Writer Wednesday – Emmie Mears

1. Who are you? I’m Emmie Mears! In theory, anyway. For now.

2. What type of stuff do you write? I like to have my fingers dipped into just about every SFF pie. Lately I’ve been tending toward more broad speculative fiction, second world alt history and second world in general, but I’m looking forward to digging into some science fantasy and more straight sci fi as well as epic fantasy soon. (I have a hankering to write a first contact story, but we’ll see.)

3. What do you want to pimp right now? I have a rather grueling release schedule lately. A HALL OF KEYS AND NO DOORS just came out, which is a contemporary magical realism, and I’m certainly proud of that. LOOK TO THE SUN comes out 15 November and is available for preorder right now, and that is a book that feels almost too timely — I’ve pitched it as Les Miserables meets Shadow of the Wind. It’s a second world novel with a Gothic feel about generational tragedy, love, and fighting against fascism.

4. What’s your favorite book? This will likely come as no surprise if you read the preceding paragraph, but Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It is absolutely stunning, and the moment I finished it for the first time, I picked it up and read it again. A more recent read was Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, which was phenomenal (and, combined with a non-fiction thing I read recently, inspired my next project).

5. What other hats do you wear besides the writer hat? I’ve been very privileged to be able to write full time for the past year. I have a part time job as a banquet server as well. Besides writing, though, the full-time-ness of that job encompasses PR, marketing, accounting, finance, and enough emails to form an avalanche. I also manage a small contingent of ninja cats in my home.

6. Where can we find you? I am virtually omnipresent on the internet, it feels. You can find me on Twitter @EmmieMears, or you can find me on the Book of Face. I’m also on Instagram if you like cat spam and a parade of homemade food. If you like short stories and want to help support my writing, you can find me on Patreon, and for the eminent pragmatists among you, my general home on the interwebz is simply emmiemears.com.

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Expect the Unexpected – 5 Tips for Writers

By the time this goes live, I will have finished my twelfth full length manuscript. That’s some novels, and with seven-soon-to-be-eight in the wild, I’ve arrived at a point where I get emails from people asking me to kick them in the butt. “Kicking internet folks in the butt” was not something I was entirely prepared for when I went into this career with the idea that maybe one day I could make a living doing the only thing I think I’m good at, but it’s something I’m being asked to do.

In the spirit of sharing hard-won wisdom and lessons, here are five things I didn’t expect from writing when I started:

5. Writing books doesn’t really get easier.

It hasn’t. In fact, books 10 and 11 were some of the toughest things I’ve done. Writing is a constant evolution of figuring out exactly how much you know and don’t know. It’s about trying something that has worked for you before (or that has worked for someone not-you) and finding out that lo, suddenly it worketh not. That can be…frustrating.

I’ve heard it said that writers don’t know how to write books. We have to learn each time how to write this book. In my experience of the past decade of finishing books, that is very, very true.

4. Writing is a lot easier when you can leave the business out of it.

I think in a lot of our minds when we start out, writing is like that internet meme.

Step 1–Have idea
Step 2–Be said idea’s miraculous conduit onto the page
Step 3–???????
Step 4–PROFIT

Yeah, nah.

It doesn’t work like that. Whether you traditionally publish or do it independently (I’ve done both), two words will dictate much of your success: bottom and line.

In trade publishing, that bottom line can be the difference between your book getting acquired and your book getting trunked. (Or, as I have personally experienced, an entire imprint getting trunked and every book it publishes going down with it.) In indie publishing, it can mean you’re spending more on your packaging, marketing, editing, etc. than you are making. That is not sustainable unless you are one of the mythical humans for whom money is not the difference between your pet iguana starving to death or not.

Having to factor in making art with the reality of making money is not an easy web of tightropes to walk. But it can be done.

3. On that note, if you don’t have it, money can be a massive systemic barrier.

As in all careers, having money to start with means that you have access to networking opportunities, career development, and the more esoteric bits, like automatically being taken a bit more seriously. Conferences and conventions, where heaps of connections are made, are decidedly not cheap. Tax write off, yes, but you still have to spend the money up front.

The same goes for indie publishing–you have to put money in on the front end there, for a great cover if absolutely nothing else.

That said? Slush works. Both of my agents, I’ve gotten through the slush pile. I’m a hybrid author, which means I’ve had trade deals and have indie published both. If you are seeking to go the commercial trade publishing route, you don’t need to know anybody (and no matter how much your friends love you, even if you have connections, they are never a guarantee).

2. There is never Only One.

Books are not like Highlander. Sure, we see the highly publicised unicorns like Twilight and Wool, that One Book that propelled its author to fame and fortune. But we have to remember those stories are unicorns. There is an immense amount of luck in the writing business that boils down to this: the right eyes hitting your work at the right time.

