The Best of 2013

This year has been a big year for me. I suppose the best thing is that, in August, I finally published my novel The Forest's Heir. That was the highlight of the entire year. There have been bad things, and the last year has been a struggle in some ways. So I thought I'd end the year with some of my favorite things about the year. So here are my picks for the Top Ten books (young adult--for the most part), movies, and TV shows of the year.

Top Ten Books of 2013

1. The Fiery Heart by Richelle Mead
2. The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead
3. The White Princess by Phillipa Gregory
4. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
5. Curtsies and Conspiracies by Gail Carriger
6. House of Hades by Rick Riordan
7. The Elite by Kiera Cass
8. Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
9. The Fall of Five by Pittacus Lore
10. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

Trust me, this list was hard for me to put together (with the exception of the top 3). In all honesty, everything else is kind of tied for 4th place.

Top Ten Movies of 2013

1. Thor: The Dark World
2. The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug
3. Iron Man 3
4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
5. Fast and Furious 6
6. Star Trek: Into Darkness
7. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
8. Grown Ups 2
9. Now You See Me
10. The Purge

This one, actually, was pretty easy.

Top Ten TV Shows of 2013

Just note, that doesn't mean that these are new shows. I just mean MY top ten watched shows.

1. Doctor Who
2. Real Housewives of Atlanta
3. Sleepy Hollow
4. Almost Human
5. Mob Wives: New Blood
6. Storage Wars
7. Being Human
8. Reign
9. The Walking Dead
10. Mythbusters

What can I say, I'm a bit of a nerd, and I like reality TV.

Here's to a good 2014, and the hope that we'll have as many great books and movies next year as we did this year!

Are outlines necessary?

Some authors are so organized that it baffles me. They sit down to write, and they have these amazing outlines and plans about how they want their story to go. And that's almost exactly how the final novel turns out. It's amazing to me when authors write like that.

Mostly because I can't.

I tried doing outlines for my novels before, and it absolutely drove me crazy. I hated it. I felt so boxed in that it wasn't funny. Once I put those plans to paper, I felt like I had to stick with what I wrote. I got it in my head that I couldn't deviate from that plan at all. Outlines made me so frustrated that I would quickly get depressed about a story and just stop writing it, even though it was still telling itself in my head. The characters would be screaming that this is going to happen, and I would answer back through clenched teeth, "It can't because it isn't in the plan."

Maybe I hate outlines so much because I had to do so many in high school. For everything. Literature and grammar classes. History. Even science courses. I despised outlines by the time I hit university. So I just don't do them anymore. Instead, I do pre-plans.

For me, a pre-plan lays out the basic background of each character who is important to the story (appearance, personality, likes and dislikes, etc.), facts about the world they live in, and the main plot points that I have in mind. I've stopped trying to microplan everything about my novel. I set out the major destinations, but I let the characters set the journey.

For some writers, the outline is a necessity. For others, it's a tool that's useful but not required. But for me, it's the spawn of Satan that I avoid at any and all costs.

But a pre-plan... I can work with that.

(By the way, come back in a couple days for my post about my observations of the four types of authors. And I'll tell you which kind I am.)

How to deal with "no"

As a writer, just as in life, there's a single word that you have to learn to deal with. And you'll hear it a lot. Especially if you're a self-published author like I am. And that's the word "no."

Our society has a hard time with "no" these days. Whether it be not getting picked for the soccer team or that ghastly song "Blurred Lines," people don't want to hear that they can't do something. They don't want to hear that they aren't good enough or that they just aren't right for a job. Or, put simply, they don't want to hear that someone doesn't want what they have to offer. But as an author, you have to get used to hearing this because you're going to hear it.

A lot.

That isn't to say that you're not good enough. It just means that what you have to offer isn't right for the person that you're offering it to. I've had to deal with "no," or even worse, silence, a lot in the past weeks. I've been preparing to do a relaunch of my book and have been planning a blog tour. When you email 25 to 50 blogs a day and you hear back from 3 in a week, sometimes you get discouraged. You start thinking that it would be easier to quit. To just let everything go on its own and not bother.

But that isn't going to get me anywhere. It isn't until we learn to accept that hearing "no" a thousand times is worth hearing "yes" just once that we'll get anywhere. Because sometimes we get more out of the rejection than we do out of the acceptance.

It's out of rejection that we learn to get better, to take criticism, and to refine ourselves to the writer and the person we're supposed to be.

The importance of the memory stick...

Sometimes things happen in life that remind you that things go wrong. That happened to me yesterday. I got in a writing mood and wrote nearly 3,500 over the course of the day on my novel. It was lovely and wonderful. I got so much done. I was proud of it.

And then something went haywire with my computer. Or with my brain. I'm not sure which one, but I'm going to go with blaming the computer because it makes me feel better. Nothing that I wrote yesterday saved. Nothing. Did I say nothing? Cause I mean absolutely nothing I wrote on the new novel yesterday saved at all. It made me so angry that it wasn't funny.

So here's a bit of a tip to my fellow authors. Well, to anyone who keeps important information on their computer (and be honest, who doesn't?). BACK IT UP. And do it often. Also, don't just rely on one back up. I may be a bit obsessive compulsive when it comes to this since I had a computer crash on me once, but I have at least two back up copies of everything I can't imagine losing. And I save often, no matter what autosave does. Because after yesterday, I don't trust it.

