Oh, boy, does it feel strange to be a newbie all over again! After fourteen years of writing with friend and co-writer, Linda Campbell, I have set sail on a new solo voyage under the name Daryn Cross. Although I still have my rights to be called a member of the RWA Published Authors' Network and being on a first-named and friendship basis with some of the mega-stars of romance writing, I am, by virtue of no track record, considered to be "just another" beginning writer. On sites where I don't disclose all my writing history, many who have recently signed a contract, their first, with a small press or even medium press, or someone who is now agented and not yet contracted,will point out I seem to have the basics of writing down pretty well. :-) If not, maybe I ought to consider a career in car mechanics.
But, I will try extremely hard to remain humble, for "humility goeth before the fall." And I remember well the words one published writer told me when I was truly a beginner. "You never know who you're talking to, and you never burn bridges you may have to cross later on down the road."
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Moonshine and Astrological Movements
Today I've been reading numerous articles about moonshine and Virginia and I'm feeling absolutely loopy. I feel like I got into some of that "shine, white lightning,moonshizzle, mountain dew, creek water, hooch, squeezings, rot gut, corn liquor." Thankfully,despite the influence,I wrote seven pages on my novel.
Then again, maybe my success at writing may be coming from the imminent conjunction of the annualar solar eclipse and the New Moon. According to a report I get, that has the same potecy as a total solar eclipse. Considering I have three sun signs in my birth chart, it has to give me a boost, right?
Well, think whatever you want. All of us who are writers are simply glad Mercury's coming out of retrograde. No more lost manuscripts, miscommunications and messed up contracts.
Full speed ahead!
Then again, maybe my success at writing may be coming from the imminent conjunction of the annualar solar eclipse and the New Moon. According to a report I get, that has the same potecy as a total solar eclipse. Considering I have three sun signs in my birth chart, it has to give me a boost, right?
Well, think whatever you want. All of us who are writers are simply glad Mercury's coming out of retrograde. No more lost manuscripts, miscommunications and messed up contracts.
Full speed ahead!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Difference between Fantasy and Insanity
Fantasy: imaginary, make-believe, made-up, unreal, invented, pretend, imagined, fictional, illusory
Insanity: foolishness, irrationality, senselessness, absurdity, folly, recklessness, stupidity, craziness
I have worked in health care my whole career and started my career path by working in a state psychiatric hospital with geriatric patients. Recently I have been reminded of my beginnings when dealing with a family member who lapsed into an alternate reality due to the death of a spouse. This experience has made me re-examine the question, what is the difference between fantasy and insanity?
I have a very vivid imagination, and have had some acquaintances and friends tell me it’s a little “out there.” As a result, writing fantasy suited me. It allowed me free reign on creating a make-believe world. But, what makes my work believable and acceptable versus being considered irrational and absurd?
Ah, the crux of what will sell as opposed to what will sit in a drawer never to see the light of day again! Could it be that the only real difference between the two is perception? If you can get enough people to believe the world you’ve created, then it becomes real and not imaginary?
As one person put it on a forum board, “The real is only as real as you believe it is. What's imaginary is as imaginary as you believe it is. If you want, the real becomes imaginary, and what's imaginary becomes real.”
I pray my characters will be imaginary, not folly~that they’ll be illusory, not foolish~and finally, that they’ll be embraced not abhorred.
Insanity: foolishness, irrationality, senselessness, absurdity, folly, recklessness, stupidity, craziness
I have worked in health care my whole career and started my career path by working in a state psychiatric hospital with geriatric patients. Recently I have been reminded of my beginnings when dealing with a family member who lapsed into an alternate reality due to the death of a spouse. This experience has made me re-examine the question, what is the difference between fantasy and insanity?
I have a very vivid imagination, and have had some acquaintances and friends tell me it’s a little “out there.” As a result, writing fantasy suited me. It allowed me free reign on creating a make-believe world. But, what makes my work believable and acceptable versus being considered irrational and absurd?
Ah, the crux of what will sell as opposed to what will sit in a drawer never to see the light of day again! Could it be that the only real difference between the two is perception? If you can get enough people to believe the world you’ve created, then it becomes real and not imaginary?
As one person put it on a forum board, “The real is only as real as you believe it is. What's imaginary is as imaginary as you believe it is. If you want, the real becomes imaginary, and what's imaginary becomes real.”
I pray my characters will be imaginary, not folly~that they’ll be illusory, not foolish~and finally, that they’ll be embraced not abhorred.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Writing is a Business
I spent this afternoon reading up on medical practice management (don’t ask—I know it sound odd, but there was a reason). As I read those areas practice managers must master, I realized the processes weren’t that different from what a professional writer must use to master the business of writing. Here’s the list and how the two professions compare:
1. Running a Practice with Maximum Efficiency, Quality Patient Care and To Increase the Bottom Line
Writers have a “practice” in the sense that they have a business producing a commodity that can be sold to the end-user, the reader. The better the quality controls on the writing, such as critiquing, editing, and testing the market before submission, the better it is likely to sell and produce a profit.
