@_William_Knight Shares on Writing & Bringing Up Children #AmWriting #Thriller #Authors

All writers need more time. But where to get it from? You can’t give up the day job since that pays the bills and puts food on the table, and when you’re at home the children take up so much time you can’t spend so much as a minute inside your own head. Here then are ten ways you can find the time to write even if you had children, but please don’t take these ideas too seriously 

1. Buy a playpen– playpens have gone out of fashion, but they never did me any harm. A playpen nicely situated in a soundproof room will give you hours of time. Use baby monitors if you must but turn them to low so that only persistent and emergency howls will break your concentration.
2. Use bedtime stories for character and plot development. What does your character want really badly? What is getting in his way? What flaw in the character will stop  him enjoying the thing once he gets it? All these questions are perfect for developing kids stories.
3. Encourage play dates. We all know that having other kids round keeps our own from moaning and complaining. “Dad, can you do this? Dad, can you do that?  Dad, Tommy pulled my hair.” etc.
4. Get a partner. If you don’t have one already then a partner is perfect for handing the kids to while you being the next opus. There are many online places to find a partner these days, and once you have one they can’t usually get away without a lengthy process. This will give you plenty of time to write, and if they do manage to get away then it’s normally simple to find another. (I just have to look in my in box for all the offers).
5. Get a divorce. Have you noticed that divorced parents share the children. This means you can spend at least half your life writing while you ex takes care of the little darlings.
6. Steal your kids ideas. We all know children have fertile imaginations and that they can creatively out-think adults. Utilise this skill where you can to find interesting plot twists and situation.
7. Employ your kids computer skills for digital marketing. Kids come out of the womb able to work Twitter and Facebook. Get them maintaining your auto tweets and review responses so you don’t have to bother with all that online guff when you’d rather be writing. This has an added benefit that the kids always want screen time and now you can simply sit them in front of a computer for hours on end engaged in useful work.
8. Drop them at their Grandparents without notice. Your parents always expected you would turn out irresponsible and reckless, so don’t disappoint them.
9. Experiment with new emotions for your characters: Raising kids will drive you mental. Note how angry you get and use it for character development. Troublesome kids are best in this regard, and you will only ever be a few moments away from a unique perspective on life that you can use in your writing.
10. Daily chores. While children are young you will have to clean up after them. But within a few short years you will be able to put them to work cleaning and tidying. Don’t skimp. It is character building for the children and the time you save will allow you to put in another few hundred words a day.

A man emerges from the sodden undergrowth, lost, lonely and starving he is mown down by a speeding car on the edge of a remote forest.

Rumours of ghostly apparitions haunt a rural Northumberland community.

A renowned forensic research establishment is troubled by impossible results and unprecedented interference from an influential drug company.

Hendrix ‘Aitch’ Harrison is a tech-phobic journalist who must link these events together.

Normally side-lined to investigate UFOs and big-beast myths, but thrust into world of cynical corporate motivations, Hendrix is aided by a determined and ambitious entomologist. Together they delve into a grisly world of clinical trials and a viral treatment beyond imagining.

In a chase of escalating dangers, Aitch must battle more than his fear of technology to expose the macabre fate of the drugged victims donated to scientific research.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Crime, Thriller, Horror

Rating – R-16

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Connect with William Knight on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.williamknight.info

@AlinkaRutkowska Asks to Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish #WriteTip #SelfPub #KidLit

To self-publish or not to self-publish?

To self-publish or not to self-publish? This is the question. In this post I will try to sum up everything that I know about both worlds.

Do It Yourself.

Like a bed you just brought from IKEA, if you self-publish, you will have to build your book yourself. This means that you have full control and full responsibility. This also means that you will get better with each subsequent book you publish. If you just have that one book – we will call it your first book. If you could write one, you can write another one. Maybe not today or tomorrow but believe me when I tell you, another idea will come to you if such is your desire.

OK, not yourself, you need a team.

You don’t really do all of it yourself but you do need a team. Let’s cover the basics for a children’s book author.

You wrote the book.

Now it would be great to got it critiqued. You can find some information about this on my blog. You can choose to skip this step but you can’t skip any of the next ones.

You MUST get an editor. It’s a book you’re publishing – your name will be on it. The writing must be of the highest quality, so get a copy-editor.

You will need an illustrator. The great thing about self-publishing is that you can choose him or her (you can’t if you publish traditionally).

You need someone to put your book together for you (do the layout and design).

