Cover Design: It’s My Story

Mad respect to those talented people who have an artistic sensibility and a grasp of design concepts. It seems to be a complex amalgamation of concepts that leads to something visually appealing and effective.

Photo credit to Deposit Photos

I’ve recently thought about what I want the cover of my soon to be released books to look like. No matter who ultimately I ask to design them, I’m going to need to be able to tell them what I’m looking for.

Apparently, all genres have a specific set of expectations when it comes to covers. My books are all Urban Fantasies. Covers are expected to be dark and contain a representation of the protagonist.. The character should be somewhat front and center, and there should be mystical or magical elements. Many covers use the magical elements to frame the character’s image.

Some people argue that rules are meant to be broken. Operating outside of the status quo might get some attention. The other perspective, however, is that readers won’t even notice your book if they don’t recognize the genre.

What do you think?

Handyman? Handy Woman

For reasons still unknown, the handle to my storm door stopped working and locked me inside my house. In order to open the door, I had to take the entire mechanism off. I’m pretty sure I did not remove it according to specifications as a hammer and crowbar were my primary tools. Once removed, there was no hope of the handle working ever again but YAY, I did get the door to open.

Today, I went to the hardware store and purchased a replacement lock with a plan to install it. I think the manufacturer was either playing a horrible joke, or assumed that only experienced door handle repair people would try to install the product because THERE WERE NO WORDS in the instructions. No description of the parts included in the package or their use. No directions as to how to put it together. Just pictures. Vague, confusing pictures.

I was on my own.

The process was ugly. It took me 60 full minutes trying to figure out how to get the little plastic doohickey onto the rectangular metal thingy before it occurred to me the pairing wasn’t meant to be. I tossed out the doohickey. The next issue was figuring out which of the eighteen screws provided were supposed to be inserted in the SIX available holes—which, of course, didn’t line up with the holes already in my door.

Enter the my friend the hammer.

Three hours and a box of unused parts later, my door handle is in and working. The door opens, closes, and locks. More importantly, there’s a pretty hefty metal door backing it up.

Next on the Handy Woman List? A new doorbell.

Where’s my crowbar?

A Holiday Confession

I have a confession. 

My Christmas tree is still sitting in my living room and  I turn on the lights every night.  It’s not because I am lazy, although there may be a little of that involved.  No, it is still here because I love the way the room feels when lighted by the soft glow of the tree. 

The world is beautiful through the Christmas season.  Stores are decorated, and what’s more, personal homes are covered in lights and decorations. There is real joy in driving to and from destinations because it is fun to see the everything so beautiful. The world is softer, brighter, and hopefully happier.

After Christmas, the stores rush to get their Valentine decorations on display.  But when holiday decorations are removed, the world feels darker and harsher and colder. I don’t want to see the lights go away.

Here, on January 21st, as I drove home tonight, holiday lights brightened the dark. Colored snowflakes decorated houses, penguins lined driveways. And yes, Christmas trees were shining from many of the homes we passed.

Apparently I am not the only one holding onto the light.

Three Ways to Sabotage Your Resolutions

Admit it. You made a New Year’s resolution or two. Like so many of us, you looked back at last year and found things you wished you’d accomplished, or want to do differently in the upcoming year. “I want to lose weight.” “We need to save money.” “I’m going to hit the gym/relax more/pay off my debt.”

Although we set out determined to achieve our objectives, often our energy and focus quickly start to fade. We get in our own way, sabotaging our progress well before we’ve really gotten started. Here’s how:

1. Our intentions are vague. If we don’t know precisely what we want to accomplish and when we want to accomplish it, we won’t recognize when we’re done or whether or not we’ve been successful. How much weight do you want to lose? What amount of money do you need to save? By when? 

Being specific gives us a clear target and offers clues as to how much effort we need to achieve it. Wanting to lose 20 pounds requires a very different level of effort than losing 50 lbs. For most of us, saving $100 is not quite the same as saving $1000. 

Make sense?

2. The goal is too big. We all start off excited and filled with energy to make our vision real. If we don’t see progress, our motivation starts to evaporate. It gets exhausting to keep doing something you’re failing at. For example, paying off your credit cards is a good idea, but you can chip away at it for an extended period of time and not see any progress. 

