A Living Stereotype

Stereotypes are annoying. They are often untrue and offensive.

I think stereotypes are even more annoying when they are accurate.

I've been trying to blog lately and have found it difficult. Perhaps that is because I have a lot going on in my life. My fiance and I are looking to move into a new place closer to his work. We're trying to figure out how to save up for our wedding. I'm critiquing several novels and receiving critiques on one of my own as well.

And most of all, I am living an author stereotype. Pain breeds art and I've been struggling a lot.

I've seen many authors share some of their personal lives. Of course some things are inappropriate to share, like I'm not going to tell you about the last fight I had with someone close to me or rant to you about the time one of my friends annoyed me.

But I do want to be honest because I've seen other authors be honest about their struggles. And I feel closer to those authors than I feel to the authors who don't share anything.

Sometimes, as authors, we are given the advice that it's bad to share because people can be cruel on the internet. You can't erase what you post online, so people censor everything they blog. People can be cruel in all of life and you can't undo what you tell people in real life either. If you hide every time there's a possibility of that, you'll never connect with anyone...

I have struggled my whole life with various types of anxiety and depression. I've had panic attacks and obsessive compulsive disorder. Social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and other problems I'm not comfortable talking about.

And lately, things have been hard. I seem normal to most people, but my fiance has seen me cry and hugged me in the middle of the night.

The more books you write, I think the harder it is to write another book. You don't want to recycle old ideas. You also want to make sure every book you write is an improvement on your last book. You have the thoughts and dislikes of your readers hanging out your head, influencing how you write in the future. You put a lot of pressure on yourself to make this next book bigger and better than the last.

This is definitely not the only anxiety in my life right now. Things, like the fact that my fiance and I have a low income make moving into a new place difficult and scary, for instance. But worry over my writing is a very frustrating anxiety to have. Because it's sometimes how I vent frustrations. To some degree I've been struggling with writers block both on my blog and in my writing.

I'm critiquing right now, sure. But that's partly to try to help me with all the anxious thoughts that prevent me from writing what I want to. The fact is, I want to please my readers. Of course you can't please everyone and I don't expect all my reviews to be stupendous. I think success in writing is more about sales than your reviews. Lots of people hate Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey for instance, but I consider Stephenie Meyer and E.L. James to be much more successful authors than me despite the amount of criticism they receive. Because everyone has read their books. They are a part of pop culture. I don't expect that kind of success, especially in self-publishing, but I do want to sell more books than I sell right now.

Not to mention that I was recently given advice by authors that I look up to that you need to write a certain amount of books per year to get anywhere.

And that puts a lot of stress on me. I want to write for fun and I do still have fun when I write, but the thought "Is this going to sell?" is always on the back of my mind. And I keep saying,"Hurry! Writer faster!" And that causes my brain to shut down completely on occasion.

And I think that's leaked some into this blog. I've tried to write this post at least five times in the past two months and every time, I delete it. It's time to just write my posts, write my stories, and learn a little more each time. They're not perfect. I'm not perfect. I can't always write a blog on time. I can't always give you the story you want to read. But I will try and I have to accept that as good enough.

The SatNav of Doom

I'd like to welcome William Macmillan Jones back to our blog. Last time, he was kind enough to give me an interview. This time, he will be sharing what inspired him to write his newest novel, The SatNav of Doom.

Once again, the Dark Lord has a cunning plan. And once again someone else is going to have to carry it out for him: that's what henchmen are for, isn't it? To hench? Oh, and to be sent on the risky missions…

Not that this one should be risky. What could be easier than secretly inserting computer spyware into a laptop, using a Banned Underground gig as a diversion? The Tax Office probably does it all the time. But the Tax Office is not normally being chased for an unpaid credit card bill for a huge round of drinks. (That's the politicians. And the henchmen, of course.)

And it isn't just any laptop the Dark Lord wants to spy on either. The Government is struggling to find the way out of the Recession without a road map, and what better aid than a SatNav linked to a computer? If the Dark Lord can get inside information on future economic policy, maybe he can clean up and buy a new Mercedes.

