Great news! I’ve officially signed with Satalyte Publishing for my epic fantasy novel, Transcendence of Power: Genesis.
I sat down with Satalyte’s owner, Stephen C. Ormsby, over last weekend’s Conflux convention and exchanged signed contracts. I’ll let you know as soon as a publication date is set.
Satalyte publish some fantastic authors, including Kevin J Anderson, Jack Dann and many more.
I met Vanessa on G+ and we immediately hit it off thanks to her fantastic sense of humour. In her own words, Vanessa is a tattooed, vegetarian, outdoorsy woman with one head in the clouds and the other firmly settled in her hiking boots. She’s an environmental engineer by day, author, runner, reader, gamer, and naturalist by night (and weekends). When she told me she had a book coming out, I asked her over for a Q&A.
When I was a wee lass I’d make up stories to tell my mother while she was gardening. I think it started there.
My favorite subject was Baggy Piggy, who had a curly Q tail that never ended (I knew this, because I drew him incessantly with pink crayons).
I remember, before I could even write, ‘writing’ (aka doodling) on paper and then reading them to my great grandmother.
Storytelling is in my blood. I guess that’s enough of a reason why, although the fact that I enjoy it doesn’t hurt.
I have little people in my head (doesn’t every author) that want me to explore their worlds, flesh out their personalities and goals and give them something to do.
I can’t take all the credit, it’s partially their fault.
I write speculative fiction. Mainly fantasy, though I mix horror and magical realism in there.
I write fantasy because fantasy is what first got me excited about reading.
I remember my older sister, Audrey, handing me the first of the Pierce Anthony Xanth novels, and I was astounded at these magical places, characters with magical talents, all of the magical beasts.
Magic. Magic. Magic. I wanted that. To live there. Be special. Be something more than just human.
And I read as much fantasy after that as I could. Tolkien, Eddings, Pratchet, Weiss and Hickman, Duncan. You know the era and the authors.
That’s what fueled me as a young reader. I hope to fuel other readers too.
The joy comes from creation and imagination. Of speculating: What if? and expanding from that.
I am the master of my own universe, what is not to like?
My debut novel, Three Great Lies, releases August 6th. It’s fantasy, with historical and literary trappings. It carries a bit of a Finding My Place in Life theme.
Jeannette Walker, a modern scientist, ends up in ancient, mythological Egypt. Though she constantly casts doubt on the existence of such a world, she has to learn to live in it.
While trying to save her mummy friend’s soul from a wicked tomb robbing ring, she realizes a few important things about life.
What those are, well, you’ll have to read the book!
I have one complete manuscript for a dark fantasy I’m currently shopping out, and am working on a modern super hero series. There’s always something I’m working on.
Ancient, mythological Egypt.
It never rains. People’s lives aren’t equal. Prayers constantly dance upon lips. Beer is a meal. Sand is a major filler in the bread. Children of gods walk the street with the heads of animals and prophecy on their lips.
To Jeannette it’s, of course, a total shock.
There are people about in public naked and jackals speak.
A mummy—a desiccated, lumbering thing—chases her through the crowded streets, accusing her of stealing his ba!
It’s not necessarily a friendly place, but people are people, and even Jeannette is able to find friends in ways she never expected.
Jeannette Walker is my protagonist. She’s mid-twenties, a scientist with a jilted past.
She still holds the hurt from a past betrayal and has learned to trust nobody and nothing.
I love her voice and her mind-chatter. She’s got a good heart that struggles to show through her armor.
Abayomi is the dead man walking, a reanimated mummy who seeks his lost ba container so he can continue on to the afterlife.
He’s a perfect citizen who knows his place in the world and doesn’t seek to unbalance tradition.
Until his friends are endangered, then his loyalty shines like a beacon. True best friend material!
Sanura is the young daughter of Bast, cast out from her litter.
She’s lost and alone and Jeannette saves her—saves her—and she’ll never forget such gifts.
Sanura, like most young people, is soul-searching, trying to found out exactly why she’s been cast away and what her purpose and place is in life.
Her journey is one everyone can connect with. She’s the spirit of the story.
A major aspect of the book (the stray dog theme) sprang to life at an agility dog show.
The midsummer day was baking hot and I had parked myself under a tree for the next show.
