The coolest thing in the world!
It releases today!
I am the first stop in the Summoned Blog Tour!
I reviewed this book a little while ago right here! It is awesome! And Rainy Kaye is a great author! I can't wait to see where this series is going!
So here is Rainy Kaye with a little advice for aspiring writers!
I'm not going to keep her because I want you to get on over and check out her book! Pick it up and support a writer that has talent plus some. It's only 99 cents for a limited time!
So heeeeeere's Rainy!
5 Pieces of Advice for Aspiring Authors
After tinkering with fiction writing for 15 years, and
finally taking one and running with it, I could give a caffeine-fueled run-on
sentence lecture about author advice. However, since we're limited to five, I
will go with some that I think aren't said enough:
What you spew on the first draft of your first manuscript
is not your voice. This is a difficult argument, but if you take nothing
else from this article, please listen to this: just because it sounds like something
you would said, it isn't necessarily “your voice.” Or, to phrase it another
way, if readers don't get it, the problem is with your writing. The excuse “but
that's my voice” will get no one anywhere. I have run into countless times
where someone justifies a garbled mess as “their voice” and refuses to take any
constructive criticism, despite having asked for it.
I'm coming from a place of experience here. If I'm being
mean, it's because someone should have been mean to me ten years sooner than
they did. It wasn't because I didn't think my writing was all that; it was
because everyone defined voice as “writing how you would say something” but
that's not the end of it. Just because it's worded how I would say something,
doesn't mean it makes sense.
Editors are a must.
Ones that know about writing what you write. While some editors are
good at crossing between genres, it really helps if you pick someone who loves
the same things you do. Sure, a romance editor can probably do your fantasy
manuscript justice, but a fantasy editor is more likely to have read more
within that genre. They understand the nuances of it, and often on a depth that
even your beta readers didn't get.
Sometimes, really great lines, or scenes, or chapters,
don't work. Not this time. Save them for another story. If you write enough
manuscripts, you will probably get to use it eventually. This kind of goes back
to not being too in love with your writing or your voice. I have documents full
of lines I've edited out, or things that have popped into my head that I would
love to make Dimitri say, but unless that situation presents itself in a way
that moves the story forward—they will remain in my document.
Be prepared for a ton of work. Writing takes an
enormous amount of hours and braincells. Then you will need to revise. Maybe a
few times. More braincells. Then you're going to self-edit, and those little
braincells are lining up like lemmings. When your manuscript is absolutely
perfect, you will smugly send it off to an editor thinking, “Good luck finding
more than a typo!”
Then they will return it with so many notes you think they
must have mistaken your masterpiece with someone else's trash, except, of
course, they didn't. So you will politely ask for a snip of their hair so you
can make a voodoo doll, but somewhere between the stitching together of said
doll, you'll start to see a little merit in what they said. Just a little.
So you'll put away the voodoo doll for another time and make
a few changes. Just a few. And then a few more. Eventually,
it's perfect—for real this time—so you send it off to the next round of editing
with properly earned self-assuredness. That is, until you find yourself
making another voodoo doll.
However, somewhere around pass three or thirty, it will be ready
to go. So then you will lose more hours, braincells, and friends creating cover
art. On pass four hundred and sixteen of Plan Z, you will fall in love with a
cover. Then you will change it a dozen more times.
Then there's the formatting,
and the campaign planning, and the dedication page where you realize so many
braincells have committed hari-kari that you forgot half of those poor souls
you roped into your Big Idea.
Finally, at long last, it is published. Then you get to
start marketing while you do all of the above again on your next book.
On the plus side, you will no longer have any braincells to
worry about.
You are probably not over thinking, being too critical,
or making tough calls yet. Until you're
little more than a caffeine recycler who can't remember if they showered this
morning or yesterday morning because it's all blurring together; until friends
come 'round to pry open your window to take you outside; until you wake up off
your keyboard in a cold sweat that maybe the flowers were mauve, not purple,
you're not done yet. The truth is, if it isn't working, it just isn't
working. You will know when it is.
If the above didn't scare you off, you either need a
therapist—or to get back to writing.
Blurb
Twenty-three year old Dimitri has to do what he is
told—literally. Controlled by a paranormal bond, he is forced to use his wits
to fulfill unlimited deadly wishes made by multimillionaire Karl Walker.
Dimitri has no idea how his family line became trapped in
the genie bond. He just knows resisting has never ended well. When he meets
Syd—assertive, sexy, intelligent Syd—he becomes determined to make her his own.
Except Karl has ensured Dimitri can't tell anyone about the bond, and Syd isn't
the type to tolerate secrets.
Then Karl starts sending him away on back-to-back wishes.
Unable to balance love and lies, Dimitri sets out to uncover Karl's ultimate
plan and put it to an end. But doing so forces him to confront the one wish he
never saw coming—the wish that will destroy him.
Find out more at http://www.summonedtheseries.com
Rainy Kaye is an aspiring overlord. In the mean time, she blogs at RainyoftheDark.com and writes paranormal novels from her lair somewhere in Phoenix, Arizona. When not plotting world domination, she enjoys getting lost around the globe, studying music so she can sing along with symphonic metal bands, and becoming distracted by Twitter (@rainyofthedark). She is represented by Rossano Trentin of TZLA.
Author Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rainyofthedark
Author Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rainyofthedark
Author Blog: http://www.rainyofthedark.com
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