After yesterday's fiasco with losing at least five pages of my novel, here are three lessons I learned that I will carry with me for the rest of my writing career.

1. Don't rely on auto-save. It isn't reliable.
2. Manually save often. At least every two pages or so, or every fifteen minutes. Just to make sure that you don't lose anything.
3. Keep at least two back up copies (not on your computer). Just in case the worst case scenario happens. 

In short, the SAVE button and the memory stick are your best friends. Keep them close. They'll be good to you.

Playing publicist

Multitasking is something that we have to do. Every single day, we have to do two or three things at a time just because there are so many things that need to be done and only a limited amount of time to do them in. I'm used to multitasking. Working two jobs at a time, teaching a class and running a church program all at once, I'm used to it. It's been useful when I started working as my own publicist.

Self-publishing is good to just get your book in print, but that doesn't mean that you'll sell a lot of books. There's some leg work involved. Lots of multitasking, long days, and late nights. Especially when you have another job or two to pay the bills. Multitasking and time management are two of the most important things--other than writing skill--that a self-published author can have. Because no one else is going to do the work for you, not unless you're willing to fork out a lot of money for a professional or semi-professional tour group or publicist to plan your blog tours and get your name out there.

Multitasking as a self-published author not only means writing and editing your own novel, but it means playing your own agent and fighting for your work. It means playing your own publicist. It means spending hours upon hours sending out emails to book bloggers, putting out feelers for book reviews or interest in participating in a blog tour. It means coming up with ideas for blog posts. It means spending a lot of your time doing things for yourself.

At least for me, writing isn't my method of income. Sure, I've made a little money with my writing. Not enough to keep my bills paid, so I have to work a day job. So I have to manage my time to make sure I get my day job done as well as take care of all the writing and promotional things I need to do. I spend at least four to five hours a day on my writing between blogging, writing, and working on promotional things. That's good on my days off or when I'm on holiday from work. Not so easily done when I have to work all day.

I'll never regret the decision to become a self-published author. But I know now that it takes more than writing a novel to really become one. There's so much more involved. You have to be your own publicist, your own agent, editor, and cheerleader.

You have to fight for yourself, because no one else is going to.

How to tell a good story...

I've often wondered how you really tell a good story. Well, last night I got a very good example of how to do so.

I'm a huge fan of the New Who. I've seen some of Classic Who (love Love LOVE Four), but I'll always be one of the New Who Whovians. Last night was the final Christmas special with Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. And, boy, was that a story!

One thing I've found is that I love to yell at Steven Moffat for ripping my heart out and dancing it to pieces on Doctor Who and Sherlock. But last night, I got to thinking. Whether or not he writes the scripts, he's in control of the story (of course, last night he wrote the script--more about that later). And he makes those stories compelling.

And when I say compelling, I mean can't-look-away-hate-him-for-it-but-you-come-back-for-more compelling. But I can't say it's all Steven Moffat. It's also because of Mark Gattis, fellow show runner and co-creator of Sherlock. I'm preparing my feels (fan-girl speak for emotions) for the return of that show in a couple weeks here in the States. The thing is, the stories they tell are so deep, so intriguing that they make fans break down in tears, analyze, and relive a thousand moments of every episode.

Last night's Christmas special was exactly like that. From the very start of the episode, I went through a kaleidoscope of emotions. Melancholy, jealousy, happiness, fear, dread, anger, depression, hope, sadness, joy, sadness, fury, surprise... all of these and every facet of emotion in between. By the end of the episode and the revelation of the newest Doctor, I was an emotional wreck. I was snot crying like a baby and laughing like a lunatic. There is no better definition of emotionally compromised than the way I was last night after watching that episode.

That's what a good story does. It takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotion. It pulls you in, drags you down and lifts you back up again. It rips you apart with fear, fills you with dread, and patches you together again with hope. A good story makes you feel everything the characters feel. It carries you along for the ride, and  makes you feel as if you're right there.

And I did. I felt like I was on Trenzalore in a town called Christmas with the Doctor to protect me. I felt like Clara drifting through space and clinging to the TARDIS, begging the Doctor to never send me away ever again. And in a way, I felt like the Doctor, waking up to a whole new me, a whole new life.

Wondering... how do I fly this thing? How do I tell this new story?

No day off for the writer...

It's Christmas Day. Most people take a day off on Christmas, don't they? They spend the day with their families, enjoying Christmas dinner, opening presents and watching the lights twinkling on a beautifully decorated tree. Most people don't wake up Christmas morning thinking about what they're going to blog about that day or how much promo work they're going to do on their blog tour.

But I do. Because when you're a self-published author who is doing everything on your own, there's no taking a day off. You always have to keep your name out there. Even if it's to just one or two people. Because those one or two people can tell one or two people. And it can go on from there.

I'm at home. I can take a break and eat Christmas dinner with my family. I can set up my work table in my living room and look at the beautiful tree that my mother decorated and appreciate the way it looks and what it stands for. I'm not going to be glued to my computer screen today--at least not until late tonight when everyone is in a food coma from turkey and stuffing. But I don't have the option of just not doing anything today.

I'll blog. I'll write. I'll go through book review websites and put out feelers for the blog tour, try to make contacts for promotional swag giveaways and stuff like that.

I'm lucky enough to have a sister who is amazing with web and graphic design. But I'm writer, editor, format editor, PR department and publicist all rolled into one.

So I totally don't get a day off.