there's no place like home

It's amazing what home means to us.  Dorothy told us there's no place like it.  Home is familiar, comforting.  In our position as foster parents, Matt and I are confronted with the reality of what "home" means in an unusual way. 

Home is where you're comfortable.  In some ways, since my parents moved out of my childhood home for a lovely townhome that's free of the scars a house earns when it shelters young children (in our case, crayon stars covering an entire wall in the basement) -- I don't have that "going back home" nostalgic feeling anywhere like you see in movies when the city girl goes back to the farm.  

My childhood home actually came back on the market a few years ago, so my sister and I took a tour.  My parent's bedroom was full of exercise equipment, and on my mother's formerly pink living room wall hung an enormous Andy Warhol-style painting of a dog smoking a cigar.  The strangest thing was the traffic light in the corner.  

I wasn't home on that real estate tour, even though that pineapple wallpaper was still in the hallway.  Even though I could still open the doors without the hinges squeaking.  Even though I could still make it up and down the stairs seamlessly without even touching the landing.  

Home when you're writing fiction is that familiar place.  You're comfortable there, the boundaries are far away.  Maybe the character is based on someone you know, or on a part of you.  Maybe the dialogue is a conversation you've had, or better yet, one you wished you could have had!

As safe as home may be, it isn't always exciting.  The adventures are probably elsewhere.  Writing The Senator's Youngest Daughter was an adventure for me, and actually most of it did take place at home.  Writing the familiar parts might have been easy, but it wasn't the best.  

Writing the "home" parts where siblings are talking, where parents are joking easily, where communication happens in a loving marriage... those flowed naturally.  But writing the adventure parts, the scary parts, the dangerous parts? That's a rush.  

If I'm home, I'm happy.  But if this home doesn't exist in whatever setting, or if it's being threatened in XYZ fiction world, I can imagine other ways of being happy.  Defeating the aliens, questing successfully, collaring the bad guys, maybe even stealing the crown jewels.

I love my life.  I'm hugely blessed by my life.  But if there were another version of my life (for example, the fictional life of the protagonist in an awesome novel), I'm pretty sure I could rock it.  

Sounds in Silence

I wish John Williams would craft a soundtrack to my entire novel... something to accompany the appropriate moods through the story.  Related to that, one of the challenges of writing a novel is using sounds as part of the story.  

For example, in real life, if you hear glass break, you just hear it. Crack.  You don't take eight words to think, Now I'm hearing the sound of breaking glass.  It's a challenge, I think, to startle readers with sounds.  

Additionally, sounds are so often part of the ambience of a scene, rather than the content, that drawing attention to them can be distracting.  It's a balancing act to set the audio scene without making your reader feel like they need to swat away bugs.

I've picked a few sentences about sounds from The Senator's Youngest Daughter to share with you today.  (I'm trying to avoid **spoilers** [River song's voice], so these might not be verbatim from the book.)  By the way, I break glass in my novel a lot, and only this exercise pointed it out to me!  I didn't include all of those references; you'd have needed a band-aid.

• Cement makes a surprisingly high-pitched sound as it cracks, almost like glass. 

There are so many sounds in an explosion.  Imagine a movie's foley artist watching a scene and slowly layering the sounds of each object you see being affected by the bomb or impact: first the bomb, then the flying fruit cart, the gasoline igniting, the yells of the people in the marketplace, the ceramic jars toppling, the building collapsing, the windows cracking...  Novelists don't have that privilege.  In my scene, I needed to focus on just one thing Brenna heard so I could get back to the action.  Here, I tuned into the facade of the building.

• Cows moo restlessly, the sound accentuated by the night’s stillness. 

This is a scene-setter.  It's relevant to the loneliness my protagonist is feeling at a time, so it was worth including.  The cows feeling "restless" isa little bit of her projecting her feelings onto them.  The stillness is a contrast to her deep desire to take action and be impulsive.

• The thud is cushioned, but I still wince as the sound reverberates through the hollow elevator shaft.

I love the word thud.  It's onomatopoeia without being silly.  In this case, since the characters are trying to be sneaky, every sound is a threat.  This thud could be the difference between success and failure, life and death!

