What's in a Name?

Samuel Clemens used a pseudonym, so did Charles Dodgson, Mary Ann Evans, Eric Blair and David Cornwell (amongst others).  Some writers have used several – Eleanor Hibbert’s best known pseudonyms were Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt and Philippa Carr, but she also used several lesser known ones - Eleanor Burford, Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Anne Percival, and Ellalice Tate.

Writers used pseudonyms for a variety of reasons:

Sometimes their name is well-known in another sphere: if your name was John Kennedy or George Bush, you might want to change it.

It might be too common – John Smith or Mary Taylor for example.

It might be inappropriate as a writer – the name Paige Turner comes to mind.  It might be genuine but it sounds too contrived.

A real name may be difficult to spell or pronounce – which could create difficulties if someone is looking you up online or trying to ask for your book.  

Sometimes writers use different names for different genres; sometimes a woman might want to ‘disguise’ herself as a man.  The Bronte sisters did this when they first submitted their manuscripts, fearing that women would not be taken seriously in the male-dominated Victorian world.  But then so did J.K.Rowling, because she thought young boys might not want to read books written by a woman.

There can also be times when a writer wishes to take another name because of their ‘other’ careers.  A doctor might not want his/her patients to realise he/she is a paranormal writer; a first grade teacher might not want the parents of his/her children to know he/she writes erotic romances or horror stories.

I use a pen-name.  Why? 

Not for any of the above reasons, but simply because I don’t like my real name!

I hated my first name from being a child.  No-one I knew at school had the same name, and I longed for a what I considered a more ‘normal’ name like Anne, Margaret or Elizabeth (hardly surprising, therefore, that these were the names I gave my heroines in my very early stories). 

My surname is still that of my ex-husband.  I kept it when my daughters were younger for their sakes, since it was their surname, of course.  They’ve now both changed their surnames because of marriage, so I suppose I could have changed mine since I dislike it.  But (a) it’s how everyone knows me and (b) it’s too much hassle to change my bank accounts and other ‘official’ stuff like that.

When I wrote my early novels (in the 60’s and 70’s), I used my first name combined with my mother’s maiden name (which is actually my middle name – another grumble there, since I hated having a surname as a middle name, but that’s another story!).  Trouble was, that surname had a fairly unique spelling, so of course it was frequently spelt wrongly!

Fast forward 30+ years to when I re-entered the world of fiction writing, and decided I needed a different pen-name.  Paula was an obvious choice as a variation which I preferred to my real name (and which, in fact, several people actually call me).  I toyed around with various surnames – but people who know me well understand why ‘Martin’ eventually won.  One friend did suggest, however, that I should have called myself ‘Sheena Martin’ – no prizes for working that one out!

Maybe I should have chosen a more ‘unusual’ name but at least my pen-name is easy to remember, easy to spell and easy to say.  And I’ve now got used to signing it on the first page of ‘His Leading Lady’ too!

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

Okay, first of all, as anyone who knows me will tell you, having me write about procrastination is pretty hilarious, simply because in life, I don’t do it. My Type A personality won’t let me. When planning my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah, I created a timeline that started six months to a year before I actually had to start, just so I wouldn’t miss anything or stress about the potential of missing something. As editor of my Temple’s newsletter, I’m famous for riding anyone (especially my Rabbi) who misses the deadline, and when explaining to new contributors how important it was to turn something in on time, I told them that if they were sick, make their spouse write it for them and hand it in.

So, why am I writing about this topic, and more importantly, why did I actually VOLUNTEER for this one? Because apparently my writer self hasn’t met my other self yet. And while I don’t procrastinate in real life, as a writer, I have found so many ways to procrastinate that it’s a wonder I get anything done at all.

I don’t procrastinate on deadlines for my published or soon-to-be published things. I hate making people wait for me almost as much as I hate waiting for others, so when my editor tells me to do something, I do it right away. But on my work in progress? Oh, boy. I sit down at the computer and open the document and before I can even start to type one word, I think of something else to do. So I do it—laundry, making a phone call, etc. Then I return to the computer, reread what I last wrote and type a sentence or paragraph. And then stop to check my email.