It can happen on the first book you write (I suppose, since it has to very few folks). But more likely there will be many books. The first that you publish, whether trade or indie. The first that earns you a five star review–or the first that earns you one star. There will be a book that someone will email you to tell you they desperately needed. A book you look back on and cringe. Because for most of us, this career is about building a mountain, not about being airlifted to the top of it or shot out of a cannon.

Which brings me to the last tidbit…

1. Your craft is the barre.

In ballet, the barre is the place you turn to re-orient yourself. To find balance and return to the basics that make the pro jumps possible. That is craft to the writer, but you have to build it. There is a general mythos around writing that suggests that the ability to do it well is this ephemeral thing called “talent.” But the truth is, it’s something we have to learn and hone. Everyone can get better at it. Sometimes when we start out, our barre is crooked and falls off when we lean on it too hard. We have to bust out the level and learn some physics and engineering and figure out how it best works for us, and even then we have to replace the screws that fall out and the bits of mirror where the silver wears away.

It takes effort and practice, and there is never a guarantee of being that unicorn. There is just the story, just the barre that holds us up and directs the flow of our movements.

But here’s the other bit–you can surprise yourself. If you’d asked me when I was 20 how many books I thought I could write, I don’t know what my answer would have been. At nearly 32, I’ve written twelve. Everyone’s mountain looks different.

And I’m just getting started.

Writer Wednesday – Linda Watkins

1. Who are you? (A name would be good here)
Linda Watkins

2. What type of stuff do you write? (besides shopping lists!)
Contemporary Gothic Fiction

3. What do you want to pimp right now?
My three novels are a series, so pimping one, pimps all! I would pimp primarily the first novel, MATEGUAS ISLAND, A NOVEL OF TERROR AND SUSPENSE

4. What’s your favorite book? (Okay, or two or three… I know how writers are as readers!)
All time favorite:
THE MAGUS by John Fowled (original version)

Other favs:
THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by Garth Stein
THE LIGHTKEEPERS by Abby Geni
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE STAND by Stephen King
SHADOWLAND by Peter Straub

5. What other hats do you wear besides the writer hat?
I am the caregiver, and loving mom, for two very geriatric dogs, both with multiple special needs.

6. Where can we find you?
I’m all over the place!
FB: https://www.facebook.com/LindaWatkins.Author/
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Linda-Watkins/
Twitter: @splatland
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LindaWatkins123/posts
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7754966.Linda_Watkins
My blog: http://lindawatkins.biz/
My website: http://mateguasisland.com/

 

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Let’s Talk About Gothic Horror/Mystery

Having been accused of writing contemporary Gothic fiction (MATEGUAS ISLAND, RETURN TO MATEGUAS ISLAND, and GHOSTS OF MATEGUAS), I thought I’d take a moment to discuss the genre and some common elements that make a novel Gothic.

However, before I begin, let me first state that this is by no means meant to be a scholarly treatise on the genre. No, I will leave that to those more schooled in literature than I. This is merely a blog post. It is meant to be slightly informative and, hopefully, fun.

Gothic fiction has been around since medieval times.  Sir Horace Walpole’sTHE CASTLE OF OTRANTO, published in 1764,  is often credited as being the first English gothic horror novel.

But what makes a novel gothic? There are numerous  subtleties that go into creating a novel of this genre and even more when you consider all of its sub-genres (horror, mystery, romance, etc.).  However, I’m just going to touch on some of the most common elements of gothic fiction here.

All right, let’s begin. First of all, we must consider the setting. Gothic fiction is usually played out in a place that is dark and gloomy, conjuring up an atmosphere of horror and dread. For example, inTHE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, Poe calls the estate ‘melancholy’ and a ‘mansion of gloom’. In Shirley Jackson’s classic novel, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, the house is described as ‘holding darkness within’.  In my novel, MATEGUAS ISLAND, when seeing the island for the first time, Bill remarks that while it is beautiful, it looks ‘cold’. And, then there’s The Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s THE SHINING and the ruined castle where Jonathan Harkness first meets the Count in Bram Stoker’s classicDRACULA.  Need I say more?

All right, we have our setting, what next?  Most gothic novels involve the appearance of supernatural beings – ghosts, specters, vampires, zombies,  and other things that go ‘bump in the night’. In THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, it is the house itself that is suspect, whereas in MATEGUAS ISLAND  it is a malevolent Native American spirit that plagues the Andersens in their new home. In Henry James’ classic, THE TURN OF THE SCREW, the governess sees the ghost of Peter Quint and in THE SHINING there are numerous ghosts, most notably those of former caretaker, Delbert Grady, and his murdered daughters.

