admin

Find that community…write that thing…

After coming back from the Smoky Writers Retreat, I am suffering from the usual post-retreat blues. Cooking dinner, and getting back into my usual routine seems like such a drag. Even writing again is hard.

Luckily, I have been expecting this. A whole week of companionship, good food, and lots of words, coming home can be a little bit of a drop. From what I am hearing from the rest of my Smoky Writers, we’re all feeling it just as badly.

When I look back at the retreat, we got a heck of a lot done. Without exception we all got epic amounts of writing completed. Something about the environment in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, seems to bring out the best in writers. Maybe it was the mountain, maybe it was the quiet, maybe it was the company. Either way, I miss it.

However, not everyone is lucky enough to have the time or funds to go on a retreat, or maybe they don’t know people that they would dare spend a week in a cabin with. It came sometimes be lonely being a writer, and maybe a cabin isn’t in your future…

…But there are other places to find community. When I was first starting out, it was within the world of podcasting writers. Others have found their people in forums, on Facebook, or Tumblr.

I’ve tried several in-person writing groups, and while they were fun for awhile, ultimately it wasn’t where I felt comfortable. For others, maybe you, they are lucky enough to find their place in similar groups.

And it doesn’t have to end. Every year I find more people, creative, wonderful people in these sort of ways. Maybe they don’t understand how they support me as a writer, but they do.

I know this writing retreat has allowed me to not only finish a project, and start a new one, it has also refreshed me for the battle ahead.

So find your people where you can. Enjoy their company, but keep writing the words. Don’t let anything stop you from making the words…

Retreating to the Mountains

This weekend, Tee and I are lucky enough to be heading to Tenesse for the 3rd Smoky Mountains Writing Retreat.

Honestly, it is something I look forward every year, with the craving of a parched man in the desert has for a glass of water.

Alex White organised the first one in 2014, and it was a small group, about eight authors. We all enjoyed it so much that Alex kept organising them, and we keep coming back.

The Smoky Mountains is an odd and appropriate place to have a retreat. The mountains are stunning, long lines of blue mountains. The cabins deeply luxuirous but with the sense of isolation that can certainly help a writer concentrate.

However, there is also Pigeon Forge. If you’ve ever been the Myrtle Beach, it’s like that but in the mountains. There are a wild variety of attractions. The Hatfields and Maccoys Dinner theatre. The Titanic Musuem (in the mountains!?!). The Biblical Dinner Theater. All the moonshine and water parks you can shake a stick at. It’s a popular place in the summer, but when we writers descend on it, there are far less people. Just the way we like it.

In fact last year, we were close to being snowed in.

This year we are going to be there a little later, so hopefully we can get to see one of those attractions at least.

However, this year is all about the writing.

While there I plan on finishing up The Silver Pharoah story, ready for publication in September. I have about 10,000 words left in that. Also I am working with Tee on a three chapter synopsis for our science fiction project, and then naturallyâ€”for meâ€”I have another idea. It’s a fierce story set in the Gilded Age of New York City, and the main character has been demanding my attention for some time.

If I manage to knock all those off, I may circle back and finish off the last half of Deadly Hollywood.

That may sound like a lot, but the structure of Smokey Writers really does mean when I am there I can blow my word count out of the water. Not having to worry about anything at all but writing is quite a luxury. At the retreat that is what we get, since our wonderful chefs Renee and Chris provide three meals a day.

Apart from eating, and a day out at the attractions of Pigeon Forge, all the rest is silence and writing.

The Face of Your Story

Facebook certainly has developed a way to remind you rather forcefully of the passing of time. Yes, logging onto Facebook this morning, the memories popped up and reminded me it was six years ago that I was shown my cover art for Geist.

Six years ago.

However, I do remember it very well. It was my first NYC publishing cover, and at that stage I had zero input into what it looked like. Yep, it was a total dice roll. Luckily I must have rolled a natural 20, because what Jason Chan produced was absolutely gorgeous. It showed my character (MY CHARACTER, my mind screamed when I saw it), Sorcha Faris. She was dressed exactly as I had written her, but he had captured an expression on her face that reflected the character beneath.

And it wasn’t just me with my bias that thought so. That cover went on to win the Chesley for Paperback Book Cover Illustration. Jason wasn’t at the event, but I got to accept the award on his behalf. I nearly cried.

So yes, authors can get very, very attached to their covers.

After ten books with big publishing, the cover process changed. I was asked if I had ideas, to supply images to give the artist ideas, and even my opinion on the cover before it was released. I got a change made to a dragon!

I was extremely lucky, over and over again. Artists like Jason Chan, and Karla Ortiz brought my vision to light, and in turn inspired me to write the sequels. It was a delicious loop.

I have tried doing my own covers. Once. Early on.

Yeah, I quit doing that…however, I do know what I like.

