DEALING WITH REJECTION by Kym Brunner

Rejection sucks – no matter if you’re talking romance, job offers, or novels. No one who wants something badly enough wants another someone to say, “No, thanks."

Unfortunately, rejection doesn’t stop after you’ve been published. Here are my latest letdowns: 

•  Proposals I’ve sent to festivals/conferences/bloggers don’t get any response. Not even crickets or white noise. Always makes wonder if I sent it to the right address, or if they don’t respond unless interested, or if aliens abducted that person (which is the choice I always pick). Of course it’s not me; it’s them.

• I had hoped to be on a Debut Author Panel at Printer’s Row this summer, but my book comes out three weeks AFTER the event and they wanted to have authors with books in hand (understandable, but still...rejected). Wah!

WHAT TO DO AFTER BEING REJECTED?

1.      Drink (coffee, tea, vodka, beer – your choice)
2.     Call friends and commiserate (but usually they don’t have a whole lot to add) 
3.     Write scathing emails to the blogger/organizer/festival and say you didn’t want to attend that stupid event anyway. (Not recommended unless you address it to yourself).
4.     Call it part of the process and move on. Even though you want to rant and scream, it’s usually not the best alternative. Besides, think of all the things you yourelf look at in one day and skip over without addressing––movies, books, dirty clothes pile, phone calls you never returned, dog’s water bowl has a dead fly floating in it––and you realize it might not be your project that was rejected…it’s just that LIFE IS BUSY.  People forget, move on, go out for dinner, need more sleep.

The thing to remember is…WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, IT WILL HAPPEN.

There. I’ve said it. So you can forget all the worrying, complaining, and swearing (alright, swear away – it feels good sometimes), but keep on trying new things, submitting new projects, and checking your Tinder dates, and when the stars are aligned….the response you’ve been waiting for will come!  

Source

When a Side Character Isn’t Likeable by KRISTI HELVIG

 

Side characters might not be the main protagonist of the story but they still have their own motivations and desires, so you want to make them well-rounded. However, whether it’s the jerk friend or the annoying sidekick, well-rounded doesn’t have to equate to likeable. The balance is making them seem human versus a stereotype. One of the issues I had with my side character Britta in BURN OUT is that she was way too unlikeable in early drafts. My beta readers disliked her so much that it caused problems with how the end of the book played out.

The challenge I had was to make the readers feel a little more sympathetic toward her even though she wasn’t the nicest character (okay, she was a total bee-atch). This involved more explanation of her character and what made her the way she is, which translated into more scenes throughout the book. One of my best beta readers read the last draft and said she couldn’t believe I’d made her care about Britta, but the thing is, I cared about her too by that last rewrite. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to get the first draft down knowing you will still have some fleshing out to do. Basically, if every character in your book was nice, it would be a very boring book. So make your characters mean, revengeful, or annoying—just keep them real. 

 

Kristi Helvig is a Ph.D. clinical psychologist turned sci-fi/fantasy author. She muses about Star Trek, space monkeys, and other assorted topics on her blog and Twitter. Kristi resides in sunny Colorado with her hubby, two kiddos, and behaviorally-challenged dogs.

Questioning Your Sanity and Other Dark Secrets of Meeting Your Editing Deadline by Monica Ropal

1.   Stephen King says to “write with the door closed, and rewrite with the door open." This is sage. Especially when working with kids at home because a closed door will not keep them out, it just makes more noise when they come in and out every five minutes and will slowly drive you insane.

2.   When deep in to edits, make sure that everyone else knows that you don’t have time for hair appointments, doctor appointments, returning phone calls. Showering. This will save embarrassment later.

     3.   Keep the coffee pot on all day. Because I SAID KEEP IT ON

     4.   Have an escape plan. Keep all paths clear. To the bathroom. Because . . . see #3.

     5.   When finally breaking out of the editing cave to forage for food at the grocery, do not question lingering feelings of angst, longing, and heartbreak as you wander the aisles. These feelings are not yours, they are the feelings of your characters. No need to question your sanity, it’s just part of the process.

6.   Question your sanity.

7.   When you go to bed at night, leave your browser open. Because you might be back at one a.m. Because now you have insomnia. Awesome.

8.   Put all activities and social engagements on hold. And your gym membership. Because hahahahahaNO.

9.    Love your characters. Because it’s lonely in the editing cave.

  10.       Chocolate.

 Monica Ropal

The Body of Cooper McCay, Running Press Fall 2014

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Bio: Monica Ropal lives in friendly Minnesota with her husband and three children--to whom she lovingly refers as her three-ring circus. In addition to writing and playing ringmaster, she works part-time as a Hospice Nurse. Her contemporary YA The Body of Cooper McCay is her first novel, and will be released by Running Press in the Spring of 2015
 

The Darker Side of Young Adults in Fiction and Real Life by Margo Kelly

We all have it … a darker side. We may not admit to it in the light of day, but we all have that clichéd angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil sitting on the other. One is saying, “Make the right choice, and you’ll be glad in the end.” The other says, “Make the wrong choice, and you’ll have much more fun.” It’s that conflict that keeps us engaged and waffling with the decision at hand.