A Jack Russell Terrier was looking at me, with that intelligent tongue-lolling smile terriers have.
Honestly, the dog was smiling.
And that was the original start of the novel: “The dog was smiling at her.”
It’s since changed, but that line and scene are still in there, the theme planted throughout the novel.
The story just unfolded from that one dog’s smile.
Three Great Lies has been on a long journey.
In 2008, I wrote my fifth NaNoWriMo novel.
That was Three Great Lies.
It was simply titled “Egypt” back then. It was a 50,000 word rough draft. Then I added extra plot threads and themes, and it topped out at 140,000 words.
That’s quite an addition!
Then there were years and years of critiquing and editing.
Finally in 2013, I begin seeking representation for Three Great Lies, and it was picked up by Hadley Rille Books (which was the most perfect place for this book to land).
Now for the rough stuff.
As I was due my edits, my publisher had a stroke. (Though he insists he was abducted by aliens to an alternate universe.)
It was terrible, we weren’t sure if he would make it. The entire press huddled together in worry and anticipation.
I was wavering between feeling devastated for my publisher’s situation and worrying about the state of my book (and feeling so so guilty for that.)
But he did pull through and has worked tirelessly on my novel, by my side every step of the way.
Now, we’re here, and my novel is published!
I think other authors might have pulled their book to seek other representation, but I knew Hadley Rille and my publisher were perfect for my book.
First and foremost, Three Great Lies was a ‘pantser’ book.
I didn’t have an outline. I wrote forward from the smiling dog on guts and intentions. I had this idea of where I wanted to go, with no map on how to get there.
Now, I am an outliner.
I think the process, for me, would have gone so much faster if I’d had a more solid idea of the substance of the story.
As it was, lots and lots and lots of editing and rewriting were necessary to make this book shine.
When I’m in the thick of writing and editing, I try to work on the novel every single day. It keeps my writing sharp and my mind on the storyline.
It keeps me from losing plot threads and missing finer details.
For me, every day is the way (ooh, that even rhymes.)
And another thing I’ve learned: Do not work heavily on writing in the summer.
I like to play outside too much and I feel guilty if I don’t write.
Now, I just hold up my hands and let it all go.
Summer, for me, is play time. No guilt for taking some time off writing. Because, we’re our worst guilt-trippers.
Thanks for reading!
I hope you come by and check out my site and my novel. It was a joy to write and I hope it brings joy to you as well.
About Vanessa:
Vanessa MacLellan was born and raised in the farmlands of eastern Washington, works as an environmental engineer, and is an avid birder, naturalist, gamer, and runner living in Portland, Oregon. Her website is vanmaclellan.com. You can also find her on: Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You can find Three Great Lies on Amazon.
Hey all, I’ve done the ‘Taking Five’ Q&A over at the ACT Writers Centre Blog: Capital Letters.
It’s pretty brief, but hopefully very informative.
Okay, so I finally bit the bullet and updated the theme.
It’s now clean and simple. No doubt there’ll be a few bugs to iron out in the next few weeks, but I’m happy with it so far.
I definitely need a new banner though – I recycled the old one for continuity.
Please let me know if you like the new theme (or hate it).
While the standard look and feel for this blog’s current theme grabbed me when I first saw it, I’m a little over it now.
Actually, I’m a lot over it.
I’m looking for something a little simpler and cleaner.
If you’ve got any suggestions for a nice, easy-to-setup, WordPress theme that doesn’t annoyingly hyphenate words all the time, I’d love to hear it.
Please leave your suggestions in the comments section, or else can contact me via the social media buttons on this page. There’s also a “contact me” item in the drop down menu under “About Me”.
Thanks!
I have a guest post up on Cholontic – The Easiest-Ever Guide to Story Outlining.
It’s definitely worth a look if you struggle with outlining.
It’s a simple two-step process, each step broken down into easy-to-do parts.
http://jenchristopherson.wix.com/cholontic#!The-EasiestEver-Guide-to-Story-Outlining/c1q8z/551e2ab90cf215f35a384c8e
It’s really tough getting word out about your creative endeavours, so it’s good to know what works and when to start doing it.
With this problem in mind I asked a group of writers to throw their best tips at me, and they responded with some fantastic advice.
