I’ve been doing some very basic research on Kindle Direct Publishing — and I’m curious, what do you WordPress illuminati think about it?
This is how books are made!
Personally, I’m very intrigued — it seems like a fascinating tool to self-publish, completely doing an end-run around the paper-publishing brontosaurs.
Ultimately, this is all Top of the Mountain stuff, while I labor mightily on the slopes — but still rolling it around in my mind palace. [Sherlock reference — sorry, thought this was Tumblr for a second.]
My beloved gave me some constructive criticism on my writing recently, and of course I handled it maturely.
Which is to say, I was dismissive, hurt -and jerked my knee REAL HARD. Rejecting what she said out of hand, and refusing to accept any remote validity to her statement.
Fifteen minutes later I realized she had a point.
Then I pouted for a day or so.
Then the crying.
And now that I’ve processed, I’m ready to obliquely admit that she had a point, a small point.
[Read: She was completely right.]
Her criticism was:
Since you write in third person exclusively, you have a tendency to not show character’s emotions. I understand that you’re trying to “show, not tell” — but I’d like to get more inside the character’s heads, and get a sense of their emotions. [Heavily paraphrased, she’s the one with the eidetic memory.]
I read back through a few pieces, and I can totally agree with this assessment. And while I’m always going to err on the side of allowing my audience to make their own conclusions about characters — I feel this is a tool I need to be able to master, because it can be extremely effective.
So, my question is: How do I do this, without my stuff sounding like a Harlequin romance?
I can’t just write “The mage was sad. Her sadness was strong, and full of more sadness.”
Can I?
Opinions, suggestions, and examples if you got ’em!
I’ve set myself a writing schedule for the new year, where I need to complete five pages of my first draft each week. That may not seem super-ambitious, but I write when I have free moments at work, or a spare hour I can snatch at random. My live is not conducive to a set writing time each day — so five pages a week is a good stable amount that I can keep up. Just enough pressure to keep me working, but not so steep that I feel overwhelmed.
It’s been going well, honestly — I’ve stayed a couple of pages ahead, and haven’t had any difficulty staying on track. For example, this week my goal is 65 pages — and I’m sitting on 63 already. Next week the goal is 70 pages, the week after that 75.
My question is this: Should I stick to my writing schedule as-is, OR simply add five to whatever my page total is at the end of each week? So, if I finish this week at 67 pages, the next week’s goal is 72 pages.
In working on the rough draft of That Thing, I’m realizing more and more that I’m using the Third Person-Omniscient Perspective extensively AND I’m switching between two characters. I’m only doing it at natural breaks in the action, but I realize I’m quickly treading into the realm of FORBIDDEN FICTION.
I’m not going to stress out about it too much at the moment — if I hate it/think it’s confusing, I’ll restructure when I edit.
But — BUT. Anyone got some input on whether I’m freaking out about nothing, or if I should take this more seriously?
spell-sword.com 