Tag: writing

Why Men Don’t Read Books by Women

A writer for The Guardian, M. A. Sieghart, has asked the perennial question, “Why do so few men read books by women?” Curiously, the people who always ask this question never follow up by asking how women authors might better appeal to men or how the publishing industry might get a better share of the underserved male-readership market. No, the assumption is always that men have something wrong with them and need to change. It’s not the books that are the problem, it’s you. The customer is in the wrong.

Sieghart notes that the top-selling lady novelists have a disproportionately female readership, but though she treats this as a mystery with sinister implications, it’s not actually hard to understand what’s going on when she names who those top-selling authoresses are: Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Danielle Steel, and Jojo Moyes.

She proposes the answer that men don’t take women seriously. The actual answer, obvious to anyone outside Sieghart’s elitist cultural bubble, is that men aren’t interested in what those women write. Danielle Steel writes trashy romances. Jojo Moyes writes trashy romances. Jane Austen wrote non-trashy romances. Atwood writes a variety of things but is best known for a pearl-clutching feminist screed that confuses Baptists with the Taliban, though she also churns out an occasional apocalyptic science-fiction novel disturbingly obsessed with child pornography.

To put it briefly and bluntly, men don’t want to read that shit.

Continue reading “Why Men Don’t Read Books by Women”

Sneak Peek: ‘Jake and the Dynamo,’ Volume 3

I finished the essays I was working on for a side project, so now I’m back to working on the third volume of Jake and the Dynamo, currently under the working title of  The Shadow of His Shadow. Here’s a foretaste. As always, there is no guarantee that this will be in the final product.

On an added note, I am still waiting to hear back from some publishers to whom I’ve submitted, so I have no updates on possible releases of the previously published volume or its sequel.

At last, these treatments were apparently at an end. The bespectacled goblin sniffed once, made another mark in his ledger, and threw a loose silk robe over Jake’s shoulders. Then the trolls dragged him through yet another dank hallway, finally depositing him in the Bedchamber of Darkness, where he fell to the floor in a heap.

The trolls bowed respectfully before turning, leaving, and shutting the door behind themselves.

Jake raised himself to his knees and blinked against the gloom. He saw a large, four-poster bed atop a pedestal reached by steep stairs. On the walls hung an array of bizarre devices, most of which were unfamiliar to him—but the collection of coiled whips and handcuffs had an obvious purpose, as did the bloodstained rack standing in one corner. Ropes and chains dangled under the canopy above the bed.

He swallowed loudly.

On the bed lay the coldly beautiful woman he had earlier seen in the inner sanctum of the Temple of the Moon Princess. In a filmy dress of glossy black, she had one broad hip exposed, like an imposing hill in the middle of a plain. Her full, blood-red lips were slightly parted, and her round breasts rose and fell with her breath. Her raven-dark hair splayed across an embroidered samite pillow.

Frowning against bruises and stiff muscles, Jake carefully pulled himself to his feet.

Am I … am I about to score with the Dark Queen?

The Queen said not a word. She merely reached out with one shapely yet bone-white hand tipped with sharp nails as red as her lips. She patted the comforter once, twice. At the same time, she raised an arched eyebrow.

Continue reading “Sneak Peek: ‘Jake and the Dynamo,’ Volume 3”

The Kill List

My final stage of editing is to go through what I call my “kill list,” a collection of my worst writing habits and the quirks that I try to edit out of the final draft.

A few people have previously asked to see my kill list, and I demurred because it is a collection of personal mistakes. However, I’ve reconsidered; for what it’s worth, I present the list here at it presently stands.

These are the most common errors in my own writing, at least that I’m aware of. Removing these from Rag & Muffin will be my final act upon the manuscript before it leaves my possession for good.

  • Overuse of LEAPT
  • Overuse of JUMPED
  • Comma before BUT eliminated in independent clauses except in cases of extreme constrast
  • BECAUSE and CUZ: No comma before except for clarity
  • THAT vs WHICH: Former restrictive, latter not
  • SINCE: Comma after main clause if it introduces reason rather than temporal information (non-restrictive)
  • AS: Usually no comma after main clause unless explaining a situation
  • Excess instances of AND and BUT at beginning of sentences
  • Excessive use of APPARENTLY
  • LAY, LAYING, and LAID (make sure used correctly)
  • No comma before AS IF
  • EACH OTHER vs. ONE ANOTHER (two characters vs. more than two)
  • VERY, A LITTLE, A BIT (overuse)
  • Double check that LY words before adjectives are adverbs
  • SUCH AS: comma on nonrestrictive, no comma on restrictive
  • Comma before TOO only when a pause is wanted or there is an abrupt shift
  • Eliminate EVEN THOUGH
  • Use ALTHOUGH at beginning of sentences and THOUGH otherwise

The Last Stage of ‘Rag & Muffin’

Rag & Muffin has been accepted for publication. I just got it back from the proofreader, who wanted only minor alterations, mostly  typos consisting of extra spaces that sneaked in somehow.

