The Cheesecake bids you farewell…

The six of us here have decided that this joint blog experiment is not fulfilling the needs we each have for doing such a thing. The ends have not justified the means. And so we’ve made the decision to move ourselves back to The New Authors’ Fellowship.

If you happen to be one of the very few people who follow this blog that are not already aware of NAF or did not follow us directly from NAF to begin with, go visit this site and subscribe.

newauthors.wordpress.com

This blog experiment was made to serve the Alumni of NAF. And now us Alumni are going back. Thanks for hanging out with us!

-k

What My Book Says About You

Most readers are familiar with the idea that a book says a lot about the author. Unless you’re a reading machine who devours books the way some devour gummi bears and never bother to think about them as you go, I suspect at some point you’ve read a passage and wondered what the author had to go through to come up with that idea. At least, I hope you have. It’s OK to think about a book as more than a story.

I maintain the first book an author writes is a therapy book: meaning, intentionally or unintentionally, we write it as part of our own therapy. I may think this because I trained as a marriage and family therapist and tend to view the world through that lens (relax. It’s a strengths-based lens and I’m looking for what’s right with you, not what’s wrong).  I will concede – grudgingly – that the first book written may not be the first book published, but I suspect it is more often than not.

I’ve Got My Towel, Not That It Will Help

It is officially July. That means in a very short time I will be having a birthday. No, I’m not telling you the exact day. (And Diane, if you blab, I will hurt you.) I dread that day. It has nothing to do with me getting older, though. Truly. I’ll tell you right now I’m turning 42. See, not painful at all–and actually kinda cool that my age will be the answer to life, the universe, and everything .

So why do I dread my birthday?

Remember Arthur Dent’s stroke of bad luck in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?  Yeah, my birthdays pretty much go like that.

Star of Justice Pronunciation Guide

I had one. Created it years ago. I left it out of the book because…well, because I had enough of the “high fantasy” genre flags with a map, a quest, a story that took days instead of hours and a world different from Earth. I just didn’t want that last nail in the coffin of sub-genre labeling.

TT: Not sure why I object to the label “high fantasy.” It should appeal to the elitist in me. Maybe it does and that annoys me.

I also had a high enough page count I couldn’t justify adding another two just so people could pronounce made-up words. I made a mistake. Not my first.

Short Story: The Artist

Yes, I admit it. I’m completely copping out and posting a short story instead of a blog. A short story that has already been published thrice. (Ooh, I’ve never officially used that word!) First, in the online magazine Mindflights. (You can click here to see it, but of course it will be exactly what you’ll find below). And then in a print magazine called Beyond Centauri. (Still available for purchase here, scroll down to Issue 29.) Finally, “The Artist” can be found in an anthology called Aquasynthesis, along with two other of my stories and a bunch of stories by the other authors at Splashdown Books.

But I wanted to share it here. It is very special to me. It hit me out of the blue, fully formed. And it is a companion story to my novel Finding Angel. Actually, it’s even more related to the sequel, Seeking Unseen, which I’m in the process of editing. Maybe that’s the reason I feel compelled to share…

Well, whatever. Either way, here it is:

Grown-ups who refuse to be grown-ups.

Yeah. You know what I’m talking about. I see you nodding your head already. How many adults do you know that have never become adults? These are the people who still don’t know high school is over. They revel in teenage drama, expecting everything to be about “me me me.” They blame others for their problems, instead of taking responsibility. They look for the easy way out, instead of doing something right. They want others to do things for them, instead of learning how to do it for themselves.

Roots

My writerly roots are in romance. I started with Barbara Cartland novels. Anything with 18^th century fashion on the cover. Cookie-cutter, yes, but my favorite parts were the clothes. Odd, since I hate dressing up.

TT: Yes, Kat, this is why the scene with the clothesman in Elementals is so long.

I read Louis L’Amour, who also manages a fair bit of romance in his westerns. I learned to admire manly, independent men with grit under their fingernails and dirt on their pants. Helps to know how to ride a horse and wrestle a bull, too.

Anne McCaffrey came next, a fantasy/sci-fi writer who always managed to sneak a little boy-meets-girl into her stories about fighting dragons and artificial intelligence. Danger might fall from the sky, but men and women will always find time to woo and marry.

Through it all, George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis’s “master,” instilled a love of fairy and natural wisdom that masquerades as magic in a cold, unfeeling world.

I like a little romance in my action/adventure/mystery novels. I like the energy a feisty exchange between genders can bring to a story. I especially like showing that love is more than chemistry, more than circumstances, and more than fate. Love is a choice, and, more often than not, love is a hard choice.

I hope you’ll forgive me if you find a little romance in my books. I try to keep it on the side.

Oh, Jealousy

In my last post, I got pretty real about dealing with edits for my second book, Seeking Unseen. This time, I’m gonna get real again–about jealousy.

