Tagged: masq2
The Kindness of Strangers (True Stories to Inspire you this Christmas)
Merry Christmas!
Instead of the usual simple holiday message I thought that this year I’d spread the Christmas cheer through a series of stories highlighting the kindness of strangers. The following stories are about what seem like everyday acts of kindness to the total strangers involved, but they made a huge difference to me. So I hope that on this Christmas you’ll read these stories and be inspired to perform little acts of kindness all year long.
Breaking the Silence
I couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 when a relative of mine took my sister and I out to lunch in the city. My little sister is only 3 years younger than myself but I’ve always acted like her protector, especially around this relative. He could be gruff with us kids and sometimes was downright cruel, as he was on this particular occasion.
The restaurant (I don’t remember what it was called) was having a buffet and this relative piled food on my little sister’s plate. I was able to escape this because I could serve myself. I quickly finished my lunch, but my little sister, who wasn’t really hungry to begin with, couldn’t finish. She said she was done eating and asked our relative if we could go, but he said she had to finish everything on her plate. He then went for a cigarette break, leaving my sister (who was now crying) and myself at the table. Continue reading
4 Lessons Writers Can Learn from Opera
Opera has a reputation as a rather dreary art form, full of over-complicated/ridiculous plots and fat women screeching. Nothing could be further than the truth in a lot of cases. And rather than mocking opera without even trying it, many people would do well to learn lessons from it. Writers especially because it may come as a shock to some, but opera imparts some very important lessons to us. The following are just some of them.
Lesson: Good characters can have terrible flaws.
As taught by: Tosca, Ernani, Aida and La Boeheme.
In Tosca, the title character (who is a notable singer within the opera) is the epitome of a wonderful person: she’s sincere in her faith, tries to do good in the world and her love for Cavaradossi (a notable painter and her lover) knows no bounds. Except that Tosca becomes wildly jealous when she sees that Cavaradossi has portrayed another woman as the Madonna in his painting in the church in Act 1. She is haunted by the woman’s eyes and they argue back and forth before Cavaradossi finally changes the Madonna’s blue eyes to black eyes like Tosca’s.
Normally I’d say that extreme jealousy like Tosca’s would make me hate a character, but it works in her case. She’s a good person but has a fatal flaw: her jealousy. The same is true in real life, as I’m sure we’ve all noticed. Even the best people in our lives can have horrible character traits and that’s something authors really need to recognize. Yes, even the main character of the novel has to have something unlikeable about them. That’s how real life is so why should fiction be any different? Continue reading
The 5 Best Books to Read on Halloween
Yes, it’s that time of year again: time to dress up and scare children! Well, that’s not what Halloween’s all about but for me that always seems to be the highlight of the occasion. Especially when they’re bratty children that put on a tough act.
My personal joys aside, here are some of the best books to read this Halloween (or anytime this year):
1. The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant
No, I will never stop recommending this series. I can’t recommend it highly enough, especially if you love zombie fiction. Like The Walking Dead on TV (or the comics)? World War Z? Any sort of zombie fiction? Then you’ll love these genre-savvy protagonists as they poke zombies, tackle sinister government organizations and rail against how impractical female formal wear is. Or at least Georgia does. Shaun doesn’t really care. Continue reading
My Interview with Janeal Falor
Janeal Falor is the author of You Are Mine, a novel about a society where magic is real and where all women are owned by warlocks. Below is our discussion about the inspiration for her fantasy/dystopian novel, the sequel Mine to Spell and why self-publishing was the best option for her.
1. Where did the inspiration for You Are Mine come from?
I’d been in a mood to read a lot of marriage of convenience/arranged marriage-type books and then I thought: What if these girls weren’t being sold off for money? What if they were being sold for something they had that was of great value, but something they couldn’t control. Something like… Magic! And You Are Mine was born.
2. What was your world-building process like? Did you start out with a basic idea and then build around it before you started writing or did it all come to you as you wrote?
Most of it started with a basic idea and came as I wrote. There were a few spots where I knew I needed to show more of what the world was like and I thought, how can I add something that supports their world and the story at the same time? But mostly whatever flowed out was what happened.
3. Who is your favourite character in your first novel? Why?
Katherine. Though I’m probably biased towards because I just finished writing her novella. She is sweet, but strong. She’s been through a lot and is able to use the strength she’s gained to help Serena.
4. What made you decide to self-publish? Would you recommend it to anyone else?
Short answer: I had been trying to get an agent for this book, but stopped because it just didn’t feel right. After a break from trying, I realized I still loved You Are Mine and wanted to do something with it. I thought a lot about the pros and cons to all my options, made a giant list of them, and in the end, self-publishing just felt right. Really right.