You can purchase all of these services from your publisher (CreateSpace offers excellent services, which I’ve used before) but it will cost you much less if you set up a team yourself.

Now to the benefits of self-publishing:

It’s fast – once you have the team in place – it only takes a few months to get your book out there (as opposed to years with traditional publishing – and that’s after your manuscript has been accepted!).

You’re in control – the book is yours, so is the copyright, you may do with it as you please, you can sell foreign rights or you can retire your title whenever you want.

Higher royalties. Of course royalties depend on how you price your book but in general you make more dollars per copy sold than traditionally published authors.

You can call yourself a published author and get to the other side.

The other side is book promotion. You now have a product of your own and you can start learning the tricks of the marketing trade. This will help you to write books that people want to read, to optimize titles and key words. You can start submitting your book for awards and if you get one – you can use it for other book-marketing and self-marketing purposes.

It gives you confidence. You’re a published author now and if you desire to become a traditionally published author as well, you will have plenty of material to show to your agent. Who do you think they will choose (if both manuscripts are of equal value)? A first time author with no platform or marketing skills? Or a published author who has received media exposure, awards and already has a group of fans? Traditional publishing houses aren’t stupid. They want to make money too and if they see that you can help them do that – they will chose your manuscript, because you’re already a pro.

So yeah, self-publish.

Alinka Rutkowska has created a tale that will appeal to children, which teaches about choices, and encourages communication and sharing. Rating: 5.0 stars from Readers’ Favorite Reviews.

Embark on a one-of-a-kind, unprecedented, breathtaking adventure with Maya and Filippo as they travel around the globe on board the “Fun Princess” — a cruise ship full of surprises. Discover their fascinating ports of call, find out what the local customs and traditions are, join the kids in activities at sea, and explore the remarkable world they create through the power of their positive outlook.

This time the kids spend a day on board the Fun Princess. They become junior chefs at sea and learn how to bake a cake. Maya and Filippo discover how trying out different recipes gets them closer to creating the perfect dessert. They also discover the power of sharing.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Children’s Picture Book

Rating – G

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@JessicaDall on Developing Believable Characters #AmWriting #HistFic #WriteTip

When it comes to writing, I have always been a “character-driven” author. If you don’t have a good plot, of course it’s a problem, but I fully admit that it tends to be the characters that make me interested in writing a particular story rather than the plot (sometimes I’m not even entirely sure what the plot is going to be when I start out since I don’t tend to care for outlines).

Leaving the characters in charge of powering the story, however, makes building believable characters all the more important.  So how do you do that?

1.       Work out a backstory

No character exists in a vacuum. Just like you didn’t magically appear one day fully grown (I’m assuming…) your character has likely has some past that affects the person they are today. While you should certainly avoid info dumping (overwhelming your reader with a bunch of backstory that they may or may not need to know all or once) you, as the author, need to know what makes your character tick. Have they had a great sense of humor since they were a child? Did they learn it from a friend? Is it a reaction to having a very serious family? The answer may not matter to anyone else, but it will help you shape the little things about your character which turn them from ‘Character A’ to a real person.

2.       Use Character Questionnaires sparingly

All right, this comes down to if you find them helpful or not, but Character Questionnaires have only been passingly helpful for me in the past. They are great for getting the basics down, like what your character looks like or if they have siblings, but is thinking about what my character’s favorite ice cream flavor is really going to help make them real? If questionnaires work for you, go for it. You just might be better served working outside a form (I personally like writing in paragraphs when it comes to the basics) or using other character-building techniques. Like:

3.       Take your characters out of your story

Dialogue has always been my strength so I might be biased here, but one of the best ways I have found to develop a flat character is to take them out of the actual story, and throw them into a strange situation. How would Character A take it if she was suddenly stuck in an elevator with Character B. How would Character B act if he was out couch shopping with his mother? Without having to worry about where the story is going, the characters are free to talk to one another and generally interact with the world, which can give you some great insight into everything from their speech patterns to past relationships.

4.       Let your character lead

This one doesn’t happen to everyone, but sometimes well-developed characters get a little headstrong. If you find yourself writing and all of a sudden a character decides that they actually don’t really like a character you meant to make their best friend/significant other, let them make the change. It’s a good sign your character is developed enough to react to a situation as their own person—forcing them back to what you originally were planning will often suddenly shatter the little things that make them a “real”, believable person.

