Author: Janci

This month teamTEENauthor is blogging on this topic: do you believe in luck?  My post is up today over at the brand new teamteenauthor blog.  Click over to read about me and dice superstition.

When I had to get a new laptop in Windows 8 season, I was afraid.  Mostly I was afraid that since it was an even numbered windows, it would be a buggy mess like ME and Vista.  I’ve been using 8 for a few months now, and while I’ve had more bugs than when I was using 7, I’ve found that, as the reviews said, it’s a pretty stable operating system, at least to start.

The other concern, of course, was usability.  I’d been told by other users of 8 that the system was no good if you want to get work done.  I’ve found that’s true of the apps functions, but as soon as I installed Chrome, I had a handy button to click that would send me straight to the desktop, where I then stay, without opening an app.  I still use all the same programs I did on 7 (most of which were actually built for XP). I tried a few apps and hated them, but from the desktop I’d hardly know that I’m not running 7.

Until I want to turn the computer off.  Seriously, I should not have to google how to shut down the computer from my desktop.  I should not have to install outside programs like Start8 to shut down from the desktop.  There should not be bunches of tutorials written on how to shut down from the desktop.  That is just silly.  (Anyone have a better suggestion?  I didn’t like any of the ones I found.)

So, usable? Yes.  Annoying?  Depends on how often I have to restart.  I’m seriously considering installing something like Start8, just so I don’t have to think about this stuff anymore.

But it’s not ME or Vista.  So I’m thankful for that.

One of the first indie games we bought from XBL, and one of our house favorites, is I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1.

It’s a twin stick shooter that is exactly 13 minutes and 37 seconds long, set to a song by James Silva about how he, well, made this game.  And put zombies in it.  It costs a dollar, and he hopes you will play.  (From that link you can listen to the song, and download it for a price you name.  After all, the game itself has the song and costs a dollar.  The song alone is worth that.)

The game is short and hilarious and allows for four players, so we play it often.  The game play is my favorite of all twin stick shooters I’ve tried.  And since zombie games are so rare these days…it’s hard to pass this one up.

I’ve heard several people commenting lately about how every debut author is secretly combing the internet and reading every review of their book.  If this is true, I am the outlier; I don’t read your reviews.

Sure, I read the ones my publisher sent me, and the ones my agent sent me.  I read the ones from bloggers to whom I personally sent arcs, and the ones from bloggers with whom I then did interviews.  But my book has been out for five months now, and it was only last week (upon encountering one of these comments about the secret combing) that I got on Amazon and Goodreads to see if there *were* any reviews of my book.

There were.  I was glad for that.  I read exactly one.  It was a very well written mixed review.  I was grateful for it.

And then I shut the window and have not returned.  I’m so happy that people are reviewing my book.  I’m happy that it seems many people like it.  I’m happy that it seems some people don’t, because that means it’s reaching a wider audience.  I’m so, so happy that some people read it and care enough to write a review, good, bad, or mixed.

But I just can’t imagine that reading reviews is going to add anything positive to my life.  I have confidence in myself, and all the good reviews in the world are not going to make me feel better than I do, because praise is fleeting.  Relying on praise for my well-being is foolish–if I need praise to feel good, I have to be constantly searching for my next fix.  I don’t want to be like that.

And the criticism in a review is of course valid and helpful–for readers.  My critique group gives me criticism for me.  My agent and editor do.  My beta readers do.  I love criticism, and find it invaluable to my process…before the book is finished.  Once it’s done?  Not much I can do anymore.  And the next book will have different problems than the last.

As a reader (and viewer, and player) I regularly read reviews of things before I buy them.  I don’t care much about the ratings, but I care a lot about what bothered the reader and why.  I compare my pet peeves with the problems of the reviewer, and I learn a lot about what I’m likely to enjoy, and what I’m not.  But as a writer?  Reading negative reviews is just going to make me feel bad, without the positive result of being able to fix the problems.  So I don’t read them.

(I also don’t know what my Amazon ranking is.  Unlike reviews, that number doesn’t seem important to me.)

Thank you again, everyone who has taken the time to write a review.  I’d love it if more of you would write them.  Thanks most of all for reading.  Please don’t be offended that I’m not reading your review in return.

I must confess to being a Kickstarter junkie.  I don’t pledge often, because I don’t need lots of stuff nor do I have lots of money.  But I LOVE to watch campaigns unfold–the drama of the rise and decline of pledges, the mad rushes at the beginning and the end, and most of all the endless analysis opportunities of PR and product push and damage control–a good Kickstarter is like a reality TV show without all the people being horrible to each other.  I’ve followed several dozen of these over the last year, and I love them.

This week my friends Howard and Sandra Tayler launched a Kickstarter for challenge coins from the universe of Howard’s comic Schlock Mercenary.  I tuned in a couple hours after it launched and was delighted to see it overfunding already.  It’s kind of going bananas over there, which I’m sure is all kinds of stressful and wonderful for them.  It makes me happy, because  I love watching my friends succeed.  I confess to ignorance about their product (all I know about challenge coin culture comes from the wikipedia page), but I’m looking forward to following the Kickstarter.  Knowing Sandra and Howard, I’m sure they’ll handle it brilliantly.  Take a look, if you like that sort of thing.  I’m sure it’s going to be a fun ride.

Happy Valentine’s day!  I’ve got a short interview up as part of the Valentine’s feature over at Ink & Angst.  Head over to see what a bunch of authors said about getting your head in the game to write good romance.

I just got back from a panel on the very subject over at the Life, the Universe and Everything symposium.  I found I wanted to take notes myself during the panel, because the insights of the other panelists were so fantastic.  Here’s what I gleaned:

Romance is all about anticipation, yearning, and tension.  It’s easy to slip into cliche when talking about physical description, but a lot of attraction is about personal qualities that can show in action and in dialogue.  If the readers are falling in love with the characters because of their traits and their actions, they’ll feel the romantic tension better than if it’s all mechanical description.  It helps to use details that are specific to your characters–if you know your characters and what makes them unique, it’s easier to replace cliche detail with specific detail.  Every part of romance–meeting, kissing, touching, sex–is a tool that can be used to build or relieve tension, and we have to be careful to use the right tools at the right times to keep up the pacing and build romantic anticipation.

One thing another panelist mentioned that I do is go ahead and write cliches in the first draft and then replace them in revision.  I think sometimes as I’m writing, “that’s a placeholder sentence.”  Those sentences can be important when I’m plowing through a revision trying to get the shape of the book done, but then I have to go back and be original before I hand the book out to readers, or they won’t feel the tension because I’m using generalizations where I should be using specific details to build romantic tension.

May you love to simplify the lives of the people you love in real life, and to complicate the lives of your characters, but never the other way around.    Happy Valentine’s Day!

This weekend I’ll be at the Life, the Universe, and Everything conference at the Provo Marriott.  I’m on a panel today at noon about romance in YA fiction, and another on Saturday at two about the perils of being a first time novelist.  LTUE always has a ton of panels full of people with interesting things to say about writing and fandom, so I’m looking forward to it.  Hope to see you there!