Posts Tagged With: books

Book Review: Acceptance, by Keri Peardon

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

I know what you’re thinking — what’s with all the book reviews, Michelle?

Well, I recently discovered how to convert files to epub and stick them on my tablet, so now I have constant, mobile access to all the self-published novels I’m supposed to be reading and reviewing. Hence this sudden outpouring of reviews. Shocking, right? Well, hang on to your keyboards, because this latest review is going to BLOW YOU AWAY. Not literally. That would hurt.

Anyway …

The Book

“Acceptance”

The Genre

Urban Fantasy

The Author

Keri Peardon

The Plot

For more than two thousand years, a small community of humans has lived in harmony with vampires, giving their blood and obedience in exchange for protection. When Kalyn Reid comes of age and pledges herself to the vampires, she has no reason to worry. She’s paired with Anselm for her training, and she couldn’t ask for a kinder, more patient mentor. She also couldn’t ask for anyone better-looking.

But before she has a chance to learn her new responsibilities—or get a date—her idyllic life goes up in flames. Without warning, humans and vampires in her group are murdered by a strange new type of vampire, and the few survivors are forced to flee. Anselm and his brother, Micah, vow to hunt down the murderer, and they take Kalyn with them, thinking she’ll be safer with them. But when the killer finds them first, they must rely on Kalyn if any of them are to survive.

The Review

I loved this book. I was a bit worried when I heard it was a vampire story, as I’ve read some terrible vampire books just trying to jump on the Twilight bandwagon, but Acceptance is absolutely fantastic. Keri presents her readers with a new, unexpectedly religious take on vampires that hooked me in from page one, and if not for my need to sleep and work, I wouldn’t have put it down.

Kalyn is a wonderful protagonist—smart, funny, and, above all, gutsy. I loved reading about her interactions with Anselm, because she actually reacts the way a 16-year-old girl would act in the presence of her immortal crush. She’s awkward, she stammers, she says stupid things … and that made the story so much more believable and relatable for me as a result.

The plot is fairly linear, but nevertheless enjoyable. I was actually really impressed by how unafraid Keri was to kill off her characters. Seriously, they drop like flies. It reminded me of Game of Thrones, except with less incest, and more vampires.

Anyway, I thought Acceptance was a great read, and would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys teen romance and vampires. Even if you don’t, give it a try. It may surprise you!

The Rating

5 out of 5 stars

Click here to visit Keri Peardon’s blog.

Click here to purchase Acceptance.

Unrelated question of the day:

What the heck is going on with Facebook? I keep seeing posts from my friends saying things like, “Facebook is displaying all my private messages pre-2010”, or “Since Facebook is a publicly traded company, it can now use my pictures however they want”. Is there any truth to these claims? Is Facebook evil incarnate? Do I just have a lot of conspiracy theorist friends?

Unrelated image of the day:

Animal Puns

Categories: Book Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Update on My Self-Publishing Adventure

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Let’s start off by getting the exciting news out of the way. Ready?

I finished editing my book!

So that’s, ya know, pretty good.

Just kidding. I’m ridiculously excited to be finished. No more late night editing sessions. No more second-guessing myself about what I should cut and what I should keep. No more rousing arguments with my mother over the whimsicality of the word “whirled”. Ahhhhhh …

I’m pretty psyched, not going to lie. So, what next?

I’ve sent the newly revised and shortened manuscript of Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It out to my quickest reader friends. They’ll devour it over the course of a week, and give me back their impressions. Now, hypothetically the book should be flawless, so really what I’m looking for is a confirmation that the book isn’t too fast-paced now that it’s much shorter. I don’t think it is, but again, that’s what the readers are for.

Once they finish reviewing the manuscript, I’ll sent it back to my Editorial Consultant at iUniverse. I was on the phone with her today, and she’s advised me that I should get a Return Evaluation. The Return Evaluation costs $249, although she mentioned that she will be able to underwrite the cost for me, so that’s great. Remember my post about getting my Editorial Evaluation back? A “Return Evaluation” is basically the same thing. It’s even done by the same editor.

Now, here’s where things get tricky. So when I got my first Editorial Evaluation back, they advised, A) shortening the manuscript, and B) getting a copy-edit. A Return Evaluation gives the editor another chance to advise me about how to improve the book. The shortening thing is taken care of, and assuming he/she doesn’t find any new, glaring flaws, I should be good, content-wise.