Adela Tilden has always been more ambitious than her station in life might allow. A minor nobleman’s daughter on a failing barony, Adela’s prospects seem dire outside of marrying well-off. When Adela catches the eye of the crown prince, Edward, however, well-off doesn’t seem to be a problem. Thrown into a world of politics and intrigue, Adela might have found all the excitement she ever wanted—if she can manage to leave her past behind.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Alternate Historical Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Website http://jessicadall.com/

Roland Hughes Says, "The character chose to tell the story" #Dystopian #MustRead #BookClub

I must warn you, my mind is a dangerous place.  My friends have been hearing that since we were teenagers but it wasn’t until I started writing novels that they began to realize it was just a joke.

As a writer/author one question gets asked countless times.  I has many different wordings, but it is the same question.  “What lead you to write this story?”  “What was going through your mind as you wrote this story?”  “How did you come up with the idea for this story?”  The wording doesn’t matter, it is the same question no matter how it is phrased.  What they are really asking, even if they won’t admit it is “How can I (or my readers) write a story like this?”

Most author interviews I’ve read seems to indicate they become calloused from this question and toss out the same response no matter how it is phrased, like a politician with talking points.  In the past I have been innocent and tried to actually answer the way it was phrased in a politically correct manner.  Nobody wants to hear the honest answer.  The honest answer is “You can’t because I certainly didn’t.”

Shocked?  It’s true.  I didn’t get a writing degree, create an outline, or follow any rules other than grammar and spelling.  The character chose to tell its story.  I wrote it down as best I could then fixed a few things.  Quite honestly, if you wish to become a writer you just need to be adequate with spelling and grammar, able to hire professional editing and, most importantly, listen to the character.

If you are not a writer and reading this I fully understand if you are shaking your head.  It defies what most people are told when they are young, but it is the truth.  If you want to know how to be the kind of author who gets some good/great reviews on their work the honest answer is “you cannot be told.”  There is no response or set of rules one can provide you with.  There is no formula to creating something nobody has ever thought of before.  There is no college course you can take or degree you can get which will make you an author who gets good/great reviews no matter what admissions tells you when you are handing over your money.

You can learn all you need to know by reading two short stories in a single book.  The book is Skeleton Crew.  The first short story to read out of it is Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.  This simple tale explains in detail what the mind of a writer is really like and where stories really come from.  If you don’t believe that after reading it then either switch to non-fiction writing or choose a new line of work.

The second story you need to read (and in this order) is Word Processor of the Gods.  This one story tells you everything you need to know about every story you will ever write.  Your mind and story are both free to travel as far as they wish if and only if they keep a tether to that subset of things which define humanity.

Fornit Some Fornus

“John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars” is one big interview. It is a transcript of a dialogue between “John Smith” (who, as the title of the book implies is the last known survivor of the Microsoft wars) and the interviewer for a prominent news organization.

Buy Now @ Amazon & B&N

Genre – Dystopian Fiction

Rating – PG

More details about the author

Website http://johnsmith-book.com/

@EileenMakysm Shares Her Thoughts on Book Covers #AmReading #YA #Paranormal

I was browsing Amazon’s selection of free books for Kindle the other day, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t looking at titles, or authors; I was looking at covers.  If a cover caught my eye – had an compelling image, interesting (and visible!) fonts, and aesthetically pleasing colors – then I might spend the split second it takes to read the title or author, and might be interested enough to read the blurb.  If the cover didn’t spark that interest, though, I just moved on.  There are tons of free books on Amazon, after all.  I don’t have time to read the blurbs on all of them.  A book with a bad or boring cover?  I don’t waste my time.  And these are free books!  Imagine how much less patience I’d have if I was looking for books to spend my money on!

This demonstrates exactly how important a book cover is.  There’s a quote from a character in Pulp Fiction(paraphrased, since, like the rest of the movie, it’s gloriously profanity-laced) that a rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but he’ll never know because he’ll never put the thing in his mouth. A bad cover might contain a potential Pulitzer Prize winner, but no one is going to take the time to find out more about it, much less buy it.

Of course, the problem isn’t just bad covers, it’s also bland covers.  There’s a ridiculous number of books out there (every time I walk into a book store I spend a moment just looking around in despair – I will never read all those books, and my own book is a drop in a vast ocean).  Why should anybody give yours the time of day?  Of course, the cover is hardly the be-all end-all of marketing.  Even so, the more compelling the cover is, the more likely people are to buy the book.

