Category Archives: Kristin Luna

You Are Not Alone: One-Star Reviews for Everyone!

Kristin Luna Publishing Reviews The Fictorians The Writing Life 4 Comments

When a writer friend or fellow Fictorian tells me they just got a one-star review on Goodreads or Amazon, my teeth clinch and I wince. Getting a one-star review isn’t quite like being hit in the stomach with a baseball bat, but more so pounded in the chest with a meat tenderizer.

There is one glimmer of respite: you’re not alone in that ridiculous one-star review that didn’t even get the name of your characters right. You’re not the only one who asked yourself if the reviewer actually saw the words on the page, because it says right there on page 13 that Mary’s mother was an ex-CIA agent bomb specialist, hinting that she could have prior knowledge of how to deactivate bombs. Just saying. It’s on page 13. Not even 20 pages into the book. But, you know, maybe the reviewer couldn’t see words.

Even veteran writers get one-star reviews that are ridiculous or extremely rude, or both (it’s like a crap sandwich).

WARNING: Language. These authors use language.

And more:

WARNING: Language. These authors use more language.

But Children’s books. Those are safe, right?

And if you think there are still some sacred texts free from scathing reviews, I’d urge you to look up reviews for The Holy Bible. “Badly edited, poor continuity and internal consistency. Authors seem to change between books. Plot is cliched and thin, with virtually no character development save for Judas Iscariot,” says one reviewer. While some of these reviews are clearly written in jest, just remember, no work is safe from other people’s opinions.

But you as the author can past these scathing reviews by reminding yourself that you aren’t alone. Rant to your friends if you must, but keep it private. Don’t add any fuel to the fire. Your friends and other writers can help you through some of the personal attacks, and help bolster you up against the attacks on your book. Remember, what you see online are opinions. Everyone’s got them, and they don’t really matter. But your happiness DOES matter. Protect it, and keep close friends nearby who also want you to be happy.

 

Don’t forget to enter to win one of the prizes we’ve got up-for-grabs this week. Click here for rules and giveaway details.

Feeding the Foundation

Author's Perspective Craft & Skills Evaluation Tools Kristin Luna Life Philosophies Making Progress as a Writer Reading Self-Awareness Starting a Career The Writing Life The Writing Process Writing Tools No Comments

As we grow not only in our craft but also as people, it’s important to establish or re-establish the foundation of why we write, what success means to us at this moment, and what fulfillment means across our lifetimes. And yes, those things can completely change in the span of a few years. Our perspectives shift, our goals change, our focus narrows. As that happens, it’s essential to revisit the foundations on which we built our dreams and goals in the first place.

Here are some general questions to help you consider the root of your inspiration for writing.

1. Why do you write?

This question gets passed around a lot, it seems. But dig deep. “Cause I’ve just gotta!” is a fine answer, but what compels you to do it? Dig deep. “Because I have unresolved issues,” is probably a more honest answer for all of us.

2. What do you want?

“Duh, to be famous.” Sure, that can be your answer. But consider the possibility you won’t be the next J.K. Rowling. Now, what do you want?

3. What is your writing routine?

Has it changed in the past few years. Does it need to change? What’s not working about it?

4. Are you still chasing dreams and goals that are rooted in a genre in which you no longer write?

For example, when I started writing, I wanted to write literary fiction. At this moment, I write mostly YA, which is a much faster market and demands faster manuscript turn-arounds. My goals need to change to fit the genre I’m writing, at least for now.

5. Do your short-term goals need re-evaluating to reflect where you are right now?

I had to re-evaluate my short-term goals when writing YA, as mentioned above, and those will constantly need to be reconsidered depending on the project.

6. Do your long-term goals need to change to reflect where you are right now?

For example, because I’m not writing literary fiction right now, and I had not considered I’d be writing YA, my long-term goals for my career need to adjust to include YA.

A Writer's Guide to Persistence by Jordan Rosenfeld
A Writer’s Guide to Persistence by Jordan Rosenfeld
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

There are some great resources out there to help you reflect on these things while also help you build your craft and routine.

I highly recommend The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron for an all-out overhaul, but be warned, it takes a lot of commitment to finish. Finish it. Commit to it. It’s worth it.

A Writer’s Guide to Persistence by Jordan Rosenfeld has been extremely valuable to me recently. I see it a lite version of The Artist’s Way. That’s not to demean it in any way; I simply mean it’s shorter and more compact.

Both books have been extremely valuable to me, and I hope they are for you as well.

About Kristin Luna:
Kristin Luna copyKristin Luna has been making up stories and getting in trouble for them since elementary school. She writes book reviews for Urban Fantasy Magazine and her short story “The Greggs Family Zoo of Odd and Marvelous Creatures” was featured in the anthology One Horn to Rule Them All alongside Peter S. Beagle and Todd McCaffrey. Her short story “Fog” recently appeared on Pseudopod. Kristin lives in San Diego with her husband Nic.

Style As Your Fingerprint

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There’s not a lot out there about developing one’s writing style. Because it’s supposed to be yours, right? No one is supposed to help you shape that:  it’s uniquely yours. YOUR voice. But how far, exactly, can you go with that? When does style obstruct grammar rules? When does style turn off potential editors and publishers? Unfortunately, there is no right answer.

Let me explain.

