Author spotlight four. 

Guest blog by Natasha Wetzel

Words have power!

So I realized that something so small as my thoughts that help me, can help others. After posting the below on my facebook page and having it go viral, I thought I would share it here too.

Author friends that have low moments, think of this....
For every person that doesn't support you, countless others do!
For every bad review, you have silent devoted fans!
For every person that says you cant do it...
You can, you will and you have.
You are halfway there, the other half... is just believing in yourself. Because in the end, you are doing this for you! Its your dream, not everyone else's. 

Natasha 

Here's Natasha's Goodreads blog : 

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/4602555-words-have-power *

And a link to Goodreads :
 
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6949203.Natasha_Ann_Wetzel webpage/Blog- http://www.opnovels.com/
 

Author Spotlight day Three :

Today Starving Blades, Natasha's first novel is free today on Amazon! ?http://www.amazon.com/Starving-Blades-Otherworldly-Prophecies-ebook/dp/B009SZKBAW/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1377618856&sr=8-1&keywords=starving+Blades


 I thought I'd go ahead and post the review I did for the book a little bit ago. Once again when I review I do it a little differently, I look for something that holds on to me and is the 'lightening moment' every book has it and I look for it. I know when an author is writing because they are driven versus writing because it is profitable. The driven author no matter the subject will eventually reach me.

This was my review of Starving Blades.

 

Let me start off by saying I'm an atheist, that said I also enjoy Angelic lore, especially when it is told very well. There is a part of me who cannot shake the ol time religion as much as I like, so when I read books like this it is like running into a trusted old friend rather than something to run from.

I found this book terrifically written. The yearning and depression of a man who has lost his love, but determined to get her back again well done. There is a struggle between darkness and light revealing we all live in shades of grey. This brings me to the point of the book that grabbed me by the lapels and shook me. I speak often of the books I read having to have that one point where the connection has grounded me to it. This part came when Emeri speaks of his desire of a world based purely on a black and white society. Good- Evil – a clear dividing line with no grey area and possibly no free will. There is a starkness, a strictness to this thinking that makes you connect with those in danger, those "grey area" people he wants to destroy. After all, no matter if he believes in this clear cut categorised world, everyone is a grey in reality, no one can be purely black or white- good or evil- we are all shades of unwanted grey.

Well done, indeed.

Aubrey

 Author Spotlight Day two :  Natasha Wetzel

I sent Natasha some questions to answer so here we go! -Aubrey

Interview Questions :

1. What shaped your imagination as a child, and do you feel that because of this your imagination as an adult is just as strong?

" Books, movies, things that happened to me, friends... everything did. I think it's more of something that you are born with, the desire to be a writer, painter, artist, anything. Not something that is truly inspired by one thing in general. But a collection of events and things. As an adult I think I have more of an imagination now than I did as a child. Hell, I still turn on every light in the house between my room and the bathroom on my nightly tinkle adventures because 'something' might get me in the dark." 



2. Did you have imaginary friends? Do you still have them and have they grown up with you?

"I used to have an imaginary 7 1/2 foot dragon named fluffy.... I don't have him anymore, but the memory of his lingers with me always." 

3. What is your earliest memory of reading?  

" I have all the books I was read, pretended to read or read myself as a child. Some of them with nifty crayon drawings on the covers with my backwards 'A's' and number '5' sketched in."



4. What was the first story you ever told and how old were you?

 "Do lies count as stories? Kidding, but the first story I told was when I was five. Had to do with a turkey that didn't want to be eaten for Thanksgiving so he hid in the woods till winter. Then there were endless poems from five on up."

 
5. What inspires your creative world? 

"Everything. I mean it. One time I was making coffee in the kitchen, a song was playing faintly in the background and I was staring at a jar with a dead butterfly inside it and just like that, -snaps fingers- I snatched my mug and scampered off to the computer to jot down my new thoughts."




6. What would you want readers to know about you in order for them to understand the world you create?

 " Pain. My books are not a light or fun and fancy free read. There is pain in the pages. There is a lesson to be learned, and if you have not lived a life with some hardships, or have an open mind to such a woven tale, then you will not connect with the characters, you will not understand the story, you will not.... This is important.... NOT enjoy the book. Never the less, they are my stories, and demand to be told. It's like an addiction, I can't stop them. So write I will and must"  

7. What's your 'writing ritual'?  

" A strong hot cup of coffee, turning on 'Two Steps from Hell' on my youtube playlist. Putting on my headphones, and falling into the story. It takes me on a journey. I know the start and end of the book the rest... just comes to me as I write it."
 

8. Who are your favorite Indy authors currently?  

" I like a lot of them, so listing them and forgetting others would be far from fair. Some are still growing as authors and becoming the budding writer that is nestled within. The thing about writing is you get better the more you do it. Harry Potter was the same way. Read the first book and the descriptions of the people. It was almost flat and lifeless. As the book series went on, the writing improved. (Not to say it was bad, you could just immensely see the difference.)"  

