Books for kids, teens, & those who are young at heart

Category: Ink Ripples (Page 1 of 10)

December #InkRipples: The Pressure of End of Year Goals

December is a stressful and busy time of year. For me, it’s not a great month for setting up goals. I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions because it feels too contrived and arbitrary. Sure, it’s a new year, but that doesn’t mean I’m in the right place to set up new goals. Maybe I’m still working on my current goals. Maybe I’m swamped and just focusing on the daily task of getting through the days. I certainly don’t need the pressure and stress of forcing myself to declare a goal simply because of the time of year.

So I’m afraid I can’t offer up any great insights into my goals for 2018. I certainly have goals for next year, but most of them on ongoing ones, not ones I’m just starting to think about now. But I’d love to hear about your goals…drop me a comment!

Here’s where I usually do my spiel on how #InkRipples is a monthly meme and December all about goals. However, it looks like fellow #InkRipples founders Kai Strand and Mary Waibel are moving on from the meme. I’ve loved doing #InkRipples for the past three years with Mary, Kai, and all the other bloggers who dropped a ripple in the inkwell, but maybe it’s time for me to move on as well. I do have a new idea for a monthly meme I’ve been thinking about for 2018. I haven’t made any set decisions yet. What would you all like to see on the blog next year?

November #InkRipples: Finishing That Book (Or Not!)

It’s no secret here on the Observation Desk that I’m a notoriously slow writer. I’ve expressed how I feel about prolific authors (see Confessions of an Author: Prolific Writers). More recently, I blogged about Why Is It Taking Me So Long To Write The Second Elixir Book. It took almost ten years from when I first started writing ELIXIR BOUND for it to become a published book. I’m not exactly winning any speed awards over here!

via GIPHY

So I am afraid I have no business offering any kind of advice on the November #InkRipples topic of Finishing that Book! I’ve tried NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, where many writers try to write a complete book, i.e. 50,000 words, in the month of November). Last year I tried a modified version of it (see Gearing up for National Novel Writing Month 2016) and fell short. One year I actually won NaNoWriMo and wrote 50,000 words of a story, but that story has since become a drawer manuscript that will probably never be published.

But you’ll tell me that no words are wasted, even the unpublished ones. Or that the words will come and to take whatever time I need writing them. This is what I tell myself (and those things are both true). But that doesn’t mean it isn’t frustrating to be a slow writer. Couple that with the fact that I never feel like I have adequate time to write, and that makes for a very frustrated writer.

Nevertheless, I’m still plugging along over here at my achingly slow snail’s pace. How about you all–what do you do to get that book finished?

#InkRipples is a monthly meme created by Katie L. CarrollMary Waibel, and Kai Strand. We pick a topic (November is all about Finishing that Book!), drop a ripple in the inkwell (i.e. write about it on our blogs), and see where the conversation goes. We’d love to have you join in the conversation on your own blogs or on your social media page. Full details and each month’s topic can be found on my #InkRipples page.

October #InkRipples: Writing Is My Career(ish)

This month’s #Inkripples of career vs. hobby had me scratching my head. Is my writing a career or a hobby? I’m not sure. I think somewhere in between. Here’s my dilemma: I’m a stay-at-home parent who also works on the side. So family stuff is the first priority, but my main “work” (quotes because raising kids is work in and of itself, but let’s say for this post, it means something not having to do with the kiddos) right now is writing, with a little freelance editing on the side.

But I am not financially independent right now (I have a mini panic attack every time I think too hard about this fact). I depend on my husband’s job to pay the bills, for health insurance, and to make sure my kids are fed. My husband and I made the decision to become a one-income family after lots of thought and careful consideration of whether or not we could make it work financially.

The question remains whether or not writing will become my career once the kids are bigger and I go back to work. I really have no desire to go back to an office job like I had before kids (I was a puzzle magazine editor…I certainly didn’t hate the job, but after doing it for 8 years, it became tedious). And I wand to have the flexibility to be able to support my kids as they grow because even big kids will require my time. I’m not sure I want to commit full-time to a gig economy either.

Do I want to back to school? Do I want to work in a field that isn’t writing and write on the side like I did when I worked full-time? Do I want to just get a job at a bookstore or a cafe or open a tea shop and write in my free time? (Notice writing will likely always factor into the picture.)

