In terms of style, that was my biggest gripe.  It’s a little much in the beginning of the book to be tossed about like that, mixed in with info-dumping in order to get the backstory of the witches and warlocks in.  Considering that information was trickled throughout the book, I don’t think it was necessary to have it dumped on the reader all at once in the beginning.

And like I said, there were a lot of flashbacks.  The only indication you’d get one is a triple space in the paragraphs.  Jarring at first, maybe the first chapter or so but by the end of the second and into the third, I’d pretty much settled into the constant shifting and even came to like it.  In all honestly, I was much more interested in the historical plot line than the current one.

What I like about it is it’s a dark book that isn’t filled with floofy teen stuff.  Nicole is probably the closest the book comes to that but even she levels out.  It’s gritter in my eyes (granted these eyes are still trying to read up on the young adult market so my opinion is more than likely stunted).  Holly (the protagonist) loses her parents and best friend in a freak white water rafting accident.  She was originally supposed to live with her dead friend’s mother but then she gets sick, hospitalized, and Holly has to stay with family in Seattle.  Little does she know that her bloodline and that of her aunt’s lover have had a tendency to clash over the centuries and each want the other dead.  Unfortunately only the lover, who’s an evil warlock, knows this.  Until Holly and Amanda, and eventually Nicole, figure it out.

Aside from the use of the world warlock (which I can’t stand), it’s not as cheesy as it sounds.  Not at all.  I found it entertaining and a pretty fast read but aside from that, it really just wasn’t my thing.  I kept aligning it with the likes of Charmed with all the fireballs and sisterly witchcraft and warlockiness and all of that.  I’ve only seen a handful of episodes of Charmed but stuff like that just isn’t my thing.  And neither is this book.  It’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s just not something I’d read any more than once.

What bothered me though was really nothing to do with the story itself but the apology the authors make to the real witches that they garnered their research from.  Why do they apologize?  Because they found out through their research that the smoke and mirrors magic that exists in the book they wrote doesn’t actually exist (or they knew that all long and just decided to use it anyway regardless).  It’s all a Hollywood manifestation that took the root of its work and twisted it to make it more interesting.

The thing is, I don’t think such showmanship is needed to make the story interesting.  Why rely so heavily on people’s stereotypes of witches and magic in order to keep them entertained and interested when that’s not how it is and just as interesting of a story can be had from the real stuff?  I was kind of put off by that.  That the only way they could make the information they found interesting to young readers was to put glitter on it and make it shine.  They obviously did their research but if they’d really done enough, they’d know that just such a story could exist without such fallacious mutations of the lore.

Hollywood witchcraft doesn’t do it for me to begin with so even without that teeny little introductory paragraph, I wouldn’t have been head over heels enthused about it anyway.  But I think that little snippet pushed me over the edge because every time a piece of showboating magic came along, I couldn’t help but think ‘why?  You now the truth and you now it can be scarier than these light shows.  So why are you doing this?’

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m a purist or fireworks just don’t impress me much.  Or both.  I thought it would have been a good book without the nonsensical stuff.  With it in, I think it cheapened the story and could even be seen as insulting to think that this is what kids would rather read than the “real” stuff.  Not all the kids go ‘ooo, pretty lights!” and gawk.

I feel less stressed and I think I’m still keeping up on my word count.  I’ll have to remember to do it like this next year should I have another lapse in judgment. But don’t misunderstand me.  I’m still questioning my sanity.

If you live in the United States, then I’m sure you know about the passing of Proposition 8 in California, legislation banning gay marriage.  Well, as they’re wont to be, books have been brought into the foray, namely King and King, a children’s book about homosexual relationships.  Now, there are a slew of children’s books out there that address homosexual and lesbian relationships but this one in particular seemed to be loved a little more by those that promote ‘love thy neighbor’ with an asterisk.

Now, I don’t know about you but I find it a little . . . I don’t know if the word I’m looking for is hypocritical or ironic.  Or both.  Either way, the supporters of Prop 8 used this book in defense of their argument, claiming this is the kind of immoral behavior that’ll be taught to our children in schools if Prop 8 is passed.  I just want to laugh because they’ll use the book to their advantage, give it free promotion, will have other people wanting to get their hands on it to read it to see what all the fuss is about, and then attempt to ban it because people shouldn’t be reading it.

Has your head stopped spinning yet?