My own tip: Be the kind of person that other people want to be friends with by helping and supporting them whenever you can. (It doesn’t hurt to put the name of your latest book or your website address in your email signature either.)
Here’s some more great tips:
“My biggest one-day bump came from an article a newspaper reporter/recent acquaintance wrote about books featured locally. The second was from doing a reading at high school that then ordered a classroom set of books. Both involved being open to the opportunity. Neither was based on a sale or a paid advertisement. In 20 months as a published writer have seen no appreciable return from sales or paid advertisements!” Robert L. Slater
“Connect with – and support – other authors by commenting on their blogs, hosting them on your blog for releases, Tweeting about their books, etc. People are more willing to help promote authors that they already know and like.” Quanie Miller
“Every now and then try a new author promotion strategy. Ask yourself – Have I done anything new lately to promote my books?” Aditi Chopra
“Promotion also is all about presentation to the right market who is interested in your writing. Make sure you are targeting the market for success.” Debra Hargrove
“Promote soft or hardcover editions via a public book signing and leave a copy or two to be discovered in a public place to create a public awareness of your work.” Douglas Moore
“What I learned was that resistance is futile and you need to embrace this part of the process. Sometimes it is even – gasp! – fun.” Janine Donoho
“Think outside the box. That is where the growth occurs and if you don’t grow, you stifle.” Karin Halford
“Be patient. Maintain personal integrity, and hold on to your moral and ethical beliefs.” Armando Almase
“Create a writer’s platform, starting with a blog you own.” Carly Compass
“Social media is a must for any author who wants to earn a steady income from writing. Update your blog(s) and make use of Twitter and Facebook and Google + with a mix of self promotion and reposting other articles of interest. Self promotion alone will lose you followers on social media platforms.” Douglas Moore
“Write, write, write, join a critique group, critique, critique, critique. Then, rewrite what you wrote! [Start with a great book!]” Cholontic (Jen Christopherson)
“An author platform online should encompass many sites. Twitter, an FB page, website optional but definitely a blog, Google Plus, maybe YouTube trailers, Instagram & Pinterest, WattPad, Goodreads, if on Amazon fill out your bio area. Fill that out everywhere and utilize the free online real estate at your disposal. Update your LinkedIn.” Tosca Johnson
“Author promo is separate from book promo. Author promo begins long before you have a book on a shelf, the attention of an agent, or hit ‘upload’ on your first self-pub’d masterpiece. Author promo means standing up in the world, both visceral and virtual, and saying ‘Hello, I’m _ and I’m a writer.’ Author promo means connecting with peers, networking with the writing community, and making sure potential readers know your name long before you have anything other than yourself to promote.” AmyBeth Inverness
“Do what you love.” Joe Machney
“I wish I had known how to do it. I didn’t really promote my first book very much. I wish I had been friends with writers who could point me towards the better sites for helpful hints. Have an author page on all the major social media sites and keep it up to date with anything appropriate. They are a great way for people to get to know you as a person and want to buy your books because of it.” Karin Halford
Check out some of the other posts in the “Things I Wish I Knew About” series: Point Of View, Critiquing, Dealing With Rejection, Editing Your Own Work, Short Stories, Creating Characters, Story Development, Worldbuilding and Writing.
If you’re looking for a little help with your own writing, head over to Creative Manuscript Services and enter the free Structural Analysis Report giveaway.
Creative Manuscript Services (my editing business) is giving away a free Structural Analysis Report, which is normally valued at $550.
All you need to do is subscribe to the CMS blog and intrigue me with your best one-liner for your book.
If you win, Creative Manuscript Services will produce a structural analysis report for you based on your outline or synopsis.
Simple.
So get over there and throw your novel’s one-liner at me! I can’t wait to see it!
If you’re not sure what a Structural Analysis Report is, it’s about audience expectations and meeting all the criteria an audience will expect – whether they know it or not.
Please remember though, you’ve got to follow ALL the guidelines on the CMS website – don’t just drop your one-liner here!
The website devoted to short shorts, Antipodean SF, has published one of my stories!
Please support Antipodean and read and vote on this months stories.