It’s important to break big goals and resolutions into smaller pieces that can be accomplished and celebrated. Pay that credit card down $250. Woohoo! Next step, $500! When we achieve these smaller goals, we feel great about what we’ve done and are motivated to keep going. 

Still with me? Here’s the third and final mistake.

3. We don’t have a plan. Sure, I bet you can think of something you or someone you know accomplished successfully without a plan, and that’s awesome. When that happens, however, it’s because of enormous amounts of trial and error,  reworking, and luck. Do you really want to rely on the possibility of those stars falling into alignment? Wouldn’t it be better to increase the probability of achieving your goal?

When you don’t have a plan, you can waste a lot of time, energy, and resources, and it isn’t likely you’ll succeed. When you have a well thought out plan, it increases your chance for success. If you want to lose weight, you might have to do some research about how many calories to eat each day, and what foods are best for you. With this knowledge, you can create an action plan we call a menu. If you want to save money, you need to determine how much you want to save and develop the plan—the budget—that can tell you how much to set aside each time you get paid and what, if anything, you might have to sacrifice. 

You’ll be able to keep your resolutions if you are specific about what you want to do, break it into smaller chunks that will help you to stay motivated, and develop a doable action plan. I know this works—it’s how I wrote and sold my first book.

Good luck with your resolutions. You got this!

The Busiest Time of the Year—and Free Stories!

It’s a hectic time of year, isn’t it? For me, it starts at Thanksgiving, really gets rolling at grading time, and then barrels through Christmas and New Years Day.

Except for grading, it’s mostly fun. Decorating the trees and the house. Holiday crafting. Making cookies. Oh, and people watching at the mall. Good times.

It’s also time to do some reading and relaxing. In case you’re looking for some new books and stories, here are a few promotions—Click on the picture. Happy Holidays!

Enjoy! Happy Holiday and Happy Reading!

Paying it forward: Three Tips from a Writer's Retreat

A woman writing on a laptop, coffee at the ready. What else do you need for a writing retreat?

Writing is hard. Lest you think differently, ask any writer you know to tell you the honest truth. Sometimes, telling a story well feels like you’re bleeding on the page, even if you’re working on a light comedy. From having a good idea to turning it into something engaging, it can be a grueling process.

Don’t get me wrong. There is joy in the process, too. Finding the right word, the right tale, and taking beloved characters on an important journey is exhilarating. And when readers find you…and “get” you…Well, nothing beats that.

But writing is hard. And try doing it, as so many of us must, with day jobs and busy families and in my case, needy, senior pets and NaNoWriMo.

Recently I was fortunate enough to participate in a brief retreat with a segment of my writer tribe. It was to be a full day and two halves of getting some much needed rest, as well as an opportunity to network and learn with and from my peers. All was accomplished. My love of the process was rekindled, and I even gained a few surprisingly helpful pointers.

1. Writing sprints ARE hokey, but they work. The first evening after grabbing a quick bite and an even quicker nap, I joined a few authors for a writer’s sprint. I was skeptical about participating as I am usually a comparatively slow writer. When the organizer announced the first sprint would be for 10 minutes, my heart sank.What was that going to be, 5 words for me? But it wasn’t. I wrote around 150 words. Say what?? During each subsequent sprint, my word count increased.

2. Margins matter. I attended a micro-workshop on book formatting. As a hybrid author, I know there is much I need to learn about formatting—especially covers—so attending seemed a good use of time. The presenter showed examples of self-published books where the words were difficult to read because the author/publisher hadn’t used the minimum required measurements for the inside margins. The presenter noted, “This screams amateur.”

   I had two books waiting for me when I arrived home, delivered by Amazon. Traditionally published by two of the Big Five New York publishers. Guess what? HORRIBLE MARGINS. One was a coffee table book in which the margins bisected the pictures. Excuse me, the pictures are the point. The other one, a novel, had inner margins so off I could not open the book wide enough to read entire pages without ripping the book apart to read it. I returned the book.

