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Writer Bewares and Watchdogs

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Over the last year, I’m seeing a lot of small press book companies set up shop, accept work for publication, and then close without communicating with the authors / artists, let alone paying royalties. In June, 2007, Triskelion Publishing Company filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy. And sometime in 2011, Aspen Mountain Press folded after five years of publishing. Operations formally suspended in April, 2012, but the breakdown in communications and payments happened way before that. Other names have come up; the list runs long, including Dorchester Publishing, and self-publishing companies like Publish America (aka AmErica House).

Do these publishers open up their company with the intention of cheating authors? I doubt it in the majority of cases. Generally, the company is headed by one person who develops serious health problems. Perhaps the publisher began without adequate knowledge of formatting or distribution. Perhaps he took on too many projects too soon. No doubt the economy had a lot to do with it, especially if the publisher worked a day job that provided the capital for his venue. Mostly I contemplate Night to Dawn and conclude, there by the grace of God go I.

In the end, the authors / artists are left stranded. Folks, your works are important. You’re sharing part of you on the printed page. Whether you sketch or write about soldiers, monsters, priests, families, a part of you will show, and that’s priceless. You owe it to yourself to research your company before submitting, reading the contract carefully before nodding your okay, and promoting the book once it goes to press. With that in mind, I’m happy to list several watchdog sites that will give you the skinny on your prospective company. Keep in mind as you visit these sites that the bad boy companies have a way of changing their names to cover tracks.

Preditors & Editors:  an oldie but goodie company, P&E will list most companies and will give a thumbs up or down. You won’t get much detail, but you’ll have a ballpark idea of where your company stands.

Piers Anthony gives a concrete explanation for his opinion on given publishers. He focuses on e-publishers, and that’s a great thing since eBooks are now outdoing print books. To get his ratings, click on the “publish on web” link.

Absolute Write gives a thorough rundown on recommended sites, bewares, and advice to the newbie writer. That also includes advice on what to do if your publisher goes incommunicado. They discuss agents who charge fees (a no-no), and recommend publishers (yeah!).

Victoria Strauss works with a watchdog group, Writer Beware, a service mark of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. When it comes to publishers who change their names, she doesn’t miss a trick, and she will edit her blog accordingly. However, her blog can be used by anyone, regardless of genre. She will also refer you to other sites that might make the submission process go smoother.

The alternative is self-publishing, which means you do your own editing, art, formatting, distributing, and marketing, or pay to get these services. The upside is that if you get a generous royalty per sale, especially with CreateSpace and Smashwords. The downside is that some reviewers and bookstores shy away from self-published books. A lot more authors are turning toward self-publishing.

 

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Scorched Earth Warfare

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My home was a forest. Balloon trees grew in every room. Butterflies, Disney characters, flowers, and glittering stars. Before Parkinson’s disease consigned Mike to a nursing home, we danced to classical music under the Mylar fruit that blossomed on those trees. When we weren’t dancing, he worked outside in his tomato garden or with our development’s grounds beautification group. He served in the Viet Nam war on the USS Wasp. His deep throaty laugh concealed his secret fears about the Viet Cong capturing him. His musical voice rang through the church during choir practice until his right hand began to shake.

About fifteen years ago, Mike’s war with Parkinson’s began, and he became a prisoner of war. When he received his diagnosis in 1996, his neurologist Dr. Miller assured us that medicine would control the symptoms. He called it “tremor-predominant Parkinson’s,” because Mike’s most terrifying symptom was tremor. Later on, I found out about the disease’s scorched earth strategy.

There were six classes of medicines to fight this beast. The ones Mike had to take caused agitation and mood swings. Tremor notwithstanding, he continued his day job and worked in his garden. The tremor accompanied him on our yearly journeys to the islands. The symptom spread to both sides, but we continued hoping that a magic treatment would come along and restore his life.

Our dream seemed to come true in 2003 when a neurosurgeon performed deep brain stimulation. He implanted rods in Mike’s brain, and in his chest, pacemakers called impulse generators. These generators caused the rods to release dopamine into key areas of his brain to stave off the motor symptoms. The shaking stopped, but his voice softened, and he began to splutter every time he drank his coffee. At work, his clients thought he was drunk. Because of his worsening fatigue, Mike struggled to keep his eyes open. Rather than lose his benefits, he retired on disability. That was the first time I heard the disease whisper “scorched earth.”