Short answer to the second questions as well: Yes, BUT it’s tons of work. That means it’s not for everyone. It’s an intense process when done right, but is an amazing feeling when you see your hard work pay off. There are a lot of great choices in publishing right now, so you can pick what works for you and your books. Thankfully if you do go with self-publishing, there’s a lot of great information out there.
5. Do you have any advice for any aspiring writers reading this?
Read. A lot. Write even more. Believe you can follow your dreams.
I still have a lot to learn, but these are the things that have helped me the most.
6. Can you give us any hints as to the next novel, Mine to Spell? Do you have a tentative release date yet?
Yay for hints! Let’s see what I can say without spoiling anything…
As much as I love Zade and Serena, the hero Cynthia falls for in Mine to Spell makes me all melty and swoony. Seriously, sometimes I “edit” gushy parts just because I want to read more about him. This means there’s more romance than the first book, though it’s still not the main focus of the book.
The first chapter starts a few months after You Are Mine ends on Cynthia’s 17th birthday. Also, I think the end of the first chapter is going to make a lot of people happy/excited and help with understanding Cynthia so much better. Nice, vague response 😉
And very tentatively, I’m shooting for releasing in Spring of next year. Probably March or April.
Why I Rejected Your Review Request
To all my readers I’m really, really sorry. I know I’ve been harping on and on about review requests lately and that you’re probably sick of it, but I promise this is the last post about review requests for a while. It’s going to be a sort of pillar post for authors, I suppose.
If you’re an author and you’re reading this you’ve either found it via search engine, social media or simply because you’re a regular reader of my blog. Fair enough. But if you’re an author who sent me a review request and got this link I feel I need to explain to you why I’m rejecting your review request. I get it, authors need reviews in this new scary world of social media, especially since the rise of the book blogger. And I get it that not a lot of reviewers are open to indie submissions like I am. That’s why I feel this article is so important: you don’t want to alienate the reviewers you need to publicize and therefore sell your book to other readers.
So here is hopefully my final, comprehensive list of how and why review requests get rejected.
1. I’m closed to submissions.
If I’m closed to submissions you can be entirely secure in that my rejection of your review request isn’t personal. I’d reject J.K. Rowling if she submitted a review request when I’m closed to submissions. If you’re being rejected simply because I’m closed to submissions as long as you aren’t rude about it you’re welcome to submit again when I am open to submissions. Seriously, next time just read my review policy more carefully, okay?
2. You sent me a generic request.
A generic review request with a greeting line like “Hi!” or “Dear Sir/Madam” or anything variation thereof actually stings a little for us reviewers. I mean, here you are, this author that’s requesting we take hours of our time to read and review your book and you can’t even take the time to find out our names? To a blogging community that is gaining power online but still being generally rejected by the mainstream media, that hurts just a little. Every article you’ve ever read about submitting a query to an agent tells you to address them with their name, so why are you going around using generic emails to contact reviewers?
3. Your book is not something I’m interested in.
Yes, despite the seeming randomness of this blog I am technically a YA reviewer. I do review anything that catches my fancy, but my main focus is YA. So if you’re submitting a picture book or an erotic novel, I think you can see that there’s going to be a problem. But what if I rejected you even though your book is targeted at young adults? Well, it could be that I feel there’s too much romance (I hate romance) or that it’s a genre I’ve read far too much of (vampires). Again, it’s nothing personal. I just try to read books I think I’ll like. It’s that simple.
4. You didn’t follow the instructions in my review policy.
Yes, as part of my review policy you must include your follower statistics in your first email to me. This isn’t to weed out poor newbie authors so much as it is to weed out people that don’t follow my policy. I get a lot of submissions so I can’t afford to waste my time on people that don’t follow my instructions. Really, most book reviewers I know can definitely afford to be picky especially when they’re accepting indie submissions. That’s why when you submit to other reviewers I would advise you to read their policy and follow it to the letter. First impressions matter.
5. You have a reputation for being nasty to reviewers/have been rude to me previously/are pushy in your review request, etc.
I was recently told to kill myself by an author because I rejected his review request. I think you can see why I’m a little reluctant to accept submissions from authors whose Google searches turn up all sorts of nasty things on Goodreads or book reviewing sites. If I find out that you’ve attacked reviewers for negative reviews previously, have been paying for fake good reviews or have been doing any other shady behaviour I’m not going to accept your request. And yes, I absolutely do my research. You can be sure that if there’s something out there I’ll dig it up and reject your request so fast your head will spin.