Latest Interview

My latest interview is on the blog of a short story writer named Jeff Chapman. As far as short stories go, he and I write on very similar ground. We've been in a few of the same magazines and anthologies. So, he's read quite a bit of my writing.

Which means, when he went into reading Finding Angel, he had some real background. And when he sent me some interview questions to answer, he didn't cop out and ask a bunch of generic stuff. He knew where to dig. (The picture makes sense now, eh?)

So, without further ado, HERE IS MY LATEST INTERVIEW.

And if you have any hypotheses on the "wall and fire" question, feel free to put them in the comments--here or there--because I'm rather curious.

Customer Service is a No Go

My latest blog post at New Authors' Fellowship is a (rantish) piece about the dying art of customer service. You can read it by clicking HERE.

I don't want to pull my fellows into the fray, so on NAF I left out the name of the company that inspired the post. This, however, is MY blog. So take heed people: If you need to register a domain name, steer clear of Yahoo. They are not the only company I've had CS issues with, but they are the latest. And their "you must follow the rules, but we don't have to" attitude has made me decide I will never, ever use their services again.

Mish-Mash, Again

I hate that I'm constantly posting these mish-mash posts. But here I am again.

First, my fellow fantasy/horror writer Jeff Chapman reviewed Finding Angel on his blog today. It's rather detailed, although I wouldn't go as far as calling it spoilerish. If you'd like to delve into his ruminations, click HERE. I love his keen eye for detail and deeper meanings.

Second, there are now TWO contests in which you can vote for Finding Angel:

As I told you in a recent post, the Grace Awards are open for reader nominations. A short--very short!--email is all it takes to cast your vote. Details can be found HERE.

But there's also the Family Fiction Readers Choice Awards. This one is even easier to enter--just a simple form to fill out. You only vote in the categories you want to. Click HERE.

In both instances, remember--Finding Angel is YA and fantasy :). And in the Family Fiction awards I fit "favorite new author" as well (er, I hope!).

And my fellow author Keven Newsome's book Winter is up for several awards, including one for cover art (see it there to the left) and two for his rockin' book trailer. Check out his blog for details and to view the trailer.

Finally, I mentioned last time that I have an upcoming speaking engagement. If you happen to live in my area, or whatever whacked-out reason have chosen to visit here during the first week of February, here are the details. It is open to everyone:

Where: Bloomingdale Library (Valrico, FL)
Date: Saturday, February 4th
Time: 3:30 to 5:30

I'll have books for purchase that I'll be signing afterward.

I suppose that's it for now. And I probably shouldn't say I hate these posts. Lots of good stuff, eh?

Record Your Speech to Erase Your Nerves

One of the best things I ever did for my writing career happened more than fifteen years before I started writing. While attending community college, I was required to take a public speaking class. At first it was THE most terrifying thing I had ever done. I heard somewhere that more people fear public speaking than fear death, and I was one of them.

And when the teacher pulled out the video camera and set it up....

But wait--THAT is actually the very thing I am referring to here. That video camera. IT was the best thing that ever happened to my writing career. Because these days so much of being a writer is getting up in front of people.

Here's what happened: the teacher taped us during our presentations. But *she* did not ever lay eyes on the videos, nor did the other students. We each had our own tape (yes, VHS tape...) and she sent each tape home with its respective owner. We had to watch ourselves and only turn in our notes about what we saw--the good, the bad, and the ugly--and how we intended to improve.

Let me tell you, the first time I sat down to watch I knew I'd see a stuttering, paaauuuusing, fidgeting fool. But I was wrong. Sure, I about wore out the word "um", but I didn't look nearly as awkward as I'd felt up there.

I realized several things:

You don't look as nervous as you feel. That heat you feel in your face and neck? Invisible. The trembling in your hands? Too subtle to see from waaaaay out in the audience, even if they are only ten feet away. If you still worry about it, make your notes on index cards which don't rattle and sway in your hands the way loose-leaf paper does.

The biggest giveaway to nervousness is lack of eye contact. LOOK at people. It will give the illusion that you are confident even when you are not. Don't write your speech out word for word, but use key words and phrases so your eyes are not glued to your notes. And hey--the notes are only for YOU to see, so if you need to, write in reminders like, "look at the audience" and "don't say 'um' too much."

The pause that to you feels like seventeen minutes is probably less than one second. You know the saying "time is relative"? It really is. It will run differently for you than for your audience. If you pause, they experience real-time, while you feel some sort of warped time flow that makes a single, half-second pause stretch into an unnatural length. Remind yourself of that over and over--I promise it helps. And if you don't believe me, record yourself just like I did and see for yourself.

With the exception of the world's most extroverted extroverts, everyone is nervous about public speaking. The fact that you even got up there is going to impress them to a certain degree. And most people will be rooting for you, not hoping for you to blunder. They sympathize, and are merely glad it is you up there and not them, so they want you to succeed.

