When Good Series Go Bad...

As one of my favorite television series (based on one of my favorite book series growing up; the original L.J. Smith Vampire Diaries Trilogy) comes to a season 4 series finale, I can’t help my utter dissapointment.- Not because I’ll have to wait four months for the show to start back up again, but because this season was just so... bad.

I don’t know what happened. It's like the writers got so caught up in the plot (which was much weaker than usual), they forgot about the importance of their character arcs and development. Up until now, there had been a steady deepening and growth in each of their main characters over the course of every season that really made the show come alive. This season, however, not only did their characters' development come to a grinding halt, but they actually regressed. Or, when that was too much trouble, they just got killed off altogether. *sigh*

And it got me thinking, when I asked the agent I sent the R&R to why she preferred I make my book a stand-alone rather than the first in a series, she explained that a lot of YA authors today tend to over-do it with a series and it’s definitely felt by their readers. 

I couldn’t help but agree.

After all, when an author is writing a series because they tend to sell more copies than stand-alones, some very scary things can in sue.

The author can get bored and resort to using the same old tried-and-true plots and plot devices. I’ve definitely gotten tired while reading serialized romance books. After the first three or four, I could see the same storylines being used over and over again and lost interest.

The author can get bold. Which can be good thing. Or not so much. Like in the case of poor L.J. Smith, who wanted to stop the Vampire Diaries at three books but was pushed to write more by her fans and publisher. Which led to downright weird plot twists involving things like angel wings, Japanese anime antagonists and other dimensions. Not good.

The author can get cocky. When a series is really popular, some authors take liberties they wouldn’t have otherwise taken with the mindset that anything and everything they do will turn to gold and be appreciated by their fans. Yeah. No.

I think it’s easy for authors to picture writing a series, especially when they feel really close to their characters. They want to spend as much time with them as they can BUT, if the passion and the vision don’t follow, some stories really are better off being wrapped up in one volume.

What do you guys think? Have you ever read a series where the author should have/could have stopped after one or two books? In what cases do you think more books are necessary for the author and the reader?

Do You Have to Be Rich to Self-Publish?

Okay, maybe not rich. But am I the only one that feels like, in order to successfully self-publish, you gotta have an extra couple-thousand-dollars lying around?

As I enviously watch many of my writer friends take the giant leap into self-publishing, I’ve seriously considered following their lead and publishing one of my books to amazon. It just seems like the next logical step for someone like me, even though I’m still determined to keep querying agents and get published traditionally someday as well.

However, it feels like all the successful self-published authors I meet agree on the absolute

necessity of a high quality product if you’re going to put something out there. I’m not just talking about the quality of your writing, which has taken years to hone- But of every aspect of your self-published book from formatting, to cover art, to copy-editing. As well we should, I suppose. The majority of readers won’t be drawn to shoddy book covers, weirdo spacing and grammatical errors galore and putting out a less-than-stellar product can diminish the view of self-publishing as a whole.

Now, I could try and do all the work on my own and not spend a dime. But it feels like most self-pubbing resources warn against it. While reading the do’s and don’t’s of self-pubbing, doubts and worries fill my mind. ‘You’ll never be able to successfully copy-edit your book and it will have a ton of errors.’ ‘Your book cover might appeal to you, but won’t appeal to a huge audience like a professional’s would.’ ‘Learning to format correctly and actually formatting your book will take forever and you’ll probably have to go back and fix it a million times, if you’re even successful at all.’ ‘In the end, it will be just so hard and time consuming and you’ll probably fail anyway so why try?’ *sigh*

Except, whenever I look into what kind of budget I’d need to hire someone to make a spectacular book cover (150$-400$), copy-edit my manuscript (450$-1000$), and format my book (100$-300$), I can’t help but feel like ‘the perfect product’ is far beyond my financial reach.

Am I the only one with the impression that in order to make money self-pubbing, you have to spend it? I wish there were some way to see how much money a mixed group of authors put into their first self-published title and if that effected the success of that book in the long run as opposed to someone who put in less money.

And, also, I can’t help but think that a pretty cover and perfect grammar can go a long way, but in the end- isn’t it the genre, concept and story that take center stage when it comes to the success of a title?

