Celebrate the Small Things-December 14, 2018

It's Friday! Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain! I am her co-host.

My boys had a school Christmas concert last night. They always enjoy being on stage. Jude's class was part of a short musical that made up the last half of the concert, and he had some lines to memorize. He worked so hard on them and was so excited about learning his part.

I finished writing and editing a short story this week. I submitted it on Wednesday. Whether it ends up being accepted or not, it always feels good to submit my work.

I also pulled out a novel draft that's mostly written. Right now it's sitting at about 88,000 words. The ending tripped me up, so I put it down for a little while. I plan to start reading through it, making some notes, and coming up with some idea of how to end it. Then I can hopefully start editing it!

Also, I'm excited to announce that my short story "A Meal for Dragons" has been published in the newly release Young Explorer's Adventure Guide, Volume 5. This was such a fun story to write! You can find the book for sale on Amazon. You can also add it on Goodreads!

What would you like to celebrate?

The Savior's Champion Release Day!

Title: The Savior’s Champion

Author: Jenna Moreci

Release date: 4-24-2018

Genre: Romantic Fantasy Action/Adventure

Category: Adult

Synopsis:

Tobias Kaya doesn't care about The Savior. He doesn't care that She's the Ruler of the realm or that She purified the land, and he certainly doesn't care that She's of age to be married. But when competing for Her hand proves to be his last chance to save his family, he’s forced to make The Savior his priority.

Now Tobias is thrown into the Sovereign’s Tournament with nineteen other men, and each of them is fighting—and killing—for the chance to rule at The Savior's side. Instantly his world is plagued with violence, treachery, and manipulation, revealing the hidden ugliness of his proud realm. And when his circumstances seem especially dire, he stumbles into an unexpected romance, one that opens him up to unimaginable dangers and darkness. 

Trigger warnings: this book contains graphic violence, adult language, and sexual situations.

Buy links:

Amazon US: http://a.co/fUIOtUT

Amazon UK: http://amzn.eu/1J8Gj3n

Amazon CA: http://a.co/6WJaBj9

B&N: http://bit.ly/2tz3did

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2FwHYz1

iBooks: https://apple.co/2tw9qLM

The Book Depository: http://bit.ly/2HiCKHK

Indigo: http://bit.ly/2p3iK4f

Books-A-Million: https://bit.ly/2GVgSDk

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38240456-the-savior-s-champion

Free Excerpt:

Read the first three chapters of The Savior’s Champion: https://www.jennamoreci.com/tsc

Author Bio:

Jenna Moreci is a Silicon Valley native and Youtube sensation, dominating the authortube community with her straightforward and hilarious writing channel. A lifelong storyteller, Jenna specializes in crafting thrilling adventures with heaping doses of bloodshed and romance.

When she’s not writing or ‘tubing, Jenna enjoys angry music, potent wine, and laughing until her face hurts with her goofball fiancé.

Author Links:

Website: http://jennamoreci.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/jennamoreci

Instagram: https://instagram.com/jennamoreci/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jennamoreci

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorjennamoreci

Tumblr: http://jennamoreci.tumblr.com

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1KToQLx

What's in a Title?

A title is crucial.  Whether it's for a story, book, movie, or article, that small collection of words needs to reflect your work while attracting your audience.  That's no small task.

I remember one of my philosophy professors in college had a bit of an obsession with titles.  He even wrote his own epitaph for his gravestone and shared it with the class. I guess he wanted to be in charge of summing up his own life, and I can kind of understand it.  This professor also had a passion for subtitles.  He liked to give things lengthy subtitles, which if nothing else, made papers and books sound more intelligent.  I'll admit there's something catchy about them.

Now here's my predicament.  I've already mentioned on this blog before that I'm hoping to self-publish a book sometime in the near future.  Right now I'm in the middle of learning about the process.  I have a good idea how I want to go about doing this, though I have plenty of writing and revision left to do before I even get that far.

Though I'm nowhere near done with the writing process, I'm already agonizing over the title.  It's a compilation of a few stories, including the short novel that I used to post for the Hookers and Hangers Blogfest.  These stories are all science fiction, but they have something else in common, and that theme is something I want to express through my title.  I feel like having the title will help me keep that theme in mind as I keep working and really help me concentrate on the elements of these stories that I find most important.

