Author Blog-In: End of the World Sucks (mine)

Oh no, she's posted this before! 

Yes, I'm participating in Kate's September blog-in also.  More authors and more books:

The End of the World Sucks by Sharon Trembley

This is a genre blender book that might be compared to Lord of the Flies meets Let the Right One In in a post-zombie apocalyptic world. Don't worry though, it's about the people even though there are elements of horror.

Zombies, a Vampire, or her fellow Man - Which is most likely to kill Vanna Ames? Who can she trust? 

After surviving a whole month past the End of the World by hiding and staying quiet, recent college graduate and fashion retail employee, Vanna, luckily finds others who have gathered together as a community for their mutual survival on a college campus. 

Although claiming to be a democratic society, tempers become frayed, decisions defy logic, and rules are broken. Further emboldened by the lack of society and law, some even gain a sense of entitlement because they are self-labeled heroes.

Now that all the rules have changed, a vampire arrives with a deal - his help for blood. An equally beneficial offer or a Faustian bargain? 

As the community's flaws grow, Vanna must decide whether to stick with her own kind in relative safety, or reject their community service nightmare, risk her life, and appeal to a vampire who claims his only interest is human blood.

And for the Author Blog In, here's an excerpt to give a better idea of Vanna's character because she is a character.  This occurs after Vanna hears gun shots early in the book and goes for a walk to find out what happened -

     When she reached a point where two rolls of chain-link were joined together with some twisted wire, Vanna saw her. If she had seen that dress before, she would have remembered.
     Muumuus were made for a woman of this size. Displaying a cheery, floral print provided no slimming effects, but proudly declared big and beautiful. Along with the turquoise, orange, and pink poly-blend tent, she also wore a pair of nude knee highs, and filthy, pink terry scuff slippers, and large, turquoise-colored plastic earrings with a matching chunky bracelet.
      The woman had fallen on her side facing the fence, and like most of the corpses, her eyes remained forever open. Vanna thought the zombies didn’t blink, so that might be why their eyes turned that spotty white color.
     Even with a visible gunshot wound to her face, Vanna could see the trivial details that further defined who this used to be. The woman’s short, not-so-natural blond hair was arranged into a crown of curlsframing her face. She also had heavy blue eye shadow still caked all the way up to her plucked, then redrawn with brown pencil, eyebrows.
     Her lower face was grimy, Vanna couldn’t confirm her expectation of coordinating lipstick to match her screaming pink nail polish, brightly visible on the tips of her dirt-caked fingers from a distance. Vanna’sconstant fearful imagination made the gunk smeared on the zombie’s lips still appear fresh, wet and red, when she knew it had been there for weeks.
              

Updates

Healthwise, I had a week of earache.  Better now.

After August 31st, I did not keep writing full steam ahead with Neferseshotep because there were some things bothering me in what I already wrote.  Part of what I rewrote is the excerpt I had up on the blog, so I've updated that (on the Neferseshotep tab, up on top).  More conflict - even though neither character is voicing it.   Would a good comparison be two guys giving each other fist-crushing hand shakes while exchanging pleasantries?

I plan to outline the sequel for The End of the World Sucks in October, then write it during November (National Novel Writing Month).  I have a couple of small ideas already, but I'm trying to concentrate on Neferseshotep, which may be published after the Sucks sequel because it's not as simple so editing may be more time consuming.  My Egyptian priest presents deeper problems than Vanna's quest to stay alive.

This weekend I had my first book signing at a golf outing for Summit Animal Rescue.  I was already signed up to volunteer for an indoor position, and another volunteer in the group has written a children's book about cats ... long story short ... I'll be working the sales table with magnets, t-shirts and the books for the day.  

Coincidentally, I only found out last week that one of my neighbors has also written her first book.  She is going the traditional publishing route, has a publisher, and is about to receive some cover art to look over.  I didn't get much more info than the proposed title and she's a member of the NJ chapter of Sisters in Crime.

I think it's fantastic that others are actually doing something rather than thinking - 'One day I'm going to write a book...'   I do need to get my act in gear so we can crosspost info.  I'm missing facts since I'm unable to come up with decent search results through Google.   Sorry - I was doing yard work, and unprepared for books to spring up in the conversation so didn't have 'I'm an author' business cards handy. 

