I don’t think I have any real fans yet. I have plenty of friends who support me and would buy my book when published, but I have not managed to snag any fans through the power of my writing yet.
I would like to think that when I have fans, I will be a graceful and benevolent author. I suppose only time will tell.
I have a number of other hobbies outside of writing. I work at a horse barn part time and I currently own two horses and ride somewhat regularly.
I am rather creative outside of writing as well, and I like crafts of various kinds including painting miniatures for my table top gaming (another hobby), crochet, and newbie attempts at creating gourd lamps.
I also play video games (though far fewer than I used to), watch/read the occasional anime/manga, and I love well-written TV and flashy movies.
I am usually the one behind the camera, so there are not a ton of pictures of me. However, I did get a few pictures on the Disney Cruise I went on last August. I liked this one in front a mosaic of a castle that was on the boat.
Finishing a novel was one of my most important writing goals/dreams. The Storyteller is the first story I’ve written that is actually complete as a story. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but it’s as good as my current talents are able to produce. I wrote it, revised it, fixed all the plot holes, had two sets of beta readers, went through tons of drafts.
Now an agent might be interested in it and they might not. My next goal is to do the same thing again, only better.
I had a lot of trouble with this prompt. I have never been much of a bucket list kind of person. I mean I always wanted to go on a cruise and see clear blue water. (Did that one.) And one day I want to go to Germany and possibly Japan, but it’s more that I want to be active. I don’t want to just allow myself to stagnate.
When it comes to my writing I don’t have a bucket list. Sure I’d love to get a book published, I’d love to have fans, and I’d like to make money, but I don’t really see those as items on a bucket list because I have no control over any of them.
The only thing I have control over in my writing career is whether or not I write and whether or not I do my best to improve my craft. And yet those are not really things to go on a bucket list, those are just ever present goals. I may be nit picking the definition of ‘bucket list’ a little bit here, but that’s really how I feel.
I really don’t like research. I wouldn’t say that I write fantasy because I dislike researching the real world, but I don’t doubt that it’s a bit of a factor. The amount of time and effort that can go into minute details that may only come up once, but to which people will latch because of human’s intense desire to be right and/or prove other people wrong. The more stuff I just make up, the less things people can point at and tell me I’m wrong.
However, technically the Storyteller came about because I was doing “research” into fairy tales. And by research I mean I was reading obscure fairy tales. I landed on The Little Wildrose and realized the eagle could be a gryffin, and that was the last spark I needed in order to jump start that book.
I have found some other things that I enjoyed researching. I love reading about Norse Mythology, whether or not the novel I did that research for becomes more than a trunk novel. I have also looked into sociopaths because I find that particular mental affliction interesting as someone who is entirely too sensitive of the emotions of others. And recently I have become interested in mushrooms for a world I’m playing around with that has no sun. Not super deep into that one yet.
There have been story ideas that I’ve ignored because the research I would need to do in order to write the book seems too tedious. I think the big thing is finding something I’m interested in enough to be willing to put in the time.
So with The Storyteller, I had my first real set of beta readers. It was the first time I ever had a complete book to hand to anyone. I was really happy with the people who agreed to beta read my book and it was a tong of fun to be able to see each of their personalities reflected in the notes they gave me.
Overall it was a wonderful learning experience and I am so grateful for each and every one of them. The feedback I got back was really invaluable. And I know how time intensive it is to read a novel, but they did that as well as giving me feedback on it. I love them all.
So my Dream Writer’s Retreat is the Writing Excuses Cruise. I love cruises, so I think that would be a great place to have a retreat. I don’t even particularly care where the cruse goes as long as it’s pretty.
I would have gone this year, but it ended up being in Europe and Brandon Sanderson is not going. As such, I decided that the travel costs were just not worth it. I hope that the cruise will be back in the US next year and that Brandon will be going so I can check off ‘Meeting Brandon Sanderson’ from my bucket list, as well as going on my first writer’s retreat.
Let’s see, if we’re talking about what I’d want in an ideal agent, I’d certainly like to have someone who is a geek of some variety who knows shows like Psych, Grimm, Lucifer, and those written by Joss Wedon. Bonus points for a gamer/otaku.
I don’t have a particular level of experience needed (ie, I can be their first client), but I would like an agent who is as dedicated to doing their job as I am and has the support of a good agency.
I’d also like an agent who doesn’t try and pigeon-hole me. I’d pretty well in love with fantasy, but I don’t want to have to write the same type of novel all the time. I want to keep growing and expanding.
I also want an agent who doesn’t just see me as a dollar-sign. I mean I’m all for us both to making money, that’s the game, but I want an agent who can help me with concerns as well as helping me progress in my career. I just work better with people when I don’t feel like I have to hide my problems.
And above all, I want to work with someone who loves my writing and wants to see it published as much as I do.
I like the prompts I’ve been using this month for these posts because many of them make me think about things that I didn’t think about before.
The dedication page is one of those. I feel like a dedication page is really dedicated to the person/people who meant the most to you during the writing of the book. So much so that you want to dedicate the book and the idea of the book to them. If I was entirely truthful, I would dedicate The Storyteller to myself, just because of what it means to me as a book. I’m not sure that any other story I write will mean quite this much to me. But I’m pretty sure dedicating a book to yourself is like thanking yourself in an acceptance speech, bad form.
Then I had the idea of what I really want the dedication of this book to be:
To Abigail
For everything you have suffered.
It could be a rather massive spoiler, but because of the nature of this book, I think it is the most appropriate dedication I could come up with. Even if it is bad form.