The answers to questions definitely depend on what my situation will be when my youngest (now only 3 months old) is big enough for me to have to make a decision. So I have some time to decide. The pie-in-the-sky hope is that I end up with a string of best-selling books and I won’t have to worry about what my job will be because it will be writing. But, honestly, so few people can support themselves this way that if feels irresponsible not to at least think about what else I will do for work.

And thinking about all this right now gives me anxiety. I guess for now, I’ll just try to enjoy taking care of my little ones and being able to squeeze in the writing time when I can.

How about you? Do you have any hobbies that could potentially become a career? Or do you like that your hobbies are just that, hobbies?

#InkRipples is a monthly meme created by Katie L. CarrollMary Waibel, and Kai Strand. We pick a topic (October is all about Career vs. Hobby), drop a ripple in the inkwell (i.e. write about it on our blogs), and see where the conversation goes. We’d love to have you join in the conversation on your own blogs or on your social media page. Full details and each month’s topic can be found on my #InkRipples page.

September #InkRipples: Building a Fictional World

What exactly is world building (or worldbuilding if your prefer is as one word)? Basically, it’s the creation of a fictional world. More than that, though, it’s how that world is explained within the confines of a story. The imagining and creating is the easy part (in my opinion). It’s choosing which pieces to include in the story and how to include those pieces with out a big info-dump that is the tricky part.

The reader must be grounded in the world and be able to feel like they are immersed in it, but you don’t want to bore them with too many details and world-building elements that aren’t essential to the plot and character development. It’s highly subjective, too. One reader may love lavish descriptions and explanations of how one aspect of your fictional world works, while another may skim through all that to get to the action.

And world building isn’t just for fantasy or sci-fi writers. Even if a story takes place in a high school and most of your readers are in high school or have been to one, you still need to establish the world of your high school. There’s a lot already written on ways to execute world building, so instead of me blathering on with tips, I’ll leave some links at the end of the post for you to peruse at your leisure.

Some of my favorite world building exercises have been making a map for the ELIXIR BOUND (see the picture at the beginning of the post and the entry “Exploring the world of Elixir Bound”). For PIRATE ISLAND, part of my world building included creating a chart with realistic tides and moon cycles. So much of my world building goes on behind the scenes, but having all that information in my head makes for a rich world on the page, even if the reader only sees a small portion of what the world entails. Plus, those elements that don’t make it directly into the story are great for things like blog posts and bonuses for readers.

Okay, before we get to the links, I’d love to hear some of your world-building techniques in the comments!

“Tips on World Building for Writers — How to Make Your Imaginary World Real” by Chuck Sambuchino

“The Ultimate Guide to World-Building: How To Write Fantasy, Sci-Fi, And Real-Life Worlds” by Claire Bradshaw

“25 Things You Should Know About Worldbuilding” by Chuck Wendig

(Apparently people named Chuck have a lot to say about world building!)

#InkRipples is a monthly meme created by Katie L. CarrollMary Waibel, and Kai Strand. We pick a topic (September is all about world building), drop a ripple in the inkwell (i.e. write about it on our blogs), and see where the conversation goes. We’d love to have you join in the conversation on your own blogs or on your social media page. Full details and each month’s topic can be found on my #InkRipples page.

August #InkRipples: Options in Publishing – What’s Your Path?

When it comes to publishing a book, there are so many more options than there used to be. If you’re new to the business, it can be downright overwhelming and confusing to decide what publishing path is the right one for you. That is why we decided to tackle the topic in this month’s #InkRipples.

Traditional Publishing – For my intents and purposes, when I’m referring to traditional publishing, I mean a publishing house that offers advances to their authors and their books come out in print simultaneously with their ebooks (for the most part, though you may find imprints within the publishing house that deviates from this). Some publishers that don’t meet these criteria might call themselves “traditional publishers,” but I’m going to put those in another category.

