Panel: Using Disabilities in Fiction

For those of you who have read my works, I have several characters that have disabilities of one sort or another. Jessop has Down Syndrome, Professor Rievus has a form of encroaching Alzheimer, and Stitch loses a hand. What was more important for me was to include these elements as part of their character, not the defining part but as one aspect of many.  

I participated in a panel in January discussing how to write characters with disabilities.  It was a rewarding, interesting discussion and I hope you enjoy! I know I am still learning. 

For the full story on Andy Peloquin's blog, you can go here.  

Where are the blog posts!

They are with us!   I just finished my current WIP on Friday of last week, and now am furiously editing to send out to beta readers so I can publish THIS friday!   What?  Are you mad?  Doesn't it take fifty years and a box of frogs to publish?   NO!   No it does not.  That is the old way of doing things, and I'm taking a stand here and now to tell you that despite what the industry experts tell you, there IS another way.   You do not have to revise revise revise for months on end before you publish.  

But, doesn't it have to be good enough?  If you don't revise fifty times and put it in a drawer for four months, it can't possibly be good enough.  

Or can it?  Yes, it can.  It may not be quite as good as if you waited for half a year, but it CAN be good enough for people to enjoy the fudge out of a story, and then get the next installment / novel within a month or two.  I HATED waiting for years between books when I was a kid.  If I saw a series that wasn't done yet, I would put it down and walk away most of the time, because I detested waiting for the extreme amount of times that traditional publishing houses made you wait.  And worse, authors bought into the lie that this was supposed to be the norm. 

So now, with self publishing, I have total control.  I can now publish my book 10 days after finishing it if I so choose.  And I do!   There are a LOT of authors out there now just learning this method.  We're done listening to the people who say 100 words a month is just fine and if you don't work that slowly, obviously you are not a real author and have no passion. How dare you want to make money.

Well, I do.  I want to make money writing what I love to write, the stories I want to write, and the characters I want to write for you.  Balance is possible!  Also, making you, the READER happy, is possible too.  

Enjoy!   

Covers, Covers, and more Covers, Oh My!

Hi Folks!  As you hopefully have noticed I've upgraded my covers!  Well, I've also been doing covers for other people in order to practice.  Free of Charge!    Its good for me and them, and gets me experience doing them. 

Recently, I helped a great group of writers with their collective anthologies.  They are going through a master-level work group for writing and boy, let me tell you, they are being worked hard to put out a lot of volume.  The group is called Phoenix Prime.  

Check out their instafreebie books here.  For those of you who don't know, Instafreebie lets you have free books in exchange for your email.  This lets them send out newsletters once or twice a month.

Phoenix Prime Instafreebie books.  

Here are the four covers I completed for them.   Spiff!

Melanie Tomlin's The Prolific Reader instafreebie books!

 

Welcome to The Prolific Reader instaFreebie page!

All books on The Prolific Reader are available to download for free via instaFreebie. It’s the perfect way to find your new favorite author.

Books are continually being added, so save this page to your bookmarks or favorites (CRTL+D if you’re using a PC) and check back often.

 

 

What’s new: January 20, 2017

Some changes have been made to provide you with a better user experience:

1. With almost 300 books listed, displaying them all on one page was not feasible. Each genre now has its own page, which can be bookmarked.
2. New books appear at the top of their genre.
3. The date each book was added is displayed, so on subsequent visits you’ll be able to identify what’s been listed since your last visit.
4. Links appear at the bottom of each page, to enable you to browse through the various genres or jump to a specific genre.

The Terror of Room B!

Okay, this isn't really a horror entry.   This is an entry about having gone to a critique setting put on by a local writers group!   Last night was my first.  I had visions of 2 people sitting in a room staring at each other through bottle-end glasses and licking their chapped lips.  Perhaps even taking sips out of half-empty plastic soda bottles.   However, I was pleasantly surprised.   There were twelve of us in a very roomy meeting room in the local public library.  Very comfortable, actually, and everyone was friendly.  