What I see here, aside from complete idiocy and lack of a cognitive thought process, are people denying their children from being taught tolerance at such a young age.  The article states that parents feel seven is too young to be introducing homosexual themes into their lives.  So, are these teachers giving detailed instructions on how a homosexual relationship works while leaving the “normals” by the wayside to collect dust?  These children are not learning anything more about homosexual relationships than they are about heterosexual ones.  All they’re learning about is love and how and why different people love each other.  Please don’t tell me these knobs are protesting books with interracial couples too.

People’s definition of a relationship is being shaken and they want to make sure their children learn and adhere to that rigid definition they, themselves, have adopted.  The only tolerance they should have are for people just like them.  Right?  So books about love and compassion and tolerance and equality should only include those whom are loving, compassionate and tolerant of others just like them.  Yup.  The head’s still spinning.

For how effective banning is, just look at Prohibition.  My how that one worked!

Banning books won’t make them go away.  All it will do is draw attention to it and drive up sales, the exact opposite of what the banners’ intentions are.  Banning gay marriage isn’t going to make it go away and it doesn’t make the supporters of Prop 8 right.  It makes them witch hunters.  What I read is no one’s business but my own.  Who I sleep with, who I date and who I marry is no one’s business but my own.  Yes, marriage is a religious intonation but in this modern day, marriage has become a government institution as well.  Let the church deny who they will when it comes to marriage.  Unfortunately they have every right to do that.  But the state doesn’t.  The first amendment has something to say about that, doesn’t it?  For the government to say your relationship is lesser, it doesn’t count, it’s not real, it doesn’t mean as much as this other one, is a violation of a fundamental human right to love whom we want to.

The people that allow the restriction of others to love should be ashamed of themselves and maybe should open their eyes a little bit.  They might learn something from these amoral heathens about love and compassion and tolerance.  While they think they got the definition of ‘marriage’ right, they’re looking in the wrong dictionary for the rest.

If you have a child and you want them to be a well-rounded human being and love others for who they are and not judge them based on who they love, pick up a book like King and King and read it to them.  They’ll thank you later for it.  And I’m sure your heart will be a little lighter at the end of the day because of it.

It was just today that I realized that I don’t have a category on here for Earth Shatterer, the NaNo novel that I’m writing.  Actually, in all fairness, I was planning ES long before I decided to pump it out for NaNo so, in this case, the egg came before the chicken.  Anyway, I realized it was because I was doing the WIP updates in the NaNo update portion of my posts since I started writing it.  That and, unlike DC where I wrote it pretty much at my leisure, I’ve been so wrapped up in maintaining word count with this one since November first that my brain really hasn’t had a chance to stop and think.  So consider this a two week round up of how the writing for ES is going outside of it’s NaNoness.

As the title of the blog suggests, this one’s coming out so much easier than DC (uh . . .).  So much easier.  I don’t have to worry about finding my place in writing, finding the voice, experimenting with the world, finding my footing in it all.  I spent from December of last year to roughly June trying to manage DC and get it going.  I didn’t really start writing it with any degree of flow until around then.  With ES, it’s flowing right from the beginning because I know I’ve found my voice.  Did that with the first one and this one wouldn’t be running like it is if I hadn’t.

That’s not to say the editing’s going to be any easier with this one.  Just the writing’s going good right from the get-go.  With this one, I’ve been noticing that I’ve been starting way too many sentences with pronouns which is never a good thing.  Very amateurish.  ‘He’’s are running the gamut in my writing, along with its female equivalent.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s the crazy rushing I’ve been doing trying to get the words out but that’s the major flaw than I’m going to have to take a rat tail comb to when it’s ready to edit.

I had a very solid idea of what I wanted Earth Shatterer to be and so far, it seems to be working out pretty well aside from seemingly minor characters are taking much more vital roles in the story.  And the story itself is twisting.  It’s twisting to such an extent that I didn’t see it coming and I only hope to be able to write it so that the reader doesn’t see it coming either.

The (for lack of better words, don’t shudder) portal does exist in a very large sequoia (just to be clear, ‘very large sequoia’ isn’t necessarily redundant) that was cracked open with an earthquake.  Michael and his family live in semi-seclusion in the redwoods with a yellow lab named Crater (named so because he kept digging holes in their yard when they first got him), a sister named Zana (Suzanna, call her Susie and I’m pretty sure she’ll punch you in the throat), mom Colleen who’s the suit in the family and dad Hank who’s a construction contractor.  He built the house they’re living in now.