And don’t forget to check out my story too! 🙂
2014 has been an interesting year. I:
So what does all that mean for me in 2015? It means:
How’d you go this year, and what does that imply for your expectations in 2015?
If you’ve been playing around on social media for a while and you tend to follow a lot of writers like I do, you’ll probably notice your feed filling up with book advertising.
Some of it will be blatant, some less so, but it’s still advertising, and few people want to see it.
So what’s the solution?
Consider this. My favourite social media playground is Google Plus where I run a community called Fantasy Writers. It has almost 8000 members, and it’s growing rapidly.
When I started Fantasy Writers I was trying to build a helpful and supportive community, not an advertising forum, so I banned self-promotion.
Unfortunately, the issue wasn’t so simple. People ignored the rule or found ways around it, and I spent far more time moderating the community than I wanted to.
In response I created a category and called it ‘Self-Promo Saturday’ for members to get their advertising out of their system, usable on Saturdays only.
It worked a charm. The list is clear of promotional stuff most days, while Saturdays see a deluge of it.
But guess what? The self-promotional stuff gets ignored anyway.
Why? Nobody wants to see advertising.
Even the people who advertise don’t bother to look at what everyone else is advertising and support each other.
And there’s the key.
Nobody cares about your book except you, but people do care about their friends, and friends help each other out.
So here’s the secret to promoting your book on social media:
With a little bit of luck people will care enough about you to promote your book when they see something newsworthy.
In short, show you care about others and they’ll respond in kind.
And like Forest Gump, ‘that’s all I’ve got to say about that’.
Now get on your butt and write something people will want to share because you’re so awesome!
There are a lot of great things about short stories – they’re fast to write (at least in comparison to novels), there’s plenty of markets for them, and they allow you to practice and hone your craft while you learn to deal with the realities of the publishing world.
I often use them to explore my larger worlds with fresh characters, and consequently there’s been more than one occasion where a character from short story has made it into a novel.
That said, short stories take a long time to master (if that’s even possible), and even experienced writers who’ve got dozens, perhaps hundreds of shorts published, still learn with each new story they produce.
My advice: Always have at least one or two short stories on the go. That’s something I neglected for a long time.
Here’s some more great advice:
“In a short story, every word counts and every scene should do triple duty. You’ve no time to waste.” Vanessa MacLellan
“Do not start with a dry explanation of the story’s context.” Mary Jeddore Blakney
“Short stories for a writer are like sketches are for an artist. There is only room to explore your main subject. Every line counts, so make the best of them.” Kelly Martin
“Don’t try to turn a short story into a novel.” Vruta Gupte
“Short stories are a great way to get feedback from readers. With minimal investment, you can see which of your stories readers like the best – and then, the most popular stories can be used for your next novel.” Drew Briney
“A short is kind of like a poignant snapshot of a much deeper story. So don’t get too bogged down trying to tell the WHOLE story. DO tell enough to draw the reader in and make it an interesting story within the larger story.” Dana Masting
“The few words of a short story can be far more powerful than a novel if done right. Often this takes more out of you to do this, and will leave you more drained than a novel can after it is finished.” Andrea Jensen
“You can still earn money writing short stories.” Vruta Gupte
“Writing a short story is a style all of its own.” Chantelle Griffin
“Writing shorts stories help sell your bigger novels. Gives new readers a small taste of your projects to garner interest. Not everything you write has to be the Great American Novel.” Chris Mentzer
“I wish I’d known to not be embarrassed or distressed because I suck at writing short stories. My natural story length is the novel, and I don’t have to follow the “conventional wisdom” that you have to break in with short stories, and then sell the novel.” Gerri Lynn Baxter
“I’ve never written a short story, but just about every scene I’ve written has a beginning, middle, and end…” Mark Mercieca
Check out some of the other posts in the “Things I Wish I Knew About” series: Author Promotion, Point Of View, Critiquing, Dealing With Rejection, Editing Your Own Work, Creating Characters, Story Development, Worldbuilding and Writing.
If I could tell you the secret of writing a successful book, would you like to know what it is?
There is actually a secret, and it’s pretty neat.
What’s more, it works on all genres and subgenres, and will even help you break the genre barrier and reach beyond, which is where you want to be if you hope to sell in big numbers.
