuse. I decided to role with Au Contraire and have been up to my elbows in research and plotting. Exciting thing is, I tried a new method of plotting because plot-strength is something I've made a goal of recently. The method? After I had the bare-bones idea of Au Contraire (The basic plot outline), I went through and named all the chapters, devoting a certain amount to each phase of the plot. From there I researched historical events along the time-line of the story and plugged them into the basic plot, then built further plot twists and arches along those historical under-pinnings. I'm really really excited about this, and feel more prepared than I have for most of my novels. I have 3 detailed pages of outline to my name which will definitely keep me on track when I feel uninspired. Of course there is wiggle-room for plot changes, new characters, etc, but I think this method is going to prove extremely helpful. Would you like a sneak-peek of this novel via the chapter-names?

Oui?

I had hoped so. I will tell you not to put too much stock in what the names mean--I purposely did not title them obviously. But do they pique your interest?

1. Parlor of Patriots

2. "A bas les aristos!"

3. The song of Marseilles

4. Flicker-by-night

5. Ring-around-the-Rosie

6. A Death of ideals

7. Guilt-gems

8. Visage of Offense

9. The Gulf Torn

10. Nor Hell a Fury

11. The Hound

12. Self-same Dust

13. Tete-tete

14. Ruse de Guerre

15. Belly to the Ground

16. Vive le Roi

17. Doubt Thou the Stars are Fire

18. Vogue la Galere

In which we go hunting plot bunnies

In the realm of writing, plot bunnies are a frowned-upon species of creation. They can be red-herrings and distract from the current work in progress. They are insistent creatures and bound in upon your senses when you least expect them, and are least able to deal with them. They are beautiful, shimmering, tempting little things that promise Perfection...but when you chase them they sometimes disappear in a puff of smoke. And yet they won't go away no matter how much you want them to. There is always a plot bunny sitting on your fingers as you try to type out the next thousand words in the story you know you need to be writing. Inspiration? No. I'm inclined to feel that a plot bunny is distraction. Yet...

Yet

You never know when real inspiration will strike. Sometimes plot bunnies are not all mischief, mockery, and fluff. Sometimes there is a valid idea contained in those sporadic plot bunnies. So how do you keep from falling in love with one of these capricious creatures, yet giving inspiration a chance to strike? Here are the ways I deal with them:

Give them their own Word Document- I do not shy from opening a new document, writing the scene that has been bothering me, and saving it for a later date.

Give them their own blog post- This can be a way to successfully fool Those Bunnies. You see, they are vain creatures and they like to be Noticed if you know what I mean. If you write about the plot bunny or include bits of it in your Snippets of Story post, or otherwise give it attention, you might find it begins to leave you alone for a while.

Give then the dignity of a name- Again, make up an intriguing name for this plot bunny and attach it to their word document. This will appease them more than anything.

Give them a later date- After all of this work, if the plot bunny will not go away, set yourself a particular time you will pay attention to your warren of plot bunnies. This works well because the elusive ones that wouldn't have been worth anything anyway are scared of commitment, and then the ones that are worth something will be ready and waiting for you at a particular time, dictated by Your Pen. :)

It gives one a sense of irony...

Here are some funny writing tips I found today. Enjoy reading them. :)

• Finish your point on an upbeat note...unless you can't think of one
• Don't patronize your reader--he or she might well be intelligent enough to spot it
• Avoid unnecessary examples. e.g. this one
• Similes are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
• Mixed metaphors can kill two birds without a paddle.
• Take care with pluri.
• If you can't think of the word you have in mind, look  it up in one of those dictionary-type thingies.
• Do you really think people are impressed with rhetorical questions?
• Sarcasm--yes, I bet that will go down really well.
• Less is more. This means that a short, cryptic statement is often preferable to an accurate, but drawn out, explanation that lacks punch and loses the reader.
• Many readers assume that a word will not assume two meanings within the same sentence.
• Some early drafts of this document had had clumsy juxtapositions
• If there's a word on the tip of your tongue that you can't quite pin down, use a cinnamon.
• Strangely enough it is impossible to construct a sentence that illustrates the meaning of the word 'irony.'
• Practice humility until you're really sure you have it down.
• There is no place for overemphasis whatsoever.

....I love irony.... :D

Writing Children: The To-Do's, and Not To-Do's. :)

“I don’t want to write for adults. I want to write for readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when they read.”

—Astrid Lindgren

I do not feel equipped to speak with authority on many angles of writing--I am not a published author, I make a hash of comma usage, I tend to use unpopular POV's (such as narrative), and my plot lines are not exactly Dickensian in intricacy. However of all the criticisms I got in the critique group that I was a part of (and that shaped me immensely) there was one consistent compliment. 