9. Do you feel there is anything that holds you back as an author? 

" Lack of money, or people willing to render services for free. The truth of the matter is that even though you can have the greatest story ever! Lack of editing, or digital imaging for a book cover to make your baby shine the way it should, can make it seem dull, uninteresting or just plain not appealing to the reader. For now, I have awesome folks and connections that help me out to the best of their abilities and for nothing or little money in return. I am blessed, because it turned out far greater than I could have hoped for. But it hinders me at best, because with any dream, if it isn't hard to achieve, then it isn't worth daring to dream or pursue in the first place." 

10. What advice would you give to new Indies about the art of self publishing? 

"Read your work till you are sick of it, then read it again and add, take away and improve your skills always. Remember that you are doing this because it's your dream, not everyone else's. Above all, be honest with yourself and even if a review is bad, pick it apart and take away the lessons from it, not the negativity."

Thank you for sharing with us! 

The Author Spotlight week one

Although I chose Natasha's spotlight at random this is why she was put in the ol' hat to begin with. I was just starting the page and wanted to pick the first of the spotlights from the community I was socialising with. I was coming home one night after work and the thought popped into my head, Natasha's name popped in there with it.

I had been riding my bike and lost in thought during the 20 minute ride home, when I reflected on a blog post I had just read by Natasha on Goodreads. Needless to say her blog post about how much it can cost to be an independent and that when you have a family sometimes these things just cannot be done, and should that get in the way of your dreams, had stuck with me.

Being an indy means sometimes it really is DIY.

I came from the old ashcan zine days. We were the underground culture fueled by Love and Rocket comic books, black ink, typewriters, old punk bands, and liberal amounts of David Bowie. We didn't care about if what we were doing was going to be looked up to or down upon. We were pre-internet baby! Armed with rolls of stamps and weekly trips to the post office we were sending books all over the world. We were making art.

So now here I am nineteen years later since those first zines and watching my fellow makers of art being misjudged and hammered to spend money they simply don't have at times. Telling us to stop because we haven't got the money is not helping the situation. It goes against this new movement of taking control back. The Haves are still telling the Have-nots they aren't allowed to compete only divides the community. We know what we need to do to put out a better product and we are doing what we can getting editors within meager budgets, using betas, and working with artists.

I don't want to have to see authors feel kicked out of being an indie because they haven't much money. Again this goes against the spirit of the new movement. It has been likened to punk rock, when the kids picked up instruments and took control away from the industry. There were the haves (Malcolm MacLaren) who attempted to run things, but no one was taking control away from Adam Ant (though they tried) and no one was taking control from The Clash (listen to Complete Control) not without a fight and Joe Strummer wouldn't be cowed into changing the way he sung or how they wrote their songs because it wasn't polished.
 
I was a poor kid. I wore shoes till they were in pieces and still do actually. I learned the value of chasing my dreams but living within my means. If that keeps me from being an indy author in your eyes then so be it. When our first book came out we were living in a safe house (basically a homeless shelter but protected due to the safety threat to those of us who lived there) while I struggled to find a job in the new city we moved to. We absolutely had no spare money for putting out the book. We had enough for the copyright that was all. The book is shaky I admit, but it was written in a time that was unstable; financially, safety-wise, and emotionally. 

Anyway,

Natasha, your blog touched me and gave me reason to put your name in that list among all my others author friends who struggle. May our struggles end because we have found our audience, not because someone told us to give up because we aren't wealthy like they are.

Aubrey

Indy is not a dirty word.

Think about it; indie rock and indie films are all seen as a concept of high art. Then people scoff at indie authors and call us losers who could not get published. I understand that many of our critics champion that belief. That all indy authors are authors who were too bad to get published therefore they are vanity published.

So let me get this straight, in order to be 'legitimate' I have to pay a publisher my money for them to be a middle man taking their percentage and taking creative control of my work all for my benefit? So yes I will concede that publishers have the massive power of promotion and their established monopolies with bookstores behind them, they will push what they believe will sell and the readers are consumers being told what to read. We do the same thing in smaller doses-but we keep our profits and our control.

Why I am such a stickler for authors protecting their copyright? Because I lost mine, and it happened at a low point in my life to top it all off. We signed a contract that signed our rights away on our intellectual property. We were convinced by our partner at the time that it was a solid deal and our ticket to fame in the comic book world. A year later no book was done; the artist breached the contract dragging us writers/creators into the breach, and I spent my last seventy-five dollars on a lawyer who slides the contract back to us and says "You can sue the artist but otherwise the publisher owns your work. It's airtight.". Meanwhile the artist is just as broke as we are, ran off with the eleven hundred dollars in advance money and supplies I'd paid him. We never received our advance and we have no rights to our comic book creation. Meanwhile we were homeless, I was in a ridiculously low paying job, J was donating plasma twice a week, while trying to survive as our dream just crashed and burned.