• A sudden scraping sound catches our attention, and we all whirl around, pointing our weapons at whatever will emerge from behind a nearby dumpster. 

This time, the hunted is the hunter.  (Cliché alert!)  Rather than any sound giving my characters away, they are now on the prowl, tuned into every sound.  Bummer that it might turn out to be just garbage blowing in the wind... you know, either that or the bad guy!

greyhound of the year

Allow me to introduce you to the world's longest nose and the sweetest dog to ever live: Gina Bernadette.  Gina got cancer last summer, and we had to say goodbye to her after almost ten years.  I'm glad to have immortalized her and her unique breed in The Senator's Youngest Daughter.  Potiphar, the family dog in my story, is black, while Gina was what is called "fawn" in coloring.   

Matt and I "rescued" Gina before we had our babies, so neither of our boys could even remember life without her when it was time to say goodbye.  Her passing was harder on our then-five-year-old than I expected.  I am glad we took them along to put her to sleep, as our kindergartner really needed to see that it didn't hurt.  She just heaved a sigh and curled up with us the final time; her collar and ashes are still in my bedroom.  

We have a different dog now, but he's a little more traditional.  He plays catch, barks, sniffs butts, freaks out when he sees other dogs, and does all the things normal dogs do.  But these things are all new to me since Gina wasn't into "normal" dog stuff.  Gina was very passive, even for a greyhound, so with her as my first dog ownership experience, there was a steep learning curve that poor Boomer (Australian Shepherd and Golden Retriever mix from a shelter) had to walk me on.

Greyhounds are incredibly special dogs.  I mean, take a look at the picture.  NOSE NOSE NOSE for a mile.  LEGS LEGS LEGS for ten miles!  They are long, lean dogs -- designed for running.  (Watch the Top Gear where **spoiler** the dog beats the car.) When we first got Gina, within weeks of retiring as a racer (Ronagena),  a woman actually stopped me on the sidewalk to yell at me for starving my dog!  Aside from "mind your own business, weirdo," it was not the last time I had to explain to someone that greyhounds should usually be showing a couple ribs, or they're overweight.  

Gina was the ideal picture of a greyhound: sweet, loyal, and protective in a mild, non-confrontational way.  Twice she took the brunt of awful, violent attacks by groups of much larger dogs (one event nearly killed her but the vet put her together in a three-hour surgery, the other resulted in 20+ stitches) to protect members of her human family.  The first time, her skinny little self stood between my father and FOUR hell-hounds (two pit bulls and two nasty mutts) and the second time between me & my kids and TWO psycho great danes.  #controlyourdogs

Each time, it was 400+ pounds of poor/no training, growling, anger, teeth, and spit against her 60 pounds of quiet, mild-mannered tenderness.  Oh, and did I mention that she'd had two root canals so she only had two of her four canine teeth?  This is why my Gina will forever be special.  (Ask my dad for the full story of the first attack; he reached into a pit bull's mouth to pry the beast's death grip off her jugular and ended up with stitches.)  #greyhoundrescuesquad

Two particularly funny greyhound memories:

1. On a walk during Lancaster's First Friday, a slightly intoxicated man announced, "Look! It's a groundhog!" When we corrected him to "greyhound," he was like, "Right, that's what I said."  #awkwarddrunk
2. A new friend of ours overheard me talking about greyhounds (but missed the context that it was MY dog) and commented that greyhounds were so ugly that he considered them to be direct products of the fall of man, when God cursed the earth with death due to sin.  #neverlivethatdown

I started writing The Senator's Youngest Daughter before Gina got cancer, and it was natural for me to include a dog.  Everyone loves a dog in a story!  But more importantly, I wanted to honor this special breed of dog.  

the marketing plan for my self-published novel

I'm in marketing by trade, so, frankly, writing the marketing plan for my novel was really fun.  I love what I do.  

Writing my own plan wasn't as much fun as spending someone else's money, mind you.  That's the best!  Spending my own money makes me like all the miserly clients I secretly resent for not using all my ideas.  (The shoe's on the other foot, now!) 

So, based on a very limited budget because I'm not crazy and this is my first novel and I'm probably wasting my time BUT also because I am crazy and this is my first novel and it's my brain's baby that I'm giving to the world and because like eight friends and family members said they thought it was pretty good... it's worth the investment!  