2. Handling the Multiple Management Tasks of Financial, Operational, Managed Care and Personnel
A writer’s multiple management tasks consist of: the financial, which encompass most of a writer’s end-put activities; operational, what needs to be done to submit, close the deal track sales, and how to turn a profit after advertising, home office and public appearance expenses; managed care in writing would be publishing discounting; personnel would include any individuals hired by you to edit, advertise, provide administrative support, etc.
3. Measuring How Well the Practice is Doing. Reporting Meaningful and Practical Financial Data to Senior Management and/or Physicians
Now we’re back to tracking sales, then submitting ARCs for reviews, checking fan reaction via author pages, blogs, Facebook and other networking sites. Make sure to let the editor know what input you’re receiving.
4. Pre-collections and Post-Collections
Always make sure you keep the publisher honest about sales. This is where an agent really helps.
Okay, I admit there are some dissimilarities between medical practice management and the business of writing, but I think I have proven one thing. Writing is a business.
1. Running a Practice with Maximum Efficiency, Quality Patient Care and To Increase the Bottom Line
Writers have a “practice” in the sense that they have a business producing a commodity that can be sold to the end-user, the reader. The better the quality controls on the writing, such as critiquing, editing, and testing the market before submission, the better it is likely to sell and produce a profit.
2. Handling the Multiple Management Tasks of Financial, Operational, Managed Care and Personnel
A writer’s multiple management tasks consist of: the financial, which encompass most of a writer’s end-put activities; operational, what needs to be done to submit, close the deal track sales, and how to turn a profit after advertising, home office and public appearance expenses; managed care in writing would be publishing discounting; personnel would include any individuals hired by you to edit, advertise, provide administrative support, etc.
3. Measuring How Well the Practice is Doing. Reporting Meaningful and Practical Financial Data to Senior Management and/or Physicians
Now we’re back to tracking sales, then submitting ARCs for reviews, checking fan reaction via author pages, blogs, Facebook and other networking sites. Make sure to let the editor know what input you’re receiving.
4. Pre-collections and Post-Collections
Always make sure you keep the publisher honest about sales. This is where an agent really helps.
Okay, I admit there are some dissimilarities between medical practice management and the business of writing, but I think I have proven one thing. Writing is a business.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
My Third Eye is in a Coma
No matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t seem to open my third eye. It seems determined to stay closed. I sought help from the Great Swami of present day, the Internet, to find a remedy for my sick eye.
First, I consulted a great font of knowledge, the source of all input and information, Mr. Wikki Pedia. After reading what he had to say, I determined that I was not Shiva, the Buddha, so opening my third eye would not cause the destruction of the physical universe.
Then, I read that the third eye was connected to the pituitary and pineal glands and is there, dormant, as an organ that will be needed in the future. Okay, I reasoned, the future is now! Why won’t the darned thing pop open?
I decided to go into “third eye training,” like Taoism dictates, “focusing attention on the point between the eyebrows with the eyes closed in various qigong postures.” It seems the goal of the training is to “allow students to have the ability to tune into the right vibration of the universe and gain solid foundation into more advanced meditation levels.”
I guess I Qied when I should have gonged or didn’t tune the channel to the right number, because I flunked third eye training.
Then, in one last desperate search for information that would save my third eye from eternal vegetative status—who wants a third eye on life support?—I discovered an answer in a book by the Queen of Metaphysics, Doreen Virtue. She had the answer.
My third eye doesn’t open outward. It opens inward. It’s could be open already, and I didn’t even know it. She says the third eye sees my true higher self, not this body out here that is slowly going south and wrinkling up like a week-old tomato. But,to my chagrin, I discovered that my third eye is closed.
It seems that first I have to get rid of one thing that happened in my past life, that little thing about being burned as a witch. The third eye’s afraid to look inward until I get rid of my fear of burning at the stake.
Time to consult Dr. Brian Weiss (www.brianweiss.com). . .
First, I consulted a great font of knowledge, the source of all input and information, Mr. Wikki Pedia. After reading what he had to say, I determined that I was not Shiva, the Buddha, so opening my third eye would not cause the destruction of the physical universe.
Then, I read that the third eye was connected to the pituitary and pineal glands and is there, dormant, as an organ that will be needed in the future. Okay, I reasoned, the future is now! Why won’t the darned thing pop open?
I decided to go into “third eye training,” like Taoism dictates, “focusing attention on the point between the eyebrows with the eyes closed in various qigong postures.” It seems the goal of the training is to “allow students to have the ability to tune into the right vibration of the universe and gain solid foundation into more advanced meditation levels.”
I guess I Qied when I should have gonged or didn’t tune the channel to the right number, because I flunked third eye training.
Then, in one last desperate search for information that would save my third eye from eternal vegetative status—who wants a third eye on life support?—I discovered an answer in a book by the Queen of Metaphysics, Doreen Virtue. She had the answer.