Email should only take a few seconds to check, except that I’ve joined a bunch of writer’s loops and I get lots of emails throughout the day from them. The loops are necessary because they have a lot of important information on them. Plus, they’re a great way to market myself and my work to other people. But sorting through the emails takes time away from my writing, so I’ve tried to delete anything but the most important ones. I’m hesitant to use the digest method because I’ve never done it before and I’m afraid I’ll either miss something or spend a longer amount of time sorting through everything. My critique partner emails me her comments on my work and her chapters for me to look at, so those I try to read right away, even if I don’t act on them.

I go back to my writing, only to be distracted by Facebook, the biggest timewaster of them all! Through Facebook I’ve also joined writer’s groups and have my author page. Some of the groups have huge numbers of people, who post constantly. There are blogs to read, comments about my writing to answer and myriad ways to get distracted, especially when my own writing is not going so well. But again, I’ve found Facebook and its groups to be helpful to market my books and blog and website. I get a lot of comments about my writing, which gets my name out there, which hopefully sells my books. It just requires a lot of self-discipline to stick to what I’m supposed to do, when I’m supposed to do it.

I’m not sure why writing lets me procrastinate as well as I do. Maybe because I’m not happy with my story right now and the amount of work required fixing it is daunting. Maybe because my brain is tired (or my body) from lack of sleep and stress. I will say that now that I’ve printed out the first (horrible) draft and started to look through it, I’ve found parts that are less horrible than I thought and they’re inspiring me to go back to it. Slowly.  In the meantime, I’ve got email to check, Facebook comments to make and oh, Twitter to consider!

Welcome to Sylvia Ney

Today's Friday Friend is Sylvia Ney, a wife and mother of two living in southeast Texas. She taught in public schools for seven years and left to become a stay at home mom after the birth of her first daughter. She has published newspaper articles, photography, poetry and short stories. To learn more about her, please visit her blog: http://writinginwonderland.blogspot.com/

Loving Your Villain

It’s vital the author know their protagonist intimately or the readers won’t relate and they won’t fall in love with your story. Most writers understand this and have become adept at creating memorable heroes worth falling for.

Yet the villain tends not to receive any love. “But he’s not supposed too,” I hear you silently shout. “We’re not supposed to sympathize with them. They’re the villain—they don’t want your pity, they want your respect, your fear. But sympathy? Villains scoff at sympathy.”

They also tend to make you—the writer—forget that they were supposed to be multi-faceted at all. We want them to be evil. We don’t want to love them. We just need them for conflict and then they fail (maybe even die).

Why should you become devoted to the antagonist? Especially after everything that character has done to others?

The answer is simple: if you don’t love your villain, your writing will show it. Your antagonist will have one side: EVIL, and become the stereotypical bad guy because you didn’t spend enough time getting to know his other side. Your writing will fall flat.

So, how do you create an effective villain?

1. Even Villains Have A Good Side — Remember that no one is all good or all evil, unless your villain is a demon and you’re writing horror. Of course, a demon with a soft side might be interesting as well.

2. What is the Villain’s Motivation? — Take a look at your antagonist. Do you know his family? Does he have siblings? What are his dreams? What does his mother think of him? What is his guilty pleasure? What does he fear? Why does he act the way he does?

3. Don't Overdo It — Don't get "villain-happy;" make your villains as evil as they need to be for the storyline, but no more than that; otherwise, they will either ring untrue or they will take over the story, distracting from the hero, heroine, and original plot.

4. A villain’s Demise — your villain must get his punishment in the end; if he simply disappears, then you've given the villain too much power. Take away his power and give the reader the satisfaction of closure for all the evil that the villain put your hero and heroine through. This doesn't necessarily mean that the villain must die, but he should suffer in some way for his actions.

