C Gockel Writes

So you want to be a writer …

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A tweenager recently sent me an email asking me some questions about being a writer. I thought I might post them below, as I’ve been asked them before. 

  1. What made you want to become a author? 

    I did not want to become an author. I enjoyed writing non-fiction and fiction when I was your age, but I didn’t think I could make a living as a writer. I like food, and not worrying about how to pay bills. I still think about getting a “real” job a lot. Coding isn’t necessarily more lucrative, but it is more dependable.

  2. Do you have any advice for becoming an author?

    There are three pieces of advice I’d give to any writer.
    The first is to read and write! Read anything you like–fiction or non-fiction, in your native language, or your second language if you are studying in school. Think about what it is in the books and articles you read that makes you like them. And write. Always write. Not for the hope of being famous or for money, just because you love writing. If you don’t love writing, don’t become an author.
    The second piece of advice I would give is to find something else you enjoy doing, something that will pay the bills while you build your writing career. For someone your age, that would translate into not just studying creative writing, but also studying history and science (fantastic for story ideas!), art or photography and at least take a music appreciation class (studying the appearance of things and sounds will help you describe scenes more vividly),  and mathematics. The last one, mathematics, makes artists groan, but it is so important for all artists of every type, especially if you want to make a living with art. So many artists don’t understand money, and they wind up getting taken advantage of, or they aren’t capable of analyzing their sales to make informed financial decisions.
    Working hard at all your subjects achieves two things–you learn how to work hard, and you might just find something that you like and are good at that makes a fine “day job” while you build your writing career. It turned out, I am a decent coder. I know writers who were lawyers, accountants, nurses, editors, graphic designers, marketing directors, businesswomen, and more. There are only a few writers out there who just emerged from high school or college as writers. You might be that person, but most likely not. Prepare for the not.
    The third piece of advice I would be is to live your life. Travel, make mistakes, meet people, talk to them, fall in love, and have children if you want children. These are things that should help your career in the long run, not hinder it. It will give you a greater understanding of the human condition and will allow you to write with greater empathy and compassion.

  3. What is your favorite genre to write about? 

    I love fantasy with a sci-fi element, and writing technology as though it is magic in sci-fi. I like all my fiction to have historical references. I can’t write without writing adventure. And I love romance that is integral to the plot, but not the whole plot.

  4. What is your favorite book that is not one of your’s?

    I cannot name my favorite book–that’s like asking a mother who her favorite child is.

    The first book I remember reading was Pirate’s Promise when I was just out of third grade. (I have dyslexia and reading came late for me.) I loved the adventure in it, and the hero who was determined to do the right thing. It also made me realize that adults could be stupid. At the end of the book, the boy who was avoiding becoming an indentured servant goes to live with a family in the deep South–a place with slaves! Couldn’t he have gone to someplace like Massachusetts?

    Black Beauty was the next book I remember reading–I love writing from non-human points of view, and maybe that is why. (Sleipnir has his own story in I Bring the Fire, it is called, The Slip. Carl Sagan, the ten-legged, venomous alien weasel … err, “werfle” from my Archangel Project series has his own story, too. It’s called Carl Sagan’s Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe.)

    I read all of Robert Aspirin’s Myth series soon after those–mostly because a friend I met at camp was his niece and she had a box of Advanced Reader Copies. Those taught me that books could be funny. I read all those books the summer between third and fourth grade. I read The Prydain Chronicles and the Westmark Trilogy by Lloyd Alexander soon after fourth grade started. Those taught me that books could be funny, lyrical, exciting, and deep. And then I just took off on a tear!

    There were many books I read between fourth grade and when I began writing. I think On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony probably influenced my desire to write from the misunderstood immortal’s point of view. Dr. Zhivago made me realize I could like a human who did things I’d normally find distasteful. (The title character was unfaithful to his wife.) Dan Simmon’s Hyperion Cantos, Lois McMaster’s Bujold’s Paladin of Souls, and Raising the Stones made me realize I could use sci-fi and fantasy to discus theology in ways that were more fun than discussing theology. (Not to diss Bujold’s Vorksigian Saga. Shards of Honor has one of the best love scenes ever.) I really enjoyed several non fiction books about China and Japan: Wild Swans in particular, and a lot of really dense texts, Death Ritual in Late Imperial Early Modern China particularly stands out in my memory. I read books about economics and psychology too: Charles Wheelan, Steven Pinker, Daniel H. Pink, Malcolm Gladwell, Hernando DeSoto, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen Dubner) and Sharon Brownlee all can make non-fiction riveting. (Lately I’ve discovered Alexis Clark’s Enemies in Love. Fantastic historical documentary of racial segregation during WWII.)

