Publication... at Last!

My book is coming out! My book is coming out!

Thanks to Black Rose Publishing, my first fantasy novel in a series is coming out August 9, and I am prepping to begin a book tour throughout the coming academic year (and beyond).

Given how many years I've been working on this series, I'm as surprised as anyone to finally have the book come out in final form. It turns out, too, that getting one's book published is both daunting and exciting, but I'll explain all that in a future post. (Hint: It mostly involves the meaning of the series, and how much I want the books to change our thinking, especially here in the United States.)

Here's the cover:

Cover art courtesy of Black Rose Publishing

The book comes out August 9, but it's already available for pre-order (10% off) through the publisher at their website:

ORDER THE GHOST PORTAL

If you'd like a signed copy, you can pre-order those, too. Just post me your e-mail, write me at shakespeare824 at hotmail.com, or find me on Facebook (Cheryl Carvajal), and we'll make that happen. If you want more details, you can read about it on the publisher's website, but you can also email me directly, and I'll share some details with you that way.

More information about the book to come... including a few excerpts... to stay tuned.

E-Readers: What Do You Think?

I'm way behind the times, I know. For years and years I've been a book addict. Not just a reading addict, but a touch-the-pages-smell-the-binding sort of book addict. Nothing smells as good to me as fresh book.

I've hit a wall, though. I've encountered several books I would love to read, but they are only in e-book format. I'm considering asking for a reader for my birthday, but I have heard bad things about Kindle, and I've been told it matters a LOT what reader I choose to get. I want one that will pretty much read anything--I don't want to find out after I've bought the stupid thing that it only reads SOME books--and I want one that is easy to manipulate and read. Can I read it in the sunshine? Do I have to be in a darkened room? How heavy is it?

I know already that a bunch of you have these tools at your disposal. What do you like? What do you hate? What are the limitations of e-book readers? Any info would be welcome!

The Art of Waiting Patiently

A recent game I tapped into on Yahoo Games had a cute message as it loaded up:

"i am somewhat impatient, but i know that the game will be loaded soon"


It made me think so much of my own life--well, two aspects of it, anyway. You see, all my life I've been struggling with my weight. I could never fit into my older sister's hand-me-downs as a kid (and that was pointed out quite often, given our financial hardship), and even now, as a Zumba Fitness instructor and careful eater, I still have trouble losing a pound. My husband gives up desserts and loses ten pounds without really thinking much about it. He admits he would have given up years ago if he'd seen as little progress as I have in trying to lose weight.

Yet I've seen the same sort of success in my writing. (Translation: not bloody much). I've sent out tons of queries and received nearly as many rejection slips (nearly as many only because many agents and publishers don't send replies if they don't like something). Not a single request for more material. My plays have been only slightly more successful, only because I've been pretty lucky to find places where I can do a staged reading or get some great feedback.

So why do I do this? People have asked me why I don't just give up. Why continue to do Zumba if it doesn't make the pounds drop off the way it seems to for everybody else? Why keep writing if I don't sell any novels?

I see the rational basis for this. It is logical. But it errs because it's based on an assumption which simply isn't true: it assumes I do these two things only because of the outcome I'm hoping for.

I know many who do. I know all sorts of people who try Zumba--or vegetarianism, or some diet fad--only because of the outcome they hope for. I know writers who are only concerned with completing a novel so that it can be marketed.

They and I do not work towards the same ends. Or perhaps, for me, the ends simply aren't as important as the act of doing. Why do I do Zumba? Because I adore Zumba. It is more fun than I have doing any other physical activity. It fills me with joy, fosters in me a belief in my own beauty and sexuality, frees me like nothing else does. The act itself is fantastic, no matter its outcome.

The same goes for writing. I don't write to finish. The process is what matters. Writing is my therapy, my shy chance to speak, the who I am in a long list of whats. It's part of my chromosomal make-up, and the only frustrating parts of it include not making enough time for it and not being as good a writer as I would like. But writing is bliss. Sheer bliss.

I suppose the title is a lie, then. I don't have to be patiently waiting for the outcomes I would love to happen. I'm delirious in the moment, charged with energy and elated by the passion of these two activities. I'm not really waiting patiently for anything. It's already here.

Where do you find your joy? Do you hold onto this, or does the outcome matter more?

Receiving Feedback

I had to write about this, for, as those of you who've been following me know, I've read quite a bit of other writers' work lately. And I've read it with an editor's eye--tough, critical, pointing out what doesn't work, what doesn't fit, what makes me uncomfortable or bored, etc. The only ways I haven't been an editor is 

1.  I don't actually work for a publisher (so I'm not looking for books to sign).

2.  I am actually telling people what's going on with their book, instead of sending them a generic "Thanks for mailing us your manuscript but we don't want it" letter. 

Had these novelists and playwrights sent their stuff out to the real editors of the world, they would have gotten no information. And often no information feels better than my feedback (I am very willing to admit it), but in the end, the bland letter isn't going to help them get their book published.

I keep thinking back to a few years ago. I was seeking an agent for my first novel--a novel which I am letting fester right now, as I work through how I am going to transform it--and I met a nice guy who had found an agent recently. Excited, I asked if he could read my novel, and I'd read his (since his was not yet published, even though he had an agent). 

We exchanged novels, and he got mine back to me in less than a week, saying he really enjoyed reading it. His wife read it too, and "liked it." I took a bit longer with his. You see, on the first page alone, I found 9 errors--NINE--and this was the manuscript his "agent" was sending off to publishers! I considered reading it swiftly, telling him it was "nice," and leaving it alone. I considered it for a few days, mulling around the house, unsure what I should do. 

I chose the hard road. I spent the next month poring over that novel, filling it with Post-it notes remarking on errors, slips in narrative POV, places where I had legal questions, situations where more explanation or detail was needed. It took me a very long time, and by the end the folder was filled with five different colors of Post-it notes (I kept running out of pads). Even at the end, I contemplated pulling all those notes out and just telling the poor boy nothing about his work. 

Shakily, I left it for his wife (she worked in my husband's office), and she winced when she saw it. "That bad?" she asked. 

"Just let me know how he takes it," I answered.

That was Friday. On Monday, I called her. "He's okay, but he took it hard." I felt a dip in the pit of my stomach, but it was about to get worse. "He wants to talk to you," she added.

I was frightened, honestly, expecting him to yell at me, curse, or do something equally understandable. After all, I'd shredded the baby he'd been birthing for five years. He called me that afternoon, and he told me frankly that he'd been crushed when he got it back. And then, after a day of being crushed, he started back to work on it. 

The end? He asked me to read it--again--for pay. And when he published it, not only was I in the acknowledgments, but he gave me a copy in thanks. Will everyone be so grateful? Nope. They don't have to be. But with every paper I grade, every play of someone else's I look over, I have to make that same choice. A few years ago, I tended to play nice, looking over most of the problems and centering my replies only on grammatical errors. But errors are not what sends manuscripts to the trash. If I am truly to help those whose work I am reading, I have to do a better job, even if it means they don't speak to me again. 

It's the golden rule. When I want someone else to read my stuff, I want honesty--even brutality--so that I can fix what's wrong and make the whole thing work better. I can't say I always take the criticism well--coming from my husband, it usually irks me--but eventually it sinks in, and my writing is the better for it.

Can you think of a time when your writing was criticized? How did you take it? How do you approach criticism of the works of other writers?