So here's my idea for a title, and I welcome any opinions.  

Prices Paid

I like a short title, and I have a thing for alliteration.  I think this one rolls off the tongue well enough.  In this book, the stories each illustrate something that is lost or sacrificed when something changes, whether it be public policy or the way a certain kind of technology is used.  When society changes, there are beneficiaries, and there are those who pay the price for that change.  There is always a price to pay.

Anyway, that's my idea.  Is the title a good one, or should I change it.  Would a subtitle help me better make my point, or would it just be cumbersome?

Would anyone like to share their favorite title (from movie, book, anything really) and say why it works? 

Oh, and before you go, can you tell me which of these you like better?  The Great Divide, or Divided We Fall.  They're the possible titles for the short novel in this compilation.  I think they'd both work, but I'm struggling to decide which would have more impact.

Thanks!

Blogspiration 8: The Power of Reading

As a writer, I understand the value of books.  They engage the mind, challenging it to see the world differently.  I believe people should embrace this opportunity.  When you pick up a good book, let it pull you into its world.  Question what it has to say.  Examine what you think of its message.  Really wrestle with it.  These kinds of reading experiences are typically the most rewarding.

You don't have to accept everything a book says as gospel to have a transformative experience in reading it.  You just have to immerse yourself in the process. 

Yes, I know Harry Potter and other books like it are fiction, but I can see the world in a fun way because of those reading experiences.  What books have you read that changed you or the way you see the world in some way?

Taken from HERE.

Word Games in the World

The world is full of word games.  Even our lives in the world can be one big word game.  Though we may have the 1st Amendment and are technically free to speak, there are all kinds of societal rules governing what is appropriate and inappropriate for any given situation.

Political correctness, which is a societal judgment of which words are appropriate to use to describe people, professions, or things, has been a divisive issue.  Should we make an effort not to offend  people when we speak, or have these restrictions trampled our rights of free speech?  This is a question you have to answer for yourself.  For me personally, I have no problem with sexist, racist, and other terms used to demean people being frowned upon.  You're technically still free to say them, as you should be, but the shift has made some areas of civil discourse more, well, civilized.  Of course, from the way the political arena looks as of late, people are still bashing each other just as thoroughly as ever.  Politicians are adept at using word play, a type of word game, to spin the argument against their opponent and paint themselves in a more favorable light.  Gotta love rhetoric.  I discussed this once in a previous post, so I won't go into too much detail about that here.

I can think of a couple high profile examples of language controversy.  Less than a month ago, actress Gwyneth Paltrow stirred up controversy when she tweeted a picture of Kanye West, Jay-Z, and herself.  In her description, she used the "N" word.  I don't think I need to spell it out for all of you to know what I mean by that.  And as much as I enjoy controversy, I don't want to be accused of being racist.  I will, however, offer my take on the situation.  She was tweeting the name of the song that they were singing at the time.  Saying a word offensively is one thing.  However, since she was quoting the name of the song, why should anyone be angry?  The use of these offensive terms is generally accepted in music and novels.  After all, it can often be used as political commentary, and is also used as a form of empowerment.  As for novels, how can you write a historical piece focused on racism in America without using such a term?  It would certainly be difficult.  I think we sometimes need to look at the intended meaning behind the use of a typically offensive word before we get angry.


Then, even more recently, Michigan Representative Lisa Brown was silenced after saying the dreaded "V" word, which is the clinical term for a part of the female body, during an abortion debate.   Apparently using the name of a body part offended several people in the assembly, though I'm kind of stunned as to why.  Well, I'm actually not stunned.  It's a body part that can be used for sexual purposes, so I guess it's considered "offensive by association."  Now, I'm not going to go into her subsequent actions and whether they were appropriate or not (that is a whole new can of worms and would dominate the rest of this post).  You can read more HERE and decide for yourselves.  However, I will say this.  She said the actual name of a body part that half the people in this country have.  I can think of several slang terms she could have used that would have been far more inflammatory and would have justified action against her.  However, she used the clinical term of a body part that is inevitably involved in an abortion debate.  Maybe people need to get over it.  It's a word we had to say aloud in a high school anatomy class, for crying out loud.  These were full grown adults who were complaining.  Something seems off there.  And I know I didn't write out the "V" word either, which makes me seem hypocritical, but I think the absurdity of me not saying it helps me make my point.