That leaves the copy-edit recommendation. You see, I now have a second chance to convince this editor that my book doesn’t need an expensive copy-edit. How do I do that? By visiting The Chicago Manual of Style Online website, and signing up for their free 30 day trial, I can access their full style guide for a month. That means I can try to bring my manuscript up to the American Publisher’s Standard before re-submitting it to the editors at iUniverse, all without spending a dime.

The edits shouldn’t be extensive. I figure it will be mostly along the lines of capitalizing certain words, sticking punctuation outside of quotation marks, etc. So the plan is to spend a few days trying to copy-edit on my own (a difficult task, since as the author I’m already way too close to the material). But I’ll give it my best shot, because $2000 for a copy-edit is a lot of money, and I don’t want to spend it unless I have to.

I wish I had enough money to do this …
Source: http://gerbeny.blogspot.ca/2012/03/irish-roman-bathhouse-sorry-no-nude.html

Some of you might be wondering at this point, why pay for a copy-edit at all? Why are you even using iUniverse? Why not self-publish independently through Smashwords?

Here’s my reasoning. I already paid for the iUniverse publishing package waaaaay back in May. It’s a done deal, so no point second-guessing. Therefore, I’ve decided that, for this book, and this book alone, I’m going to go the full iUniverse publishing route. That means doing the Return Evaluation if they say so, getting a Copy-Edit if they say so, etc. Everyone I’ve talked to at iUniverse has been really great so far, and they seem very enthusiastic about helping me, so I’m 67.8% confident they’ll do right by me.

When I get the finished product in my hands, I’ll look back and judge if paying whatever the total amount comes out to was worth it or not. If it was worth it, then I’ll probably work with iUniverse again. If not, then I’ll scrap iUniverse and self-publish everything myself from now on. Call it me being foolhardy, naive, and gullible. Call it a learning experience. Whatever you want to call it, that’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it!

Adorable image of the day:

Categories: iUniverse, Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 31 Comments

Editing Tips: Keep Track of the Little Things

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

I wouldn’t consider myself an “expert” editor, but seeing as I’ve spent the last two months of my life editing Imminent Danger, I’d say I’m at least qualified to give out a few amateur tips.

Today’s topic revolves around keeping track of the little things. I’m not talking about punctuation, or spelling, or capitalization. I’m talking about remembering what your character is actually doing. As in, where are they in a particular scene? Are they standing? Are they sitting? If they were sitting and then stood up, are they still standing the next time we hop back to them? Are they holding anything? Do they not have it when they say their next line of dialogue? Where did it go?

Etc.

My biggest faux-pas with this type of thing came not in Imminent Danger, but in a Harry Potter fanfiction I wrote years ago called Harry Potter and the Dream Come True. In the story, I had Harry get magical laser eye surgery so that he wouldn’t need his glasses. I promptly forgot about that, and in the next chapter he was wearing glasses. From that point on, in some chapters he wore them, and in some chapters he didn’t. My readers were furious. They demanded I change it. I had every intention of doing so, but then I went to university and forgot all about Harry and his mysterious disappearing and reappearing glasses. Heck, it’s Hogwarts. There are weirder things there than magic glasses, am I right?

I’m probably not. That’s okay, though. Moving on!

So I’ve compiled a handy list of little things in your book/novella/screenplay/poem that you might want to keep track of in order to prevent inconsistencies and what I call “Reader Rage”. Thus, I present to you:

Keep Track of the Little Things! (a checklist)

~ Position (e.g., sitting, standing, kneeling, crouching, sprawled unconscious on the floor)

~ Attire (e.g., glasses, hat, sandals, muumuu)

~ Appearance (e.g., eye colour, hair colour, height, weight, horrendous disfigurements)

~ Current Mood (e.g., happy, depressed, furious, lustful)

~ Possessions (e.g., weapon, precious heirloom, beverage, cell phone, super-weapon of ultimate destruction)

Okay, I ran out of ideas. But you get the point! You want to avoid an Ascanius situation at all costs. And for those of you who didn’t study Classical Studies extensively and haven’t read Virgil’s Aeneid (so, no one, right?), Ascanius is a kid who varies in age from a toddler to a teenager throughout the story based on what the situation demands from him. One moment he’s leading troops into battle, the next he’s being bounced on Dido’s lap. I’m simplifying things, obviously, but that’s his age problem in a nutshell.