Over the years, I have heard various editors from Baen, Harper Collins, Shadow Mountain, and other publishing houses on panels explain, “I want something new. I don’t want the next Stephen King. I don’t want the next Stephanie Meyer. I want you. I want your unique style and your unique voice.” One might be thrilled to hear this call for individualism. “Then I’ll send in my personal style where I don’t use quotations, and don’t capitalize anything!” I want to say that takes it too far. But then again, there’s James Frey. Munch on this little excerpt from his break out novel A Million Little Pieces.

Hey, Buddy.
His voice is deep and dark.
Hey, Buddy.
Tracks crisscross his forearms.
I’m talking to you.
Scars run the length of his wrists.
I’m talking to you.
I look in his eyes. They’re blank.
What?
He points.
That’s my chair.
I turn back to the television.

Did that blow your mind? It should. Most manuscripts that stylized do seem to make it past the slush pile… across the desk and into the trash can.

“Perhaps I’ll send in my manuscript of one-liners that play around a semblance of a plot!” Again, I’m hesitant to negate this, too. Behold the king of one-liners, Oscar Wilde.

“How about my hard-to-follow stream of consciousness novel?” I must hold back from rolling my eyes and sighing, as this is what James Joyce is famous for.

“Ah, but my extremely lengthy novel filled with citations!” I would say that would be

This is DFW's annotations on Don De Lillo's Players, for crying out loud. Imagine what Infinite Jest is like.
These are DFW’s annotations in Don De Lillo’s Players. Now imagine what Infinite Jest is like.

boring, but then again, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is on almost every bookshelf of every English major in America.

A very wise editor and friend, Joshua Essoe, once told me something along the lines of: “Prove you know what the rules are before you go and break them.” I think this is fantastic advice for new writers. Editors and publishers need to trust that you know what you’re doing. Slowly injecting your style as you go is the way to job security.

At the same time, I can’t help but wonder: what if the authors I’ve mentioned above had done the same? Maybe if they hadn’t boldly stepped out into the world with their styles fully realized, style wouldn’t be as important as it is today. Maybe we should be so bold as to say, “Yes, I know my style is unique, but just read it, and let me know if it doesn’t just knock your socks off.” Because chances are, if your story is solid and engaging, your style will only add to it.

About Kristin Luna:
Kristin Luna copyKristin Luna has been making up stories and getting in trouble for them since elementary school. She writes book reviews for Urban Fantasy Magazine, contributes to the blog The Fictorians, and her short story “The Greggs Family Zoo of Odd and Marvelous Creatures” was featured in the anthology One Horn to Rule Them All alongside Peter S. Beagle and Todd McCaffrey. Her short story “Fog” recently appeared on Pseudopod. Kristin lives in San Diego with her husband Nic.

Cloud-Based Storage and You: How to Never Lose Your Work, Because if You Did, You Would Cry Like a Little Baby

Business Horror Kristin Luna Rewriting The Writing Life 2 Comments

Have you ever had a “friend” lose a manuscript, or even half a manuscript, due to a computer crash? They may describe it like a slow-motion car accident, their hope melting away with each second. Something like this.

Friends don’t let friends save work solely on their desktops. Friends make sure friends are saving their work on a cloud-based storage. I personally don’t care which company you go with, just as long as you do go with one as a back up. 

You may accuse me, by the end of this article, of using scare tactics to get you to back up your work. 

Yes, you are correct. 

In the Writing World, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The writers who save their work, and the writers that do not save their work or have copies. THESE ARE THEIR STORIES.

1. Lord Byron. What’s worse than dying? Sending the very last thing you wrote, your memoirs, to your editor with the request he publish them after you die, and instead he rips up each page and throws it into a fire. THAT’S worse than dying, probably.

2. Sylvia Plath. How about after you die, your own husband destroys your very last works, including 130 pages of a novel you were working on?

3. Ernest Hemingway. Maybe it would be less painful if your wife took a bunch of your short stories to show them off to friends, only to have her bags stolen in the train station.

4. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Let’s say you take a vacation to Florida and bring your manuscript. When you return to the hotel after a stroll on the beach, you find the hotel engulfed in flames.

5. Author 1 (Name redacted because you’d recognize it, and he’s still alive). When this author was just starting out, he lent the only copy of his very first novel to his friend to read. She lost it. Oops!

I know what you’re thinking. But Kristin, those writers didn’t use computers. Computers are different.

OH ARE THEY?

6. Toy Story 2. That time when an employee accidentally entered the wrong code, which started systematically wiping the entire film from the database. (Guess why this is a happy ending? Somebody was smart/lucky enough to have a back-up drive at home.)

7. Author 2 (Name redacted because you’d recognize it, and he’s still alive). When this author was just starting out, he decided to write a short story every week. The first year went pretty well, so he decided to keep going with this goal. He was doing fine until his house burned down in a fire, and he lost every single story he had written over several years.

8. Author 3 (Name redacted because you’d recognize it, and he’s still alive). This author was blazing through a late and long-awaited novel. He left his office for the day, only to return the next day to find all of his computers, back up drives, and other technical equipment stolen. Because he had been in such a rush to finish the novel, he hadn’t been saving it regularly, which meant the only form he had left of the novel was the first couple of chapters, which also hadn’t yet undergone the heavy edits he had just made to them.

Let’s learn from these brave souls’ (very) hard-earned mistakes. Back up your work. One of the best, free resources out there right now is Dropbox. It’s a cloud-based application that saves your work on multiple third-party servers, which means you can access your saved work at any time from any device with internet.

It doesn’t hurt to also have a hard copy, in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Because we all know that planning is everything.

What’s the most painful story you’ve heard about a work being destroyed or lost or deleted?