Shenanigans start to happen in Michael’s world because things are coming out of that crack in the tree and when he and Zana witness a rather odd paint fart on the door (which they can’t remove), they go and check out this tree at Michael’s urging (Michael was the first one to witness the “other side”).  Zana goes through first (no funny vortex stuff, just a short walk through a trunk and there’s a hole looking out someplace else) and gets captured.  Crater to the rescue!  But it turns out Craters i really the son of a Council family banished to Michael’s world as a dog.  Ba zing!  Like they saw that coming!  I know I didn’t.

I also didn’t see Zana’s burgeoning like for him which is leading into the major twist in the story which I’m not going to divulge.  That would just ruin it!  Michael also might have a love interest who’s turning out (to me, not to him yet) to be more than what she appears to be.  Crater’s also turning out that way too, the sneaky bastard.  But please, call him Rowan when you’re on the other side.  He hates unnecessary questions.

It’s all working itself out as I write.  I’m about 25,000 words in in two weeks which is astounding for me.  I don’t know how long I was working on DC before I hit that mark.  But it’s coming along good.  Much fewer bumps but I think a lot more kinks.  Always fun!

So I’m seriously considering tossing the chapter a day thing because I’m finding I just can’t write that much in one day.  I write best in short bursts, as I’m learning.  I’m getting the same amount of word count in but at this point, I’m thinking a chapter a day is just too much.  It’s getting my OCD to come down from the chapter a day goal that’ll be the hardest part.

As for the word count, I’m pretty sure I’m good on that considering how much I’ve been writing.  If it isn’t I’ll probably cry.  I’ll find out tomorrow.

Yeah, in your dreams.  Not that you can’t make money off of writing, and even make enough money to live off of, but becoming rolling in dough wealthy is a pretty far stretch for 99% of the writers out there.  That’s not to say someone like me doesn’t dream of being in J.K. Rowling’s shoes but, until it actually happens, that’s all that it is: a dream.  Sad but true.  It’s like being asked to be the presidential nominee’s running mate.  When targets are asked the what if question, they always say they’re content where they are but if actually asked, of course they wouldn’t deny it.  Same goes for millionaire authors.  I’d be very content making a reasonable salary off of my writing but if the opportunity came to make millions, I’d kick my own ass if I didn’t take it.  After the screaming stopped, of course.

As Forbes is wont to do, they’ve released a list of the world’s best paid authors and is it really a surprise at who tops that list?  I think what’s much more shocking is just how much more she got than number two, James Patterson.  Rowling’s $300 million dollars in the single fiscal year from 2007 to 2008 got her number one on the list (no, I didn’t type that wrong, it really is $300 million) and Patterson’s $50 million got him the second slot.

Are you seeing that astounding gap too?  The rest of the authors on the list (including Stephen King, Tom Clancy and Danielle Steele) aside from Rowling are within striking distance of each other.  A $250 million gap is more like a precipice.  A mini Grand Canyon even.  Any of those figures on that list are astounding for any author to make, let alone to be at the top by a $250 million lead.

Yes, something like that can happen but the chances of it happening to you, me or anyone else you know are pretty slim.  Might as well go play the lottery in a lightening storm and see what comes up.

And then there are the people that have fooled themselves into thinking that you actually can strike it rich in publishing, and do it quickly to boot.  Let me be very clear.  People can make quite good money with their writing so long as their willing to write what others want them to write.  When it comes to making good money off of what you actually want to write, especially if that something is a novel, the going’s going to get tougher.

Anyway, I’m sure everyone’s run into at least one of these individuals at some point in their writing journeys.  You know the kind: are convinced their writing’s good enough to make it, publishers are going to fawn at their work and offer them hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars up front, expect it to go best seller and rake in even more money on royalties.  That’s not to include the movie deals and and Disney toy line, mind.

Ok, so maybe that’s a little exaggerated but really, not by much.  I had such an encounter with one of these walking delusional psychoses not too long ago.  Of course, he felt his writing was good enough to get published.  I don’t think that’s too much of a stretch for any writer to think.  I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t think that their writing’s good enough to get published.  Or, with something editing, eventually get published.  It’s a common thought so not too outlandish.