There aren’t enough pictures in this post, so here are various representations of Ascanius in art. Note how he varies from (winged?) baby to teenager to child:

Minor logical consistencies are indeed minor, but they’re still hella annoying if you notice them while reading. So fix them before that happens!

Random link of the day (ultimate troll edition):

Note before clicking: “Ken M” is a person who goes around and posts “troll” comments for his or her own amusement. Other commenters don’t understand he is “trolling”, and react poorly.

http://imgur.com/a/fzpg5

 

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Book Review: Once Upon a Remembrance by Grace Brannigan

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Today I present to you the self-published novel Once Upon a Remembrance. The author, Grace Brannigan, sent me a bunch of her books to review, so expect to see more of them in the upcoming months!

The Book

“Once Upon a Remembrance”

The Genre

Romance

The Author

Grace Brannigan

The Plot

Photographer Isabeau Remington is transported to 1894, where she falls in love with a man she must ultimately leave behind when she returns to her own time. But things are not always as they seem, and Hawk Morgan has a secret. Someone is trying to kill him, and a prior attack has left him with no memories to defend himself against his mystery assailant. Isabeau must protect the man she loves, all the while knowing that at any moment she could return to her own time and leave him alone to face down his would-be murderer.

The Review

I really enjoyed this book. It had everything I like in a story – romance, a hint of the supernatural (time travel), a strong heroine, a dashing hero, a mystery assassin, poofy dresses, etc. The protagonist, Isabeau, was a perfect mix between confident, independent woman, and swooning damsel in distress. Not that she did a lot of swooning; usually she was the one saving Hawk (the leading man).

In terms of plot, it was fast-paced, intriguing, and had a few twists that I definitely didn’t see coming (although hints are dropped, if you pay enough attention). I found myself cheering Isabeau on as she struggled to navigate 19th century society. The love scenes were very tastefully done, and nothing R-rated was shown, but I had no trouble feeling the passion and heat the two characters were sharing.

I found a few typos, and a fun mix-up between the words “descendant” and “ancestor”, but other than that, it was a smooth read. It’s been a while since I read something in the romance genre, so this was an enjoyable return for me. In conclusion, I found Once Upon a Remembrance to be a great read, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who is a fan of romance novels.

The Rating

5 out of 5 stars

http://www.gracebrannigan.com/

Related image of the day:

Categories: Book Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Dealing with my Nowhere Man

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

So I’ve recently encountered an issue in my writing, and that issue is how I should deal with what I affectionately call my Nowhere Man character. I briefly reference this issue in my latest blog post, in which we get halfway through editing a scene and then go, “Wait … isn’t Miguri supposed to be in this scene also? Where the heck did he go?”

By “Nowhere Man”, I mean a character who’s in the scene, but isn’t directly involved in it. So in the scene I referred to in my vlog, my problem is that I have two characters engaged in a dramatic fight to the death,while the protagonist looks on, offers encouragement, and ultimately gets involved in the fight herself.

But also in the scene is Miguri, my “Nowhere Man”, who contributes absolutely nothing to the fight because he’s three feet tall and couldn’t win a fight to save his life. In the original, unedited version of that scene, I solved the problem of “What to do with Miguri?” by just not mentioning him at all for about a chapter and a half. Obviously not the best solution to dealing with him.

We puzzled over that one for a while, and ended up noting that he “hid behind a metal block” for the duration of the fight. An elegant solution? No. But that’s the issue I’m trying to address in this post.

As a character, Miguri is awesome. He’s full of sage advice, makes lots of dry comments that crack me up, and is an excellent addition to most scenes. However, sometimes he just doesn’t contribute to the scene at all, but due to the flow of the plot, he has to be in the scene or else risk causing massive plot holes. In the fight scene I was talking about, he definitely can’t contribute anything — there’s a duel to the death going on, and no one has the time to be listening to his aforementioned sage advice and dry commentary. So what do I do with him?