In hindsight, I would have gone with my gut feeling and stopped the deal before we signed. I had qualms about trusting the artist, but he was one of the best artists in the business, and had been a friend for years. He unfortunately lacked focus and was paranoid as soon as the book took off we'd fire him despite our pleas we would have kept a successful team together. He deliberately sabotaged us and the whole project. I will not reveal who this artist is, nor who the company was, suffice to say the publisher is still up and running and the artist is drawing for a much smaller company and working a part time job last time we saw each other.
What did I learn other than trust your gut reaction? I learned to protect my copyright like a Tasmanian devil! I harp on it, yes only because I don't want any of you to go through what I went through. It's the worse feeling in the world to have your dreams stolen because of a contract loophole. Read your contracts, have a lawyer read your contract, protect yourself. If it's too good to be true watch out.

This is why I am independent. I have a need for control of my art, good or bad. It is what I am doing to protect myself and still tell the stories I want to. I am not saying being published is a bad thing. There are some awesome indy publishers for instance; lets look at them as the Epitaph or Subpop label of publishing. I consider Amazon and other ebook self publishing platforms akin to Kobalt Label Services which allows established musical acts to be independent. George Lucas built his empire as an independent film maker as did Spielberg.

This is what I want: I want out critics to stop calling us losers because a few hacks with cringe-worthy self published. I want for us all to take a pledge to overachieve in our craft and never give our critics a reason to blanket us all with the outdated 'vanity press' stereotype.

We are Indies!

Aubrey

Guest Blog :

Author Mel Skubich

'Speaking English as a foreign language'
How does writing all of my fiction and most of my poetry in English make me a misfit? It’s fairly simple, really. English is not my mother-tongue. I learned it at school from the age of 11. English is a foreign language to me – you could even say that after my native German and Latin it was the third language I had to learn. Ever since I fell in love with a handful of British bands and singers (most importantly Pet Shop Boys, Marc Almond and Holly Johnson) in my teens, I became obsessed with everything British. I tried to pick up slang words and funny little proverbs, read my favourite books in English and began watching TV shows and films in English as well. I did what kids in the 80s did, I had pen pals all over the globe and we all communicated in English. Some of us even collaborated on little fan fiction stories together, which were sent back and forth in letters. It got to the point where I gave up reading books in German altogether (until I discovered some excellent German fantasy authors).

Okay, so now you know that I’m a bit of a geek but all that still doesn’t explain why I started to write in English.

At first it was because those pen pals in other countries were my only audience. Then it was because the best Star Trek and Harry Potter fan fiction on the web was in English. I also chose to write in English because in my fan fiction (which was based on real life pop stars that shall remain nameless), I wrote about British guys and I could not bring myself to writing their conversations in German. Now I am at a point where I think I have found my voice – in English. I don’t think I would be even half as good, if I started to write the same stories in German. My sentences just seem to be so awkward and forced and simply not right when I don’t write in English.

Which puts me into a strange spot: I cannot attend writers groups and workshops in my hometown because everybody is expected to be working on a German text. I cannot submit to German publishers or magazines. I know that neither my English nor my writing are perfect but when asking for feedback on my stories I noticed that my English-speaking friends are often reluctant to point out grammar or punctuation mistakes. Because: “English is not your mother-tongue.” While it’s nice that they think I’m doing a fairly good job, I don’t want to get an A for effort. I simply don’t want my readers to notice that I’m from Germany and not some place on the British Isles. So I’m struggling to find my place but that is what I’ve always done. Why should doing what I love best, namely writing, be any different?

No-one’s a misfit without a reason and once you accepted the fact, you don’t want to be anything else.

Mel

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMelSkubich?fref=ts

As a blogger my responsibility to the authors who I review.

This is what you can expect from me, I will not use my power as a review blog to control authors or make them scared of reviews. Does this mean I'm a 5 star softy? If I find something that needs work, I will point it out to the author, but rest assured I do look for the positive and usually anchor my reviews on the best bits.

I will work with an author, I will never blind side them and not allow them to defend their work. I will continue to promote an author and their projects because I believe everyone has it in them to grow and just because I wasn't too keen on it doesn't mean I'm the absolute authority on the matter. I like things others don't and others like things I don't. Does it mean it is all wrong? NO. It just means that we all like what we like without judgement.

I believe in positive negative as a learning point, when I received a bad review, and yes I have today from a fellow blogger I took into consideration what they said. I was happy that they did not give me too bad a star rating but felt that if they had shown me the review first perhaps it would have been more professional than just posting at Amazon and doing a runner. Did they do this thinking I would come down on them and be hysterical? Possibly. I did unlike their blog and I did this not because they did the review, but because the blogger essentially said they would not support or promote our books. They did not take into consideration that people have minds of their own and we could have still be something that someone is looking for.
So yes I learned something today, as a blogger I have power (albeit it small power). I have the power to ruin or frighten authors. If you have to ask "What if you don't like it?" then I see how authors have been abused by the review system. I will not use my blogger influence to ever harm an author.

You have a promise from me to give you fair treatment.

A promise that I will not misuse my influence.

A promise that I will continue to support the author community with real support and not as a weapon to bludgeon you with.

Aubrey