But then he went on to state that he wants to make money and make it quick and is fully convinced he can.  That was when I called him on his naivety.  Anyone that knows anything about publishing can tell you that ‘quick’ and ‘money’ are pretty oxymoronic terms when up against ‘publishing.’  Nothing moves quickly in publishing.  Not a damn thing.  The average length of time to get a book on the book store shelves from acquisition is one year.  365 days.  I don’t know about you, but I know things that work much quicker than that.  Then there’s the time it takes for the money to come in.  Chances are your advance won’t be huge, especially if you’re a first time author, and it’s certainly not given to you all up front.  Most payment are made in three installments: one at contract signing, one at delivery of the finished manuscript and one at publication date.  But that all depends on how your agent was able to negotiate that deal.

Then there are royalty checks.  If you so happen to earn royalty checks (for those that don’t know, your book has to pay out your advance before you start seeing anything from sales), the soonest you’ll see one is six months after you hit that pay off date of your advance.  If that six months doesn’t happen to fall in April or October, you’re going to be waiting even longer for one of those months to roll around to see your money.

So you tell me, is that all that quick?  Or lucrative?

So, of course, he retorts by saying that he’s “worked in the industry” for however long and not to insult his intelligence.  Considering his own words completely contradicted that statement of his, I said whatever and let it slide.  Then I read an interview he did with a site I frequent and I caught a very poignant quote of his that told me everything I needed to know about him.  To paraphrase–

“I couldn’t be bothered to finish my book and edit it numerous times without a guarantee that it’ll be published.”

So he went elsewhere to look aside from mainstream publishing.  From the rest of the interview I gathered he had one publisher interested in the snippet he sent but they ultimately passed.  Wow.  A whole one publisher passed on an unfinished novel and he’s already jaded and looking for alternatives.  Not much by the way of writer resilience, is there?

So he found a “publisher,” in all fairness I can’t remember if it belongs to a friend of his or if he started it up himself but there is a close relationship there regardless, that published his novel.  Hmm.  So what I can surmise from that interview in regards to what actually was published, is that what’s out there now is an unedited first draft of a manuscript.  And how is that better than 98% of the self-published stuff circling around LuLu.com again?  Anyone?

I don’t know the guy so I don’t have anything against him personally but it’s an attitude like this and a complete unwillingness to remove his head from his ass that really irks me.  Why?  Because this is the type of person that’ll spread lies about the “injustices” of the publishing world and tell anyone that’ll listen just how easy it “really” is to get published, giving false hope to not only himself but other writers that don’t know any better because they haven’t done proper research and rely on “information” from people like him to be accurate.  That’s how PubliSHAMErica works, isn’t it?

So, people like that can say they know boo all they want.  It’s their actions that speak loudest.

Don’t get me wrong.  I completely understand there are other means of publishing than the standard way and that people can become successful taking an alternate route.  But the reality of it is that it’s just as rare as becoming the next Rowling.

It just pisses me off (screw being irked) when people who call themselves writers stand there claiming they want to make quick money off of publishing their novels, claim to know what they’re talking about and just can’t be bothered to take the same route at the rest of us real writers in toiling away and getting buried in rejections with the hope that someone will like it eventually.  To me, that just gives writers a bad name to have people like that lumped in with us.  If you can’t be bothered to take the proper care required with your writing, don’t call yourself a writer because you’re not.  It doesn’t matter the route you take.  If you can’t be bothered to follow the rules the rest of us adhere to, I just can’t be bothered to call you a writer.

I’m sorry but you don’t get to call yourself a writer if you’re not willing to work for it.

I guess for some the want for instant success, money and gratification is front and center in their minds.  For me, I just want my publications to be legitimate.  That means more to me than dollar signs.

NaNo Update–Why am I doing this to myself?  I really don’t think my brain was built for this kind of immersion in writing.  It needs breaks.  Breathers.  I feel like I’m too close to my own work but I still plow on.  Thankfully, I’m on track with everything albeit just a little closer to insanity.

First and foremost, I had no idea I was picking up a paranormal romance novel when I snagged this from the bargain shelf at Barnes and Noble.  I had heard of the author in passing but not enough to associate her to any one genre or anything like that.  I just thought the book sounded interesting and it was five bucks, hardcover, so I said what the hell.

Lo and behold, all I need is the first description of a man the MC finds attractive to tell me there’s going to be some central-plot loving going on later.  And the thing is, I don’t read romances.  I’m sure there are some good ones out there but aside from the fact that they normally don’t interest me, this book just solidified the notion in me that I can’t stand romances.

I’m sure there are much better romances out there, much better romance writers (dear god, I hope so) with realistic plotlines but picking up something like this just makes me question why my mom loves these kinds of books.  She’s a Nora Roberts addict.

