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Just wrapped my show with Katherine Center. Just adore this woman and love her books sooooo much. Please support your authors everyone! Go buy books! and of course, listen to Writer Groupie and hear from them as well!
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
AUP banner
An Unexpected Performance
I have been playing around with Photoshop again and created a banner for the book. It's okay. I will keep trying. The link is live though... go on .... get yours!
Thursday, May 16, 2013
An Unexpected Performance by Kim Smith
So the day is finally here and I am very excited to be able to share the reissue of my YA fantasy time travel. The new name for the book is An Unexpected Performance, and I did all the art myself. I am pretty darn proud too.
It is ready to be purchased if you haven't gotten it yet. Available on Kindle and in print!
It is ready to be purchased if you haven't gotten it yet. Available on Kindle and in print!
Cover REVEAL COMING!!
I am almost to 100 likes on my FB page, and when I am there... BIG COVER REVEAL!!!
in honor of that... this blog will be missing usual posts such as terms Thursday.
Hang on...
in honor of that... this blog will be missing usual posts such as terms Thursday.
Hang on...
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Writing Tip Wednesday: Authentic Dialogue
Have you ever read a book and the dialogue was stilted? (stilted=stupid and tilted) -- I have. I hate it when I read books like this. The paper people seem like just what they are, made up.
It's because the dialogue is wrong. Real people don't talk that way. Simple way to tell if you are writing stilted dialogue is to read it out loud. Does it sound like a conversation people really have? What do I mean?
1. They talk "at" one another. "You know this." "You know this too" "You know this first." "Well, you know this second."
2. They tell each other things that they already know and tell them they know it. "Well, as you know, the monster is hiding in the closet." "And as you know he has a hatchet." "He wants to kill us, you know."
3. They use each other's names repetitively. "Well, Matilda, you know this." "Thank you for reminding me, George, I do know that." "Matilda, you do know that the monster is in the closet." "I do know that George, thank you for pointing it out. And yes, I also know he has a hatchet."
GRR. That sort of thing just kills me.
So, bottom line, don't do it!
It's because the dialogue is wrong. Real people don't talk that way. Simple way to tell if you are writing stilted dialogue is to read it out loud. Does it sound like a conversation people really have? What do I mean?
1. They talk "at" one another. "You know this." "You know this too" "You know this first." "Well, you know this second."
2. They tell each other things that they already know and tell them they know it. "Well, as you know, the monster is hiding in the closet." "And as you know he has a hatchet." "He wants to kill us, you know."
3. They use each other's names repetitively. "Well, Matilda, you know this." "Thank you for reminding me, George, I do know that." "Matilda, you do know that the monster is in the closet." "I do know that George, thank you for pointing it out. And yes, I also know he has a hatchet."
GRR. That sort of thing just kills me.
So, bottom line, don't do it!
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Terms Thursday: Amazon Ranking
I am only just now getting into the Amazon world, on my own as a self-pubbed author. I do not know a lot about the Amazon ranking, but I have learned a little and am sharing it here.
The Amazon Ranking that an author gets is calculated hourly according to Oli Hille.
99% of the ranking is based on sales. And that is, the most recent sales, like over the last 24-48 hours. The number of sales gives one 99% of the ranking. But the last 1% is aided by reviews, then voting on reviews, then "likes".
So, go out and find your fav author, maybe check out their author central page, pull up one of their books, and buy it. Then as soon as you can, do a review on it. Then, vote for the review, and then like the book and that author will move inches closer to a good ranking on Amazon.
What is the ranking for? Well, I believe it is something akin to the NY Times bestseller list. It places value on the book for a reader to know that it is worth paying for. Sometimes we know when a book will be good, without all the hype. I mean, come on, just yesterday I talked about George R.R. Martin. But more commonly, think Stephen King. You just KNOW his stuff is going to entertain.
But when Amazon ranks a book fairly high on the scale, it is a way to try out a newer author, or someone you don't know yet, and feel trust that they can entertain.
I hope this has helped you!
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Writing Tip Wednesday: Setting and how it affects character
Setting is where your characters are sitting or standing or walking or living and can be pretty dull and uninteresting reading unless you make it matter to the character. In relation to your people on the page, the setting is only background noise.
Most all stories are character driven, meaning they are about a character and what happens to him or her. No one picks up a 300-400 page novel to read about setting. It is simply decoration for the character to dance about in.