Anyway, the point I'm trying to make in all this ranting is that language comes with all sorts of rules, both written and unwritten.  Language belongs to society and is constantly under construction.  It's political, it's tricky, and malleable.  Anyone who understands it well enough can use it to make any point they want.  It's all about the words you use.  The world is one large word game.


I want to say now that I never intended to offend anyone with the content of this long rant.  I was trying to make some serious points and offer my own opinions.  Think what you will of what I believe.  For any of you who I may have offended and still decided to stick with it this far, or for any of you who simply love word games, here's a little fun for you.  Follow the links to play some free, and fun, word games.  These sites have a ton to choose from.  Or just do your own search for "word games."  If you can't find anything to your liking from that long list of results, well, then I certainly can't help you.


http://www.wordgames.com/
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/games/
http://www.merriam-webster.com/game/index.htm

Have a good day everyone!

Sending My Words Around the World

May I tell you something about myself?

Free images from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This is the last time I'll have to lay myself out for all to see for the Blog Me MAYbe blogfest.  Not that I've minded sharing these things.  I find that I write better when I let down my defenses and take the risk of sharing myself with the world.  After all, isn't it the same kind of thing when you send a piece of fiction out there for the world to read?  You know they'll judge it.  Some will like it.  Some will not.  And, at least for me, I put a part of myself into each piece of fiction I write.  When someone doesn't like what I've written, it feels like they're rejecting me.  That's my work.  It's more than just a story to me.

This rambling leads into what I wanted to talk about today.  I promise.  I don't like to fail.  In the realm of academics and the written word, it's especially difficult for me to deal with failure.  In fact, each time I don't succeed in meeting my goals, it feels more like a brutal assault to me than it does a skinned knee.

As a child, I may not have been socially successful, but I was always academically successful.  I was used to writing stories that impressed my teachers, and this gave me a sense of optimism.  If I could do well there, why wouldn't I do well in the real world of writing?  Then I did well in college too.  Yes, I saw people around me who seemed to have more writing skills than I did, but I also received enough encouragement to reassure me.

Then, I sent out my first novel to a publisher.  It seemed to take forever, and what did I receive?  My first rejection.  Don't get me wrong.  I'd certainly read enough accounts of published authors to know what to expect.  Everyone gets rejected.  Yet knowing those stories and experiencing the rejection are altogether different realities.  I wouldn't say I was devastated, but it isn't easy to feel that sting for the first time.  That novel is something you put a lot of your time, energy, and feeling into.  Sending it out into the world and having it sent back as unworthy is frustrating.

Does that mean I'm going to give up?  No.  Half the reason I'm writing a blog is to send my words out into the world.  I can share my stories here without having to gain the acceptance of a publisher.  And here, I can work up my courage to keep sending my work out into the shark infested waters of the publishing world.

Do I need to work on how I deal with rejection?  Yes.  Do I need to learn how to brace myself for the inevitable bad reviews?  Yes.  Failure is a part of life, but failure in the writing world always feels personal to me.  Yet I know I could never give up writing, no matter how many rejections I get.  It's too much a part of who I am, so I guess I'll keep it up and grow my thicker skin as I go.

First Loves Blogfest!

Welcome to my blog, where I will tell you about my first loves.  It seems a bit intimidating to open myself up to you this much, but I'm up to the challenge.

First up: film.  It's safe to say I love a lot of films, and there are those I loved as a child, but the love didn't last over time.  I decided to choose one that I loved from childhood, and continue to love to this day.

The Dark Crystal (1982)

I was born in 1985, so this came out a little before my time, but it was a film that my dad always loved.  We've watched it together many times over the years.  The story is the classic good vs. evil, but the sets are so beautiful and strange that I can't help but immerse myself in the experience.  To me, it doesn't come across as a 'been there, done that" movie experience.  The music is also phenomenal.