Okay, we now have a dark and gloomy setting that is the home to some ghosts or specters. What do we need next to move the plot along?  How about some dark curses or prophesies? In Walpole’s THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO,  there is an ancient prophesy that  Manfred, the lord of the castle, seeks to avert by marrying his dead son’s betrothed. In  THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, Roderick  believes his family to be cursed by incurable madness. And in REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier, the unnamed heroine must come to grips with a dark and terrible secret being kept by her husband.

So, now we have a dark and dismal setting haunted by ghosts and subject to a terrible curse or prophesy. But what about the human characters? Often we find the pivotal character in a gothic novel to be a woman in jeopardy. For example, in MATEGUAS ISLAND, it is Karen who finds herself strangely transported to a dark and dangerous trail leading deep into the woods. Wendy Torrance in THE SHINING, Lucy and Mina in DRACULA, and the governess in THETURN OF THE SCREW all find themselves facing mortal peril at the hands of supernatural beings. In THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, it is Eleanor who tends to experience dark phenomena to which others in the house are oblivious. And, in REBECCA, the narrator finds herself living in the shadow and mystery of her husband’s former wife.

But is gothic fiction only peopled by damsels in distress? No! To counterbalance the ladies, the gothic genre often employs characters who can be seen as heroes or antiheroes. In the final chapters of THE SHINING, the clairvoyant cook, Hallorann, comes charging through a blizzard on a snowmobile to try to rescue Wendy and Danny. Dex Pierce inMATEGUAS ISLAND sees himself as Karen’s  knight errant and rushes to her side when she collapses in the backyard. In Emily Bronte’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Heathcliff enacts the role of both a Byronic and demonic hero. In DRACULA, it is Van Helsing who eventually saves the day.

Okay, now we have a beautiful woman transported to a dark and dismal setting haunted by ghosts and subject to a terrible curse or prophesy who may, or may not, be saved by a dashing or not-so-dashing hero.   So, what comes next?

Romance, of course! In gothic novels, romance can take many forms. It can be a powerful love, heart-stirring, and intense. Or, it could be an unrequited  or illicit love. Basically, anything goes! An example of a  powerful love can be found MATEGUAS ISLAND when Dex realizes he has fallen deeply in love with Karen and vows to do anything necessary to protect her.   In WUTHERING HEIGHTS, we have both powerful and unrequited love in Heathcliff’s desire for Cathy.  In Charlotte Bronte’s JANE EYRE, the heroine falls head over heels for the brooding and moody, Mr. Rochester.

So what have we put together with all these elements? We have a story of beautiful woman living in a dark and dismal place, haunted by ghosts, and subject to a terrible curse or prophesy who meets and, may fall in love with, a dashing or mysterious man who may, or may not, save her! And with that, my friends, we have laid the groundwork for a gothic novel!

Now, for some fun and amusement,  check out the first and last  lines from some classic, and, not-so-classic, novels in the genre.

REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier:  
First Line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
Last Line:   “And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.“

DRACULA by Bram Stoker:
First Line: “3 May, Bistritz – Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.”
Last Line: “Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.”

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE by Anne Rice:
First Line:   “I see…” said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window.”
Last Line: “And then, stuffing the notebook quickly in his pocket, he gathered the tapes into his brief case, along with the small recorder, and hurried down the long hallway and down the stairs to the street, …”

FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley:
First Line: “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”
Last Line:  “He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.”

MATEGUAS ISLAND by Linda Watkins:
First Line:  “She rolled over to check the clock.”
Last Line: “Oh, so very afraid….”

WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte
First Line:  “1801. – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.”
Last Line:  “I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how ….”

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER by Edgar Allan Poe:
First Line:  “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”
Last Line:  “While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened–there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind–the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight–my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder–there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters–and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.”

RETURN TO MATEGUAS ISLANDby Linda Watkins :  
First Line: “She stood in the middle of the lawn, arms outstretched, her face turned toward the sea.”
Last Line:  “For what seemed an eternity, he stood that way, silent, his eyes wide open in wonder until the owl, in all its majesty, disappeared back into the fog.”

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL  AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson:
First Line:  “Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable.”
Last Line:  “Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”

THE THIRTEENTH TALE  by Diane Setterfield:
First Line: “It was November.”
Last Line:  “He opened a cool green eye, regarded me for a moment, then closed it again.”

GHOSTS OF MATEGUAS by Linda Watkins:
First Line: “The fog embraced the coast like a desperate lover, clinging, refusing to let go.”
Last Line:  “Oh Mateguas, grand pere de la mort, entend my priere….”