My answer, clearly, is to make him hide behind a block. And that’s fair enough — he’s hidden behind various large objects in previous battle scenes, so there’s a precedent. But I can’t help feeling like that’s a cop-out. If a character is in a scene, I feel like they should contribute something. Does hiding count as contributing? I just don’t know. Maybe I should have knocked him out for the whole battle. That would have shown him! But again, a rather inelegant solution.

I suppose the best way to deal with a Nowhere Man is to have them do whatever their character would reasonably do in that situation. Even if that means hiding behind a block for three chapters. It isn’t terribly exciting, and readers are liable to forget the character’s even there — but then, isn’t that what hiding is supposed to do? Make you forget the hider is there? So in that case, I succeeded magnificently at making Miguri hide, because I totally forgot he was even in the scene! Huzzah!

Banana-themed link of the day:

Swords replaced with bananas.

((Description: A variety of images in which swords are replaced with bananas. Scroll down to the bottom for an excellent LOTR gif))

Related YouTube link of the day:

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

VLOG #3 is now live!

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

So last night my mother and I sat down, as we are wont to do, and settled in for another editing session. I thought people might enjoy getting a look into the inner workings of our editing process (spoiler alert: it isn’t much of a process), so I recorded it, trimmed it down, and turned it into a youtube video for your viewing pleasure. Thus, without any further ado, I give to you:

Random image of the day:

http://i.imgur.com/i2e5C.jpg

Categories: Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Chasing Nonconformity

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

We shall begin with a simple question. Were you intrigued by the title of this post?

No: Curses! Perhaps I was being overly optimistic about my own brilliance.

Yes: Huzzah! You are a person of incredible wit and taste. I applaud you, sir or madam.

Enough shenanigans. “Chasing Nonconformity” is the working title of my current WIP (work in progress). It’s the sequel to Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It, and basically picks up where the first book leaves off. Like Imminent Danger, the sequel features space battles, sexy mercenaries, six-armed reptile warriors, and a generous helping of ridiculousness.

I wrote Chasing Nonconformity while I was living in South Korea, so I imagine that had some influence on the various characters and events of the story. I definitely borrowed heavily from the Korean language when making up names for planets, aliens, foodstuffs, and assorted sci-fi paraphernalia.

To give you some idea of where it’s at, I shall now share with you:

Michelle’s Official Writing Process

1. Write.

2. Wait six months. Review and revise.

3. Wait six months. Review and revise.

4. Give book to my mother.

5. Receive book from my mother, heavily scribbled upon with red pen and “constructive criticism” that makes my soul weep bitter, bitter tears.

6. Review and revise.

7. Give book to friends.

8. Receive book from friends, heavily scribbled upon with pen that starts in red, then shifts to blue/black/green/purple when they inevitably lose their red pens. Rejoice from all the supportive and optimistic feedback.

9. Review and revise.

10. Give book to my mother.

11. Receive book from my mother, heavily scribbled upon with red pen and “constructive criticism” that makes my soul weep bitter, bitter tears.

12. Review and revise.

I wanted to include the step of “Actually publish the book” on that list, but as it hasn’t happened yet, I felt including it on the list might be premature. With Imminent Danger, I’m somewhere around “Step 37: Review and Revise. Again. For the final time, this time, dammit!”

With Chasing Nonconformity, however, I’m waaaaaay back on Step 6. Exciting times are ahead, my friends! First I have to finish completely re-writing the middle section of the book, then head to the end and cut out a ton of plot. Hopefully I can use all this extraneous plot in future sequels, but I’m not going to beat myself up if that doesn’t happen.

So that’s basically what I’m working on right now. I’ve been kicking around the idea of attempting NaNoWriMo this year (because my attempt at Camp NaNo this summer went so well), so ideally I’ll get Step 6 of Chasing Nonconformity done before then.

I appear to be babbling. I’ll stop. What’s your writing process? Where are you at with your current WIP? Do you have any tips for cutting down my current writing process to something a little less insane?

Random video of the day: a chilling look at the “Dungeons & Dragons” phenomenon.

Categories: Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Working against my own interests …?

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Once again stealing someone else’s idea, I present to you The Living Notebook’s latest blog post. Basically, Harper Voyager (the sci-fi/fantasy subsidiary of Harper Collins) is accepting un-agented sci-fi manuscript submissions from October 1 – 14th. They’re looking for about a dozen new manuscripts, which they will publish digitally (not in print, although the site does say they’ll think about it if your sales are good enough). Anyway, click your way over to The Living Notebook’s site to get the link to the Harper Voyager contest.