What do you guys think? Are ‘do-it-yourself’ SP books of a lesser quality and less popular than those that were invested in financially? Or does the amount of money put into the book not matter at all when it comes to success?

I'm BACK, Baby!

So, today is the first time in a long time I’ve sat down in front of the computer to try and put together something coherent. My baby girl, Phoebe, was born February 27^th, 2013 and just turned nine weeks old which means I finally have the ‘go ahead’ to start exercising and getting myself back into shape. Therefore I figured it would also be a good time to stretch back out the ole’ writing muscles and get blogging again.

The last 8 weeks have been FILLED with ups and downs so I thought I’d do a brief recap:

Week 1- Baby’s born! First thoughts- ‘Look what I DID!’ *looks around the room

frantically* Do you guys see this? I made this brand new little human practically all by myself AND it feels like my body just broke about a million rules of nature to squeeze the little sucker out! It’s a miracle! I am magical! I should have food and presents brought to me on golden platters and tribes of people should bow down and sing my praises! Or I should at least be given a medal by the mayor, or something. So what if hundreds of thousands of women do this every day!? I still deserve a damn medal!’

Week 2 – ‘Yeah,- still waiting on that medal’.  *Hmph*

Week 3- ‘Boy, this baby sleeps a lot!’. I mean, I practically have time to do whatever I want! Why did I think this was going to be so hard again?’

Week 4- ‘Boy, this baby cries a lot!  What’s wrong? You’re fed, burped, changed and in the loving embrace of your spectacular mother! Why do you hate me?’ *tears*

Week 5- ‘Boy, this baby sleeps great! I mean, she only wakes up once or twice a night. I’ve got this new baby thing totally licked!’

Week 6- ‘Oh my god, I’m never going to get a full night’s sleep again ever for the next seven years. What the hell was I thinking? Why do you HATE me? *tears*’

Week 7- ‘She SMILED! Oh my god, she totally loves me. I’ve got this new baby thing completely licked.’

Week 8- ‘Holy crap, this baby got heavy fast. What are we feeding you? My back is killing me. And now the doctor says I can work out on top of all this? Yay- *fake mini fist pump*.’ *Looks in mirror* ‘I don’t look that bad. But what the hell is going on with my thighs? I mean, I understood when I had that big baby belly to support that my upper legs had to kind of spread out to support the weight but it’s been TWO MONTHS now since the baby jumped ship. Shouldn’t they start, I don’t know, deflating on their own?’

Which brings me to the present- nine weeks later and slowly learning to balance baby care, body care and all the fun things in life in-between. You guys aren’t here to see it, but I just took a nice deep breath and got a little teary. I hadn’t realized just how much I’ve missed this part of my life.  The simple act of writing and sharing.

Well, that and the hormones have me tearing up pretty regularly over things like nutella commercials and realizing we're out of trash bags…But that doesn’t devalue just how much I’ve missed all of you, too!

It’s good to be back! Now, your turn! What have I missed? When you think back on the last 8 weeks what’s the first word/event that comes to mind for you?

Extended Hiatus

So, the last few weeks ‘baby brain’ has set in. I wanted to keep up with the blog and the writing community. I really did. But the truth is, I can barely manage to string two coherent sentences together that don’t contain the words ‘baby, labor, or birth’. I’ve searched the recesses of my brain, but unfortunately I’ve had nothing witty or relevant to add to the blog about writing, querying, books or publishing. I sent in my big revise & resubmit to the agent in December, and any further motivation to create has seemed to disappear along with my stretched-out belly button.

I knew this would happen. I hoped it wouldn’t- but deep down, I knew it would. I’ve always been useless the last months of my pregnancies. The growing baby sucks the last of my energy while mentally preparing for her arrival takes up any brain power I may have on reserve. Like Gloria said in Modern Family -‘I have two brains in my body, but never felt so dumb’.

And the worst part is, it’s not going to get any better after the birth. Because once the baby comes, so do the hormones. And in my case, breastfeeding and hormones compile to create a ‘drugged and in denial’ effect that allows me to go days without sleep, clothes that don’t smell like spit-up, or adult interaction and actually be happy about it. Now that I’m on my fourth time through this rabbit hole, I fully anticipate and accept the two-month mental, emotional and psychological journey through ‘la la land’ needed for baby and I to adapt.