Last week, I had been reading about authors paying for reviews.  From writing fan fiction for so long, I know the read -> review rate is low.  Less than one review for every hundred page views, and that includes troll reviews from sockpuppet accounts that seem to have a thing for me.   So I was thinking that four reviews on my book after only two months wasn't dreadful based on the quantity of sales because I was slightly ahead.   I was also pleased with them because they were reviews with substance.

As you can see from a previous blog post, I kept my costs low to self-publish.  I'm not at a breakeven point yet, but I'm creeping towards it. So I'm wondering if I could buy 50 5-star reviews on Amazon for $999 - what does that get me?  That's a lot more books that I would need to sell. Will 50 rave reviews sell them for me?  What are these reviews going to say, if the reviewer doesn't read the book? 

Anyone can come along and give it a poor review still.  Also, I would write an angrier review if I felt I was duped into buying a book.  The Amazon rating system might let the angry/disappointed review disappear off the page, but all anyone needs to do is click on 1 or 2 star reviews to find it. 

While downloading some free Kindle books, I succumbed to the temptation to search for my book.  One of my reviews was gone.  Since I hadn't taken a screen shot of it I have to rely on my memory, but I think it was a verified Amazon purchase.  Only having four, I did note that one was not a verified purchase, but that one's still listed. 

It might be that I have some sort of mental disorder, but I did wonder about the one review that was not an Amazon purchase.  It's not even about uncovering who it is, they can keep their anonymity.  I'm curious about how they read my book - the one Nook copy that was sold belongs to someone I know who does not have an Amazon account.  The paperback either needs to be purchased through Amazon or me, and they can't get one from me until I have a book signing.  Could someone have made a purchase through Amazon and thought so well of my book they loaned it to someone, and then that second person's so taken by it, they jumped on Amazon to leave a review?  That seems ridiculously optimistic of me.

So now that I've admitted I think about 'how'd that happen?'  over little things, I was curious what happened to that missing review.    Why would someone take the time to write a review, and then delete it a month later?  I emailed Amazon to see if it was Amazon or the customer that removed it.  Customers can do whatever they like, but if it was Amazon, I'd like to know why so I can dispute it if the reason is not sufficient.  I got a scripted reply back that Amazon can only discuss it with the reviewer.  That doesn't answer my question.

But then, I received a new four-star review.  It's a good review, and since it's four stars I have a little variety on the page.  Hooray for four stars.

CampNaNoWriMo

I validated my word count today because I saw I was over the 50,000 on Neferseshotep - and the novel is far from over!  So I might have plenty to write in September too.

This might also be a project that needs more time because it has big concepts.  It might be I put this down for November's NaNoWriMo to write a sequel to The End of the World Sucks and then stay working on Sucks II before picking Neferseshotep back up after it's sat for a while.

I have caught little errors as I'm writing now - but NaNo's about the writing, not the editing and rewriting - so I might be feeling a little down for not conceiving of all logistical problems as I wrote the initial draft.  How could I flood New York City and forget to turn the electricity off?

The other night I was trying to spell out some basic themes in the book - it's not just a bunch of people get together and set off on advenure (but that does help it keep moving).

If I just gave them some superpowers and problems they handled easily, that's boring.

I recall the Ancient Greeks gave their gods weaknesses and stories to make them human-like, but their problems were so much bigger.  Scooping cat litter - that's nothing, you hear about Hercules and those stables?

I am also revisting a theme from Sucks.  Everybody knows the difference between wrong and right, but what if the other guy's right is different than yours?  Vanna can't kick anything's ass, so the similarity stops there.  Here, as with Spiderman, with Great Power comes Great Responsibility - what is that responsibility?  The huge hint is all the central characters in Neferseshotep have something to do with death - death happens, people die all the time.  Would any of them feel inclined to save someone's life?  Do they even value their own lives?  And with a Valkyrie,  if you're of the Norse persuasion, the end of the world is one great big fight that we're going to lose - woo hoo!