Next up, is favorite song or band.  I'll briefly share both so I can demonstrate the odd spectrum that represents my musical love.  There are some kinds of music that I simply don't get into, but the ones I do love are all over the place.  My first favorite song was Joy to the World by Three Dog Night.  It's upbeat and happy, and hearing it always put me in a good mood.

My first love as far as a band goes was Metallica.  They have a great sound, and I just plain love their stuff.  During my middle school years, they were my favorite by far.  The Metallica song Nothing Else Matters was the first song my husband and I danced to at our wedding.  Ah, memories.

I still love Metallica to death, although I also have a profound love for The Beatles too, and they may well be my favorite nowadays.

So much great music, so little time.

The first book I remember loving as a child was The Night Book by Mark Strand and William Pene Du Bois.  The illustrations were well done, and there's never been a time when I didn't love the night.

The first adult novel I ever loved was Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton.  I read it when I was eleven.  Though I was a bit too young to understand the more scientific parts of the novel, I felt so grown up reading it, and I absolutely loved the story.  I mean, come on.  Dinosaurs!  How could you go wrong?

Now, my first love.  The answer would depend upon the kind of love you mean.

If puppy love is an acceptable answer, that takes me back to Kindergarten.  Yes, many people might not count their Kindergarten boyfriends, but you don't understand.  This was special.  This little boy named Adam used to chase me around the playground, and when he caught me, he would kiss me.  He even asked me to marry him when we were in first grade.  Come to think of it, we never officially got un-engaged.  Hmmm . . .

And he only kissed two other girls (that I know of) while we were together.  Let's face it, that's better than some full grown men do.

Then came Jerry O'Connell in Sliders.  My first celebrity crush, and my first glimpse of what puberty meant.  He was cute, and he played Quinn Mallory, a geeky science genius who traveled through dimensions. How could I not fall for that?

Anyway, the first "I can trust you with anything, I know you'll always be there for me" kind of love would have to go to my husband.  He is, after all, the father of my children for a reason.  He's geeky in all the right ways, and I also think he's cute, though he playfully insists he's not.

I Need A Vacation From My Holiday

My other grandpa died yesterday, making for two big funerals in two weeks.  I swear, in the last year I've been to more funerals than anyone should have to deal with in a decade.  It really puts life in perspective.  And next month, only six days after Lyle's first birthday, will be the one year anniversary of my mom dying.  We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, I need to keep pushing on with life.  The more I focus on taking care of my kids and working on my writing, the better I feel.  I can't change what's going wrong.  I need to keep going with the things I can control.  

Okay.  At least I should post an update on my writing progress since that's what this blog is supposed to be about.  My WIP is about to cross the 40,000 word mark, which means it will officially be novel length (according to the opinion of many at least . . . the one consistent thing about word length is that no one really seems to agree entirely).  It's a bit sporadic because I've been hopping around a bit, but I'm actually confident I'll get there in the end.  There's potential in it.  I just need to put in the effort, and of course have the confidence  that I can do the story justice.  After all, it is a story of a nation so divided along political lines that it actually results in the country splitting in half and eventually going to war.  Seems appropriate for the times, does it not?

Still quite a way to go on that front, but after that I also have three completed novels that I want to revise, and a new novel that I've been toying around with for awhile.  I have enough in my head to keep me busy for years.

Although, I have made one solid conclusion.  If I manage to sell a book in the near future, I'm using the money to take my family on a mini vacation.  I think we need it.  How much do you think it would cost to go here?

Thanks to Victor Habbick for this lovely photo!

Update

It's been a little while since I posted.  Life's been hectic as always.  There was a death in the family recently, so things like that always throw you for a loop.  My grandfather died of cancer on St. Patrick's Day, which oddly enough is the last time I posted.  Between this, my mother dying last May, my husband being in the hospital last July (though he's okay now at least), my dad getting into a nasty car accident that fractured his skull right before my birthday, and finding out on my birthday that we were being kicked out of our house and had a month to move, I find  it amazing that I've managed to stay sane.

Okay, I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure whether I've managed to stay sane.  I can only hope I have.

All right.  Venting over.  I needed to get that out there, even though I'm sure it's not the most entertaining of things to read.

