School and learning questions

Do you have any suggestions to help me become a better writer?

First, I’d try to read as much as you can. It’s important to read in the genre you write so you can see what’s going on in the market and what readers are into, but also, try reading things outside of your wheelhouse to enrich what you know about writing itself. It can open your eyes to a whole bunch of possibilities.

For example, I read Alix E. Harrow’s Six Deaths of the Saint. While it is fantasy and a short story–I like to read both–it was written in second person, which almost killed the experience for me. It just felt so jarringly different. But I kept going, and I’m amazed at how she got it to work. Now it’s one of my favorite stories out there.

Another thing I recommend doing is writing to yourself. Write to yourself when you have writer’s block and ask yourself some questions and see if you can answer them. When you are drafting but can’t move ahead, write a note to yourself: [LOVE SCENE HAPPENS HERE WHERE THEY GO ALL THE WAY BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING SO I’LL GET BACK TO THIS] and then go back to the trouble spot when you are ready.

While I don’t journal, blogging has sort of taken that role for me. I write very much for myself on here, as well as for all of you.

How important are book reviews?

I might be in the minority, but unfortunately, I do think they are very important. Amazon, the major player in the world of bookselling, controls so much of how books are marketed and seen. The rumor has it they won’t even start placing books in front of readers’ eyes if you have less than 50 reviews, and it has to be rated at least four stars. Three stars is not a good rating in Amazon land (although in Goodreads, it means “liked it”).

Speaking of three stars, I don’t consider it to be a good rating. It tanks my overall score. The only way my score can stay the same is if I get four star reviews; it’ll increase if I get five; and it’ll drop when I get three or lower. This is based on my 4.12 score. If my score was lower, four stars would probably bring it up instead of keeping it in stasis. This is just what I’ve noticed, though.

Anyway, reviews themselves draw more eyes on your work and gets people talking about it. Some reviews can help you as a writer and make you feel validated. Others can tear you down or annoy you. As much as I’m advised not to read them by pretty much every writer I know, I look at them because I have more positive experiences than negative ones when I see them. Plus, there’s that whole stupid Amazon numbers thing. Son of the Siren has 16 reviews on Amazon, 30 reviews on Goodreads, Storygraph has 11, and NetGalley has 21. I don’t have the magic “50” so I don’t think Amazon is really helping put my book in front of their readers, if that data is true.

What would you say is the most difficult part of writing a book?

I have a hard time filling the plot and giving characters enough things to do.

What are your favorite books to read?

Fantasy (YA, New Adult, Adult), BL manga, and horror.

How do books get published?

If you go traditional, it’s:

• Write the manuscript
• get beta readers
• make edits
• submit to agent
• agent edits book for going on sub
• agent submits to editors at publishing houses
• developmental edit from publisher
• line edits
• proofreading
• final proof of interior of book
• write the next book if you haven’t started already

I thought very seriously about self-publishing but it cost me way too much money. In traditional publishing, money flows to the author, but I still find myself spending money on marketing, whew!

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I have since abandoned this because I lost the hat, but I used to put on a “thinking cap” — an old sailor’s cap — before writing, and leave it on my head the entire time until I was done with the session. I cannot find the hat anymore and don’t have a replacement, so I’ve gotten over this weird tradition.

What is your real-life work schedule like when writing?

School work (teaching college) always takes precedence over writing. It has to, as it’s how I make money to support myself, and it always requires my attention. Grading especially pushes writing out of the way, a lot of times, to its detriment. But I’m not quite sure how to balance the two. School work takes me a long time and a lot of preparation, and while I tend to write on the weekends because I’m too exhausted during the week, sometimes the weekends are the only time I can grade. So, I don’t have a clear solution to this except to sneak in writing when I can.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Save everything you write! Don’t save over drafts; create a new file. Don’t delete works you don’t like; just file them away. You never know when something from the past that didn’t work will show up again in the present, and is suddenly workable in a new way!

For example, I wrote a musical my junior year called In the Hands of Mr. Hyde. I wrote the music using composition software. A lot of the music was great, but putting it on as a musical was too difficult, so I cut all the songs and rewrote it as a straight play. One of the underlying melodies from a Hyde song reappeared in a musical that actually got mounted, Melancholia. I was happy that my music didn’t get “wasted,” as I was really proud of that particular song.

Do you believe in writer’s block?

Yes, because I get it.

What is the hardest thing about writing?

See my answer to “the most difficult part about writing a book.”

For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional, physical copies?

I never thought I’d get to this point in my life, but I prefer eBooks. I wait until they go on sale for 99 cents to 2.99 (unless I want it brand new really badly) and load my Kindle up. It’s also how I screen for good books. Kindle doesn’t allow you to own the books you buy; you are buying a license, which means they can be taken away at any time. So, I get the eBook first, read it, and if it touched me deeply in some way, I order the physical copy to keep in my permanent library.

What are your thoughts on good/bad reviews?

Good reviews make me happy when I receive them, and bad reviews make me sad, annoyed, or laugh out loud. As a reader, I find if I don’t care for a book, the two-star reviews almost always validate my feelings by explaining what I found wrong with it, while 1-star reviews are often hilarious. I find four-star reviews to be pretty trustworthy when it comes to gushing about books.

What is your favorite motivational phrase?

This comes from author Toni Morrison:

If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

Do you remember the first book you read?

Not at home when we were learning to read (like when your mother or father reads to you at bedtime), but the first school book I remember reading was Mortimer the Frog.

What would you say is your unique writing style?

I wrote all about that in “Why I write how I write.“

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

In Son of the Siren, the message was all about consent, personal autonomy, and the importance of mutual, non-conditional love.

In “The Darkening Gate” trilogy, which focuses a lot on death, the message is that there is no way to stop it, so the best thing to do is to live a life worth living, and try to accept death as a natural part of life.

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

In eighth grade. I very much wanted to control the outcome of people’s lives, primarily through unique characters and stories…although I did write what would probably be considered fanfiction now.