3. Marketing is a necessary evil that you CAN master. One of my favorite authors and all around kind person Jamie K. Schmidt gave two presentations on marketing. One of the things that makes her presentations so cool and so helpful is that she shares her successes and failures and actual numbers with us, in terms of cost and results. Most presenters don’t. I gained some knowledge about Facebook ads/boosts. Basically, the most critical step is selecting your audience, and that seems to be largely a matter of trial and error. Simply understanding that is enough to give it a reasonable try. Oh—that and limit the amount you want to spend or Facebook will keep going, and going and going.

   In the second, more informal talk, Jamie spoke about marketing and shared a relatively new tool with us: StoryOrigin. OMG this is a wonderful site that facilitates newsletter swaps and group promotions for sales and list building. I only just started to use it, but I am happy to share my results as I experience them. Stay Tuned!

#NanoWriMo2019 for the All Around Win!

Once again, I am jumping into the insanity of National Novel Writing Month. Last year, for the first time in a series of efforts, I actually won—I had a 50,000 word draft of a novel I titled Too Close. Yay, me!

Unfortunately, most of those 50,000 words are not good. Not good at all. When I am ready again to focus on this novel (I LOVE the premise, although I am not ready to share it), I’ll have to start pretty much from scratch. Hopefully, I’ll be able to salvage some of the better sections.

Consequently, this year I’m doing things differently. I’ll share with you the lessons I learned the hard way.

Lesson #1: Plan your story. The rules of Nano permit and even encourage outlining of your plot and scenes. I do always plot but in the past I’ve waited until Nanowrimo started to really look at the story in detail.

Lesson #2: Plan your time. I work, so scheduling writing time is essential—in the past, I’ve just winged it. Bad idea. I’m also going to be realistic about holiday expectations, meals in general, and well…housekeeping.

Lesson #3: Screw housekeeping. “A clean house is a symptom of a rigid mind.” I heard that somewhere. Really. did.

Lesson #4: Sedate the “internal editor”. Prevailing wisdom says to turn off your internal editor. You know, the voice in your head that tells you your writing sucks. But in order to prevent ending up with a huge percentage of words you can’t use, you need a little self-editing. Instead of killing him or her off (or “it”—My internal editor is a pesky troll named STFU), just give it a valium. Or a hard punch in the head. This will help you achieve a balance between letting the words flow and making sure they’re good.

Lesson #5: Hire a dog/cat sitter. Or leave the house. If you are lucky enough to not have an attention-seeking or high-strung puppy or kitty then this doesn’t apply to you. My Chloe is a marauder and a menace. I LOVE HER DEARLY but cheese and rice she doesn’t like me to work. I have to leave the house.

I hope you find a few kernels of help in these lessons. If you’re participating in #NanoWriMo2019, good luck. And if you’re in need of a Buddy, drop me a tweet @TrevannRogers or a comment and let’s connect.

#Review: The Good Place

Sometimes, entertainment comes from the most unexpected places.

When I saw a promo for The Good Place, I thought there was no way it could be anything but stupid. I continued on, hopping around #Neflix and as is often the case, 247 clicks later I hadn’t found anything that I wanted to see. Desperate, I took a deep breath and returned to The Good Place. I’m glad I did.

The premise of the series is that after we die, we experience one of two possibilities: We either go to The Bad Place and endure a hell made especially for us, or we go to The Good Place where whatever we desire is available to us. The story centers around Eleanor, convincingly played by Kristen Bell. She lands in The Good Place, only to realize she is there by mistake. Ted Danson also plays a pivotal role, but it is an ensemble cast with no weak players.

To my great surprise, the show is Laugh Out Loud funny. The humor is witty, with a humorous take on the human condition. I laughed because I could relate. It is also an emotional journey, with characters who are flawed, broken, with deep wounds that impact their choices and their beliefs more than they have realized. Moreover, the story arcs are creative and unexpected in that, “ did that really just happen” sort of a way, while still being true to the characters personalities.

I hope Netflix renews the series. I’m already addicted. 5/5 Stars

#Review: Hobbs and Shaw 5/5

I admit it: I agreed to see Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw for one reason—Joe Anoaʻi, aka Roman Reigns. Gosh, that man is gorgeous. It didn’t matter that his role was tiny, or that he didn’t utter a word. This was his film debut and I needed to see it. In that regard I was not disappointed. Joe/Roman was prominently on screen anytime he was in a scene. 