Having been new, everyone took turns introducing themselves and what they wrote.  The subject matter ranged from victorian era fiction, urban fantasy, mid-grade fiction (whatever that is but it sounded like contemporary fiction for perhaps a younger audience.  I honestly was not brave enough to ask), and amusing fantasy.   All of the entries were required to be G rated due to being in close proximity to the library proper. The format itself was simple.  Put your name down on a pad of paper and next to it indicate if you would be reading for the group.  

I, of course, put no next to my name.  I was on a fact finding mission to determine what the group was about and how they operated.  Each person had about fifteen to twenty minutes total.   They could choose to use ten or fifteen of those minutes to read, but were limited by whatever time was left for the group to critique. 

I found the reading to be interesting and engaging.  Most of those that had written something were dedicated, and you could clearly hear their voice in their work.   The variety was excellent as well from the clearly experienced to those that were learning.  That was the first terror.  Imagining how my work would stack up to theirs.  Would it come across as dry and morose?  Interesting?  Boring? or the worst of the lot, amateurish?  Ugh.   Terrible.   I could clearly see in my minds eye everyone's face wrinkling up in strained patience or masks of politeness as I read off my work.

All self inflicted fantasy.

For the most part, everyone was polite.  They gave effort to giving feedback that would help the authors that read instead of dismissing them.  I find that online, authors tend to practice the latter a bit too often.  I've been the victem of authors that have simply said "Looks amateurish to me. You can get cheap covers for $40 bucks online!"  Its like watching a slow dagger to the heart reading that kind of feedback because its not sincere but overly dismissive.  No one in last nights face-to-face group did that and I was pleased.

So now I have next Tuesday to look forward to.  I will take the first chapter in my current WIP there with me, and read it (after actually editing it, which I don't do until the end of my writing).   I think I'm brave enough to do that, but that is the second Terror that I will have to face in Room B.   Maybe I should tape my eyes shut while I read so I don't see the grimaces and eye rolls?   I am being hard on myself,  but ultimately that is what the true terror is.   The same one that keeps authors from publishing, or sharing their work in progress and that is all from within themselves. 

If you don't publish or even try, how do you ever expect to find out if you are good enough to buy.             

The Games We Play!   Authors and the SCA

This weekend I had the fortune of traveling to one of my favorite hobbies up in Northern Washington.   The Society for Creative Anachronism is a group that aspires to recreate the middle ages in all its varieties.   In this particular instance, it was an armed and armored combat tournament called Ursalmas.   This esteemed competition is considered one of the higher level tournaments in the Kingdom of Antir.   I've attached a video of one of the matches for your enjoyment. 

Enjoy!  

Squeaky Clean Writing

My current series, The Glimmer Steel Saga, is designed to be readable by a wide audience.  I wanted to appeal to adults, and I wanted to also appeal to that young reader that I was growing up.   That's a delicate balance.   I have nothing against swear words or harsh scenes in writing.  I think they absolutely have their place, but it is a conscious choice like so many other elements in telling a story now days. 

So yeah, I chose to go squeaky clean on writing.  My curses are all made up or low level fantasy.   By the Gods.  by the Seven.  Blast it!   Yes, I went there.  There's a bit of teen love and romance too, but its kept on a sweet level.   So far, I think I succeed fairly well.  

How do I manage it, you ask?   Just like every writer everywhere manages to try to make what they write with an easy, sensible flow.  Its all about how you work it into your sentences so that you don't break the fourth wall.   Does it seem natural or does it seem fabricated?  Is it jarring?   Does it pull you out of the story?   That's what I fight against while I write and to tell you the truth, if I made the most foul mouthed, dirty story I would be working against the exact same forces.  

The best real-world example I can describe is movies.  We've all seen those movies where the special effects are the star, and the director wants to make sure you see his super special effect because he's so proud of it.  This versus the cinematic masterpiece where the spaceship flying through space is virtually un-noticable and indistinguishable the characters eating a sandwich.  If it all goes toward building the story, than you are on the right track.