Apparently, I can write children well. Nearly all the members of the group commented on how realistic the children were in their personalities, their relationships, etc. I'm not saying that to boast, only to let you know why I'm hashing this topic out. 

I suppose the thing is, I am immersed in Children-Culture. With seven younger siblings (and eight cousins across the field) I have a 15-person study-group below my nose at all times. Okay. Let's face it. In my lap at all times. It was not three days ago that my five-month old Levi punched a random series of keys while I was writing and botched up the formatting of my entire manuscript. :D (thankfully I was able to fix it)

Being that I am so constantly involved in child-culture, it's a good thing some of that has translated into my writing. I'd be worried otherwise, for isn't it a maxim of all writing that your life flavors the way you write? If it isn't, it ought to be. That being said, I thought I'd give you a few tips on how to write fully-rounded, fully-fleshed children characters:

Point One: Children are not that simple:

 “You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it’s going to be too difficult for grownups, you write it for children.”

—Madeleine L’Engle

Children have far more to them than meets the eye. They are people, after all, with hopes, dreams, aspirations...and they have more soul than we often realize. My little sister Gracie sat, dejected, at our dining room table this afternoon, having discovered a chicken that had succumbed to a cruelly enforced pecking-order, and died.

"He suffered, Rachie!" she cried, and the tears welled up in her eyes. "Can we pray for him?" (In fact, on a side-note, she keeps a running list of deceased pets that she prays for routinely. :P)

You cannot write a child-character as a named clown that walks around providing comic relief with his lisp and hope to captivate your audience. Especially if you write for children. They know their own kind, and they are quick to detect flaws in your characterization of one of them. So how do you write a child? Provide plenty of soul and depth. Children have a thought-process, deep emotions, and everything that makes an adult-character tick, only it is precious and unspoilt. Watch children and see how they interact with one another. I promise, you'll learn much from them.

“Grown-up people find it difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy.”  ~Edith Nesbit

Point Two: Get out of the cliche-box:

Not every child has a lisp. Not every child drops "r"s. Not that you can't use those characteristics, but your child must have more to him than a clumsy tongue. Children are so much fun, that it is a pity to limit them to a speech impediment. Think outside the box. Does she like to dress up? Is she flamboyant? Would she march up to a stranger and demand a kiss, or is she quiet and reserved, having to be coaxed to speak?

Perhaps the most fun is writing The Little Boy. Frogs and snails and puppy-dog tails! ;) I have a weakness for naughty little boys....Dill, Darby, Tucker...oh yes. What is it that makes them so adorable? It could be something as small as freckles, a pug-nose, dirt around his fingernails. Just watch a little boy for five minutes and you'll have a host of actions to use in describing that character of yours. :)

Point Three: Pay Attention:

The Mistress of this third point, in my humble opinion, was Edith Nesbit. Even the narration of her books reflects the elaborate, illogical, perfect charm of a child's thinking. This is a task that takes some doing, for the older we grow, the easier it is to forget how sensible a childish thought once seemed to us, and how we came across that thought in the first place. You must cast aside all adult-ish thinking when you write for children. You must approach them on their own footing, thinking how they think, dealing with crisis the way they do. Sometimes it requires a kyniption fit. Sometimes it requires a fist-fight. But bet upon it. Something unexpected and not quite well-behaved is always the right way for a child. :) After all, social-grace and politics are not a large part of the average child's diet. Scapegraces are darlings, in my opinion. :) 

Point Four: Have Fun:

This is the last, and perhaps most important point. Children are fun. They have not yet learned that life expects more of you than smiles and giggles, delicious frights, more smiles, and a little dirt thrown in. Let your pen play for awhile instead of work. You characters can, on occasion, even serve as your alter-egos. I dare you to try to forget you are nearly grown-up, or even grown-up, or even Very Ancient. Try writing in a childish way. You'll find it refreshing, unusual, and so addicting you'll want to come back for more. :) 

“It is all very wonderful and mysterious, as all life is apt to be if you go a little below the crust, and are not content just to read newspapers and go by the Tube Railway, and buy your clothes ready-made, and think nothing can be true unless it is uninteresting.” 

