Monthly Archives: December 2014

December 31, 2014 · 11:56 pm

Happy New Year!

The picture is actually from the NASA website, and was used for New Years in 2010, but I thought it was perfect, since it looks a lot like the cover of my novella Saturn in Retrograde.

2014 hasn’t been a bad year for me. It was my first year writing full-time, and I saw two new novels published, along with two stories in the Gothika #1 and #2 series, as well as a story published for Brent Hartinger’s The Real Story Safe Sex Project, and a free story for the Love’s Landscapes event on Goodreads. I’m also finishing the first draft of a new novel, and I’m about 2/3rds through another YA novel.

Not bad.

I don’t really know what to do for a New Year’s resolution. Not that I really have to have one, but, you know… it’s traditional. I’d love to lose some weight, but we all know how those resolutions tend to go. I suppose a more practical resolution would be to increase my writing output. I didn’t do too badly, but I tend to waste a lot of time on the Internet when I should be writing. I often don’t get anything accomplished until the last couple hours of the day—then I crank. That could definitely be improved.

I know a lot of people will say, “You shouldn’t worry about putting more out. You need to worry about producing good stories first.” Well, I do worry about producing good stories. But the simple fact of the matter is, in order to make any money at this craft, you have to produce. We don’t live in a society that favors artists of any kind. A few make it to the top and bring in a lot of money, but most have to survive by having a large output, so for this we need to learn to take care of our money doing the right investments, that we can do using the tools from the The Ascent site online. The trick is to produce more and still have it be good.

So that’s my New Years Resolution: to write more without the quality of my writing suffering.

What’s yours?

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Filed under Life, Writing

Tagged as New Years, resolution, writing

December 28, 2014 · 2:08 pm

When nobody reads your writing

Whenever an article or blog comes out in which an author grumbles about lack of sales, as author Michael Henderson did in this recent article about Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, it’s common for people to slam them as whiners who don’t respect reader’s choices to buy other authors’ works, or worse, to claim it’s because their work is obviously inferior.

I don’t like this.

Michael Henderson will probably do just fine thanks to the boost his sales received from the article thanks to wordtree—he’s at least picked up one good review from it—but I’d like to address a few points:

Amazon has over 3 million eBooks available. It’s illogical to assume that any reader is able to go through that morass of brilliant and god-awful novels and decide which are good and which are not, in his or her opinion. Readers — and that includes every author I’ve ever known — gather data from other readers they know, advertisements, which ones use companies and which ones don’t, reviews, and what-have-you to select books. They also browse categories and look at blurbs and covers, but none of these techniques will ever give a reader more than the tip of the iceburg to choose from. That’s just a statistical fact.
Given what I said above, there is no way to correllate the quality of an author’s writing with how many books they sell, especially if we’re talking about the low end of the spectrum. Nobody even knows what that means, frankly. I often think a book is brilliantly written when nobody else seems to like it, and vice versa. And it’s impossible for any reader to decide a novel is bad if he or she hasn’t read it. Period. So if an author’s book has only sold ten copies, it could mean the author can’t string two sentences together (as one reader claimed of Murder on the Mountain), but it could just as easily mean only ten people have read it and they don’t have a large enough influence over other readers to make the book take off. Assuming a book is bad because it didn’t sell is just another form of blaming the victim: “It happened to him because he did something wrong. Therefore, it won’t happen to me, because I know what I’m doing.”
Not all authors are good at selling themselves or their books. The nature of the profession tends to attract introverts who prefer to be by themselves, writing or reading—not running around to cons and bookfairs chatting readers up, or even getting too social on social media. Most new authors have no idea this is even part of the deal. It’s like getting on a flight around the world, being yanked out of your seat, and shoved into the cockpit. “Didn’t anyone tell you you’re the pilot? Good luck!”