Which is why I prefer to go an hiatus now, before I forget I have a blog altogether.

But I hate to leave things hanging. So,I was looking through my settings and realized in the last three years, I’ve written 415 posts (Holy Crap!).

Which include 58 posts on writing and crafting.

 26  posts on querying

11 posts on rejection

And 37 posts on living in France

Not to mention, a bunch of other posts surrounding those themes (agents, blogging, bloghops, books, reading, etc…) that haven’t been labeled or aren’t labeled under the above. You can scroll down to the ‘Labels’ section of this blog for a full list. For any newbies, I hope you find what you’re looking for here. For all my regular blogging friends and readers, I’ll miss you over the next few months and I will update my writer facebook regularly! (see sidebar)

See you all in the Spring!

*CQG*

Is Anyone Still Querying?

I’ll be honest. I haven’t sent a query letter out in ages. That doesn’t mean I've given up or don’t have material out there with agents. There’s still one full out with an agent who seems to have dropped off the face of the planet, and a big R&R I finished in December with an agent who I’m really looking forward to hearing from.

But that’s it. 

Every book I write, it’s the same vicious cycle: I get an idea I can run with, write like a maniac, finish the book, get excited, spend the necessary time revising and going back and forth with betas before that crucial moment where it’s time to query. I have an insane list of agents who represent the kind of books I write. I’ve done the research. And sure, those first few queries are always filled with blind optimism that ‘this will be the one!’. 

And time and time again, I came close, but no cigar. 

The last year, however, my process has been stunted. Sure, I’ve written 20k here, or 30k there on a couple different projects. But I lost interest in them before I could make it to the next step. Add in some personal drama and an R&R rejection that left me gutted for a few months and you’ve got the crazy mess that is my current creative well.

As you can see from my last blogpost, I’m not going to put pressure on myself to start the process anew. But I can’t help feeling kind of like the kid that stays home to work on the farm while all his friends go off to college. 

Or the middle-aged woman who’s still looking for Mr. Right while all her girlfriends settle down and start popping out pink bundles of joy.

So many of my writer friends have moved on. They’ve either given up, or gone forward. They’ve signed with agents. Or small presses. Or decided to self publish their first books. Their goals have changed. Their priorities and how they spend their time has changed. They've traded in agent-search sites, querying and craft-honing for goodreads ratings, amazon reviews and sales and marketing... 

Which is good. 

It’s what we’re supposed to do, right? We’re supposed to move on and move forward.

And while I’m excited, proud, and envious of all of my writer friends who have advanced in the process, I can’t help feeling like the pool of people still actually querying agents is getting smaller and smaller. 

I know that self-pubbing and small presses have become increasingly popular. But has the general consensus become that querying agents is no longer the next logical step when you want to become a successful published writer? Is anyone still querying? Or am I holding onto a quickly-shrinking iceberg?

I Don't Wanna Write!

As some of you might know, I’m officially on home bed rest due to some risks caused by the minor placental abruption I had a couple weeks ago. In the last week, I’ve discovered there are both good and bad sides of being stuck in bed 90% of the day.

Like discovering your husband is even more awesome than you thought (he really is:). Or realizing you don’t have to worry about what time it is, what’s for dinner, who needs to be where or how they’ll get there. (It took me a few days to figure out that worrying about these things was pointless, since I can’t control how anything’s done from now until the end of February and clucking like a disgruntled hen about how I would do these things only serves to annoy my entourage- which is not in my best interest, really.) 

When I think about it, it’s almost like I’m on a doctor-imposed momcation! I can enjoy my kids and my family, but nobody needs me for anything. It’s both humbling and liberating.

Months ago, while in the throws of reworking my novel, I would have killed for this kind of free time. And yes, one of my first thoughts while settling into invalid life was ‘Well, I guess now I’ll have time for writing and blogging!’

There’s only one problem.

I don’t want to write. I mean, I always want to write. I love writing. But I can’t seem to make myself want it enough right now to actually, well, do it.