Now, having said that, you can do pretty much anything you want with your setting. It can elicit response from the readers because it brings out a mood to the scene. Or, it can give life to the voice and style of the author through how it effects the characters.
One of my fav authors, George R.R. Martin, is a master at setting. He makes the characters drag through the thickness of setting and you are struggling right along with them. That, in my humble opinion, is how to make setting matter.
Here for your edification and enjoyment is an excerpt from Song of Fire and Ice, the first book in his Game of Thrones series.
The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. They set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervous with excitement. This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brothers to see the king's justice done. It was the ninth year of summer, and the seventh of Bran's life.
The man had been taken outside a small holdfast in the hills. Robb thought he was a wildling, his sword sworn to Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall. It made Bran's skin prickle to think of it. He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.
But the man they found bound hand and foot to the holdfast wall awaiting the king's justice was old and scrawny, not much taller than Robb. He had lost both ears and a finger to frostbite, and he dressed all in black, the same as a brother of the Night's Watch, except that his furs were ragged and greasy.
The breath of man and horse mingled, steaming, in the cold morning air as his lord father had the man cut down from the wall and dragged before them. Robb and Jon sat tall and still on their horses, with Bran between them on his pony, trying to seem older than seven, trying to pretend that he'd seen all this before. A faint wind blew through the holdfast gate. Over their heads flapped the banner of the Starks of Winterfell: a grey direwolf racing across an ice-white field.
Bran's father sat solemnly on his horse, long brown hair stirring in the wind. His closely trimmed beard was shot with white, making him look older than his thirty-five years. He had a grim cast to his grey eyes this day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the children of the forest. He had taken off Father's face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell.
There were questions asked and answers given there in the chill of morning, but afterward Bran could not recall much of what had been said. Finally his lord father gave a command, and two of his guardsmen dragged the ragged man to the ironwood stump in the center of the square. They forced his head down onto the hard black wood. Lord Eddard Stark dismounted and his ward Theon Greyjoy brought forth the sword. "Ice," that sword was called. It was as wide across as a man's hand, and taller even than Robb. The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
LOVE this series. And the way he uses setting to make the characters stand taller on the page. Well, 'nuff said.
Most all stories are character driven, meaning they are about a character and what happens to him or her. No one picks up a 300-400 page novel to read about setting. It is simply decoration for the character to dance about in.
Now, having said that, you can do pretty much anything you want with your setting. It can elicit response from the readers because it brings out a mood to the scene. Or, it can give life to the voice and style of the author through how it effects the characters.
One of my fav authors, George R.R. Martin, is a master at setting. He makes the characters drag through the thickness of setting and you are struggling right along with them. That, in my humble opinion, is how to make setting matter.
Here for your edification and enjoyment is an excerpt from Song of Fire and Ice, the first book in his Game of Thrones series.
The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. They set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervous with excitement. This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brothers to see the king's justice done. It was the ninth year of summer, and the seventh of Bran's life.
The man had been taken outside a small holdfast in the hills. Robb thought he was a wildling, his sword sworn to Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall. It made Bran's skin prickle to think of it. He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.
But the man they found bound hand and foot to the holdfast wall awaiting the king's justice was old and scrawny, not much taller than Robb. He had lost both ears and a finger to frostbite, and he dressed all in black, the same as a brother of the Night's Watch, except that his furs were ragged and greasy.
The breath of man and horse mingled, steaming, in the cold morning air as his lord father had the man cut down from the wall and dragged before them. Robb and Jon sat tall and still on their horses, with Bran between them on his pony, trying to seem older than seven, trying to pretend that he'd seen all this before. A faint wind blew through the holdfast gate. Over their heads flapped the banner of the Starks of Winterfell: a grey direwolf racing across an ice-white field.
Bran's father sat solemnly on his horse, long brown hair stirring in the wind. His closely trimmed beard was shot with white, making him look older than his thirty-five years. He had a grim cast to his grey eyes this day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the children of the forest. He had taken off Father's face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell.
There were questions asked and answers given there in the chill of morning, but afterward Bran could not recall much of what had been said. Finally his lord father gave a command, and two of his guardsmen dragged the ragged man to the ironwood stump in the center of the square. They forced his head down onto the hard black wood. Lord Eddard Stark dismounted and his ward Theon Greyjoy brought forth the sword. "Ice," that sword was called. It was as wide across as a man's hand, and taller even than Robb. The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
LOVE this series. And the way he uses setting to make the characters stand taller on the page. Well, 'nuff said.
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