Having said all that, my advice to authors who aren’t selling well is this: Don’t bitch about it. Okay, you can grumble a little, but whatever you do, don’t attack popular authors and complain that their books are crap. Don’t insist your own books are brilliant—that’s not for you to decide. And don’t insult readers by claiming they have no taste. Just realize they need to see you and your work before they can read anything you’ve put out, and the competition for reader attention is insane.

So get out there and be friendly!

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Tagged as Amazon, competition, Kindle Unlimited, writing

December 18, 2014 · 11:57 pm

Mrs. Sutherland’s Eggnog Recipe – Redux

I posted this last Christmas, but I love the recipe, so I figured I’d post it again this year.

My story The Healing Power of Eggnog deals with a family torn apart by the mishandling of their son Will’s coming out, and their attempts to patch things up years later. Will’s mother, Mrs. Sutherland, always does Christmas up big, with homemade cookies, cakes, pies, and everything else imaginable. And of course, she always makes up a batch of quite potent eggnog.

As much as she loves eggnog made with raw eggs, she really prefers it to be cooked. We tend to associate cooked eggnog with the thick, syrupy eggnog bought in stores, but homemade eggnog isn’t nearly as heavy, and its sweetness can be controlled by the chef. At it’s heart, it’s a custard, made from egg yolks, milk, and sugar—but drinkable!

You can cook this in a heavy saucepan directly on the burner, but I prefer a double boiler, or placing the saucepan in a slightly larger pan with inch or so of water in it. This distributes the heat of the burner better, so you don’t have a hot spot where the nog starts to burn before it’s cooked.

Ingredients:

12 egg yolks
1 quart (4 cups) milk or 2 cups milk and 2 cups whipping cream
1 to 1 and 1/2 cups sugar , depending on your sweet tooth
1 or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (2, as might be expected, gives it a strong vanilla flavor)
nutmeg.

Alcohol:

1/2 cup golden rum
1/2 cup bourbon (Southern Comfort)

Prepare a large pan or bowl of cold water you can set the pan you’re cooking into, when the eggnog is done on the stove.

Separate the egg yolks and place them in the double boiler, along with the sugar. Whisk this together. Then add 2 cups of the milk. The tricky part about cooked eggnog is that it has to be stirred or whisked constantly while you bring the temperature up to the point where the hot custard coats the spoon, but not beyond. This takes fifteen or twenty minutes, but you really just have to keep a close eye on it. If you cook it too long, the egg starts to separate out of the liquid and this gives it a grainy feel. It also works to use a cooking thermometer. In that case, cook until the temperature reaches 160 degrees. If necessary, you can strain it to remove any large bits of cooked egg.

Immediately mix in the remaining milk or whipping cream, and then set the pan into the bowl of cold water. Continue stirring until the eggnog is cool. Add the vanilla extract and sprinkle in nutmeg to taste.

Alcohol: The alcohol mix is an art form. A good basic mix is half rum and half bourbon (Southern Comfort), which produces a mellower mix than just plain rum. Using Irish whiskey in place of the Southern Comfort is a little more harsh, and of course a good scotch adds a distinctive—and strong—flavor. Mrs. Sutherland also likes to add a splash of cognac, but not a lot. Overall, a cup of alcohol mixed into four cups of eggnog produces a mix with a bit of a bite, but not so much alcohol that the eggnog is overwhelmed by it. But of course that’s a matter of taste.

The Healing Power of Eggnog

Will Sutherland hasn’t been home to see his parents in four years—not since they reacted badly when he came out. This Christmas, he’s finally worked up the courage to go home, where he’s surprised to find they’ve taken in a boarder. Ryan Bennett is just a couple years younger than Will, cute, sweet… and openly gay.

As Will deals with his jealousy of the man who’s been receiving the love and acceptance he was denied, Ryan finds himself falling for Will’s brooding good looks. But Ryan also suspects the Sutherlands may be using him as a pawn in their long-standing conflict with their son. Will this Christmas finally tear the family apart, or is there a chance they can put their hurt and anger behind them?

A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2013 Advent Calendar package “Heartwarming”.