The same is true with a well written story. It’s conflict.

If the main character always makes the right choice, then why bother to read the story? You already know what will happen. She’ll make the right choice, and everything will turn out fine in the end. But what if the main character makes the wrong choice and everything goes south from there? Will she realize her mistake sooner or later? What will she do to rectify the situation? How will she ever win in the end? This conflict is what keeps us turning the pages.

According to Mary Kole, author of WRITING IRRESISTIBLE KIDLIT, “Teens are exploring the dark side of their personalities around the time they hit fourteen or fifteen. They get interested in suicide and serial killers and other darker shades of humanity. Death-related worlds and characters help them explore that through fiction.”

That’s not saying authors should focus their plotlines on serial killers; it’s saying authors need to keep this aspect of the teen psyche in mind when developing characters and plot twists. Let the character explore these darker issues.

And it’s not just teens using fiction to explore dark elements; adults do it, too.

According to James Frey, author of HOW TO WRITE A DAMN GOOD THRILLER, “Though we may be rooting for the hero, we have a secret fascination with the villain, who has a twin deep within our psyche.”

Writers have an incredible power to influence the thoughts of readers (if the story is written well, that is). Is it possible to explore the dark side without losing ourselves in it? Sure. As long as good wins out in the end, and writers have the power to make that happen.

Who is your favorite author that dips you into the darkness but brings you back out again?

The Not-So-Dark Side of CLYDE BARROW in WANTED: DEAD OR IN LOVE by Kym Brunner

You probably think that EVERYTHING about Clyde Chestnut Barrow is DARK, right? And you ‘d probably, almost certainly, be right.

After all, he was a bank robber, a killer, car thief,  an ex-con who escaped from jail and who helped others escape as well, and a man kept the Feds after him for two years straight.

He was shrewd, crude, bossy, and had only one thing on his mind––escaping the life he had found himself in without a way out––but the truth is, he had a soft spot.

A few of them even.

First of all, he was only 24 when he died. It wasn’t like he had decades of criminal activities. His first arrest was when he was 16––for failing to return a rental car. His second arrest, for stealing a turkey.

It was 1932 and in the midst of the Depression. He lived in West Dallas – the poorest slum of the already destitute area. His family had no money and there weren’t very many jobs.

And a guy with an arrest record wasn’t about to get one of the few jobs that existed.

In WANTED:  DEAD OR IN LOVE, I portrayed Clyde as a person––someone who has both flaws and good qualities. He was very much a family man, and often found ways to visit his family when he was out on the run. He looked out for his moll, Bonnie Parker, and carried her when she couldn't run fast enough. (She suffered a horrible injury following a car crash during a getaway).

I’m not making excuses for his behavior—he committed a lot of crimes and deserved to be punished––but I tried to show how a boy from a decent family made some horrible mistakes as a teenager that set him off  on a destructive path.

I'm hoping that maybe, somehow, a person reading my book might think twice before taking that first step toward a life of crime.

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Crime_g406-Man_Grabbing_Steel_Cage_p80679.html

Have you ever changed your behavior/ mind about someone based on something you read in a book?

For more information about WANTED: DEAD OR IN LOVE, or about Kym Brunner, check out her website HERE. Thanks for stopping by!

The Darker Side of Querry Genn in Survival Colony Nine

 Everyone has a dark side, right? Everyone has secrets.

But what would you do if you woke up one morning and didn’t know anyone you used to know? What would you do if everything you used to know about your friends and family had become a secret?

That’s the situation Querry Genn, the fourteen-year-old narrator of Survival Colony Nine, finds himself in. Querry suffers from traumatic memory loss, so he doesn’t know who anyone is--including himself. And that’s especially bad in Querry’s world, a future world where small colonies fight for existence in the aftermath of catastrophic wars. In this world, memory is both incredibly fragile and incredibly precious. So much of the past has been lost, the survivors can’t afford to lose any more.

So Querry struggles to recover his memory, to remember the people in Survival Colony Nine, to relearn the drills and rituals necessary to survive in the hostile desert the planet has become. But Querry can’t recall anything that occurred before his trauma, and he grows more frustrated and impatient with each passing day.

But that’s not the worst of it.

The worst of it is the Skaldi, creatures that appeared on the planet after the wars of destruction. No one knows what they are or where they came from, but one thing is certain: they possess the ability to consume human beings and mimic the people they consume. Without remembering the members of the colony, Querry can’t be certain anyone is who they say they are. Anyone could be Skaldi in disguise.

His father. His former friends. The colony’s scouts. Anyone.

Even himself.

The darker side of Querry Genn is this uncertainty, the fact that he doesn’t know who to trust, who to believe. The darker side of Querry Genn is the hidden self that might lie within him, or within those closest to him. That hidden self might be an actual monster. But it’s also the terrible doubt he carries, the feelings of suspicion he can’t admit to anyone.

The darker side of Querry Genn is made much darker by his own inability to see.

To read more about Joshua Bellin, check out his WEBSITE. 
Or pre-order Survival Colony Nine HERE