  5. Do you have any writing tips?

    The only tips I have for writing are to write something every day. It doesn’t have to be fiction. It can be a letter, or an email, a book report, science report, anything. Also, don’t be afraid of feedback. It’s a hugely essential part of growth; as is learning which feedback to heed and which to ignore.

I hope this has been helpful. Now get writing!

 

Book Review: Enemies in Love

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Enemies in Love: a German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance A few weeks back I saw an interview with this book’s author and was fascinated. I spied the book at the Chicago Public Library, so I swooped in and grabbed it. Enemies in Love is not really a “romance,” it is a non-fiction book about the slow integration of the country and the issues surrounding it, and how those issues swirled around one particular couple, Elinor and Frederick, a black nurse and a German POW who met at a POW camp during WWII. It is amazing, and sometimes really heartbreaking, and reveals a lot of “hidden” history I knew nothing about.

For instance, I had no idea that during WW2 at one point there was a shortage of 10,000 nurses. This meant that our hospitals in Europe and Asia weren’t properly staffed and ready to accommodate men and women who were grievously injured. Nurses are critical to patient care (For any who doubt the importance of nurses: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23174), and this likely led to unnecessary deaths.

And I do mean unnecessary. There weren’t allowed to be any more black nurses than an arbitrary quota. Also, they were only allowed to serve black service members until the very end of the war. Thousands of black nurses who passed the same nursing exams that white nurses took applied to join the army, but were turned away. It’s really scary that leaders in our military were willing to risk the lives of young GIs rather than look past prejudice. (Side note: my grandfather served aboard a bomber as a gunner during WWII. He risked his life every time he went up in a plane, but he also almost died on the ground of pneumonia. I had to put the book down for a while after reading about the ‘manufactured’ nurse shortage.)

The book is also an excellent account of our POW camps. Despite some abuses, the U.S. actually did a good job of treating our POWs humanely. The same cannot be said of our allies, and certainly not of our enemies (a friend’s grandfather survived the Bataan Death March–it is not an event you ever get over.) It was distressing to read how POWs in the U.S. were often treated better than our own people, but it also showed how such endeavors can be humane.

I also really enjoyed how the book documented the main couple’s families. Elinor Powell’s family had been upper middle class for two generations before the war broke out, and it was fascinating to see how they managed this before the Civil Rights movement. They had a strong work ethic, but it was also largely a function of where they lived: a small suburban town called Milton, Massachusetts. Her grandfather had been a trusted servant of a white family–so trusted they gave him a beautiful house. He was a barber, but quite skilled as a craftsman in general, and helped build homes for his white neighbors. His wife was an escaped slave, and their son grew up among their white neighbors as a popular and appreciated member of the community. Elinor’s father got an apprenticeship, but when WWI broke out, he went overseas to fight for his country. He came home, got a civil servant’s job, joined the local fire brigade, and helped out his neighbors when the recession hit and he was well off and they were suffering … basically he was an all around great guy that people liked. He married a black Southern school teacher who had grown up under very different circumstances.

As a result of her location, and her parent’s hard work and belief in education, Elinor grew up in pre-Civil Rights America without ever really experiencing racism and never knowing poverty. Joining the segregated military and serving on a segregated base was a shock. The book goes to pains to mention that not all of the Army bases were segregated, a lot depended on the officer in charge, and some of those officers took very courageous stands not just on the bases, but in the surrounding towns. The officer in charge of Elinor’s base however, was terrible … which might be why he got the job guarding over POWs to begin with.