So, what makes a good cover?  I mentioned before that a good cover has a compelling image, interesting and visible fonts, and aesthetically pleasing colors.  Almost all of the bad covers I’ve seen fail in one or more of these categories.  They have a boring, confusing, or even off-putting image (a romance novel with a scantily-clad woman in an awkward pose photoshopped badly over a city skyline isn’t doing itself any favors).  They have fonts that are too plain, or, conversely, ridiculously and illegibly ornate.  The fonts may also be too small, or the colors might make them vanish into the background.  Or the cover’s colors might be truly horrible, or clash so badly that you want to take them to court for assaulting your eyes.

But all that is what makes a bad cover.  A cover can avoid those pitfalls, but still be bland.  So what makes a cover that will snag readers and make them look at a blurb?  That’s a little harder to know, and it relies a lot on personal taste.  Looking at the covers of the free Kindle books, one of the main things that catches my eye is simplicity.  A cover that has a bunch going on takes more than a second to parse, and more often than not I’m just going to skip it.  A romance novel that has a bunch of people on it…no.  One couple…better.  A close-up of a well-muscled chest?  Oh yes, let me see what that one’s about!

Try it sometime!  Go to Amazon, search “free books on Kindle” and scan the covers.  Which books do you decide to learn more about?  Ten to one, they’ll be the ones with the covers that “pop.”

Tara Martin – exceptionally accomplished neurobiology major with a troubled past. Steven Trent – confident political science major with an irresistible attraction to Tara. Paul Stratton – history major who is able to hear spirits. Together, they make up the Society for Paranormal Researchers at their prestigious New England University. When they’re not in class or writing papers, the three friends are chasing their passion….ghosts.

When the group learns of a local retired couple trying to sell a house they claim is haunted, they decide to investigate. As the clues unfold, a familiar spirit interrupts their investigation and Tara finds her life in danger. Can her friends save her before it’s too late?

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – YA paranormal, NA paranormal

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Eileen Maksym on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://eileenmaksym.wordpress.com/

TO LOVE A CAT by Billi Tiner @TinerBooks #Excerpt #Romance #Contemporary

Catherine James stared hard at the photo she held in her hands. The face of a sullen, 13-year-old boy stared back at her. He had thick, black hair and dark green eyes, almost the same shade of green as Catherine’s own eyes. She felt her heart lurch at the pain she saw reflected there. She looked up at the woman sitting on the other side of the desk she faced. Stacy Shields was a social worker for the Department of Social Services, Children’s Division. Her blue eyes sparkled with intensity as she met Cat’s gaze. Short brown hair framed her plump face. She smiled encouragingly.

“When I decided to become a foster parent, I thought I’d be taking in a little girl. I never considered fostering a teenage boy,” Cat commented.

“I know,” Stacy replied. “But Ethan needs to go to a home where he’s the only child. Since his father signed away his parental rights a few months ago, he’s been in two different foster homes. They each had other kids, and they just weren’t a good fit. Ethan’s extremely bright. I really feel that given the right environment, he could blossom into a special young man. I also think he’ll do better in a home where there isn’t a man around. His father was very abusive. His mother was non-existent. She left them when Ethan was just a baby. He needs the nurturing influence of a mom.”

Catherine, “Cat” as she was called by her friends, looked down at the photo. Can I do this? she wondered. She ran a hand through her thick, red hair and sighed. She didn’t really have a choice, did she?

She’d decided a long time ago that she would offer a child the help she never received. She’d been raised by parents who had beaten her for the hell of it and then kicked her out when she was 15. She’d dropped out of school and taken any odd job she could get her hands on. When she’d turned 18, she’d gotten her GED and scored well enough on the ACT to earn a scholarship to college. It took her six years to finish school because she’d had to work full-time to make up for what the scholarship money didn’t cover. Now, at 30, she was the lead accountant for a large corporation. She liked her job. It was steady, no surprises. Working numbers was a black-and-white issue. Her life was neat and tidy, the way she liked it. She was in complete control. What would happen if she threw a troubled teenage boy into the mix? Would she be able to handle the certain chaos that would follow? She knew it wouldn’t be easy.

She looked back up. Stacy met and held her gaze. Cat slowly nodded. “Okay, I’ll take him.”

Stacy grinned. “Great!” she exclaimed. “I’ll bring him by tomorrow. What time should we get there?”

The next day was Saturday. “Any time after eight in the morning,” Cat replied.

“Okay, I’ll bring him at nine. I truly believe this will work out for both of you.” She stood and embraced Cat. They’d become close friends over the last few months as Cat had gone through the foster parenting classes. Stacy wasn’t sure why, but she felt confident Ethan and Cat would be a good match. She’d been a social worker for a long time, and she’d developed a sixth sense about these things. This felt right.

