Sunday, December 13, 2015
Monday, November 16, 2015
The road to hell is paved with adverbs
Yesterday, I saw a quote attributed to Stephen King.
It was one of those helpful-not-helpful “writer” memes on Pinterest. It goes like this:
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
What the what?
How can you just deny the usefulness of an entire category of word? These are those colorful little word friends that hobble about with “-ly” at the end and are used to describe verbs or adjectives. They even have their own special little place on sentence diagrams. (Yes, I was/am a HUGE grammar nerd and LOVED diagramming sentences.)
It’s like that trick: Quick: Don’t think of an elephant!
The only thing you can think of is a bloody elephant.
All I could see were the adverbs buried in my manuscript like evil little ninjas. It’s discouraging. I’ve already got a really sinister “inner editor”. It’s not like that bitch needs any help.
There had to be more to it, so researched this a bit. And, like any corrupted quote, it is misrepresented. The full sentence goes like this:
I can get behind that thought. It is a lot more powerful to see something like:
So what I learn from this? There’s a context for all these “writing rules” out there. Have the brains to question them, especially the absolute ones. And I should really spend less time on Pinterest. The road to hell is paved with Pins.
It was one of those helpful-not-helpful “writer” memes on Pinterest. It goes like this:
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
What the what?
How can you just deny the usefulness of an entire category of word? These are those colorful little word friends that hobble about with “-ly” at the end and are used to describe verbs or adjectives. They even have their own special little place on sentence diagrams. (Yes, I was/am a HUGE grammar nerd and LOVED diagramming sentences.)It’s like that trick: Quick: Don’t think of an elephant!
The only thing you can think of is a bloody elephant.
All I could see were the adverbs buried in my manuscript like evil little ninjas. It’s discouraging. I’ve already got a really sinister “inner editor”. It’s not like that bitch needs any help.
There had to be more to it, so researched this a bit. And, like any corrupted quote, it is misrepresented. The full sentence goes like this:
“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops.”It’s part of a passage from Stephen King’s book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. He goes on to explain that adverbs start to spring up like dandelions on a yard. The first one or two may be a pass, but before you know it, you can have a yard full of them. The context was starting to make a bit more sense. And he introduced a more intriguing point: adverbs shouldn’t be attached to dialogue attribution. (You know the little things that are supposed to be seamless after quotes.)
I can get behind that thought. It is a lot more powerful to see something like:
“I won!” she shouted.Instead of:
“I won!” she said loudlyOne’s emotional and the other is well… lame.
So what I learn from this? There’s a context for all these “writing rules” out there. Have the brains to question them, especially the absolute ones. And I should really spend less time on Pinterest. The road to hell is paved with Pins.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Book Review Monday's
So, I'm off from my "day" job on Mondays. I like to read other people's books when I've done having one sided conversations with my laptop about the quality of the prose I'm turning out for the Allies and Enemies series. Also, I feel compelled to help out other members of the indie author community. (I'm getting better at keeping a straight face while referring to myself as an author.)
Anyway, what do these things have in common?
Reviews, I say. Book reviews. So, here's the deal:
Every Monday I'll write a book review and post it here to my (*cough*) well-visited blog as well as Goodreads and Amazon. I'll have 1) done my good deed for the week and 2) continued to support the fantasy that people actually look at my blog. Yay!
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Another Fine Idea: Print on Demand
Here's an exciting bit of news: I've decided to give print on demand a try for Allies and Enemies. Only a few days ago, I contracted a designer to finish up the cover art and I've pushed the "go" button to have the formatting done for the book interior for Amazon's Create Space. By the end of the month, I should be dangerously close to having an actual physical book of my book. (One of the actual instances in which the over-used term "literally" would be well... literal.) I'm very excited about this, considering that I'll have actual access to the sales info instead of the unfair and inexplicably frustrating situation with BookTango who has YET to deliver any sales data to me, even though its well past the 4 week mark.
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Seeing stars: Amazon Reviews
I admit it. I was the kid in class that reminded teacher
that he or she had forgotten we were supposed to have a quiz that day. This
made me wildly unpopular. It was just part of who I was/am.
Besides, my main motivation was to get those wonderful little
“A”s sketched across the top of my page of loose leaf. If I were to look at
them now, I’d recognize them as the scrawl of an exhausted teacher and
ultimately useless. But at the time, those precious “A”s looked like tiny Rembrandts,
my personal masterpiece and evidence that someone approved of something I had
done.
So I find myself reminded of those times when it comes to
the reviews of my book on Amazon. There are even stars, just like 4th
grade. A means of arbitrary categorization. It’s very cool to get 5 stars, mind
you. It means someone had a great time reading your story. A very flattering
experience. For a while, I was getting a mess of those.
Then it happened, as it was bound to, a two star rating with
a review that was a little on the vicious side. Contextually, I saw this two
star review just as I was still internally snoopy-dancing about the fact that
Allies and Enemies: Fallen had received the top 50 for military scifi onAmazon. (Totally cool seeing my book cover on the same screen as some of the “rock
gods” of the same genre.) So, to see this was a bit of a let down.
But it begs the question: Do I address it? Ignore it? How do
other authors deal with negative reviews? I’ve become a big fan of Lindsay
Buroker, having encountered her steampunk books. She’s got some nice advice
about dealing with this:
Ultimately, I choose to have faith in the readers out there
browsing for a new adventure. They’re intelligent folks that can make their own
decisions, weighing the good against the bad. I accept the fact I can’t change
everyone’s mind and it reminds me that with each word or agonized-over passage
I grow as a writer.
Friday, October 2, 2015
Lookie! I'm in the Top 50 for Kindle ebooks for Military scifi
A nice surprise to wake up to, Allies and Enemies is in the top 50 (barely) for ebooks in Military SciFi.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Allies and Enemies: Fallen on eReader News Today
You guessed it! Allies and Enemies: Fallen is up on eReader News today. http://ereadernewstoday.com/more-ereader-deals-for-10-1-15/
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