And then there was Frederick’s family … You know how most books and movies feature either Jewish protagonists or Christian Germans who fought against the Nazis? Well, Frederick’s parents were straight up Nazis. It was interesting to read about them for that reason. When I meet people who are genuinely racist in this day and age, they are never only racist against one group–they hate a lot of people and have a lot of, well, let’s just call them “issues.” The same can be said of Fredrick’s family … his dad was a successful businessman who used the war to get rich. He was also a serial philanderer who did nothing to hide his affairs and was never home. Frederick’s mom was a socialite who must have been hurt by her husband’s actions, but didn’t fight it. She also really didn’t care about her children as much as she cared about her social life. Despite their faults, they had Frederick, and he was not perfect, but he was a completely different person–and as such, was a complete disappointment to his parents. He loved art and jazz. The author speculates that he began to associate African American culture with all the emotion and love that was missing in his home. Maybe. However, the picture on the cover doesn’t really do Elinor justice; she was striking. It may have been just her beauty, and the fact that she was a nurse and so obviously intelligent and caring that made Frederick walk up to her the first time he laid eyes on her and say, “You should know my name. Someday I’m going to be your husband.”

It’s a great book, and I highly recommend it for it’s honest portrayal of real families dealing with real events.

You can get it on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. It is also available at Scribd (for the moment, their catalog is variable.)

Book Review: A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole

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A Hope Divided A Novel of the Civil War by Alyssa ColeI picked up A Hope Divided with some trepidation. You know how you read a really good book, and after reading it you feel 1) Bereft 2) Certain that no other book can live up to your expectations. 3) You worry that the next book will be the same book with different names slapped on the previous characters. I was in that sort of post book high low after reading An Extraordinary Union.

A Hope Divided wasn’t An Extraordinary Union … it was better. It has all the things I loved about An Extraordinary Union: forbidden love, high stakes romance, history, and characters I really liked, but I think that I could identify with the characters a little more. An Extraordinary Union’s hero and heroine are based on real people, but they’re so blazingly heroic that in some ways it’s harder to identify with them. Hope’s Marlie and Ewan are more vulnerable; they are heroic in the story, but it is more because they have to be. They are both quiet individuals who’d probably be happier in a lab, but the war has forced them outside their comfort zones and they’re trying to make the best of it.

A little about the story: Marlie Lynch is half white and half black, a free black woman living with the very wealthy white half of her family in the Carolinas. She exists in a strange parallel world. She has the benefits of wealth and freedom, but the limitations of her race and sex. Her black mother was a “root woman,” and practitioner of “hoo-doo.” Marlie has turned the practical parts of her mother’s knowledge into a herbalist business.

I’m going to just say right here, that I was really impressed by how the author Alyssa Cole combined science and superstition in this book. She could have made magic real, or she could have dismissed it. Instead she walked a very narrow middle road and did a wonderful job showing how for Marlie’s slave ancestors, magic was really about trying to take control of their lives in a world that offered them few chances to do so. It also shows though, that some of their knowledge wasn’t just superstition.

Like a lot of romance novel series, the two male heroes are related. That may seem contrived to those unfamiliar with the genre–and indeed it is a little bit, but hey, it is a romance novel and I really liked Ewan. He isn’t like his brother at all, which is part of the reason this book is so good. He has a much more scientific mind, and he’s a joy to read. I’m not going to say too much more about that …

This book could be subtitled “Introverts in Love.” Alyssa Cole has captured the minds of two people who have very complex inner lives, and brings them out into the world. Danger runs high throughout the book. The romance is believable and incredibly sweet. (There are smexy scenes, so if those aren’t your cuppa, you might not like it. All of those scenes were well done and fit the characters, developed the story, and were more than just needing some nookie just because … )

Wonderful book. If you like historical romance definitely pick it up. It is traditionally published, and a little more expensive at $9.99 … but worth it. If you’re on a budget, it should be fairly easy to get your library to pick it up.


Happy reading!

An Extraordinary Union

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LOOKING FOR A BOOK TO READ? This weekend I read An Extraordinary Union, by Alyssa Cole. I started this book Saturday and just finished it–so you know, basically I inhaled it. It’s got everything: forbidden love, great historical detail, believable characters, and high stakes action.

The story takes place during the Civil War, and features two Union spies who fall in love while on assignment in Richmond, Virginia, capital of the Confederacy. (Dun-dun-dunnnnnn!)

Elle Burns is a freed black woman posing as a slave, and her love interest is a Scottish immigrant. Elle has helped others on the Underground Railroad her entire life, and she has a secret gift–an eidetic memory. Her motivations for risking her life for the Union are obvious, but they are well explored, without ever being boring. We get to see her uneasy relationship with abolitionists–some who still don’t view African Americans as being much more than animals. And we see her uneasy place as a well-educated woman in Civil War era society, and what that means for her romantic life. These aspects of her were complicated, and for that reason felt authentic to me. Her growing feelings for a white spy were also extremely conflicted, which I found very believable.

