Wordy Wednesday 8; Styles and Nom de Plumes

Barnaby James rolled up alongside the house on his tricycle. He was three and a large child, practically bursting out of his suit that'd fit just that last fall, his blond hair falling into his eyes as he bounced along the gravel track which led to the front porch. He scowled as he swung one short trouser clad leg over the trike and swaggered inside. His grandfather was dead. His relatives had been getting on his nerves. That was why he'd taken a turn around the track that led around the house. Otherwise, he would have smacked his Aunt Judith. "Have a candy and brush your teeth, indeed!" He was three, not an infant.

This was written by me on the spot. 

"You know, I wish that I had wings," said Melody. 

"Why?" asked Arianna distractedly, her eyes on the small glass vial of purple liquid in a stand over a small fire that extended from a small round stand, presumably for a fuel source. She delicately stuck a reed inside the vial and stirred. The mixture darkened to a royal purple, losing all translucence. She clicked her tongue in approval and used a pair of copper tongs to remove the vial from a stand and stick it in a pile of sand beside where she was kneeling. She looked up at Melody as she twisted the valve that extinguished the tongue of fire. Without the source of light, there were no worse off, as the moons always shed some light, especially out on the silvery dunes. 

Melody stared enigmatically at Arianna. "Why else, she said, with a hint of belligerence. "I want to be able to break someone's arm, like a swan or a goose, if they challenge me."

Arianna frowned. "We've only seen a goose at the dinner table and a swan once, perhaps?" 

Melody shrugged. "It's not my fault that people don't read." She tilted her head, " Or cannot make inferences based on the musculature of the roast goose we have seen." 

This was also written by me with no planning. I used two characters from my Snow Sands series. 

These are more similar than I intended but I think they'll still illustrate my point. 

Pen Names. 

Why I think they're important. 

For one thing, separating the genres you write in would make sense since you want your audience to associate a specific name with a specific sort of feeling. Otherwise, they might get confused and more cautious about buying titles written under than name. That's relatively obvious. 

The other thing is if your writing style changes. Going from plot driven to character driven or having a bunch of action packed novels that give way to a whole new series where two people talk in a room, is going to be even more jarring for a reader than changing your genre. 

The problem is that an established name is advertising. In these cases, though, it'd be bad advertising. 

I'm fighting with this. I don't like it. I don't even really like using my name, though I will for this blog. I suppose that even if I list all of my young adult work here, people will still see it under a different name and the name will serve as a brand. 

Yay. 

I don't think I have a brand yet. 

Rattlesnakes and Roughriders

I've been thinking of what I should write, what I want to write and what I am in the process of writing. 

This has led me to thinking of profitability, fitting into a genre and Twilight. 

There's a video blog that I discovered a month or two ago on http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/

Fifty Shades of Green is about a question; can we write the next big Twilight (without being serious) and the process of answering that question through the two bloggers accepting comments on what they should do and brainstorming themselves, while drinking a lot. The product of this endeavor is, Awoken, a paranormal teen romance. The book centers around a girl, pale, brunette and rife with insecurities if the blog is any indication and with the last name Slate,  as in blank slate and Cthulhu in the young, hot human form of Riley. 

The sample chapter has been released. Awoken, Chapter Six

I find the video blog to be quite entertaining and am eagerly looking forward to the eventual release sometime this year. 

Back to my thoughts. 

My book hasn't been selling. I am sad. I am trying to figure out why. My conclusion is that the cover, while communicating the tone of the book, doesn't actually convince anyone that it's for them. Advice for authors, by stock footage if you can, at least if you're not a great artist. I don't think I'm all that bad but I do think a more realistic cover would get people to take the book more seriously. 

Also at fault is the genre. IIIIIIIII'm not entirely sure what genre this fits in. It's kinda a ramble through this world and is filled with talking. There is some action of course and there are a lot of intelligent conversations. The problem is, the characters are more kid's book characters and the tone is more friendly than you might see in your usual sci-fi fantasy despite the fact that I don't think it is much of a kids book. But then again, I'm not really sure. This is why my other works fit into categories, even if they're a little bizarre in those slots, otherwise, it's kinda hard to figure out who the book is for. 