Then there is a mystery: where did the time-travelling SatNav come from in the first place? What if the original owner wants it back?

Magic, mayhem and macro-economic policy collide in the latest surreal instalment of the acclaimed comic fantasy series, The Banned Underground.

http://www.amazon.com/The-SatNav-Doom-Banned-Underground-ebook/dp/B00F78VG8U


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Here's what the author has to say about what inspired his novel . . . .
 

It’s such a very simple question isn’t is? ‘What was your inspiration?’ And like all the best questions* it can be asked in a few words, and sometimes needs an enormous essay to answer. Normally at this point I get bored and come up with a trite reply, as I’d rather be writing more bad jokes. So this is it: I’ve got a series contract to fill, and needed a book at this point. So I wrote this one. The thing is, on one level that’s actually true. I do have a series contract to fulfil, and The Satnav of Doom just slotted into, well, the slot.

If I’m going to break the habit of a lifetime and treat a question seriously (sorry, that’s not entirely true. I always treat ‘What do you want to drink?’ seriously.) then of course there’s a bit more to it than that. I’ve got a small confession to make. I do occasionally read the reviews that get written of what I do. After reading The Vampire Mechanic, one reviewer commented that the series was improving and growing, but the jokes remained a little shallow. Now I wasn’t upset by that, because any author who is going to get upset by his/her reviews might as well hang up the keyboard. But it did make me think that perhaps it was time to get a little sharper.

Sadly, by training and the dreadful Karma built up in my last incarnation, I’m an accountant. Hence, large corporations and the Inland Revenue and the economy are never very far from my thoughts. Granted, they are frequently unprintable thoughts, of the sort that would occasion hefty use of the red pen and a rude retort from my editor, but that too is to be expected. So my thoughts turned to the economy. Particularly the heavily over-used phrase ‘The road map for The Recovery’ If the road map is going wrong, then a Satnav is needed…another artifact as self satisfied and useless as the average government. So this book contains – I hope – some jokes that are a little more pointed than previous books. If that goes down well, maybe the trend will continue. Actually I hope so, because I would like to see the series continue. I have the best fun writing the books, and now if they are going to carry on selling I think it’s time that a little more of myself, my ideals and attitudes, can be glimpsed by a discerning reader.

So finally, how about that for an inspiration to write a book? To use fictional characters to finally show a little of who the author is, what makes them tick?

What? It’s been done already? In that case, the idea of doing it again can’t be all that controversial, can it?

*Where are we eating? What are we eating? Where’s the manager, I want to register a complaint? Why does that phone system play such awful music when the caller is on hold? **

**Sorry, I have a habit of putting footnotes everywhere. At least I didn’t go for the title this time.

It’s such a very simple question isn’t is? ‘What was your inspiration?’ And like all the best questions* it can be asked in a few words, and sometimes needs an enormous essay to answer. Normally at this point I get bored and come up with a trite reply, as I’d rather be writing more bad jokes. So this is it: I’ve got a series contract to fill, and needed a book at this point. So I wrote this one. The thing is, on one level that’s actually true. I do have a series contract to fulfil, and The Satnav of Doom just slotted into, well, the slot.

If I’m going to break the habit of a lifetime and treat a question seriously (sorry, that’s not entirely true. I always treat ‘What do you want to drink?’ seriously.) then of course there’s a bit more to it than that. I’ve got a small confession to make. I do occasionally read the reviews that get written of what I do. After reading The Vampire Mechanic, one reviewer commented that the series was improving and growing, but the jokes remained a little shallow. Now I wasn’t upset by that, because any author who is going to get upset by his/her reviews might as well hang up the keyboard. But it did make me think that perhaps it was time to get a little sharper.