5. Villain as the Hero — Of course, some villains can become very successful main characters. You may find yourself so attached to a villain that he warrants his own story. Or you may have a “bad boy” hero.

“Do not hesitate to give your hero lusts of the flesh, dark passions, impulses to evil; for these dark powers, fused with their opposites – the will to good, the moral impulses, the powers of the spirit – will do to your character precisely what the opposite powers of fire and water do to the sword blade." - William Foster-Harris

In my story “Broken Angel” we realize the protagonist is far from the savior he appears to be. Many authors use similar tactics for their lead. The whole point is to spend some time with your antagonist. Let him tell you all about himself, get to know him and don’t stop until you absolutely love him as much if not more than your protagonist. 

Because once you love your antagonist, something funny happens—you want your readers to love him too. And you’ll make sure they do.

Who are your favorite villains or less than perfect leads?

Thanks so much for being with us today, Sylvia, and for such an interesting post about villains! 

Link to Sylvia's story 'Broken Angel'
http://www.ropeandwire.com/Bullpen_Sections/BP_Short_Stories/Broken_Angel.html

Promotion = PR & Marketing!

Selling You, Selling Me! Where do we start?

Book Marketing! Call it what you will! Authors now have to learn the basics of PR (public relations). Strange words those, are they not. So how does PR work when it comes to selling books?

If you’re a famous person (celebrity) then you’re laughing, literally. Celebrities employ PR companies to sell them and to sell their products (off-shoots of celebrity status). These PR gurus sell the whole celebrity dream to adoring fans. It’s their job, it’s their mark of professionalism, and the best PRs are always one step ahead of those trailing in their wake!

A lot of authors have always gone the way of local radio slot here, a local TV interview there, and have sought a mention or two within local book review pages of county magazines and newspapers (UK). A few brave authors have sought publicity via national newspapers, mags and TV, but those slots have dwindled over the past couple of decades. Those national radio/TVslots have been given over to celebrities. Say no more! 

In the wacky world of published books, fiction books, editors and literary agents alike are now facing crisis after crisis. How has this happened? Good question. What happens when one buries one’s head in the sand in hope that whatever will pass by unnoticed and not affect the status quo? Well, the Internet came along and with it e-books and you know what, publishers laughed, and publishers ridiculed the very idea of e-books.

They said, “Oh really, funny-ha-ha, what fool is going to read an electronic book?” 

And here we are, e-books are big business. And yes, Indie/small publishers, the forward-thinking ones jumped in with both feet back in the early nineties and embraced the idea of electronic books and they are, the early birds, ahead of the game and will remain so.

“No No NO,” said the big publishers come the twenty first century, “we can learn from them and turn their success to our advantage. We have the clout, the money, and the big-named authors.”

Then came Amazon. “Whoa.  What’s this,” said the big publishers. “This is unfair advantage, the little chaps are in with a chance to thwart our World domination.” But, a few of the big publishers thought, Ha, ha, we can use this to our advantage, too.

Like hell they can. They make mistakes left, right and centre. They set up author/reader forums to entice readers and usually the forums are flooded with aspiring authors. These same big publishers tell authors the best way to know what excites their editors is to purchase as many of their books as possible. Which means, read their books but don’t bother sending them yours! These same big publishers talk authors into handing over novels to be published as e-books in new and exciting e-book lines, of course, with meagre royalty return. They wildly exaggerate on promises that if your e-book sells well, the mother company (trad house) may look more favourably upon your next submission to them. They publish thousands of backlist novels and publish them as e-books, no overheads, no running costs and usually overpriced for in-house monetary gain. They even resort, in some cases, to subsidiary vanity publishing. We all know what that is. And if you think VP is the domain of small publishing houses, think again, the big boys are at it, too.