By 2005, his worsening cough raised concerns about aspiration, so I began to mix thickening powder into all his liquids. The memory impairment came next, causing him to miss traffic lights. At the doctor’s orders, I took away his car keys. The grounds beautification group he belonged to asked him to resign, citing “personality changes,” which came with Parkinson’s destruction. Each morning I had to list everything he needed to do before I headed out to work. We waded through the health insurance quagmire in between 2007 and 2009. Amid the balloons lay calculators, spreadsheets, exercise programs, weights, and other paraphernalia needed for his care. Worst was giving up his job and driver’s license. Even now, when I visit him, tears roll down his face when he talks about not being able to work or drive.

Through it all, he continued to garden. Raking and planting limbered his muscles, but he started returning from his excursions with scratches and bruises. I learned that his worsening balance caused occasional falls. That and his judgment lapses necessitated hiring a caregiver during the day. Gardening had become another casualty of Parkinson’s destruction. By 2009, the doctor’s label graduated from “mild memory impairment” to “Parkinson’s dementia.”

Now I worked 12-hour workdays; eight at my day job and four more at night providing care. He kept walking albeit with a caregiver’s help. Instead of napalm, Parkinson’s had gotten him. His military service entitled him to benefits; my sister and I arranged his admission to the Veterans’ nursing home in 2010.

The nursing home was a godsend. Bingo, movies, and baseball games keep him engaged, and for a few moments, he forgets about his poverty of visitors, another byproduct of his personality changes. During visits, he’ll ask me about work or about my balloon collection, but our dancing stopped. He still works with plants from a wheelchair. During the first year we laughed and cut up at the home’s holiday picnics. Since then, though, his voice has grown softer, and it’s hard to understand what he’s saying. He can’t walk any more, and his wheelchair dependence is permanent, for the doctors couldn’t stop Parkinson’s scorched earth strategy.

My hope is that some research scientist will read this blog, realize how devastating Parkinson’s Disease can be, and perhaps work harder at developing more effective treatment.

I still continue with my day job and writing projects. I’ve been blessed with a loving family and friends in the writing community. My next book will feature a protagonist who’s fighting rheumatoid arthritis, another disease that burns the earth. She must slay monsters to stay alive. She won’t know how strong she is until necessity demands it.

When I wrote the dedication for one of my books, I called Mike a survivor in his own right. Because he is. Parkinson’s may have scorched his soil, but it has not destroyed his spirit.

Barbara Custer, writer of horror fiction, learned true horror through Parkinson's Scorched Earth Warfare.

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The Story behind City of Brotherly Death

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Although I’ve told everyone I weaned on horror with the Dark Shadows and Dracula, my introduction to horror happened long before Dark Shadows, when my mother and I went to Atlantic City before my eleventh birthday.

My mother gave me money for amusement rides while she rested on a bench, watching me. A sign caught my eye: 1000 year-old Preserved Woman. Because I’m a literal thinker, I believed someone had actually kept a woman alive and in good health for 1000 years. A crowd of people queued up before a pavilion with black curtains, and I followed them. Inside, the line formed a C-shaped curve around an ornate gold bathtub. A black-haired woman sat in the tub, smiling, but she looked like a zombie. Black circles surrounded her sunken eyes, and tight leathery skin rode like a blanket over her bones. She was a skeletal thing with hair and eyes. Later on, I learned she was a mummy sitting in a sarcophagus, but at the time I knew nothing about such things.

I shuffled along, rubbing my arms and shivering because her eyes stared at me. Then she raised her arm and pointed. I tore out of the line, screaming. On the boardwalk, I barreled into my mother’s safe arms. She took me to a comedy movie so I’d forget about it.

The movie made me laugh, but I didn’t forget what I saw. Afterwards, when I watched horror movies, I dreamed about skeletons and zombies. Movies like The Mummy were tough. When skeletons danced across the screen, I covered my eyes. Twice, I left a theater before the movie was over, admission cost be damned.

My skeleton phobia accompanied me to the doctor’s office when I had my knee surgeries in 1984. Every orthopedic surgeon has an adult-sized skeleton in his or her office. Dr. Porter’s bone man sent chills up my spine. During the wintertime, I covered his skeleton with my coat so I wouldn’t have to look. Sometimes I draped it with a sheet. Although Mike came with me, the skeleton gave me the creeps. On a particularly bad day, I got so upset that I threw my winter coat and sweater over its head and shoulders. The weight of the clothing wobbled it. The skull snapped off, bounced on the floor, and rolled out into the hall.

Upon seeing the skull, Porter stared at me, dumbfounded. “What the hell happened here?” he asked.