I like characters to have heads. I know in the romance genre the reasoning goes that it allows the reader to identify with the main character, or to imagine themselves in that place…but for fantasy I need a face.

I need the front cover image to convey a feeling, and a mood that goes with the book.

I love to see real art and care.

Recently I’ve been lucky enough to work even closer with artist for my own independent books. Alex White for Weather Child and Ministry Protocol. Most recently Michael Ward of Go ForWard Photography and Starla Huchton of Designed by Starla for The Ghost Rebellion.

And I learned some things. If you are working with good people, let them be good. Even though now I am paying for these shoots and covers, I am a writer. They are the visual artists. Some of these shoots I have known exactly what I wanted (‘hey Alex, I want to see a women hovering in mid-air in the middle of the thunder-storm’) and others we’ve given them free rein.

Sure, as the person paying we have the final say, and we are consulted with about what is happening, but often the magic of the cover is uncovered in the process of creation. Watching Michael Ward, move the models around, work the lighting and the composition…yeah, I just sat back and let him work his magic.

Hopefully my good luck with cover art continues, but I will never forget the fear and trepidation on getting that email with the subject ‘here’s your cover art’. It was swiftly followed by the delight of an author that finds an artist has truly brought her ideas to life.

The Struggle is Real

Leaping into writing is a wonderful thing. It’s magic and inspiration and worlds only you can build.

For many folks it is the culmination of their dreams to get published. They push and they push. They hack out little spaces of time to write. They wrestle with real life, while trying to create an imaginary one. They try so hard to be the author they always wanted to be.

That is difficult enough, right? That should be the whole struggle.

It isn’t.

One thing emerging writers don’t understand, is that those initial pains are not the only pains ahead. You think once you are past those initial struggles everything will be alright. You’ll reach the promised land of publication and all will be well.

However it isn’t. Wow…that sounds awful to say to writers…but it doesn’t get better. There will always be pains and struggle in being an author, and they don’t stop coming when you ‘make it’ either. To say otherwise would be disingenuous, and I think by not saying it, many writers early in their careers are shocked when they encounter them.

Perhaps people don’t talk about those struggles, but they are real. Reviewers might not like your book. Publishers might not do the things they promised they would do. Sometimes payment is that thing. You might get a cover that horrifies you. Rejection, which you thought you had left behind, still can haunt you. Editors may rip apart your manuscript. Heck, I know of one author who had a contract for their second book, and when they delivered it was told nothing about it was what they want it. That author had to write a whole new book.

My first manuscript edit made me cry at the sea of red ink, and I was sure there was nothing to be done with my sad, sorry self.

However, I did pick myself up. Eventually, I found that my determination to write was greater than the despair. The urge to write was stronger than all of those things put in front of me.

That is what you as a writer have to feel, all the way through your career. Some don’t. Plenty of writers get a book or two published, and decide that it isn’t really for them. They’ve scratched that itch, and there might be other things that become more attractive to them than writing. That’s OK. Constant rejection and pain will be worth it for some, and for others it will be too much of an emotional burden to bear.

Are words really worth all that effort?

For me, yes they are, but I also know there are the highs that make the struggle through the problems worth it.

As you set out on this journey, the best weapon you have is knowledge. There will be struggles. Just like life. It is up to you as a person to decide if you are prepared to fight through that.

If you are, pick up that pen, and join me on the journey.

Our Ghost Rebellion Cover

A few weeks ago I wrote about my experience doing our first cover shoot, and now I can reveal the first of the fruits of that experience. When we received the final product we were blown away, and knowing we were there to see how it was made makes it even better. In all the years of being published authors, this was the first time we’d done this, and it was incredibly memorable.

This was truly a team effort, and it was great to have so many friends involved in creating this.

Cover model:Â Verena Vorsatz
Photography:Â Michael Ward of Go ForWard
Book design:Â Starla Huchton of Designed by Starla
Make-up Artist:Â Tamara Barnett ofÂ Tennille Makeup Artistry
Additional Costuming:Â P J SchnyderÂ and Kevin Houghton
Behind the Scenes Wrangling: Matthew J Drake and Christina Payton

The first pre-order link is now live for the ebook

From authors Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris, the award winning steampunk series continues…

The chase is on! After rescuing Queen Victoria from the clutches of the Maestro, Agents Eliza D Braun and Wellington Books are in hot pursuit of Dr Henry Jekyll. While he continues his experiments on the aristocracy of Europe, he leaves a trail of chaos and despair in his wake. However when Eliza and Wellington run him to ground in India, they are forced to come face to face with ghosts from the past, and the realities of empire.

Meanwhile Ministry agents Brandon Hill and Bruce Campbell travel deep into Russia hunting down a rare ingredient to save Queen Victoria’s life. Amid the cold they uncover a threat from the revitalized House of Usher that comes directly from their new Chairman.

All in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences will find their allegiances in question, and their mettle tested as a new dastardly era of international intrigue dawns.

« Previous Page