  • Big 5 – Formerly the Big 6 publishing houses, when Penguin and Random House merged back in 2013, the largest 6 publishing houses became 5. So the big 5 are now Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin Random House. These are the largest 5 publishing houses, the heavy hitters, what many authors consider the gold-standard of publishing. They each have many branches, called imprints, that specialize in certain areas of publishing. They have the ability to offer big advances for books they think will make them lots of money; they have big budgets to market and publicize those books; and they have large, influential distribution channels.
  • Medium to Small Traditional Publishers – These publishing houses are smaller than the Big 5, but they are well-known and well-respected in the industry and they have the ability to offer advances and print and ebooks release simultaneously. Sourcebooks and Charlesbridge are good examples of these smaller traditional publishers.

~Pros and Cons of Traditional Publishers – The big advantage to going with a traditional publisher is the influence they have. Your books will likely be in all the major bookstores and easily available. You’ll also have a full editorial staff to support you in making the book the best it can be and hopefully at least a small marketing push made by the publisher. There is a certain legitimacy that many still feel about traditional publishing that you won’t find with the other paths of publishing (not that this is my personal feeling, but I will admit that a stigma exists for those who chose a different publishing path). You as an author also have no monetary investment in the process of making the book when you traditionally publish.

A disadvantage is that you might end up being a small fish in a big pond. If your book isn’t of their heavy-hitters for that publishing season, it might get little attention or push from the publisher. The fact is, no matter what publishing path you chose, unless you’re a big-name author, you probably will have to do much of the marketing yourself. And if your book doesn’t sell well (the definition of a well-selling book will vary greatly depending on your situation), it might have a short self-life. It’s also really hard to break into traditional publishing, and you usually need an agent to submit to these publishers.

Hybrid Publishers – This is an emerging term in the publishing industry and may mean different things to different people. Basically what I mean by a hybrid publishers is a publisher that exists in the space between traditional and self-publishing. They may be a digital only publisher or a digital first one (where select titles come out in print only after the ebook is released), as is the case with the publisher of my YA fantasy ELIXIR BOUND, MuseItUp Publishing. They usually offer royalty-only payments with no advances. Some of the Big 5 houses have imprints that operate this way.

~Pros and Cons of Hybrid Publishers – Hybrid publishers often have long backlists that don’t get pulled because of slow sales because there is less investment up front. Generally, like traditional publishing, you as an author don’t have to put your own money into anything (until it comes to any marketing you opt to invent in), as the editing, cover art, and production of the book is handled by the publisher.

Without an advance, though, the author has to rely on royalties for payment, which can be slow in coming. Sales may also be low because hybrid publishers don’t have the clout and distribution channels of of traditional publishers. If you do have a print book, it may or may not end up on the bookshelves at bookstores.

Self-publishers – When you decide to do it all yourself and skip working with a publishing house all together, that is self-publishing. You, the author, are your own publisher. You may decide to create your own publishing company so you have a publisher’s name associated with your book and for tax purposes (as I did with PIRATE ISLAND), but it’s still self-published.

~Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing – The main pro and con of self-publishing is pretty much the same thing: you have all the control! That’s a good thing in some ways because you make all the decisions for your book and you reap all the benefits (except for what your distributing partners take). But that also means you have to make a ton of decisions and you have to be informed about all the aspects of creating a book. It’s a big learning curve, but it’s also wonderfully freeing to self-publish. You also have to put up your own money for any services (editing, cover, formatting, etc…) that you don’t decide to do on your own. And you should definitely hire out for those areas you need help. Even a great self-editor should no solely rely on their own editing skills for editing a book your going to self-publish.

*Note on Vanity Publishers – Vanity presses are where authors pay to have their books published. These are not really publishing houses in a sense that they don’t have an acquisitions process. If they do offer any kind of editing or cover services, it’s usually for an additional fee. Honestly, most vanity presses are scams, overcharging authors and giving them very little in return. These should not be confused with reputable, professional editing or formatting services that charge a fee for help with editing or formatting for authors who are interested in self-publishing or going through a round of professional editing before submitting to agents or publishing houses.

What types of publishing have you tried? How has it worked out for you?

#InkRipples is a monthly meme created by Katie L. CarrollMary Waibel, and Kai Strand. We pick a topic (August is all about options in publishing), drop a ripple in the inkwell (i.e. write about it on our blogs), and see where the conversation goes. We’d love to have you join in the conversation on your own blogs or on your social media page. Full details and each month’s topic can be found on my #InkRipples page.

« Older posts

© 2024 Katie L. Carroll

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