This past Saturday I spoke about short story writing at a local writers group. It went well. REALLY well. The writers who attended were attentive and asked great questions, and all of them came up and told me how impressed they were with my talk. At the risk of sounding conceited, I have to say, I thought I did a dang good job myself. I knew my material, I was calm and relaxed (the nervousness melted away almost the moment I started talking), I spoke smoothly, had answers for everyone’s questions, and everyone got my jokes . Oh, and the group asked me to come back and speak again, as well as recommending I give the same speech at another group’s meeting.

The meeting ended with me feeling like I was doing exactly what I was meant to be doing. Writing, and helping other people with writing. I only sold three books, but that wasn’t the point of the meeting. I knew it was unlikely that many in the group would be into my genre, so three sales was pretty good as far as I’m concerned!

We went to lunch following the meeting and had a great time as well. While at the restaurant, one of the group members told me she was going back to Barnes & Noble (where the meeting had been) to say hi to an author doing a signing that afternoon–an author she had interviewed on her blog, who is now a NYT bestseller in YA fantasy/paranormal. She asked if I’d like to go with her and meet the author.

Duh. Yes! I’m always interested in seeing what other authors do at gatherings and signings. Unfortunately we missed her speaking part, and got there while she was signing books.

Hm….

A room full of teenagers, all staring at the author like deer caught in headlights. Star-struck.

My gut twisted. Part of it was kind of feeling sick at the idea of this person being nearly worshiped. She’s human after all! The fans present were all-out gushing. I thought how weird it must feel to have people act like that over you. The group members who had commended me on my speech were professional and enthusiastic, but not swoony. I felt supported and appreciated, but not fawned over.

On the other hand, my gut also twisted from what I can only name as jealousy. This room full of teens had never heard of Finding Angel, and with me being with a small press it’s unlikely that any of them will any time soon. I certainly won’t be invited to B&N for a signing for a long, long time. Watching this author sign three books per person, to my three books total suddenly made my successful talk feel far less so.

I know this author didn’t start off at that level. She wasn’t selling books hand-over fist from day one. And not everyone loves her, as evidenced by the negative reviews she’s gotten. (Yep, I read them, and only them–no positive ones….I am so bad.) I also read the first pages on Amazon and found issues that I was in the midst of trying to rid my manuscript of. Ya’ll all know how frustrating that is, don’t you? Being slammed on something in your writing, only to find the very same no-no in a NYT bestseller. Sigh.

In the end, I just decided I have to let it go. Someday, I WILL be doing signings at B&N. Someday, I WILL have fans coming through my line to buy my whole trilogy at once, maybe two or three sets because they plan to give them as gifts. I’m not sure why this author gets to experience that so much sooner than I will, but feeling jealous was doing me no good. I quit reading her bad reviews, quit looking for things to dig on, and reminded myself that God has a plan for my writing. I know that in the end I’ll be able to see how that plan was perfect for me. In the mean time, I’m ignoring the jealousy and focusing on making Seeking Unseen the best book it can be.

(But you still won’t catch me reading that author’s good reviews .)

The Turtle

Howdy. I’m the Turtle. Ranunculus Turtle, to be exact, but no one knows how to spell that, let alone say that, so they just call me “Turtle.” On occasion, they call me “Snapping Turtle,” but I’m fairly calm today.

Although capable of surprising speed when food is involved, I took a while to climb the stairs to the Granny Flat here at The Cheesecake Thickens. Yes, the food is good, but the view hasn’t turned out to be quite what anyone expected. The adoring crowds chanting our names and throwing little pickles are noticeably absent. Taller buildings with penthouse apartments block good chunks of sky and excite a certain sense of restlessness. We may sip tea and nibble cheesecake, but it’s in between marketing pushes and all-night writing sessions and wrestling with bloated expectations.

My decision to climb these stairs was a long, hard process. It’s far easier to graze for fallen strawberries and chocolate on the ground than go hunting out the table top, but – as much as I might wish otherwise – I don’t think life is meant to be easy. I think we’re supposed to struggle.

I will rest here in the flat for a little while, but not forever, I hope. I suspect if I move enough furniture or wall coverings or bookcases, I’ll find a door hiding a set of stairs leading inward and upward. Naturally, I’ll be forced to climb them in search of bigger strawberries and better-quality chocolate.

Until then, have a seat, have a cup of tea and keep your hands off my plate or you’ll find out just how hard I can snap. Turtles don’t share food.

Except for tomatoes. Take as many of those as you like.

Own It Or Shut It

The last few weeks have had me chewing on a lot of controversy in the Christian writing community. A heated debate erupted that pitted one side against another. The topic at hand? Many actually, but the gist of it was the insinuation that Christian writers were sub-par and they needed to up their game, allow for a different model in their predetermined publication rules and that those writing on the fringe should abandon the CBA altogether and move to the ABA. As you may guess, this angered a lot of people in the Christian writing industry and the blow-back fueled many ranty blogs from both sides.  It got brutal with full snark and hackles in many cases.

Let me state this now before I go forward, I did not get involved directly in this dispute. I watched, helpless from the sidelines.