From the author of “Dogs Aren’t Men” comes “To Love a Cat”, a contemporary romance novel.

Catherine “Cat” James’ life is simple and orderly, and she likes it that way. She loves her job as an accountant. Working with numbers is safe and routine, no surprises. Her childhood had been very abusive and unstable. She vowed not to live that way as an adult. She also made a promise to herself to become a foster parent. She wished someone had been there for her as a teenager, to let her know she wasn’t alone.

Cat agrees to foster Ethan Summers, a troubled teenage boy whose childhood closely resembles her own. Suddenly, her nice and orderly life is filled with chaos and uncertainty. Things really start to spin out of control when circumstances bring police detective Mitch Holt into the picture. He’s handsome, charming, and definitely not what Cat needs right now, or so she thinks.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Contemporary Romance

Rating – PG

More details about the author

Connect with Billi Tiner on Facebook & Twitter

Website www.tinerbooks.blogspot.com

Victoria Bernadine on Spiders, Heights & The Creative High @VicBernadine #ChickLit #Fiction

How do you work through self-doubts and fear?
By reminding myself that I’m really not as bad as I think – LOL. And if I get too panicky, then I put what I’m working on away for a while, then come back to it, and read it over. I usually find myself saying, “you know, this is actually…almost…kinda…good…” My ego is overwhelming, I know.

What scares you the most?
Spiders. And heights. Spiders in high places really mess me up.

What makes you happiest?
Writing, and cats.

What’s your greatest character strength?
I’m stubborn.

What’s your weakest character trait?
I’m stubborn.

Why do you write?
I enjoy it. I enjoy everything about it – even the editing, if it hasn’t been going on forever. I love creating characters and a world and situations and events and seeing what happens.

Have you always enjoyed writing?
Yes, although I stopped writing creatively for twenty-some years. I just couldn’t get the juices flowing.

What motivates you to write?
The creative ‘high’ I get when things are going well. The fact that I’m writing a story I want to read. Curiosity – I don’t plot my stories out beforehand, and I sometimes find that I’ll continue writing just to find out what happens. The sheer joy and fun of it; even when it’s nothing but overly-wordy melodramatic schlock, it’s still fun.

What writing are you most proud of?
I’m proud of everything I’ve finished and sent out for public consumption (whether an original novel into the marketplace, or a fanfic set loose in the wilds of fandom). A Life Less Ordinary, of course, because it’s the first one I’ve officially published. For fanfic, I’m extremely proud of my one and only (so far) Star Trek fic called Clementine (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9069138/1/Clementine), because I thought it was a unique idea, it’s incredibly experimental for me, and I still tear up over it (and I wrote the thing). I have absolutely no idea where it came from, but I’m really glad it did.

What are you most proud of in your personal life?
That I’m good at what I do.

What books did you love growing up?
The Black Stallion novels were my first loves, I adored them when I discovered them in Grade Two, I think it was. Mainly, though, science fiction and fantasy were (and usually are) my go-to reads. Isaac Asimov, Lloyd Alexander, Robert A. Heinlein (before I started reading his adult stuff and went ‘WTF?!’), and others. Of course, I also adored Stephen King, Agatha Christie, Louis L’Amour, and I’m sure there are more because I read a LOT as a kid.

For the last fifteen years, Rose “Manny” Mankowski has been a very good girl. She turned her back on her youthful fancies and focused on her career. But now, at the age of 45, she’s questioning her choices and feeling more and more disconnected from her own life. When she’s passed over for promotion and her much younger new boss implies Manny’s life will never change, something snaps. In the blink of an eye, she’s quit her job, sold her house and cashed in her pension, and she’s leaving town on a six month road trip.

After placing a personal ad for a travelling companion, she’s joined in her mid-life crisis by Zeke Powell, the cynical, satirical, most-read – and most controversial – blogger for the e-magazine, What Women Want. Zeke’s true goal is to expose Manny’s journey as a pitiful and desperate attempt to reclaim her lost youth – and increase his readership at the same time. Leaving it all behind for six months is just an added bonus.

Now, armed with a bagful of destinations, a fistful of maps, and an out-spoken imaginary friend named Harvey, Manny’s on a quest to rediscover herself – and taking Zeke along for the ride.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – ChickLit, Contemporary Fiction

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

 Connect with Victoria Bernadine on Twitter

Blog victoriabernadine.wordpress.com