I looked over at Mike, who sat beside me, grinning behind his sports magazine, and then back at Porter. “Well, you see, Dr. Porter, it’s like this. I had a little accident.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Not at all,” I said quickly. “That skeleton spooked me, so I tried to cover it. The head broke off when I put my coat on it.”

Porter roared for laughter. He tried to comment and then burst into more gales of laughter. After he composed himself, he asked his nurses to put me in an examination room without a skeleton for the remainder of my care.

My fear of skeletons haunted me when I returned to college. At college, my English instructor Kelly taught in a room used for anatomy classes. A skeleton perched on a stand near the back door. That was awful. In my mind, that thing was watching and waiting for the right moment to creep up on me. What if, when I left class, that thing grabbed me with its bony fingers? So even in ninety-degree weather, I brought a coat and scarf to drape over the bones.

Kelly took me aside and suggested that I journal about my fear of skeletons. That spring, my mother died, and when I went back to college, I studied with Kelly again. She gave me writing assignments, and I found myself leaning toward zombie tales. Many of my stories evolved around skeletons, and some of them are in my anthology, City of Brotherly Death.

Funny thing, I tried reading someone’s blog that addressed writers’ fears. I couldn’t read one word because the author included grotesque illustrations of skeletons. I snapped off the computer straightaway. Guess I’m not over my fear yet. Better write another zombie story.

So what motivated you to write horror? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Anthology featurings zombie and revenant tales by Barbara Custer, set in Philadelphia

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Revisiting the I Gotta Bug: Information Dumping

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Barbara Custer's horror fiction included City of Brotherly Death

In my post about the writer’s “I gotta” bug, I detailed the struggles I had working the ending to “One Last Favor.” I sent my story with a revised ending to Toni Rakestraw. A few weeks later, she sent me the edited tale with the line edits and thought balloons, and at the end, noted “I’m not quite satisfied” with the ending. An ending could be happy or sad, but I wanted my readers satisfied, and now is the time to fix the problems before the story goes to print. Once the book goes to print, the ship has sailed.

But this ship hadn’t left harbor yet. “One Last Favor” is a novella. Because of its length and its army of walking dead, it’s the last story in the City of Brotherly Death anthology. The zombies and revenants are chasing after Tara, the protagonist. All up, a delightfully creepy tale, but with an unsatisfying ending. It’s like someone handed me a red silk gown studded with gemstones, and telling me, “Here’s your present, Barbara. The dress is yours to keep on one condition: you can’t wear it.”

Very frustrating.

Toni and I discussed the ending by email. I asked her what she thought of the ending. She couldn’t give me a direct answer, but she asked me if I was striving for a happy or unhappy ending. She also asked me how I ended it originally. Well, at first I had Tara joining Kraven and the undead, and that ending didn’t wash. Tara was too dedicated a nurse, and most people in their right minds wouldn’t give up their humanity to join a race of flesh-eating monsters. She then suggested that I rework the ending but with Tara and her lover together. This I did and I’ve also gotten feedback from my writers’ group. One of them mentioned Jonathan Maberry’s Write and Sell Short Stories class and his discussion on information dumping.

You may wonder why I’m bringing up information dumping. Information dumping is one of the worst sins a writer can commit, and that’s precisely what I did with the ending I’d sent Toni. I wrote a paragraph summarizing Chris (Tara’s lover) proposing to her, moving her to a new apartment, and then fading into the sunset while she deals with the horrors alone. Capital mistake. A marriage proposal is a life-changing event and not something to be tucked in a laundry list of back-story. Not only that. Chris has become an important figure in Tara’s life, and a gentleman like him wouldn’t let her face those monsters alone.

I also needed to resolve the central conflict, that is, the dead overrunning the state and eating people. I can’t go into details lest I give away the story but I addressed this with my last rewrites.

Once I addressed the central conflict and wrote the marriage proposal scene out, the ending began to make sense. I’ve gone through two rewrites since Toni’s seen the ending, and now I’m letting it sit while I work on other parts of the project. I will want to show it to my writer’s group once more.

Sometimes you need information dumping in your first drafts just to get your story down, but then ditch it in your rewrites. My WOP, Blood Moon Rising, a sequel to Steel Rose, has plenty of information dumps, and I’ve got my work cut out for me once I finish edits on City of Brotherly Death and Steel Rose.