SO! How do we, as small cheese, lure hundreds and thousands of book-reading mice to our books? Good question. Do I have the answer? Probably not!  I do know, however, that one can over do blog tours and drive bloggers away. I know that glowing book reviews on Amazon are mostly ignored and bad reviews are taken notice of: see my blog post re How is Your book doing on Amazon? 

However. I do know that we as authors have to create a brand image. How to do that is the leading question.

a)      Do blog tours work? 

b)      Does helping other authors work?

c)      Does seeking publicity via Twitter, Facebook etc., work?

d)      Does the act of joining blogfests to up followers in hope of book sales, work?     

Did any of the above help sales of your books?  I don’t know. You tell me!

Take a) I haven’t done a blog tour. I’m convinced more than one or two outlying blog visits do more harm than good, for both author and blog hosts. My belief on this issue stems from over-saturation of same thing, rather like a needling TV advert that pops up so often you’re tempted to zap the remote to blank the screen.  Do I want to be noted for this? No thanks.

Take b) I’ve enjoyed helping other authors by purchasing their books and posting reviews on my blog and, at Amazon. Now I’ve learned people don’t bother reading reviews. Hmm. There seems little point plugging for reciprocal reviews of my books

Take c) I think Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms are places for procrastination, posting tripe, making fools of our selves whilst trying to flog our wares, and basically a waste of time. I’d rather be writing next novel. Fans expect output!!  

Take d) re blog followers, yes you’ll get a few extra book sales with followers. But don’t ever think sales of books will equate to number of followers. If you want sales to soar put your face where it counts. Put your face in reader forums, talk to readers and gain fans. Treat author forums as places for exchanging experiences and gaining likeminded writer friends, but always, always look beyond inner circles of writers, because out there in reader-land is where your real audience is. Go find readers, the people who love the genre you write, and your books will roll off the bookshelves!!! 

Am I doing the latter? Sure I am. I’m book marketing savvy. My romantic historical novellas are available on Kindle and are selling extremely well with barely any reviews, no blog tours, mere advertising on my own blogs, and book trailers on Youtube and Amazon. I’m flirting with readers, and having fun with fellow authors. And, now here's the thing, I'm writing instead of wasting time on Twitter, Facebook etc. I'm getting books to my public!  


Ha ha, forgot to say: every chance you get put a link to your blog/s and post urls to book trailers, they are an excellent tool for catching the eye and imagination of readers.  


See my book trailers: The Highwayman's Mistress  & Her Favoured Captain.  Keep your book trailers short, choose music appropriate to story, and keep it simple: avoid bells and whistles re fancy effects, especially for romance novels.

What I Read Other Than Romance

For a while I read romance. Exclusively. Probably beginning in high school, other than required reading for English literature classes, I didn't go far without a Harlequin American Romance in my hand. I eventually branched out into historicals and single titles, but for me, romance was queen.

In time I expanded my horizons further. A group of friends started a social book club, and we read a plethora of types of books: historical fiction, women's fiction, chick lit, best-sellers...but no real romance.

As I've gotten older, I still enjoy my romance, but my main fare these days is Young Adult Fiction. Ironic, isn't it? As a teenager I read adult romance and as an adult I'm reading fiction for teenagers.

The thing is, there's so much good writing out there for young adults these days. Perhaps not good in a 'classic' literature sense, but good as in a 'I can't put the book down' kind of way.

For me, it all started with Harry Potter. I was hooked on those books from the moment I picked the first one up. I've found that I have a taste for the paranormal in teen books. I fell totally in love with the Twilight series. (I think I've read them all seven or eight times by now.) I've always loved romantic vampire stories, so this was right up my alley. Recently I read the available books in the House of Night series. (Again, more vampires.) A friend just gave me the first in The Immortals series. (Not quite vampires, but close enough.) This summer I read all of the Alex Rider (He's a teen-aged James Bond) adventures. Another favorite series is The 39 Clues.