So … is spreading the word of this awesome opportunity actively working against my own interests? Oh, absolutely. But I figure that, hey, if you have a sci-fi manuscript better than mine, then you deserve to get signed. So polish up those manuscripts and start submitting!

My one qualm with the Harper Voyager contest is that, while I would *love* to be traditionally published (talk about street cred!), they’re only doing digital publication (at least at first). I want to see my book in print. So in the extremely unlikely event they actually choose my story for publication, does that mean I’d have to give up my dreams of seeing Imminent Danger in print? I’d probably lose my copyright rights once they pick it up, so I wouldn’t have the option of printing the book myself. Thoughts?

My other qualm (okay, so I lied about only having the one qualm) is that I don’t want to put my self-publishing plan on hold on the extreme off-chance that Harper Voyager picks my manuscript out of thousands. What would happen if I self-published my book, and then discovered three days later that Harper Voyager wanted to buy my book? I mean, again, traditional publishing yay! But I would have already gone through all the effort of self-publishing (which I already paid for), only to have to cancel everything after a few days/weeks. The Harper Voyager website states that they will accept self-published books, no problem, and I suppose I already have paid for the self-publishing, so there’s no real point in stopping the self-publication process. Still … can you imagine? “Hey guys, remember how I finally self-published yesterday? Yeah, just pretend it never happened. Trololol.”

Anyway, head over to The Living Notebook’s blog and check out that Harper Voyager link. Best of luck to all of you who decide to submit a manuscript!

Random graphic of the day:

D’awwwww! Source: http://i.imgur.com/Fex5Q.jpg

Categories: Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

My Author Mission Statement

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

I got this idea from Joanne Phillips’ Blog (check her out!).

Basically, she says that if businesses have mission statements that explain why they do what they do, why shouldn’t an author have one as well?

Thus, without further ado, my mission statement:

I write because I love books, and I can’t imagine anything more amazing than writing a book that people love.

It’s not quite as long and detailed as Joanne’s mission statement, but there it is. I had planned on rambling for several paragraphs, but then I realized that that one sentence really does encapsulate my thoughts on writing.

What’s your author mission statement? Or, if you aren’t an author, what’s your life’s mission statement?

Random Image of the Day:

Classic Youtube Hit of the Day:

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

I broke 100,000 words! Happy day!

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

It’s official — Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It is now under 100,000 words. I believe it’s sitting nicely at 99,300-ish, and we’re not even done editing yet.

We’re on chapter 32 of 44, so I’m guessing the final word count will be somewhere around 95k. That’s still a very decent length for a YA novel, and the writing is getting much better and tighter as a result, so I’m really happy that we decided to do this final round of editing.

At the current editing pace, we (my editor/mother and I) should be done the shortening/revisions by the end of September. Then I’ll send out the new and improved book to a handful of select readers (aka people who can promise to read the book in a week), fix whatever (hopefully!) minor issues they find, and then send it off for copy-editing.

The other upside of getting the book under 100k words is that the copy editing will cost less. 100k words = $2200. 95k words = $2090. That’s about a hundred dollars in savings, which is good by me! I’m all for saving money. Then again, who isn’t?

In other news, I have a stack of self-published novels on my hard drive that I need to read and review. I keep meaning to get started on them, but I always seem to get distracted. Last week I had a legitimate excuse — I was temping for a telecommunications company — but now I don’t really have any reason not to get started on the reading/reviewing.

My next hurdle will be to decide which book to read first. Should I go by the date each book was sent to me, or by how much I want to read the book? Hmm …

In other, other news, I’m headed to Washington with my mother this week for a mini-vacation before winter starts. That’s the nice thing about having a flex-time job — vacation is very easy to book, since I don’t have to request time off or reschedule shifts. On the downside, I’m really bad at flex-time work, because I procrastinate like nobody’s business. Ah well. Anyway, I’m really excited for Washington. I’ve been once before, when I was about twelve or thirteen, and I remember that it was really awesome. I’m probably going to hit up the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, etc.

I’ll try to take pictures, but no promises.

Random picture of the day:

True love, Japan style
source: http://i.imgur.com/yA7Up.jpg

Categories: Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

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