I've been focusing a lot on the novel I'm writing lately.  I'm close to being halfway done with it, and I really only started working on it heavily last month.  That's pretty good for me.  When life threatens to bring me down, I leap into a fictional world and tear that one down instead.  Therapeutic and nicely absent of the legal ramifications of actually inflicting property damage on the neighbors (who are very nice people who wouldn't in any way deserve that---but psychotic rampages tend to happen suddenly and without reason).

Being a Writer Isn't Only About Writing

Sometimes it amazes me how much time I spend doing things related to my writing that don't actually involve writing.  I spent a good portion of yesterday looking at maps to get a good idea of the geography of the specific location my main character was in.  I used Google maps to create an underground railroad of sorts for refugees.  I also looked up agricultural reports so I would know what kinds of food would be available for the people in this new novel to sustain themselves with.  This also includes research on weather patterns.

Granted, I wrote a lot of notes while doing this research, and in the end I even hammered out a few paragraphs afterwards.

My husband saw what I was doing and said, "I thought you were supposed to be writing."

Well, yes.  I kind of was.  Maybe it doesn't make sense to some people, but writing isn't only putting words to paper.  There's an entire process that goes along with it.

Progress Update

Okay, so now I'm officially writing a short novel instead of a short story.  These things happen, especially to me.  Anyway, I have the beginning and the ending written, along with a thorough outline.  I'd guess I have approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of it written.  Hopefully I'm not being overly optimistic.  I'm confident that this one will turn out well as long as I devote the appropriate amount of attention to it.  That's why I haven't been blogging as much as usual lately.  So everyone knows, I'm still here.

Avoiding Info Dump

The more I read, the more I realize how many ways there are to tell a story, how many unique voices are out there.  In the realm of science fiction, many stories are told in a strictly linear fashion, though certainly not all.  The novels I write are told this way, with only the occasional description of a past event, because it gets too confusing trying to tell such a large story out of sequence and have it make sense to a typical reader.  Maybe I just don’t have enough practice to do this yet.  Maybe there are too many plot threads in my novels to do it successfully. 

With a shorter story, I may have some success.  With my current project, which is still nameless, I want to tell it somewhat out of sequence, using past events to illuminate the present.  I want readers to wonder why the world is as it is, and to slowly discover how it got to be this way as the narrative progresses.  This will hopefully eliminate the problem of info dump.  For the uninitiated, info dump is a somewhat unfortunate term that is a common problem in the genres of science fiction and fantasy.   To info dump means to lump a whole lot of back story and rules of the universe in one large, difficult to read clump.  Ideally, this information should be distributed in a way that makes it feel natural and interesting rather than cumbersome and mind-numbing.

This is an issue I’ve encountered multiple times.  I just want to see what interesting methods I can devise to overcome it, at least on a smaller scale for now.

Struggling With Narrative Pace

I plan to spend a good portion of my writing day revisiting the parts of my short story that I’ve already written in the hope of improving the narrative pace.  Given that I usually write novels and not short stories, I’ve always had trouble switching over to the kind of pace demanded by shorter pieces.

I’ve come up with a strategy for dealing with this.  Hopefully it will help.

Step 1: Write an outline detailing all of the major plot points of the piece.  This will give me an idea of whether I have realistic expectations regarding how much I can realistically fit into a short piece.   There’s also the bonus of being able to determine the best order of events right off the bat.

Step 2: Determine about how long I want the story to be.  Having a good estimate of page length or word count should help me as I write by keeping focused on moving the story along instead of getting bogged down by tangents.

Step 3: Decide the most crucial scenes that I want to devote the most time and attention to and write a rough draft of those first.  Once I know approximately how long those are going to be, that should tell me whether or not I have a chance of achieving the desired length with the rest of the scenes written and added in.  If I think it’s going to go too long, then I need to revisit the outline and decide what, if anything, I can cut.

That’s what I’ve got for now.  Hopefully it’ll be a good start.

Idea Overload

I feel I need to acknowledge and address one of the biggest problems I have as a writer.  And before I say what that problem is, I should point out that it wouldn’t be a problem at all if only I knew how to manage it properly. 

The issue is this: I have too many story ideas.