~Edith Nesbit

Fireflies and Lightening-bolts

"The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightening and a lightening-bug" ~Mark Twain

Ditto. It is not unusual for Mark Twain to hit the nail smack on the head--he was rather a hammersmith in that respect--but this time he had the lightening he spoke of in that quote. We have all felt that sensation of something being just the tiniest bit amiss in our writing. The untrained eye would not, perhaps, detect it, but we read over our writing feeling that somehow, somewhere, we've missed the mark and all we have is a tiny fire-fly cupped in the hollow of our hand where we once sought to have hold of a lightening-bolt.
It doesn't mean the fire-fly can't grow up to become a lightening-bolt, but it means that our words need a bit of surgery. And oh, is it worth it! I can't laud enough the sensation of rightness that comes when you realize you'd truly hit upon something. It's like...like you've come home after a long voyage, or you've seen a commonplace item transformed by moonlight, or you've seen ember-roses in the coals of a camp-fire because you stayed just long enough to forget it was a fire and not some living, breathing, beautiful painting come alive. It's something elusive but oh, you know you've got it when it comes.
My descriptions used  to be commonplace enough. I hadn't learned (and I daresay have yet to learn much of) the fact that a writer must look at the world through her heart, not her head to capture things just so. Why say the sunset was beautiful when you could make your reader feel the last lingering rays of airy-wine poured into her lap if you only molded your words just so? But don't despair too much if lightening just isn't striking you. It will eventually, and for now, Nearly There will suit.

After all, there is a certain charm to be found in fire-flies.

"Sunlight glistened on the river that reflected her smiles, white-on-white with a gleam like that of snow-on-the-mountain in full bloom. Great cloud-birds chased each-other rumble-tumble over the face of the sun, throwing the valleys into shadow one moment and blinding illumination the next. There was a smell in the air of Summer. Not high Summer, with his scornful eye and chastening whip of drought and flame, not late Summer with her matronly smiles and benevolent arms filled with a good harvest, but early Summer—maiden-fair  and scented with green and blossoming things; the bride of the year who had not yet realized she was grown up."

Tangling with Emotion

"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."

-James Michene

As a writer, I can tell you that for me, writing emotion is one of the hardest parts of the entire process. We are in the habit of description--if we go out to the store and see something interesting, we always come home and describe the scene or item to someone else--it's ingrained in us. Dialog is easy too--after all, we speak all day long every day, and it is not too difficult to transfer those conversations to the page. [Especially if you are in the habit of speaking to yourself in your mind as well as audibly. :]

But emotion! Emotion is the vapor of a moment--elusive, shadowy, abstract, yet so very important. If we had no emotion, there would be no reason to write. What a sorry world this would be if the writer put no emotion, no heart, into her words, and the reader took no interest, felt no quickening of his pulse, as he read. We would have lost the very keystone of a novel: to transport the reader to worlds, adventures, and stories not his own, but indelibly connected to him through human sympathies and emotions. Ah, there we go again with that emotion.

There must be some level of emotion in each scene you write--if it is overdone, you run the risk of being labeled melodramatic. If it is underdone, your reader will have no interest in turning the page. After all, he could gain more satisfaction from picking at the dry toast-crumbs on the tablecloth than reading yet another heartless description, or soulless dialog. Emotion is defined as "A state of feeling." As writers, it is our duty to conduct the feelings of our readers with our words so that the reader becomes the character in the book. As Emily Dickinson said, "There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away..." That phrase is our missions as writers. We work to craft our words until our readers forget they sit on a prosaic sofa in a shabby room, and believe--nearly--that they are the ones wielding the sword, slaying the villain, winning the maiden, waiting to be rescued, etc. It's a labor of love, for it is not easy, this passage to "lands away."

So we see the need for emotion, and the frailty of it. What now? How can we describe something that we ourselves often can't even put a finger on in our own lives? I would say, put on the part of an observer. Watch other people, and pay attention to your emotions, that you may learn how to write emotion into a scene. One mistake many writers make is thinking that there are three emotions--that is as false a statement as saying there are three legs on a centipede. (unless the said centipede is a veteran of a very cruel buggy-war...) But there they stand: Sorrow, Anger, Joy, and everything in-between is void and without form. This class of writers borders on melodramatic. After all, how many of you only feel those three emotions? Does it then make sense to subject your poor characters to such extremes? There are so many precious feelings in the midst of those three pillars. We can no more disregard merriment, or shame, or amusement, or wistfulness, or pride, or embarrassment, or yearning, or contentment than the centipede could walk as a three-legged bug.

Find a place for these emotions and learn how to write them in such a way that they are palpable. Your readers will thank you, and your characters [if they were real, and I'm not that certain some of them aren't. ;] will thank you. And, if it must be known, I will thank you. ;) ~Rachel

       "...These earth-people, always striving over something. And writers were the worst of the lot. Cecily wondered what they found quite so intriguing about the process. They could not be content with their own lives, but had to go poking about making more trouble for perfectly self-respecting characters who did not want to be bothered with kidnappings and murders and wars over kingdoms. She ought to know."