This is my marketing plan to-date.  I'll update my blog with the various success of different pieces as I learn what works and what doesn't.

Amazon KDP

My intention is to use Amazon KDP's (Kindle Direct Publishing) exclusivity offer for a few months and see if anything sells.  I've read a lot about pricing, mostly very confident and very conflicting opinions from "experts."  But I'm going with $0.99 for the Kindle book.  

Cost: Percentage of sales

Website

Again, my career is in marketing, so obviously I bought a domain and designed a website (which you are currently visiting, oh, reader).  This included buying a domain, setting up a CMS and hosting, and in my case, licensing the Philly skyline stock photo.

Cost: $20 for domain from DirectNIC, $144 for annual hosting package from SquareSpace, $15 stock photo

Book Layout and Design

I used the most amazing designer I've ever met to create the book cover because I can see pretty things in my head and she can make incredible things happen magically before my eyes.  (www.limeiscreative.com)  She also did the setup for the Kindle .mobi format (no small feat, trust me) and the layout for the printed book.

Cost: Forever indebted to my sister minus a few brain trades for work I did for her

ON-DEMAND Paperback Copies

(I always think of the Beatles and how I want to be a paperback writer...)  I'm going to use Create Space for this.  I bought my own ISBN because I read some more confident but conflicting opinions and then trusted my awesome friend Adam to just make the decision for me, so I bought my own ISBN.

Cost: ISBN was $99 from Create Space's recommended place, plus percentage of sales

Google Ad Words

It took me a long time to select keywords that I believe will pay off, because books and fiction and ebooks online are a ridiculously competitive market for adwords.  HOW can anyone make a profit if first-page for some terms costs $7.50!?!  

I was really cheap, setting my budget to start at $1/day.  Most of my bids are about 7¢ and I think the highest is 12¢.  Remember, though, that even if every fifth person who clicks on my PPC ad buys the book (which would be great ROI!), that means I've spent 35¢ to earn maybe 60¢.  So... you gotta be cheap and smart.

Cost: $1/day budget so $30/month to start

Facebook

I started a separate page for myself as an author with my book as the profile image.  That's as far as I've gotten with FB so far, but more is in the works.

Cost: About an hour so far

Online Promoters

I did a lot of research on various online promoters and read reviews.  Personally, I settled on three, but then one of the websites wouldn't take my info after two tries (crappy news for you, justkindlebooks.com), so I'm hoping to use Free Kindle Books & Tips and Indie Book Promo.

Cost: $35 for IDP's middle-grade package + $25 for FKBT's new release package

Like I said, I'll update this once I see how things are working...

political fiction is cool

Some people who know me have asked why I'd choose political fiction when I decided to write a novel.  First, I didn't sit down to write The Senator's Youngest Daughter.  The story, the setting, and the characters all evolved as I wrote.  When I write, I basically type up a movie I'm watching in my head.  There wasn't a great deal of planning, especially during this first novel-writing process.

The question surprised me, because it's a genre I often enjoy to read.  But apparently I'm in the minority.  Many of my female friends lean more towards romance, historical fiction, and YA books.  (I'm not ripping those genres; I have some favorites on those shelves, too.)  Apparently, I'm also in the minority among female authors.  Lots of women write crime, supernatural, thrillers... but it's much less common to find a female writing about politics.

I'm not going to digress into a feminist rant: "I wrote this because anything a man can do, I can do better."  Because that wasn't my reason.  I wrote about politics because it's something I'm passionate about.  I wrote about a future that I fear we're heading towards.  I wrote about conservatism and socialism and capitalism for the same reason I wrote about family.  They're on my mind a lot.

I did some research and while there are plenty of great names (authors I like!) in the genre (Dan, Christopher), there just aren't a lot of women.  Ayn Rand shows up, of course, but that's not exactly recent.  I did stumble upon an older great read, though, by Gayle Lynds called Masquerade that I can't not mention.  Aside from a rather dating moment where a dude on roller blades (roller blades!)  mugs someone, it's the real deal.  The worldwide scope is huge, and the legends say that she got rejected for publication over and over because it was so realistic the male publishers didn't believe a woman had written it. (Girl power. Boom.)