My main obstacle is that I have new story ideas brewing in my mind while I’m still working on another project, and soon that new idea is pushing the story-in-progress to the side.  I can’t let that happen.  I promise myself that I will take notes when new ideas come, and I will allow those ideas to blossom, but I need to continue to work on the task at hand while all this is happening.  This obstacle is better than having no new ideas at all, but allowing myself to lose focus ultimately hinders my progress.

That same issue rears its head when I write short stories that end up growing until they become novels.  I keep thinking of new plot threads, new conflicts, that would fit into the framework of the story I’ve outlined, and soon the scope of the project is so large I have to admit that it’s no longer what I set out to create.

Perhaps that isn’t so bad.  Maybe I need to let the project become whatever it needs to be.  Or maybe I really do need to learn some self-restraint.  This is simply another question I must keep in mind and work through as I keep writing.

Beginning of the Year Goals

Okay.  This is accountability time.  I need to make a list of goals for myself that may be easily referenced, both by me and others who can give me the “polite” reminders I need, so I can’t avoid them.  Let’s face it.  It’s easy to become neglectful of your goals when you’re the only one who knows about them.  I also refuse to call these New Year's resolutions, because that label seems to be the kiss of death (cliche phrase, sorry) for most people.

Goal #1:  To finish writing the short story I am currently working on by this time next month and to self-publish it online.  I am considering this option because I’ve heard about successes from friends, and it can take forever to be accepted for publication the old fashioned way.  I am also planning to go this route because I want to see how it works before I even consider doing this with the novels I’ve written.  Those longer works are much more important to me due to the years I’ve put into them, and I want to have a good idea of my options.

Goal #2:  To write a new blog post as often as possible (minimum of 5 posts per week), no matter how many other demands I have in my life.  This has to be an important part of my writing goal, because by doing this I can prove to myself that I have the discipline it takes to be a good writer.  It may also help me with networking, which may prove critical in marketing the fiction I write.

Goal #3:  To complete revisions of the novel I’ve been working on and submit it for publication by the end of this year.  The method I use remains to be determined, but one way or the other, it has to get done.

I reserve the right to add more goals to this list at any time, but I personally revoke my right to eliminate any of them.  I cannot let myself chicken out (cliché, I know) on this one.

So . . . Why Do This?

Here I am, an aspiring writer for the majority of my life.  I wrote my first novel when I was 7.  It was 120 pages of rambling mess, but it was a beginning.  I haven't stopped since, though I have yet to be paid for doing it.  Instead I've worked jobs that I don't like, telling myself that I can leave when my writing career takes off.  Well, I'm getting tired of waiting for that day, so it's time to light a fire under my seat and really give this thing a shot.

I am also a mother of two boys.  One is almost 3, the other is 8 months.  The two of them frequently drive me to the brink of insanity.  At least I say that until I remember that, as an aspiring writer (of science fiction no less), a great many of us were never quite right in the head to begin with.  Anyway, that hardly matters.  I love my family to death, and because of that, I feel I need to make this career path work, for them and for my own sanity (or lack thereof).

So, hopefully this blog will give me a chance to keep my writing skills sharp, rant so I don't have to let all my frustration loose on my poor husband (though I'm sure he'll still get some of it), and hold myself accountable for everything that I promise myself that I'll do regarding my writing.  After all, when  there's a public record, it's harder to lie to yourself.

Since I want to do this in a serious way, I took some time in choosing the title for this blog.  As any writer knows, titles mean everything.  You have a few short words to persuade a potential reader to take time to hear what you have to say.  People value their time and money enough to be cautious about this.  As an aspiring writer (meaning my income is meager at best at this point) and frenzied mother, I can understand this. Anyway, I selected the title "Writing Off the Edge" because I often feel like I'm writing myself off the edge with frustration.  The creative process is a tricky thing.  My stories often don't come out on the page like I wish they would, and it's my job to make them work.  Sometimes they refuse.  I also like the idea of going outside convention when you can, though I can't say I always do this successfully. Sometimes coloring outside the lines, or writing off the edge of the page, can be frightening, but when it's done well, it can be very rewarding.

Well, that's my spiel.  It's the new year, which means I have a resolution to uphold. Time to get back to that story I'm working on.  Well, after I feed my kids dinner, anyway.