~The Scarlet-Gypsy Song by Rachel Heffington

P.S. I found a most astonishing development in The Scarlet-Gypsy Song: Cecily's story is the scribbling Mr. Macefield has been working on, and so when he writes that she is banished, she arrives at the Macefield Home, but then his children get into the story and he has to write them out, but he gets a fearful case of Writer's block in the meantime and they are stuck there, battling with Fitz-Hughes and trying desperately to set things straight with no way out but their father's pen. :) No, I'm not excited at all.

The Man With The Gun...a powerful weapon

A famous man, sometime, somewhere said that when your plot is dragging, bring in a man with a gun.
Some authors take this literally. A man and a gun. Bing-Bang-Boom, you're dead. That can be extremely effective in the right place. But the man-with-the-gun syndrome can be used figuratively, and to great effect in other places. I can think of two right off the top of my head:

• Description
• And Humor

In the description category, the-man-with-the-gun would be presented in an entirely unexpected comparison. If you were trying to describe golden hair, you might not even use the word "golden", or the word "sunshine", or the word "silk" or anything else that is at all common. You might say something like... "her hair was bright as a canary's wing" or "the color of a mirror-flat lake when the sun sets it on fire." Something that your reader is not expecting and probably would never think of if you didn't guide her.
Now for humorous man-with-the-gun. I love using it in this category. I like drawing the reader in and suddenly banging them over the head with a surprise that leaves them laughing and a little dizzy. It's the naughty child in me, I suppose. :P Here are a couple examples from my recent project:

        "Darby frowned and plugged his other ear, so as to hear better. Still, he could catch nothing but an occasional word.
      "From the ad...children...second Tuesday...credentials...blueberries."
       Blueberries? Darby growled in disgust. It gave more irritation than satisfaction, hearing these gnats of conversation."

        "The children and the newcomer faced each other, and for the first time in their brief acquaintance, they got a good look at one another. No words were spoken, but volumes were said, and the Feeling grew larger and stronger until Adelaide blushed, and Bertram quivered. Charlotte chomped the end of her pigtail, Darby plucked his rubber-bands like the strings of a lyre, and Eugenie and Fergus played hot-potato with a black-beetle that had somehow found its way into their possession."

"The littlest twins clambered onto the bed beside her, and showed their prettiest dimples when she did not push them away as Mum did, but gathered them into her lap and actually gave them her locket to play with. It was a beautiful locket—golden and etched with fantastical swirls like the writing on the cover of a story-book—and Eugenie put it into her mouth directly."

I got into the habit of doing it by getting so tickled when I would read such a thing in a book that I would laugh out loud and find my sisters staring at me strangely. I learn well by example, and pick up bits and pieces of other authors' brilliancy. :) So bring in your man-with-a-gun, either figuratively or literally, and try it out when your writing is feeling stale. It's *so* much fun!

It's a long, long way to...finding a publisher :P

Goodness Glory...I decided it was about time that I get on to looking at lists of publishers that accept unsolicited manuscripts. But you see...it seems that what everyone wants is sci-fi and fantasy...which is not what I write. Furthermore, I would like to publish my books with a Christian publishing company, since I don't want to be linked to companies with any questionable books.

But I have to admit, it's hard to wade through the muddy waters of subsidary and vanity publishing companies.

"Ehh...he's a bit of a reptile." ;)

I actually have a rather embarrassing story to tell. Last year, not knowing anything of that horrid species of publisher, I sent my completed manuscript into Tate Publishing Company. They sounded like everything I was looking for...until they sent me a follow-up email letting me know that I would need to invest $5,000 dollars into their "investment" with me. Basically, this company will publish anything, provided you pay them. It doesn't matter if your work sounds like a teenager wrote it. They'll print it off and let you feel special. That is not what I want to do with my book, and I think Tate Publishing's technique a rather shoddy piece of workmanship, to quote Sir Percy Blakeney.

Anyway, I thought that while I was on the subject of looking for a publisher, I ought to warn you other young authors about subsidary and vanity publishers, so you won't get in the same embarrassing pickle I found myself in. Seriously, that was the fastest retreat I've ever taken. :D

Also, it is widely known and accepted that the best way to find publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts is a book called The Writer's Market. They publish a new one each year, and inside is a list of all the publishing companies, what they are accepting, and how to submit your manuscript to them. I hope to get a copy soon, as I'm tired of looking at publishers online. :P

Hope this post helped someone.