I'm currently trying to get reviews, as well as giving a few reviews to other authors and trying to fill out my catalog. Snow Sands is not my only work. I have quite a few short stories and a couple of novellas but it is my only completed, full length book and it and How Dabney Got His Hat are the only completed works under my own name so far. 

I will complete more novels and I will have some success, even if it's just a little bit. I've worked on my writing for eleven years, now. I'm not giving up. 

Oh, yes, back to the title. I'm thinking of writing a Dave Barry, esque comedy with a rattlesnake as a supporting character and with some traveling through the Midwest. 

How I Began Writing and What I Wrote.

I have an update. I put a short story of mine up for sale. How Dabney Got His Hat.
It's a space port cantina story. I put it up to see what would happen. I'm quite proud of the hat on the cover.

Now onto other things. How I began writing.
When I was younger, about eight to ten, my father would tell me I should write. I don't know why, perhaps because he wrote, not as a profession, more as a thing he did though he had sold a few slogans to one company or another for bumper stickers or buttons. I mostly ignored what he said. My dad can be very enthusiastic about things he's interested in, to the point where he dumps enormous amounts of information on you. I'm used to this and I don't mind it too awfully much but I don't share the same interests as him or at least I don't express too much interest because he actively tried to make me learn or do things. It wasn't only writing, he wanted me to sketch. He got sketch books for me and tried to get me to carry them everywhere. I am not a great artist. I used to be horrible. Now I'm capable of making things that look like the things they're supposed to look like, mostly because I've learned to calm down so my hand no longer shakes.

When I was in sixth grade, I decided I would try writing. I was in an after school homework program and when ever I finished before the end, I would write. My first story was about two sisters (I wanted a sister) who get along pretty well, who wear gorgeous clothing. ( I wanted a blue suede trench coat with a dragon sewn on) who get invited to a wonderful school. (It's not just Harry Potter. A lot of books do that. I wanted to go to a fancy boarding school.) I stalled out a little after writing about the helicopter ride because it all felt weird and I was annoyed that I couldn't write faster because my thoughts were already becoming stale. I persevered.

My next story was better put together. My brain was figuring out what to do. It was still wish fulfillment, but it was less blatant. It was about a girl named Jessica who isn't human. We don't quite know what she is but she has claws, and a tail and is a tennis player. I let a few people in school read this and they automatically asked me if I played tennis or hated cheerleading. That's a no for both. Apparently high school grows people who think they're intelligent but ask the stupidest questions. She wasn't me, the wish fulfillment was the claws and the tail and the color-changing pet snake that liked to drape himself around her neck and could be used as a whip. Those people annoyed me. As if you have to play tennis to express that a girl likes tennis or dislike cheer leading to understand why someone would.
Gaaah! Simple minds.

That story had potato people and a voyage. It had some decent writing and fun bits but it was still torture to write since my head went faster than my hands. There also weren't enough details to make it very long. I stopped writing when I'd filled a notebook to one hundred pages. One side was a page.
My next story was in high school. It was about a vampire who was very depressed and an outcast. There was something special about her but it really only meant that she had different eating habits, not that she was a vampire messiah. (My wish fulfillment is usually pretty simple. Different but special.) It was the story of her life with a bunch of vampire hunters who refuse to believe she is one. There's a lot of her being hungry and then vampires attack and going to a castle and meeting Madeline, the mad vampire.

This attempt at a story has a sad ending. I had decided to write on loos-leaf paper in a binder and somehow, a lot of it got lost. I eventually did find the binder again but for some reason, only some of the pages were there. To this day, I still have a few pages. One of these dark, unpleasant evenings when I'm feeling terrible, I need to write a detailed outline for that story and redo it, though I'm not sure I can maintain the dour tone since I'm not a teenager anymore.

Now we come to one of the last stories I worked on in High school, the story that I published, Snow Sands: Through the Wormhole, Book 1, which is up for sale on both Smashwords and Amazon, with a new cover, no less. Perhaps it will get more views that way.