There's also the issues of belief, not believing, and also conflict regarding that.  Then there's the possibility of conflict between the 'holy roller' types.  Just because someone looks like they have cooler powers, doesn't make their god(s) better.  There's also the groups that work based on faith alone - God/their god(s) don't need to prove anything, that's because they're God/god(s) and without Him/him/her/them you wouldn't exist.

I have to be careful with that last part because I'm not writing this to insult anyone, though I may do some additional reading about why some beliefs are labeled as 'cults'. 

Review: Demon's Night

Demon's Night by Guido Henkel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I enjoyed Demon’s Night very much – despite my Kindle app dropping the book from my library numerous times – I kept remembering to go back and pick it back up.

This is old school, black and white horror that isn’t trying to gross the reader out. I can go both ways with that, but Guido Henkel is working against the current trend of guts, disgust and foul language.

Fast paced with lots of action that doesn’t sacrifice the characters for the sake of action.



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Writing Progress

An August CampNaNoWriMo update -

Just a little past the halfway point in terms of days, and almost to the halfway point in terms of words.  I'm clocking in at a little over 22,000 right now.

The news is mixed because I know I'm not even at the halfway point of the plot so I have a lot more writing to go, but that also means you'll have plenty to read when it's finished.

A couple things in the back of my mind as I write

• I have too much fun writing miscommunicating dialogue.  Creating a character who speaks in tongues and also detects lying - still impossible to get a straight answer out of a teenager.
• Am I writing enough action?  My critique buddies should let me know - yet, I don't think this story's about the action.  When there's characters that are all-powerful, I want to dig into what makes them more human.
• Some of the characters need fleshing out since they're kind of cardboard placeholders at the moment.  I think that'll improve in editing as I follow each one's path.  The omniscient viewpoint should help me convey info to the reader without creating an every-being-for-itself atmosphere.
• Why did I want six sort-of-main characters in the first place?  That is a good question and I'll give that some more thought.  
• Neferseshotep is the title character, but alone he's not so interesting.  He seems powerful, but there are flaws.
• My 'from the real world' character might be too much, but I patterned her whiny self-centeredness on Sarah from Labyrinth.  I might change her name to something even more obnoxious sounding like Bettina.
• Am I doing justice to six different characters in terms of growth?  Do they all need to grow? Or better yet, do they grow in different ways? 

Enough teasing?

Anyway, you can also enjoy this sort of thing and at the best time of year - November.  November is National Novel Writing Month  It's more fun in November because the regional groups are operating so there will be a kickoff party, write-ins, encouragement, and an end of the month party.  There may even be a cake challenge in your region.  There's even a buddy system so you can take a quick look at others - including those not in your region.

It's August and I'm talking about November?  Preparation is key to accomplishing 50,000 words in 30 days.  Turning on your preferred word processing program on November 1st and staring at the cursor is not a good start.  Outline a plot, get some character names together, write some back story for them, do some research, interview your character after the end of the book.  There's all sorts of things that can be done beforehand that don't include actually writing the text of the novel.

Review: The Silver Collar

The Silver Collar by Kate Policani

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



A very nice short story.

I thought of instances within it for possible violence, yet Kate avoided them all.





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Review: The Falcon and His Desert Rose

The Falcon and His Desert Rose by George R. Lasher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I’m going to give this four stars for the premise and parts of the plot.

At times the story moved too fast to get a feel for the characters. I do enjoy characters that are neither white hat or black hat. Though Horus/Horace’s moral compass was a late bloomer due to the restrictive environment he was raised in, I hoped for better. More time with any of the three main characters should have added depth, rather than shadowing a superhero/villain relationship origin story.

The not-too-distant future was not well received. It may be because I don't care about reminiscing about any Red Sox victory, or the exciting advancements regarding cell phones and cars.

I would not discount the stars based on minor details, but I'm an obsessive type so there were some trivial things that caught my attention that should have been caught in editing.  An average height woman does not weigh 78 pounds.  If it was a mistake between kg and lbs, 78kg = 172#.  I think the old adage should be adhered to - never inquire after a lady's weight.  I also recall the mention of Safeway supermarket near MIT (Boston MA).  I don't know why I focus on store names, but Safeway is not in the New England area, or even the mid-Atlantic.  Some people are fickle about their grocery stores - like Alec Baldwin's mom refusing to move away from Wegman's.



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