Even in adult books I like series more than stand alone. Perhaps it's once I've found something I like, I want more and more of it. I really like the Sookie Stackhouse books. (More vampires, plus HBOs True Blood is my guilty pleasure!) The Chocoholic Mysteries are a fun read. And I really enjoyed Lois Greiman's Chrissy McMullen books. When I need some hard core adventure, I turn to Dirk Pitt or Kurt Austin novels from Clive Cussler.



Most of these are "keepers" and go on the shelves of my personal library, to perhaps be read again and again.

My girlfriends and I share book suggestions, so I'm never without something waiting in the pile to be read. I've also discovered that it's hard to read other romance when I'm writing a romance myself. Things tend to get all tangled in my mind. Still, I have quite a large collection of romance in my library.



So, how about you? What's on your list these days besides romance?

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Do as I say, not as I do

My writing routine is NOT one to emulate. I write seasonally, specifically in the post-Christmas, pre-gardening season. Fortunately that's a fairly long stretch in Minnesota.

From May through December, I write to deadline. Heroines with Hearts posts, Voices of the Heart posts, weekly CSA newsletters, bi-monthly gardening columns. Short things, 500 to 1000 words. And critiques for my critique partner and loop partners.

This winter, when the garden is sleeping, I'll write two hours each weekday, either in the early morning or leisurely evening, and four to six hours on Saturday and Sunday.

I can't wait.

My Favourite Hero

I’ll start by telling you some types of hero which would never be among my favourites: vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, aliens, ghosts, angels, demons, or other magically-empowered beings.  Okay, I know they’re very ‘fashionable’ right now but – confession time – I’ve never read any fantasy-type story.  Not even Lord of the Rings or any of the Harry Potter books.

I loved Hugh Jackman in ‘Australia’, in ‘Kate and Leopold’ and as Curly in Oklahoma. 

But Wolverine?  No thanks!

Even as a child, I preferred stories about ‘real’ people, and not ‘fairy’ stories.  I have absolutely no interest in ‘fantasy’ in the strictest sense of the word.  Most of the paranormal beings are, to me anyway, the stuff of nightmares, not of romance. 

I don’t like ‘bad boys’ either.  Never liked Heathcliffe, for example, or the ‘Byronic’ type of anti-hero. Maybe Mr Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre’ is also an anti-hero – keeps his wife locked up, pretends to be engaged to one of his lady friends to make Jane jealous, and then attempts to marry Jane bigamously?  What a jerk!  But we see him only through Jane’s eyes so can empathise (and sympathise) with her. 

What about Mr Darcy then?  Supposedly women’s favourite fictional icon, whereas really he was a dominant patriarchal male.  Forget Colin Firth clambering from lake in wet shirt (on second thoughts, though, maybe I will keep that image in my mind!).  But Darcy was moody, overbearing, repressed and patronising.  In the 1940’s Laurence Olivier played a very ‘buttoned-up’ Mr Darcy and no-one swooned over him.  My guess is that those who drool over Darcy have never actually read the book, but are simply drooling over the devastatingly sexy Mr Firth!  And that gives me the chance to put up a picture of him, not the famous lake scene, but the smouldering look as he watched Elizabeth playing the piano – whoa, definitely a ‘stop the DVD, rewind and replay’ moment!

However, I digress. I’m supposed to be writing about my favourite hero, and not Colin Firth.  But – hold on a minute, maybe I can still talk about Mr Firth.  In ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ he plays the modern equivalent of Mr. Darcy (great casting there!).  He’s reserved and awkward but ‘nice’, while Hugh Grant plays Daniel Cleaver, the modern equivalent of George Wickham, a shallow but sexy charmer.

Which was my favourite hero?  Without getting into the whole alpha/beta discussion again, I have to say it’s the reserved but nice one, of course, who proves to have more far strength of character than the sexy charmer, and more sex appeal too!   

When he kisses Bridget at the end, she tells him, ‘Nice boys don’t kiss like that.’  His reply is. ‘Oh yes, they f….g do.’ 

Now THAT’s my kind of hero!