Has information dumping been a struggle for you, and if it has, how do you deal with it? I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

 

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Killing Your Darlings and other Writerly Issues

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I got the edits back on Steel Rose, and was glad I had an editor look over the book. Maura Anderson has done a thorough job on Steel Rose, and Toni Rakestraw has done well by me on the stories for City of Brotherly Death. For me to edit my own work would be like a doctor treating his relatives. In both cases, we’re too close to the relatives (or book, in my case) to make wise choices.

One of my major weaknesses was inconsistency. Example: Laurel is my villain, and her negligence causes a patient’s death. The boss fires her and orders two security officers to walk her to her car. All well and good, but two pages later, when Laurel muttered a plan to kill people and dented a car on her way out of the garage, I failed to mention the guards. “What happened to the guards?” asked my editor in her thought balloon. “Surely, they would be watching Laurel.”

So I revised that scene, and upon further thought, I realized that several chapters later, when the police interview the protagonist Alexis about Laurel, they might mention that Laurel is wanted for fleeing the scene of an accident. So I will revise that section also.

It’s not enough that Laurel got fired. When negligence results in a patient’s death in a hospital, the employer is required to report this to the state license board. I know this full well, being a registered respiratory therapist. Alas, I did not include this in the scene where the boss fires Laurel, and the editor called me on it. I might have called my writers for NTD on similar issues. But like many writers, I find it hard to see my own mistakes.

Another area I struggle with is the need to kill my darlings. No, seriously. I love “cute” expressions, but I had to ditch a lot of them because they confused the reader. Example, I typed, “The essence of Laurel wafted her way.” The editor crossed out “essence of Laurel” and replaced it with “Laurel’s smell.” Toni and other editors have called me on my tendency to use too many metaphors, too. I had Yeron, Alexis’ alien lover, thinking the zombies were “wearing death like an overcoat in February.” Us humans might think that way, but not aliens. Hereafter I will save the “cuteness” for my Mylar balloons.

One thing Maura recommended was a timeline, and this advice ties in with a suggestion that author / agent Marie Lamba gave at the Writer’s Coffeehouse meeting about using a calendar to keep track of seasons and important dates for your protagonist. Hereafter I will consider outlining chapters.

I’d like to hear about your struggles with the writing process? Do you outline, and if you do, how has it worked for you? Do you find it hard to kill your darlings? Any other struggles? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Night to Dawn brings a new take on zombies and vampires

 

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JoAnna Senger’s Interview

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I first became aware of JoAnna Senger through her short stories for Barbara Custer’s Night To Dawn magazine. Her writing style easily pulled me into the stories. Recently, I read her first published novel, Betrothal, Betrayal, And Blood, and was blown away by her writing technique and storytelling ability.

Tom: JoAnna, thank you for sitting down with me for this interview. First, how about telling your fans a little about yourself, your family, and where you live?

JoAnna: I still consider myself a Midwestern girl despite decades in California and now Arizona, still root for the Kansas City Chiefs even though I can’t remember the last time I saw them play in a stadium.  My family consisted of a mom, dad, little brother and a half-sister. Only my brother and I are left. Although I still own my home in California, I have to say that I much prefer living in Arizona in the City of Surprise, a small city around 120,000 in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

I went to Stephens College, a girls’ college in Columbia, Missouri, where I received a Bachelors in a double major, French and Economics. I attended graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley and earned a master’s degree in economics.

The world of words and the world of numbers are equally comfortable for me.

Tom: From reading your short stories, and now your novel, it is easy to tell you are an experienced writer, how did you get your start, and what is your background?

JoAnna: You’re really taking me back.  When I was in the fourth grade, we had a choice about a project, and writing a story was one of the choices. I wrote and illustrated (Lord help us) my first story:  Roo-lah and the Elephant Herd. No doubt influenced by my thorough attention to Tarzan comics. I have worked as a financial analyst, a computer programmer and systems analyst, a compensation specialist, a Human Resources consultant, and recently earned a paralegal certificate. So I’ve written just about everything from technical documentation through legal briefs into fantasy.

Or, maybe it’s all a fantasy.

Tom: What writers influenced you, if any, and whom would you say your writing style most resembles? And are your stories more plot driven or character driven, do you think?

JoAnna:  When I was seven, my parents gave me my first book that I could read myself: “The Tin Woodman of Oz” for Christmas. Smitten with the Land of Oz, I went on to buy all the books in the series, and I still have them. L. Frank Baum was followed by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (The Yearling), William Faulkner, Ann Rice, Agatha Christie, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King and many others.