Book Review – The Decembrists by Kimberly Richardson

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Arranged in a chapter-a-month first person format that goes between the two main characters, The Decembrists tells the story of Sophie Joyce, a “young writer” (although she’s 37 and just now finishing her first novel), and Hilliard Ravensdale, a many times published author, who meet in a coffee shop following Sophie’s grandfather’s funeral and fall in love.

I’m going to stop you right there.  Because Sophie claimed she loved her grandfather and she was sorry that he was dead and all, but after the funeral, she went home, cried in her apartment for an hour – because it was cold?! – and then went to a coffee shop to sit in the land of the living.  Then she comments about shallow it must be of her to have to stay in the land of the living, even though she’s off for two days for bereavement.  And this is like, page four of the book.

I already hate Sophie.

I don’t care that she wants to be in the land of the living, but she’s so unaffected by her grandfather dying that she cries because she’s cold and then meets Hilliard in the coffee shop and goes on a date with him.  Let me tell you what I did when my grandmother died – I cried.  For three years.  I’m still crying.  Yeah, you put one foot in front of the other and life has to happen, but you don’t meet somebody and go on a date the next night.  You just don’t.

And Hilliard, well, he’s pompous and arrogant, and not unlike my last boyfriend.  And since these are all the qualities I hated in him, I’m not too pleased with Hilly, either.  (And what the hell kind of a name is Hilliard, anyway?!)  Oh, and in the beginning of the book, he establishes that Sophie’s black because, well, “I’ve never asked out a black woman before,” and “I never saw a black woman blush before,” and… gah!  Has he not seen black people?  And why was Sophie’s race so damn important when we don’t get any description of him at the same time?

So the story is a love story between the two of them [wtf], and it progresses a month/chapter at a time with the POV switching between the two of them.  Except that there’s not really any difference in the voice of Sophie or Hilliard, so if the chapter heading didn’t say a month and a name, you’d have to wait for them to say something like “Sophie’s birthday is coming up…” because there’s no other way you can tell.  Have I mentioned that reasons like this are why I’ve shied away from first person in the last few years?

I found some other issues with the book too.  In the exposition parts, the chapters are long and poorly organized.  Many of them could have – and should have – been broken up into a couple chapters.  They jump from one thing to another like crazy and just don’t flow well a lot of the time.  Also, Kim clearly is not a fan of dialogue tags – which is fine, I’m not either – but when you’re butting up what Hilliard said against what Sophie thought of the comment, you’re too busy keeping track of who’s talking to lose yourself in the story, which is what all of us want to do when we read something.

And there are some things that happen that just drive me nuts.  I know this is nit-pickey, but I don’t want to know who buys somebody’s tampons.  Ever.  (Unless I’m reading a coming of age book, I don’t want to read about periods, well, period.)  And not so nit-picky, Hil calls Sophie “Goddess” through most of the book.  I really dislike saccharine-sweet over-the-top pet names for couples in relationships.  And they’re writers.  I’m tired of reading books about writers when nothing extraordinary happens because of it (Stranger than Fiction is a great book about writers – something happens because she’s writing, as opposed to writing being all that happens.)

Anyway, as the book progresses, we eventually find ourselves reading things that they’re reading (ahem), and whatever they’re reading *should* be slightly indented as a block quote, but Kim et al have decided to change the font instead.  And it’s big and it’s ugly and it’s annoying to read for more than a sentence at a time.  (I would not ever, ever, ever read Hilliard’s stuff, btw.  Or his sister’s poetry.  Or…)

At chapter 12, the author messes with the book’s format a bit, and gives us a specific date instead of a month, and writes in third person.  We learn Hilliard’s secret… in a manner that I wish I hadn’t learned it in… and [removed because of spoilers].  Then there’s an epilogue in Sophie’s point of view, although it doesn’t say that, the worst name I’ve ever read in a book of fiction, and a nicely wrapped up twenty years following the story.  Just picture the bow in your mind, since Kimberly made sure that we had one.

Honestly, this book isn’t even a little bit my cup of tea.  According to the back of the book, “Award winning author Kimberly Richardson turns her literary eye to the world of sex, control, uprisings, secrets, and lies, all wrapped within a story worthy to be called modern Gothic.”  Yeah, all that stuff’s there, but it’s a friggin’ romance.  One more in the string of “hurtful man with woman who can’t seem to land anyone better.”  And I’m tired of this crap.

I’m giving the book a three out of five pages rating.  If you like that sort of crap romance, give it a read.  There’s a full story line here, although it needs a bit of polishing, and I’m sure there’s a niche for it that’s just not me.

I don’t know why this is required, but here it is:

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book from Kimberly Richardson (independently of this)  and used in in conjunction with  First Rule Publicity and the author as part of a virtual book tour. I was not compensated nor was I required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”