Political fiction, in this case, is a loose descriptor for my book.  There are a lot of words I'd use to describe it, and of course "political" is one of them.  I don't shy away from my political viewpoint, and many of you will disagree.  But the political fiction element of The Senator's Youngest Daughter is more the setting than the plot itself.  At its heart, this is a story of family more than a story of a revolution.

I am obliged here to bring up science fiction.  Sci-fi and politics usually only align in tabloids, but I think they occasionally get similar bad reps among women. 

I've known those who've made the suggestion that they think it's weird that I like sci-fi.  One went so far as to comment that she thought I was "smarter than that."

Whoa.  So, to clarify, a story can only be good if it's in one of your approved/comfortable settings?  No, no, no.

All genres have good stories and bad stories.  Good fantasy and bad fantasy, good horror and bad horror, good romance and bad romance (gaga ooh la la), good historical fiction and bad historical fiction.

So I'm not going to judge a story as good simply because the protagonists are fighting Nazis just like I won't judge it bad because they're fighting cylons or aliens.  I like stories of family survival, so I love Battlestar Gallactica and I wrote my book on the same topic.  (Family survival, not cylons and resurrection.) 

Brenna Jefferson in The Senator's Youngest Daughter happens to be fighting humans, but I don't really see a difference.  Either the story is good or it's not.  Setting, enemies... make them what you will.  If I love the character I will cheer for her to defeat/eat/cross-over/deactivate the appropriate warlord/prey/ghost/Terminator.

So, political fiction is cool.  And if you're a sci-fi fan, you'll know that bowties are also cool.  (Eleven says so.)

redheads, glasses, and accepting who you are

Mr. Furious & The Shoveler discuss Captain Amazing.

In the final stages of polishing my novel, I had an epiphany.  Many of the pre-readers of The Senator's Youngest Daughter had drawn the conclusion that my protagonist Brenna was me, that her husband Tate was my husband Matt, that her mom Denise was my mom Debbie, that her dad August was my dad Steve, that her sister Esther was my sister Caryn, and so on.  (My other sister Laure will interject her sadness here that she and her husband together are some sort of weird collective amalgamation in Ike and Reese).  

Obviously, they're wrong.  Just because I happened to have written about someone who's similar in personality and looks and home state and family circumstances doesn't mean it's me, right?  Just because there are a hundred other similarities between my family/friends and my book characters doesn't mean they're them, right?  

Back to my epiphany.  I had decided to give Brenna red hair.  Their last name is McFerren, after all.  So why is she blonde?  It's only real relevance in the book is that her dad calls her "Blondie'.  So, BOOM, Brenna's a redhead and then no one will think she's me, right?  August can call her Red.  Problem solved!

Now is the time to watch the Mystery Men clip I've included above.  The relevant part of the script is:

Mr. Furious:  Lance Hunt IS Captain Amazing!

The Shoveller: Oh, here we go...Don't start that AGAIN. Lance Hunt wears glasses, Captain Amazing DOESN'T wear glasses.

Mr. Furious: He takes them off when he transforms.

The Shoveller: That doesn't make any sense, he wouldn't be able to see!

Case in point: Changing the hair color/optical prescription needs doesn't change who you are.  Life lessons from a Ben Stiller movie.

Fortunately, my sister saved me from the redhead idea.  (Not that there's anything wrong with gingers, everybody settle down.)  She pointed out that the similarities between Kelley and Brenna were far deeper than hair color.  And what's wrong with writing a version of myself into my first novel?  And my family?  And settings I know?  

It started out as a way to keep track of the characters. Characters had similar names to people in my family so it was easier to remember the relationship.  But then my characters started to look, act, talk, and think like them, too.  (What can I say, I have a smart family and we spend a lot of time together.  Therefore, so does Brenna.)

I was embarrassed when I began to realize how many correlations I found.  It even made some of the readers who knew me uncomfortable when they were picturing me and my hubby instead of two book characters when their marriage was showing. (wink)  

Nonetheless, The Senator's Youngest Daughter, in all its life-reflecting-life glory is my offering to the world, directly from my brain to my reader's eyes.  They're probably blue, since mine are blue.  And I only write what I know.