The movie as a whole also does not disappoint. The premise is engaging. Who doesn’t love family drama, especially when you know all parties truly have everyone’s best interest at heart? The action scenes get your adrenaline pumping and, unlike some movies, didn’t drag on so long that whatever disbelief you suspended crashed back. 

 The glue that holds it all together is the cast. Idris Elba and his fine self makes the perfect villain. Vanessa Kirby as Hattie Shaw steals the show in terms of her fight scenes. She is totally bad-ass. But as the two protagonists, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham carry the full weight of the movie, and no one could do it better. 

The chemistry between them reels you in. Their physical prowess and impressive comedic timing make you glad you showed up and stayed for the ride. I know I am.

Overall rating: 5/5 stars

PS Stay for the credits!i

My 600lb Life and Me

I have been trying to lose weight for a few years now. I’ve joined Weight Watchers, Tops, followed Atkins, Body Clutter, and the Body type diet. You name it, I tried it. I might have lost a pound or two but always gained it back. The desire for sweets and potato chips was stronger than my desire for fitness.

I also have the bad habit of watching TV while I eat. This adds to my tendency to overeat because I’m not paying attention to the food. Then I discovered the TV show My 600 Pound Life, which follows a patient for one year in their weight loss journey. Now, if I watch TV while I am eating, I watch this show. Trust me, this makes me acutely aware of how much food I eat.

I binge watched every season in their entirety, fascinated with the success stories and in awe that the doctor, renown bariatric surgeon Dr. Nowzaradan, didn’t throw in the towel with several of these patients. I certainly would have. 

The show is mesmerizing, and I believe it’s at least partially responsible for the combined 64 pounds my partner and I have lost since starting this “Program”. I recommend it to anyone who is struggling with their weight.

As a writer, I also realized that the show closely follows the Hero’s Journey. Each episode begins with the ordinary world of the patient. We see the patients at home sharing their backstories. It’s a bit of an info dump but it works.  Next, they are offered the chance of help, but something stands in their way. Transportation to Houston where the doctor is located can pose a huge issue. Finally, a call to adventure forces the patient to make the trip and they meet the mentor, Dr Nowzaradan. Entering Houston, they cross the first threshold to become his patient. Win, lose or draw, their lives are never the same.

After the call is answered, we follow the patient through a series of tests and challenges. The doctor’s first order is to go on a very low-calorie diet and lose a large number of pounds in a month. Most patients fail this test and fall prey to temptation, some several times. They receive assistance from nutritionists, physical therapists, counseling for their emotional issues, and sometimes drug rehabilitation. With the help of these allies they deal with their issues (or not), and experience a revelation. Their reward is weight loss surgery. But the surgery is not the magic elixir many of them believe it will be.  

Now the patient must learn to eat properly and increase their activity using all they’ve learned. There is usually a setback but with the mentor’s help, they pull things together and begin to lose again. The show ends on a hopeful note with the patient making progress towards their transformation.

Over the course of their multi-year journeys, these heroes can loose 400-500 pounds. By their example, I’m reminded that I too can reach my weight loss and fitness goals.

#Review:John Wick 3 5/5 Stars

As usual, when going to see an action movie that’s been in the theater a while, my partner and I were the only women in the audience for John Wick 3. Not that it matters; I just find it interesting.

Keanu Reeves did not disappoint. As Wick, a classic “bad guy that you root for”, he swaggers. And smolders. Moreover, he made all of the improbable fight and torture scenes believable. And there were many such scenes. The action seemed unrelenting, and created fast pacing that skirted the edge of being too much. Exhilarating.

The situation the protagonist found himself in was interesting. He’d been excommunicated from the ruling order of bad guys and forfeited his life. His quest was to get his life back.

Unfortunately, a situation(or set-up) is not a plot. Stuff happened. No rising action, no darkest moment, no arc of growth for Wick.

Still, Keanu on the screen for two hours kicking ass and not taking names is worth the price of admission. Add to his presence a couple of well trained, beautiful attack dogs and you have a blockbuster. My rating:5/5 stars.