Also, what’s not to love about forbidden love?

Ahem.

Malcolm McCall, the white spy in question, is a Scottish immigrant whose family was forced to leave Scotland after their land was seized by the British. One of the strengths of this story was that it showed how that experience gave him empathy for the plight of enslaved African Americans. (It also made me want to read up more on that era of Scottish history.) It also showed how the experience of oppression changes from place to place, but how in some ways, it is eerily similar. It also gives the story a global context, which I liked.

Even though intellectually Malcolm knows that a long-term relationship with Elle will not be recognized by law, or by many people, he is much less conflicted about it. His outlook was naive, but felt real. I know a German family that lived for a time in South Africa under apartheid. They did not understand “the rules,” befriended black Africans, and made everyone uncomfortable on occasion–even, unintentionally, their black friends.

Side note: it was also charming how Elle reminded him of his Mum, personality-wise. I think we tend to look for “the familiar” when we fall in love. And Elle is familiar to Malcom in the most important way. She’s smart and knows her own mind (though not always her heart.)

The heat level in this book is high. There are fairly graphic sex scenes, but the scenes do offer character insights. If it’s not you’re thing though, this might not be the book for you.

I just bought the next book in the series … which I think is a pretty decent endorsement.

Happy Reading!

I’ll be releasing my next book in Kindle Unlimited

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I want to release Soul Marked at 99¢, it’s the first book in a brand new series, and I want to make it as affordable as possible.

Soul Marked: After the Fire Book 1It’s almost time to release Soul Marked, the first book in my After the Fire paranormal romance series. The After the Fire books take place in the I Bring the Fire Universe, and there will be cameos from familiar characters, but they’ll all be complete standalones, with no previous knowledge of I Bring the Fire or the other After the Fire books required.

After the Fire will be filled with the same mix of action, adventure, and “sci-fantasy” that I Bring the Fire and Archangel Project fans have come to expect, but they are paranormal romances, so they’ll have a bit more romance, and each book will end with a Happily Ever After for the characters featured. Like I Bring the Fire and Archangel there will be adult themes, but there will be no onscreen sexy times.

At 99¢ I can reliably count on 200 sales at release from my fans on Amazon, and about 40 sales combined on all other vendors. Even if I was to price at $2.99 that wouldn’t be enough to recoup the $1500 I have invested in editing, covers, and promotions for Soul Marked. That’s assuming I’d sell 240 books in a new series the first month at a higher price point, a huge assumption!

So I need NEW fans. By releasing at 99¢ and remaining there for a few days I hope to rank higher and get more visibility. The visibility should attract enough Kindle Unlimited subscribers to help me recoup costs within the first few months. (Hopefully by Christmas!)

Because a condition of Kindle Unlimited is exclusivity, I will not be releasing the ebooks immediately to all vendors (paperbacks will be available everywhere.)

I have been agonizing for months over this decision. I’d really like to sell my book wide and release immediately to OverDrive–the library lending system and the only way all my books are truly “free.” At the same time, I have to make business decisions based on what is best for my family, and I need to break even as quickly as possible.

If you are not a Kindle owner Kindle does offer a FREE app for smartphones, tablets, and PCs. It can be downloaded onto the new Samsung Nooks as well. I have used this app on my late and very ancient iPhone (retired just this year–an iPhone 4! The app worked terrific!) And I use it now on my new Samsung Galaxy phone.

Which leaves Kobo readers … There are ways to convert Kindle MOBI files to ePubs with Calibre. I also know that some Kindle Unlimited authors offer ePubs to fans that prove they’ve purchased on Amazon. I’m looking into the feasibility of this–primarily trying to determine if it will break Amazon’s Terms of Service. I will get back to you!

For those of you who won’t get the novel on your preferred reader, I hope the 99¢ introductory rate is at least a small consolation–I hope a story you love is a bigger consolation. (Fingers crossed.) I may at some point release wide, I just to have to see where the series stands in a year or so, see what read-thru is like, and what the demand would be on other vendors. Decisions like this are some of the worst in self-publishing, and I thank you for your understanding.