Before sending it back, I’ve decided to try a Grammarly Premium account and run the book through it. So far, I’m moderately impressed, though not wowed, by its suggestions. I think it will result in one more additional layer of polish by the time I’m finished.

Probably not worth the subscription price, though. Not yet, anyway.

Anyhow, running through this is going to be time-consuming and monotonous, but once I’m finished, the book is done on my end. I’ll send it in with a draft for a back-cover blurb, and then it is out of my hands.

Also: Last word I got is that Dead to Rites is really, truly on the final stage on the publisher’s end. Stay tuned.

Rag & Muffin Continues; Art; And Other Stuff

Featured Image: “Magical Girl Uraraka” by Hannahsrrex.

I haven’t posted for two weeks, but I have reasons or at least excuses.

Partly, the more I get settled into being a published author with a book out and two on the way, the less I have time (or interest, even) in watching and reading other stuff to review. This is perhaps inevitable.

Also, my computer is on the fritz. I’ve long known that this little laptop, though it has been a good machine all things considered, is well past its sell-by date. Recently, I managed to fry its keyboard with spilled beer (yes, really) so I can no longer type on it without a peripheral keyboard.

Also, it has stopped talking to my printer for reasons I’ve been unable to figure out. It’s possible the printer itself is to blame, but I doubt it, since all its diagnostics claim it’s working just fine and communicating with the network just fine. It’s just that the computer can’t see it. Turning off all the firewalls and antivirus software doesn’t appear to help, and beyond that I don’t know what to do about the problem. So I effectively have no printer, which will become a problem in the near future when I get back the edit requests for my last submission.

Basically, the computer needs replaced, and has for a few years, but I don’t really have the money for it, especially since I just had to replace my car, which I totaled in a flood. Part of my disappearance here came from the time it took to make sure everything was backed up.

Rag & Muffin Update

Speaking of which, as I’ve mentioned before, Rag & Muffin is finally out of the house. I expect it to need more editing before it’s ready to publish, but it is at least underway. It has taken an embarrassingly long time to get that novel completed and submitted, but I have reasons/excuses for that, too—it is my first novel, though I have two others preceding it to publication, and a first novel always takes the longest. It also took an enormous amount of rewriting and reshaping, partly for reasons I don’t say in public. Although its basic premise—”Fancy Nancy in Dungeonpunk India with guns and Kung fu”—is quite silly, it’s a very personal novel in some ways and was difficult to finish. The earliest drafts were quite lurid; they were torturous to write and I’m glad to have them behind me, but I’m comfortable with the content in this penultimate version I recently sent to my editor, even if it contains more than my usual number of cuss words.

Next Project

I am trying to peel myself away from meddling with Rag & Muffin while my editor has it and instead turn my attention to Son of Hel, which will require more research to do it justice.

I’ll do a whole post on this in the near future, but one thing I will say is that, as I look at the various interpretations and reworkings that have been done of Santa Claus legends, I’m surprised at how few modern interpretations—none of them that I know of—want to connect Santa Clause back to the original St. Nicholas. Since nobody else wants to do it, I figure that’s one contribution I can make. My plan is to conflate as many characters and concepts of Santa lore as possible, so the monk who was bishop of Myra has also become the reindeer-breeding gift-giver with an army of elves in his workshop, accompanied by several interesting companions ranging from a Russian snow maiden to a half-demon to a murderous butcher.

‘Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites’ Submitted!

I have just finished the final edits (on my end) of Dead to Rites, the second volume of Jake and the Dynamo.

As usual, the process took me (embarrassingly) longer than I predicted. Although this phase was supposed to be just proofreading for final edits, I ended up deleting a scene, fixing some minor inconsistencies, shuffling a few other scenes around … you know how it goes.

Nonetheless, this book required less extensive reworking than the previous one did, which means I was able to dedicate most of this time to the nitty-gritty points of grammar and style—and that means a better experience for the reader.