I can handle the romance, I really can.  I don’t mind the sex.  Trust me.  I really don’t mind.  What I can stand is when the author relies on every freakin’ romance cliche in the book to get her point across.  Again, I don’t read romance and for me to be rolling my eyes at large chunks of this text is saying something.

I almost wanted to dig the story except, right from the get-go, I wanted to punch the MC, Susan, in the face.  I couldn’t stand her.  Her very existence on the page felt contrived, like the writer wrote her how she wanted her written, not how the character actually wanted to be written.  I think it was pretty obvious that the author was looking for a spunky, feisty little thing that could hold her own against some nasty beasties.  Yawn.

And why the hell does she give laundry lists of what people are wearing?  Can she describe character no other way?  And why is the first thing the MC sees in a person, any person, despite the circumstances, is their looks and how good looking they are?  Why?  And why is everyone so good looking?  I don’t know about you but if a cat turned into a naked man in my living room, I’d be thinking ‘Kill it!’ not ‘could I tingle his dingle without him noticing?’  Realism people.  Say it with me now.  Realism.  And I’m not talking about the cat thing.

And then there’s the insufferable name Rayvn.  It’s bad enough to have a female character named Raven.  How emo.  I’m sure she wears way too much eyeliner to boot.  But to have the male love interest and secondary main character be named Rayvn, I wanted to slit his wrists for him.  Why?  For the love of god, why?  Rayvn?  That’s like spelling vampire with a y.  Just take a fork and scrape it against a plate, why don’t you?

Aside from the fact that the plot was more forced than a toddler in a beauty pageant, the sex scenes were “OMG deep” (in between sneezes, that was the depth) and that I could see the whole mate thing from the second it was mentioned somewhere in the first quarter of the book even though it didn’t happen until the second to last chapter, it was the Uber God Redundant of Redundancies that was the kicker.  If I had to hear about how shunned of a reporter Susan was, how alone she was, how alone Rayvn was, any of their histories or how Susan’s heart ached, cranked squeezed or any other number of squishies her heart could do for someone, I was going to rip my hair out.  Really, where was this woman’s editor?

I would say this novel defied every rule of writing I’ve learned but saying ‘defied’ can a lot of the times mean something good came out as a result.  This was not good.  So I will use violate.  This book violated, and violently so, every piece of education on writing I’ve received in my writing history.  Every single one of them.  From the redundancies to all tell, no show to cookie-cutter characters with “flaws” as thin as gossamer to the inability to tell a cohesive story without wandering back into massive info-dumping mid-plot which half the time was redundant information.

Now I know this is a book in a series.  According to Amazon it’s book number 10.  For the love of god there are at least nine more of these?  Why isn’t the writing phenomenal at this point?  Why hasn’t anyone told the author to take some writing classes and fix those fatal flaws in her work?

Really, is the sex that much of a draw that people will overlook the crap?  Is the story that good?  Personally she came way too quickly for any normal, human girl and the plot needed a hell of a lot of work.  It has potential but it’s buried in the mediocrity of the writing.

To be fair, I had a few eye-watering moments where the emotions between Rayvn (*yak*) and Susan came close to being real but I was so quickly wrenched from those moments by the otherwise lackluster writing that I just couldn’t stay involved.  I tried but in the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about the characters.  They held no interest to me.

Remind me to consider my bargain bin purchases a little more closely next time.  I want to make sure I find something with substance on the next go around.

Just a side note, this is not by any means inclusive of all romance writing.  Like I said, I’m sure there’s stuff a hell of a lot better out there but unfortunately it’s crap like this that gives romance a bad name, I think anyway.  I have respect for writers of all genres so long as they do what they do to the best of their ability and are capable of recognizing their own faults.  If this was the best of the author’s ability, maybe it would have been better kept as a midnight fantasy told amongst friends.  Like Twilight.

Revel Yehl

If you fail to grasp the pure awesomeness of that name, I would highly recommend listening to better music.  And just so you know, I don’t normally pat myself on the back like this.  In all honesty, my self-esteem is pretty low, contrary to what many people think.  But this . . . oh god I’ve just gone and topped myself.  I need to make a name plate and frame this.

I warn you now: steal this name and I will hunt you down like the dog you are and make you revel yehl.  Remember, I’ve inherited my dad’s sharpshooter eye.  Just keep that in mind . . .

In the midnight hour, she cried more, more more . . .