Oh, I also worked on another story, but I've stalled, only getting halfway through it. It's about a prince going to fight a dragon, under protest. I should get back to that. 

That Superman Movie ;Slightly Better Wordy Wednesday

Oh, wait. I do have something. It's not complete but it makes my brain hurt so...I think I'm gonna leave it as is.
I went to watch that thing that calls itself a superman movie. I'm actually kinda glad they didn't have superman in the title because as far as a friend was concerned, no superman ever appeared. All we had was some guy who just happened to be from a planet far from here that just happened to have a lot of shitty stuff occur and share the same species with a dick who believes him to be an abomination and is, ya know, a genocidal maniac.

For most of the movie, he just reacted. People died and he reacted. His holo-father delivered the solution, his real father was morose and really did not instill in him the cheerful strength of mind to more easily deal with issues and he seemed to mostly try and ignore his powers except to limit his perception, up until when he found the shadow of his spacedaddy (holo-father, not farm daddy). At no point did he think, "This is cool!" He just thought, "I'm a monster," apparently. There had to be some point where he, I don't know, made an ant Aztec in the dirt with his heat vision or something. What kid wouldn't mess around at least a bit?

This perception of himself did change somewhat after he found the spaceship, which was, by the way, a little odd. Perhaps it was singing to him? Yes, I know he heard about it at the bar, By the way, anger issues! He does not inspire confidence.
 We didn't see him practice his powers before then, other than the strength.
I have more difficulties with the movie than that but I'll leave it at my most fundamental ones.

Not a Real Wordy Wednesday

I lied. Apparently.
I'm taking care of a heartworm positive dog going through treatment right now. He seems determined to get himself killed. Yay. He's also determined not to let me get work done.
I am unhappy.
I will try next week to post a proper story or journal entry or something.

Wordy Wednesday...Fail!

I was busy, I guess.
No, I was tired.
No, I was exhausted.

Here's the truth. I was beset by allergens, cats, a dog and assorted when I tried to sleep last night. I laid my head down and drifted off, content to let the world go dark so I didn't have to think for a few hours and cigarette smoke invaded my room!
I don't like when it gets inside the vents and when someone is a chain smoker and you breath in deeply when you're sleeping, it gets inside your damn pipes and you wake up at noon, wondering why you feel so sick and exhausted.

I'll have something more substantial next week, I hope.
Something that will be a literary equivalent to This!  Oh, how I love their perfumes. I'd try this one in a heartbeat if my stuff was selling.

Thanks.

Wordy Wednesday 7

Purgatory, Part 1
Solitary and awash with tears every other day. I kept in contact with those I loved, roaring infatuation encased within my heart, with each excited beat, pulsing tendrils of this feeling throughout each of my limbs and back but this was not enough to staunch the pain of abandonment. I was alone, bombarded with irrationality from each corner, locked within my room each day, sneaking out to snatch food and coming out for comfort with my furry companions and to eat dinner which was often the only time I exchanged words with my female relatives. I was far away from life, from friends, from love and from freedom. To be just outside a country town, sandwiched between busy roads and in a place with speeding behemoths of trucks and a homogeneous, hostile populace when one cannot drive is torment. Even my solace, traveling on foot through neighborhoods, observing and contemplating was lost to me on those gravel roads because with every house I passed I was jarred by barking dogs, as hostile as the people.
Day after day I worked, keeping myself busy, watching mystery serials so that I could hear calm, assured voices. I crocheted for a while and I knitted, but the thing that comforted me the most was writing. I did not think to hard about whether I was the most highly skilled or the best, what I thought of was the emotion I felt emanating from my writing and the warm, assurance I felt when I wrote. At first, I was flighty, tearful and hurt and I would throw myself around, crying bitterly, shrieking quietly so that I was not heard. Once I'd finally cried myself out, I would begin to work on some project or other, relishing that I could bring myself to finish projects, something that had before eluded me many times. I wrote every day, then, I began a novel and worked on it, gaining pleasure from the cobbling of its pages. I held within my heart, along with my infatuation a hope that I would finish this book and another and that I would be able to make enough to do all the things that I needed to do to get out of there.