If the publishing process is the same as last time, the galley will appear on my desk just once more, asking for my approval after it goes through a final round of someone else’s edits. Then my work on it is done.

I’m jumping from this straight into my next project, which is producing the final, submission-worthy draft of Rag & Muffin. I previously intended to work on my Christmas novel Son of Hel first, but after I realized how much research it will require, I decided to finalize this other novel that’s already written instead.

If things go as planned, I will have two books out this year and two out next year. That’s not exactly pulp speed, admittedly, but it is at least better than average.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Proofing
100%

Roffles Lowell is also working on the illustrations. I couldn’t resist, in the header, showing this detail from one of the pictures he’s sent me (I will have to struggle to resist showing them all before the book is published). This is not the first time he’s drawn Dana Volt in her non-magical form, but I think it’s the first time he’s drawn her as such for a book illustration, and I love it.

Writing Day for ‘Dead to Rites’

Today is a writing day for Dead to Rites. I am still making my way through ViVid Strike!, which I want to wrap up before I review anything else, simply because I’m afraid it will disappear from Amazon Prime. I’m not done with it yet (I have too much else to do), but I will say in advance that I so far think it is the most entertaining series in the Lyrical Nanoha franchise, even though it is also easily the shallowest and stupidest. Unfortunately, I am easily entertained by scenes of young girls beating the everloving snot out of each other, and that’s pretty much the show’s entire premise.

The rough draft of Dead to Rites, second volume of Jake and the Dynamo, is just about done. Tonight, I am working on the grand climax. There’s probably one to two chapters after that, and then it’s on to the editing and rewriting phase.

New Project

I have just today begun a new writing project under the working title Son of Hel.

I have long been fascinated with fantasy works that syncretize existing lore, and this particular book will be an attempt to bring together various traditions about Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus, and place them in a sci-fi story loosely inspired by the famously bad movie Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. It will feature Black Peter as Nicholas’s faithful Saracen companion, and Krampus as a dark and violent projection of his troubled psyche. It will also feature aerial battles involving magic reindeer and flying saucers.

This will be, for the time being, a side project in addition to the second volume of Jake and the Dynamo. I have no projection at present, though I’d like it to release somewhere around Christmas when I complete it.

‘Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites’ Progress Update

I just made progress on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites! So far I’m 97% complete on the Writing phase. 16 Days remain until the deadline.

There are some matters about which I’d like to post, but I’ve been working on my book instead, which is not exactly time wasted.  I realized that I needed to go back and insert a new chapter into an earlier part in the novel, and I was having some trouble crafting it, but I figured out what was wrong with it, so tonight I’ve completed the draft of that particular section. Still needs a couple of corny jokes thrown in, though.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Writing
Due:5 years ago
96.7%

The Emperor on Deep POV

I stumbled upon an interesting blog post at The Emperor’s Notepad. There, his imperial majesty addresses the subject of “deep point of view,” a technique of narration that is currently in vogue. His post is entitled, “Deep POV Is Shallow,” and I recommend perusing it.

I can’t recall if I’d heard the particular term before, but I recognize the technique: it means writing in third person, but sticking with a particular character’s point of view and remaining in that single point of view throughout a scene, with no “head-hopping.”

His majesty explains that he believes the technique is over-used because an omniscient third-person narrator can be more useful in many cases for setting scenes with less dreary dialogue and fewer awkward tags. He makes his case well.

As long as we’re coining phrases, I’m going to say that my own preferred technique when writing in third-person is “descending POV.” Readers familiar with my work may notice that I usually begin by setting a scene, and then move in to focus on an individual who becomes the consistent POV character for that particular scene.

But I’m not strict about it. Sometimes I cheat, of course: Jake and the Dynamo opens with an omniscient narrator and then descends into the POV of the Dark Queen for the first scene. In the second scene, it remains in omniscient POV throughout, but sneaks into Grease Pencil Marionette’s head near the end. Most of the rest of the book is from Jake’s POV, with occasional diversions to the Dark Queen, Chirops, and Marionette. A few characters are not allowed, for arbitrary reasons known to the author, to be POV characters at all, ever. Among them is Pretty Dynamo.

My preferred method is analogous to a film setting up with a location shot. The inability to do this is his imperial majesty’s primary complaint about so-called deep POV. So as an answer to both him and the writers he criticizes, I will claim it is actually possible to have one’s cake and eat it too on this matter. Although an admittedly new author, I have never yet received a complaint about the way I start with an omniscient narrator and then focus in, though I did just once receive a compliment for it.