I tried, of course. I re-opened the wip I was working on before the agent revisions became my main focus but I couldn’t manage more than a little tweaking of material here and there before I closed it right back up.

It’s not just a question of inspiration or motivation. I think my writer’s block is a reflection of the deep, dark, fundamental thing that makes me write...(cue Creepy’s auto-psychoanalysis) –  which is my irrevocable need/love of escape and adventure. 

And I think this fundamental thing might be different for every person- the driving force that pushes each of us to write in the first place. 

Through the years, I’ve found I write my best material when three situations arise and come to a crossroads:

1- I’m bored out of my mind with life’s monotony. 2- I’m out of things to read (aka distractions). 3- I’m gripped by an idea that pulls me out of my world and into another, thus giving me the exact escape/adventure I’m looking for.

When these three situations meet, I’ll usually find myself sitting months later with a brand new novel in my lap. 

Right now, however, my life isn’t monotonous or boring. It’s been uncharacteristically eventful, frightening, and uncertain- as is my future and the future of our family. Which is why, I think, writer Katie is simply taking a back seat and holding on until she’s needed again (which I pray she will be, and soon:).

What is the fundamental thing that pushes you to write- your writing heart, or center, if you will? Do you think it’s different for everyone? And what situations, have you noticed, have a direct affect on your writing ability/motivation?

No Place Like Home

Those of you who are following me on Facebook might already know about the chaos the Creepy family went through this last week. For those of you who don’t, I’ll try and make it short. 

I was rushed to the hospital early Friday, January 11th with unexpected haemorrhaging. Turns out, I probably had a minor placental abruption (when the placenta pulls away from the uterus and causes bleeding) but the doctors also suspected a tear in the amniotic sac. Thankfully, by last Friday the bleeding had disappeared completely and the results for the tear came back negative. So they finally released this Creepy chick back into the wild, after an 8-day stay.

‘Scary’ and ‘Lonely’ don’t even begin to describe the week of hospitalization, even though I was reassured that this baby would make it to term one way or another. After the morning spent in the Maternity Emergency ward (where they prepped me for a possible emergency c-section, stuck me with steroids for the baby, and kept me for observation after I had an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics they’d stuck into my iv), I was finally moved to a hall for at-risk pregnancies / laboring patients. And that’s where I basically lived from Friday-Friday. 

Even though the staff was very kind and reassuring, and I knew that I was in the best possible place if there were any further problems for me and the baby- the truth is, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. There was no wifi or direct internet access, and thank God I at least had my phone with 3G so I could keep in touch with family and surf the net. 

The food was, well, let’s just say I didn’t know food like that existed. There’s always the stereotype about how poor hospital food is, but that had never been my experience when I gave birth in the U.S. or at the private clinic here. 

No. 

Not until I’d been admitted into a public city hospital, did I discover the true source of the ‘hospital food stereotype’. I’m pretty sure a lot of what they served had to have been in powder form at one point or another. No salt, butter, herbs, or sauce. And when they did happen to add sauce, you kind of wish they hadn’t. After the first couple days, a slow deception and anxiety would build in my gut as they delivered our trays. Gone was the usual fervor and excitement I once felt around mealtimes. That said, I ate everything I could out of sheer hunger, but still ended up losing weight for the first time during my pregnancy.

And it was a struggle getting used to the hospital bed, which- no matter how much I played with the up and down switches, was either sunken or stiff in all the wrong places. -The kind of bed that makes you wish you could remove your arm for a couple hours just so you can get some sleep.

In any case, when they gave me the green light to discharge- I practically grew wings and flew out of there. Because not only did that mean the baby and I had a good chance of making it all the way to March without further incident (if we follow doctors orders and take it easy, of course), but it also meant I could see my kids first thing in the morning and kiss their sleepy heads, (something I missed most while in the hospital. That, and tucking them into bed at night. Always got a little teary around bedtime.) eat food that tastes like food, and enjoy a bed that doesn’t make me want to remove random limbs.

In the end, there’s no place like home!

Have you ever had to endure the joys (or lack thereof) of hospital life? What sticks out most in your mind about  your stay?It’s good to be back! I’ll be picking up my regular Mon/Wed posting schedule this week and I’m looking forward to catching up with you all!

*CQG*