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Posts Tagged ‘novel writing’

Post-Mortem

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 08 Nov 2012| Leave a Comment »

A lot went right with the release of Beneath a Wounded Sky and the completion of The Fallen Cloud Saga. Overall, I’m very pleased with the product, inside and out. Don’t kid yourself, people do judge a book by its cover…and by its font, and even by the quality of its title page. A good product, a quality product, will sell better than something that looks like it was put together by a grade-schooler.

But I did not do everything right; far from it. And there was one Big Item that I actually ignored purposefully, and it bears mentioning for any of you out there who are taking notes.

So, where can I improve for next time?

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It Could Happen…

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 08 Nov 2012| 2 Comments »

Since my most recent book is self-published, some doors are closed to it. Most newspapers won’t look at it; most reviewers won’t consider it. To an extent, I understand this. I mean, let’s be realistic…there’s a lot of crap out there in the self-published world and they don’t want to be neck-deep in it. Restricting the input to mainstream publishers is an easy, broad brush stroke way to keep the crap to a minimum. E-books have an even harder time.

Likewise, most awards are heavily weighted toward the mainstream publishing world. The exception to this, at least in genre fiction, are the smaller, “niche” awards. I’ve allowed myself to dare to dream, and have submitted Beneath a Wounded Sky to two such awards.

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O, For a Muse of Fire!

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 06 Nov 2012| Leave a Comment »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiAeons ago, when I was young and was still a serious musician, there were performances—I can count them on one hand—when the Muse was with us. We all knew it, every musician on stage; we knew. This concert was special.

Once such concert was when I was studying in San Francisco. It was in an old stone church in off Van Ness Avenue, a grand old place with soaring, pieced-stone walls and a nine-second hang time. We were playing Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique and everything was perfect, everyone was “on.” (more…)

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Learning from Others

Posted in Television, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 02 Nov 2012| Leave a Comment »

I have often said, “Every book has its own lesson to teach, even the bad ones.”

Okay…now you’re looking off to the right and seeing the cover for the latest Richard Castle book and you’re thinking…”Oooh, guess he didn’t like that one.”

Wrong.

I liked it fine. It’s a tie-in, meta-reality, police procedural mystery, and as such, it worked just fine. It’s not high art or lasting literature, but it’s a fun read, and filled with all the little “Castle” and “Firefly” jokes that come from this clever and, dare I say, unique confluence of reality and fiction.

However, it wasn’t perfect, and through its imperfections, I learned something as a writer.

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Back At It

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 29 Oct 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, that two week’s vacation went by in a blitz. It was very productive, with the last two books of the Fallen Cloud Saga hitting the streets, but boy, could I have used another week…or month.

Now that the hardcopies are available, I realize I have made a classic mistake. It’s all part-and-parcel of the difficulty in switching from my author hat to my publisher hat. The author in me just wants to get the book out there and get it into reader’s hands. The publisher (an admittedly weaker part of me) wants to get the best release, the best buzz, and the best notice which helps get the book into more readers’ hands.

So, this classic mistake is to rush “to print” at the detriment of any sort of planning and release strategy.

But all is not lost.

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Needles and Haystacks

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Hi Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 25 Oct 2012| 6 Comments »

I am not a procrastinator, in general, but I do indulge in what some might call “creative prioritization.” You know: the fun stuff first, the not-so-fun stuff next, the tedious and boring bits dead last. I can euphemistically refer to this as putting the “most bang for buck” items up front or go all corporate and say I’m going for “the low-hanging fruit” first, but I’m not fooling anyone, least of all myself.

I’m just delaying the inevitable, and in editing, the inevitable includes the dreaded, stupefying, and largely useless practice of Spell-check and Grammar-check. I’d skip the whole damned process if it consistently came up with nothing, but it doesn’t.

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Is Someone IN There?

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Hi Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 23 Oct 2012| 4 Comments »

Yesterday (okay, very early this morning) I submitted the final content for FC books IV and V to the CreateSpace “submission review” process. As I’ve mentioned before, this process finds a lot of formatting errors such as text beyond margins, low-DPI graphics, unembedded fonts, and so forth. It’s a good review process, and it encourages the author—through feedback, easy-to-follow help guides, and forum discussions—to submit the highest quality work to achieve the highest quality product.

Up ’til now, I’ve assumed this was a mechanical review process, but after the response I got today, I’m not so sure.

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