I strive for a style similar to Faulkner’s with respect to the abrupt pace change and like Christie’s for subtlety. With respect to mysteries, I particularly like those where “who-dun-it” becomes almost beside the point, given the extraordinary discoveries made along the way.

As for plot versus character, I suppose I would put character first.  It seems to me that the characters act according to their nature, and their actions become the plot.  Yet, I usually think of a broad plot outline before I refine the characters.  Once refined, the characters become real to me and, often, I can’t give them up.

Tom: Tell us about your short stories, and a bit about your recent novel, and which do you prefer writing, novels or short stories? Or do you have a preference either way?

JoAnna:  The novel is most natural to me. A few of my short stories are standalones, and in the future, I will submit only standalones to magazines such as Night To Dawn and save the continuous stories for a novel. I think of writing a novel as similar to making a quilt, which I also do. Sometimes you need to take a break, and the short story or a table runner does the trick.

Tom: You point out that the human monster is worse than any imaginary creature, and I agree. There is a touch of horror in your recent mystery novel involving a human monster. But besides horror and mystery, do you consider writing other genres down the road, and if so, what would they be?

JoAnna:  I have written a few children’s stories, as yet unpublished, as sometimes wonder what it would be like to write a column for a newspaper.  So many challenges ahead!

Tom: In your novel, Betrothal, Betrayal, And Blood, you have some very interesting characters, in particular the police investigators and a certain female P.I., are these based on anyone you know (lol)? As you know, I’m already a fan of your lady P.I., and hope to see more of her!

JoAnna: In truth, I see myself, family, friends, and acquaintances in every character I write. I’ve heard it said that writers just write about themselves and use different disguises.  A former colleague read a very early version of Betrothal, Betrayal, and Blood and saw me clearly in the lady P.I. I was so flattered!

When I have strong feelings about someone, that person will definitely wind up in my writing.

Tom: What do you find to be the most exciting part of the creating process to either novels or short stories?

JoAnna:  Ideas come over me and demand my attention, nag at me, give me no peace until I start writing.  The flow of words and the images in my mind invite me into another world, the world I am putting down on paper and yes, I often do write my very first drafts in long hand, a chapter at a time.  This first act of writing, the very beginning of a novel, transports me to another world where I am all-powerful and everything will be as I have said. Then, I discover myself writing something completely different from what I was thinking, and we’re off to the races. If I’m using my laptop, I don’t even look at the screen and just write what I see in my mind’s eye.

Weird?  You bet.

Tom: Along the same subject as above, what do you find to be the most difficult area in the creating process?

NighttoDawn27frontcoverJan10

JoAnna:  Making sure that what I see so clearly in my mind’s eye actually becomes words on the page. I have absorbed the characters and events so thoroughly that I sometimes forget that the reader has not.

Tom: Are you working on anything special right now, perhaps a sequel (I hope) to Betrothal, Betrayal, And Blood?

JoAnna:  I have completed the first draft of the next book in the San Tobino series: Holistic Death.  I can guarantee you that you’ll see some folks you know.

Tom: Besides family and writing, tell us about any hobbies or community services you may be involved in, and any other activity you would like to mention.

JoAnna:  I am currently volunteering in the Prosecutor’s Office in the City of Surprise.  The Chief Prosecutor is similar to a District Attorney.

I love to quilt and embroider, maintaining the traditions of the women in my family.  I am the first to be raised in suburbia rather than on a farm or ranch.

Tom: What advice would you give other aspiring authors hoping to break into the writing field today?

JoAnna:  Remain open to all opportunities.  There are so many how-tos, and each of them worked for somebody. It’s all so easy once it happens, and so seemingly hopeless before it happens. The activities I thought would lead somewhere usually didn’t, and then a casual note led me to a bit of success.

And throughout it all was the writing, the world of the imagination, and that is an incomparable experience.  When you realize that you would rather fail at writing than be successful at anything else, you know you’re in the right place.

Tom: Where can fans find and buy – your stories, and do you keep copies on hand for autographs? Please include website and Blogs.

JoAnna:  My novel and short stories can currently be found in Night To Dawn magazine at www.bloodredshadow.com/ My novel is also available at Amazon and B&N.

Tom:  And now a question from left field.  If you could, would you choose to live in a parallel universe as one of the people in the places you create?

JoAnna:  In a heartbeat.  I would go to San Tobino and live forever having safe adventures with Emma, Hermione, Karl and Vito.  Writing about them is the next best thing.

Tom: JoAnna, thank you very much for consenting to this interview.

JoAnna:  It’t been a real pleasure.

 

 

 

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