My third eye doesn’t open outward. It opens inward. It’s could be open already, and I didn’t even know it. She says the third eye sees my true higher self, not this body out here that is slowly going south and wrinkling up like a week-old tomato. But,to my chagrin, I discovered that my third eye is closed.
It seems that first I have to get rid of one thing that happened in my past life, that little thing about being burned as a witch. The third eye’s afraid to look inward until I get rid of my fear of burning at the stake.
Time to consult Dr. Brian Weiss (www.brianweiss.com). . .
Friday, January 8, 2010
Weird Things on the Internet
There are some pretty strange things on the Internet. Yesterday, I decided to surf awhile and see what strange sites I could come across, and here are some of the things I found.
How about the MSNBC Weird Science Awards 2009-2010:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34712701?pg=1>1=43001#Science_weird_2010
Top vote winner was:
Rabbit penises restored
They claimed: “That's one small step for rabbit penises, and potentially one giant hop for restorative surgery.” The experiment that gave rabbits lab-grown penises capable of fathering offspring.
Weird enough for you?
I’ve only just begun. I heard about the next on The Rosie O’Donnell Radio Show on Sirius/XM. It’s a website devoted to popping zits! www.popthatzit.com The site description says, “Welcome to a zit poppers dream! Popthatzit.com has tons of zit popping videos and pictures all for your pleasure. Stop by today!!”
There’s more. Let me introduce:
www.PlaidStallions.com, “Mocking the seventies a catalogue page at a time.”
Want to know how much you’re worth?
Find out at HumanForSale.com
I’m worth $2,660,716. There is also a cadaverforsale.com website.
If you want to find some more weird sites, visit this one to locate some: http://www.weirdwebbed.com/
Happy Surfing!
How about the MSNBC Weird Science Awards 2009-2010:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34712701?pg=1>1=43001#Science_weird_2010
Top vote winner was:
Rabbit penises restored
They claimed: “That's one small step for rabbit penises, and potentially one giant hop for restorative surgery.” The experiment that gave rabbits lab-grown penises capable of fathering offspring.
Weird enough for you?
I’ve only just begun. I heard about the next on The Rosie O’Donnell Radio Show on Sirius/XM. It’s a website devoted to popping zits! www.popthatzit.com The site description says, “Welcome to a zit poppers dream! Popthatzit.com has tons of zit popping videos and pictures all for your pleasure. Stop by today!!”
There’s more. Let me introduce:
www.PlaidStallions.com, “Mocking the seventies a catalogue page at a time.”
Want to know how much you’re worth?
Find out at HumanForSale.com
I’m worth $2,660,716. There is also a cadaverforsale.com website.
If you want to find some more weird sites, visit this one to locate some: http://www.weirdwebbed.com/
Happy Surfing!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Writing Tip: So You Want a Book Trailer?
Book trailers are becoming more popular, and many writers from New York Bestselling authors to newly pubbed authors in small press are getting on the bandwagon. So, when should you produce or get someone to produce a book trailer for you? Here are my thoughts:
1.If you’re a newly pubbed author in small press, don’t do it. The chances of the video plummeting your book to the stellar heights of Number One bestseller are few and far between. They’re also very expensive. I had one published once, foolishly, for a book my co-writer believed in and couldn’t sell. We self-published it and put the trailer on our website. The company we used was great, and they gave us a deal. But the deal was $1000 for a thirty second spot (I think. Sometimes I can’t remember if that was my half of the payment or that was ours together). Due to the nature of all the details, it didn’t help.
2.It depends on the type of book you have and what you’re trying to convey. My own belief is that suspenseful books, whether they be straight suspense, horror, or paranormal, lend themselves better to a video.
3.Unless you work in video, don’t try to do it yourself. Again, IMHO, the trailers work better when there are actors in segments instead of a lot of writing and fade in/fade out still scenes.
4.If there aren’t any actors and you still want to make a trailer, use it for more than one book so you can get more bang for your buck.
Want to watch a good book trailer? Watch this one from Karen Rose posted on You Tube.
1.If you’re a newly pubbed author in small press, don’t do it. The chances of the video plummeting your book to the stellar heights of Number One bestseller are few and far between. They’re also very expensive. I had one published once, foolishly, for a book my co-writer believed in and couldn’t sell. We self-published it and put the trailer on our website. The company we used was great, and they gave us a deal. But the deal was $1000 for a thirty second spot (I think. Sometimes I can’t remember if that was my half of the payment or that was ours together). Due to the nature of all the details, it didn’t help.
2.It depends on the type of book you have and what you’re trying to convey. My own belief is that suspenseful books, whether they be straight suspense, horror, or paranormal, lend themselves better to a video.
3.Unless you work in video, don’t try to do it yourself. Again, IMHO, the trailers work better when there are actors in segments instead of a lot of writing and fade in/fade out still scenes.
4.If there aren’t any actors and you still want to make a trailer, use it for more than one book so you can get more bang for your buck.
Want to watch a good book trailer? Watch this one from Karen Rose posted on You Tube.
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