I never thought that video camera would have such an effect later in my life, but without it I would never have gotten through the speeches I've done already. Knowing what was on that tape completely changed my view on public speaking.

And it's a darn good thing, because I've got some speaking engagements coming up, and boy, am I nervous.

My Blues Boy

Funny--I said in a recent post that I pretty well never post videos on here. Guess what? Today I'm posting a video. But it's not just a fluff for fun thing.

Almost two years ago I posted here about an up-and-coming musician named Logan Lind. As you would see by following that link, his music is described as "folk/blues with a Scandinavian flair." Oh, yeah.

He's still around, folks, and going stronger than ever. Wanna know why?

Because. He. ROCKS.

Link Collection

A few things have collected this week, so today is a post of links. But they are good links. Really, really good.

First, Kersten Hamilton joins us today on New Authors' Fellowship to share her journey to publication. She's the one who wrote Tyger, Tyger and In the Forests of the Night, which I have been raving about lately. Her post is truly worth a read. Very encouraging. Very entertaining. Please, please go by and check it out and leave a comment!

Second, another blog to check out today is Magical Ink. Heather Titus has announced the book she has chosen as "Book of the Year." She gives hints in her post as to--ahem--which book it is, with a link to her Bookshelf that reveals the--ahem--title.  So seriously, go find out which book --AHEM--she has chosen...and enter there to win a copy!!!

And last...but definitely not least in importance...the Grace Awards have opened for voting. This is a reader driven contest, which means readers get to send in votes for their favorite books of 2011. I would love...really, really love...to see Finding Angel win the Young Adult category. So if you are so inclined (please, please be so inclined), head over to the Grace Awards site and check out how to vote. It is a short 25-word email telling what you loved about Finding Angel. The only prerequisite is some sort of social media account as "proof" you are voting only as yourself.

See, told you they were good links! Now get scootin'.

What I Don't Do Here

I am not one of those people who generally writes blogs relating to a certain holiday. No posts about Christmas or wishing anyone a merry one last week. And no, I'm not here today to post about my New Year's resolution(s) or anything. I mentioned mine on Facebook the other day. You wanna see it, go friend me :P.

This blog is also "not" for a lot of other things:

I don't post about politics. I do have opinions, but I tend to keep them to myself. My general take on politics is that there is NO such thing as a perfect candidate for ANYTHING because we're are all people and we all make mistakes and we all tend to be stupid and greedy when it comes to SOMETHING. And I've found that sitting around debating politics with people in person, much less online, doesn't generally get either of us anywhere. Maybe you find that to be different in your life, and that's great. Me, I'm just staying out of it. I keep my ears open and vote on voting day. Period.

I don't post "how to write" articles, with the exception of a rant now and then about how the word "was" is not the devil, or stuff like my recent post about making sure a book has an end "hook." If you want to learn mechanics of writing there are gobs and gobs of great books out there, like Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. And awesome websites like K.M. Weiland's "Wordplay." Writing posts like that is a LOT of work--why do so when they already exist and are just a click away?

I don't have a defined purpose for this blog, so I don't plan out my posts way ahead of time, strategically searching for hot topics or whatever in order to drive readers here. I tend to think of this as an online journal of sorts, a place to dump my thoughts on things mostly related to books and writing (but also including the occasional post about family vacations and whatnot). Again, there are other writers out there with a penchant for hitting on controversy, and I don't want to rehash. On the rare occasion I do find myself needing to tackle a controversial writing issue, you'll likely find me posting about it on New Authors' Fellowship.

I don't preach here. I am a Christian, yes, and I don't keep that out of my blog, but I don't push it. If I post about something "religious" it's going to be personal. I actually have a rather hefty background in Creation science, but I don't post about all that here. I did waaaaaaaay back in the beginning of this blog just a bit, and quickly realized this is not the place. And again, there are gobs of awesome books and websites on the subject--where I got my info on the topic, and therefore where you can do the same. (Answers in Genesis is a good place to start if it's something you're interested in.)

I don't often post videos or have trivia contests or other fun little bits like that. Honestly, the music I like it likely not what you like. (How many times can you use "like" in a sentence, without, like, you know, sounding like a Valley girl?) And I suck at trivia except in certain areas, such as Harry Potter and Disney stuff.

Other things I suck at, and therefore would never post about, are sports (yes, all of them), video games (yes, all of them), history, keeping plants alive, working the TV remote, gift-wrapping, and folding fitted sheets.

Things I *don't* suck at include healthy eating and natural healing, organization of physical space (still working  on organizing my time, though :P), homeschooling, math, jigsaw puzzles, photography (while I am totally amateur, I've taken some pretty righteous shots), and pretty much anything involving the combined components of fabric, wood, and a staple gun. But does anyone want to actually read posts about that stuff??

So there you have it. Everything this blog is not. If you want to find out all the stuff that is here, though, stick around.