A recent discussion that cropped up on Google Plus, and one that often appears among writers, was about a certain book that people love to hate.
I won’t mention it by name in order to protect the innocent filmmakers involved, but it rhymes with highlight and features sparkly vampires.
I read it a while back along with a bunch of other successful books including The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Hunger Games, all of which racked up ridiculous sales numbers.
The reason I read them, other than to appease the people telling me I should (hint hint), was to try and understand why they were so popular.
The comment that sparked the discussion on Google Plus claimed that the sparkly vampire book was badly written – a subjective remark at best, and way off the mark at worst.
To some extent I can see where the comment was coming from. The novel didn’t work for me either, but I was hardly its target audience, and that’s not a reason to say it was badly written.
Having broken it (and others) down, I found it more or less structurally perfect and technically fine. What it lacked, if anything, was originality. Other big sellers contained quite a few original elements, so the secret wasn’t there.
And I suspect that’s where this particular comment originated.
The book rhyming with highlight followed a standard formula in an emerging subgenre, while doing little more than tweaking the known tropes.
In the end it gave its readers exactly what they wanted and expected.
In short, it didn’t do anything special from a story standpoint, so the secret wasn’t there either.
So what was the secret?
Here’s a question. What would you do if you could apply that secret to your own writing, without:
What would you do if I said the secret was simple and could be applied to almost any story?
Take a look at any book that’s sold millions of copies, read it, and then take a look at that book’s audience. What do you see?
You see people who:
In short, you see fans. Lots of fans. Why do books find fans?
Because fans care about your characters and what happens to them.
It’s as simple as that.
Make your audience care and they’ll tell their friends, discuss it online, and even look for more of your stories. They’ll become fans, and you’ll become successful.
You don’t even have to alienate your niche market to do it.
It’s obviously not as easy as it sounds or everyone would be selling millions of books, but the more people you can make care about your characters and what happens to them, the more successful you’ll become as a writer – assuming you judge success by sales numbers.
If not, forget you read this post and keep on doing what you’re doing.
If you want to sell books though… well, now you know what it takes.
Read more articles about The Craft of Writing.
It’s amazing what providing freebie can do for you. Take Simon Haynes, for example.
Simon created the novel writing program yWriter to help him write his novels because he couldn’t find anything that did what he wanted to do at the time.
Afterwards, he let people use it for free.
Today, yWriter has something of a cult following, and Simon’s name is known around the world.
His novels have had far more exposure than he could have ever hoped to gain without yWriter.
Similarly, a few years ago I created a novel structure diagram as a last-ditch effort to try and save a novel I just couldn’t get to work no matter what I did with it.
From what I could tell I was doing everything right, but it still wasn’t working.
Years of casual research went into that diagram, but it paid off because the information highlighted a whole bunch of structural elements my novel was either doing poorly or missing altogether.
The diagram was my means of making sense of it all my research; a visual clue I could see in a moment to trigger a greater understanding of what needed to happen around certain points in a story.
When complete, I posted it on my blog in the hope it would help others, and from the feedback I’ve received, it did.
So what’s the point of all this?
My blog gets more hits from that one page than any other post I’ve ever put up.
What’s more, visitors often continue on to my other posts about writing, and sometimes that trail even leads them to my fiction.
Just the other day someone posted a link in a writers’ forum asking the people there what they thought about the diagram.
Lots of writers clicked on that link and swung past my blog to check it out. Plenty of them read on.
So what’s the value in a freebie?
Would I be blogging about Simon Haynes if it wasn’t for yWriter? Would someone have posted a link to my blog without my diagram?
It means people come for something, and hopefully find something else.
Maybe you’re sitting on something that might help people too. In helping them, you just might be helping yourself.
Find out more about yWriter and/or download it from Simon’s website.
Take a look at my novel structure diagram – it may just be the answer you’re looking for.
Just a brief announcement to say I’ve written a guest post for the CSFG Blog on my upcoming presentation at the Conflux Writers Day on 5 April.
If you’re coming, please check it out.
While you’re over at the CSFG blog, you’ll find a submission call for the next CSFG Anthology, The Never Never Land!
You never know, I might get my act together and actually submit something for this one myself.
Have a great weekend, and hopefully I’ll see you at the Conflux Writers Day!