Sadly, by training and the dreadful Karma built up in my last incarnation, I’m an accountant. Hence, large corporations and the Inland Revenue and the economy are never very far from my thoughts. Granted, they are frequently unprintable thoughts, of the sort that would occasion hefty use of the red pen and a rude retort from my editor, but that too is to be expected. So my thoughts turned to the economy. Particularly the heavily over-used phrase ‘The road map for The Recovery’ If the road map is going wrong, then a Satnav is needed…another artifact as self satisfied and useless as the average government. So this book contains – I hope – some jokes that are a little more pointed than previous books. If that goes down well, maybe the trend will continue. Actually I hope so, because I would like to see the series continue. I have the best fun writing the books, and now if they are going to carry on selling I think it’s time that a little more of myself, my ideals and attitudes, can be glimpsed by a discerning reader.

So finally, how about that for an inspiration to write a book? To use fictional characters to finally show a little of who the author is, what makes them tick?

What? It’s been done already? In that case, the idea of doing it again can’t be all that controversial, can it?

*Where are we eating? What are we eating? Where’s the manager, I want to register a complaint? Why does that phone system play such awful music when the caller is on hold? **

**Sorry, I have a habit of putting footnotes everywhere. At least I didn’t go for the title this time.

Guilty Pleasures

What are some of your guilty pleasures? There's lots of things that people like, but I'm talking about the embarrassing things that you like.

Mine are . . . .

1. Reality Shows-Although most people mock reality shows, there are some that I'm addicted to. When I had my most recent kidney stone, I watched the entirety of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and all its spin-offs. I annoyed my fiance and family by telling them about how excited I was that Kim was pregnant.

I've also been addicted to shows like the Bachelor and the Bachelorette in the past. I got through one of my big break-ups by watching a season of the Bachelor with my Mom and sighing/crying through the whole thing.

And lately I've been watching shows like the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and New York!

2. Professional Wrestling-I'm a huge fan of professional wrestling. I will admit that I know the outcome of the matches is usually planned ahead of time and that the storylines are sometimes corny or predictable, but after watching it for awhile, I've gotten addicted to it and I even admire a lot of the professional wrestlers.

They work very hard to have the bodies they do and sometimes sustain injuries while performing their stunts. Many of them are excellent actors. I'm a type of entertainer as well and I know how difficult it can be to make a bunch of people care about what you are doing. When you see a large crowd of people cheering for a wrestler or booing them to stop, I have a high appreciation for that. Their goal is to make the crowd react instead of sit around, bored. That can be difficult to do.

3. Romantic Movies-I love romantic movies so much. They're sappy and appeal to the hopeless romantic inside of me. Although a big part of the reason I call them a guilty pleasure is that no one else in my family likes them. I usually have to see them alone because I don't want to hear how much they suck from whoever I saw it with.

4. Mindless Fiction-I love reading deep novels and analyzing them, but to tell you the truth, sometimes I'm too tired to. I read a lot when I get insomnia-for instance, last night I read from 2 am-5 am because I couldn't sleep. I was exhausted and not in the mood for thinking too hard about what I was reading, so I stuck to a feel-good YA novel.

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What are some of your guilty pleasures?

Reading Gems - A Stolen Life By Jaycee Dugard

This is something you probably don't know about me, but I'm a big fan of the news. I read it and watch it all the time. It's one thing that sidetracks me a lot when I'm trying to get some work on my novels done. I read an interesting article online, which makes me click on another one and another until hours of my life are gone forever.

That's why sometimes I love to read stories like this about amazing things that happened on the news. If you don't know about it already, Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped at the age of eleven by Phillip Craig Garrido and his wife, Nancy. He held her hostage for eighteen years and raped her many times. She gave birth to two children by him that she raised in his house. What makes the story especially amazing was that the cops were able to find her after all that time and that she was reunited with her mother.

I was sick when I read this story. I think I had a kidney stone and I couldn't get out of bed, so I needed something to distract me from the pain and discomfort. This book left me at the edge of my seat to the point where I finished it within twenty-four hours. I didn't want to sleep or do anything else, until I found out how the story ended. What she went through was truly horrifying. I cried several times while I was reading it, especially towards the end when she was reunited with her mother and that's why I recommend the book to anyone who enjoys non-fiction. It is one of my favorite books of all time.

Have you read any interesting novels based on something that occurred on the news? Because I'd probably be interested in reading them as well. Let me know in the comments.