Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

I hope my Monday isn’t indicative of the week to come because I didn’t enjoy it. Nothing really bad happened, just lots of little things that on their own would have been okay, but together made me grumpy. I’m going to have a late night trying to get my word total done for the day. Sigh…

Good luck to everyone who is taking part in NaNoWriMo this month. I see another Sweat with Sven challenge is about to start as well.

I’ve tried these types of writing challenges and have found they don’t work for me. I write at a fairly steady pace anyway and something formal like the above mentioned or a book in a month challenge seems to play with my head. I work better on my own. That said, I am pushing fairly hard for the next month to complete a 90,000 word manuscript. Apart from today I’ve been going pretty well, and if everything continues this way, I should have my first draft done by the start of the month.

Do writing challenges like National Novel Writing Month, Book in a Month or Sweat With Sven work for you, and if so why? Why not? Are you doing NaNo this year?

Here’s a question for all you writers out there – both aspiring and published. How do you keep track of a character’s physical attributes, their quirks and baggage? Their family history?

I’m forever forgetting what color eyes I’ve given my characters and little things like that. It’s becoming even more difficult now that I’m thinking about writing book eight in my Middlemarch Mates series.

So, how do you keep track of your characters? Spreadsheets? Notebooks? File cards? An incredible memory? A software program? How do you do it?

PS – Don’t forget to check out Christina Phillips post (just down the page a couple of posts) about how her witchy heroine came to her in a dream. Post a comment and go into a draw to win a download of her debut release.

I’ve read two great posts about characters/heroes over the last two days. At Romancing the Blog Heather Massey talks about a hero’s appearance versus his personality.

Over at The Novelty Girls Jennifer Leeland talks about celebrities and how she uses their pictures for character inspiration.

When it comes to characters I do the less is more thing. My character descriptions are very sparse, and often I need to go back and “color them in” a bit more. I never use pictures. My characters pop fully formed from inside my head. Heck, they’re probably pleased to leave because it’s so crowded in there! 99% of my heroes come from the tall, dark and sexy group. I think I’ve written one blond hero in ten years.

When I’m reading a book, I never like to know too much. The hero is tall, dark and sexy inside my head, no matter what the author writes. And the heroine – well, heck – funnily enough, she looks just like me.

Do you like the author to write lots of detail so the hero is easy to visualize? Or do you belong to the less is more category? Does the character’s personality count more than his appearance to you, the reader? Do you like to have a picture or photo – a visual – when you’re writing?

Final note: Tea For Two is out at Samhain Publishing today. Woohoo!!

I’m blogging at the Samhain blog today about Tasseomancy (tea leaf reading) and I’m at Jennifer’s Random Musings again.

Promo is something that always weighs heavy on my mind. Am I doing enough? Am I doing the right thing or am I making prospective readers run in the opposite direction? That’s the difficulty with promo. It’s hard to quantify and decide what actually works.

I have a few promo rules I adhere to:

1. I never spend more than I earn or think I’m going to earn.

2. When I do promo I tend to promote my brand as a whole rather than focusing on a particular book. (there are a few exceptions to this rule but now that I have a backlist I tend to promo me)

3. When it comes to a choice of promo or writing, the writing wins every time. I figure if I don’t have the product then there isn’t any need for promo.

4. I have a rule I call the rule of three where I try to do three things every day to promote my name or books. This makes the whole promo beast seem more manageable because I’m breaking it down. Today I answered the questions for an interview, I posted two excerpts on the Romance Excerpts Only loop and requested a book review.

My promo consists of:

I like to blog hop as much as I can. Some days I have more time than others, but I think this is a way of getting my name out. I tend to steer clear of contentious blogs because I don’t believe anyone wins in an online war. When I blog hop I also find books to add to my to-read list and it helps me keep up on market info.

I like forums. I belong to the Romance Divas forum and the Coffee Time forum. I don’t manage to get there every day but I enjoy the contact with other writers and readers. Both places are extremely friendly and make newbies welcome.

I take advantage of guest blogging and interviews whenever possible. I join my publisher loops and post as often as I can.

I joined The Romance Studio when I was first published and have kept up my membership. It’s very reasonable and offers many opportunities for advertising and promotion.

I’m not sure that print advertising is good value for money. It can be very expensive and it’s difficult to quantify the results. If I have a print book I always consider print advertising since this makes sense, but once again I think it’s very expensive.

Take advantage of free offers. Manic Readers (see the button in my sidebar) has free author pages. It doesn’t take long to set up a page. Author’s Den also has free author pages. (A fee is charged for the Featured Author pages)

Bookmarks – I don’t believe it’s necessary to have bookmarks. Yes, it’s nice to have them. Yes, I have bookmarks at the moment, but I don’t think you’ll lose sales because you don’t have them.

Online Banner advertising – I’m not convinced banner ads work as a method of advertising. Others might disagree, but they haven’t worked for me.

A good website, kept up-to-date, is the best thing you can do to promote yourself. Look at other authors’ websites. Features and designs that attract your eye will probably attract the attention of readers as well.

Bottom Line: I think any promotion you do should be enjoyable. It shouldn’t stress you out or make you crabby because it’s taking you away from family or your writing. If you get to this stage, concentrate on your writing because that’s the most important thing.

If you’re a writer, how do you approach promotion? What do you do? What are your favorite methods of promotion? What things do you enjoy? If you’re a reader, what sort of things make you pay attention to a writer? What makes you pick up a book or order a book online from a new author or an author unfamiliar to you?

My guest today is the wonderful Nina Pierce who writes for Liquid Silver Books. She’s talking about a subject that strikes fear into all our hearts – rejection.

You’ve done it. Finished your first novel and sent it off to the editor or agent of your dreams. And now you wait. Since this one will be such a best seller you don’t want to waste precious time and you get started on your next novel. The words are just flying onto the page when the letter or email arrives. “Sorry, but this isn’t for us …”
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When I first started writing, I learned there were specific rules to follow. This puzzled me because I couldn’t find a definitive list of these rules anywhere, yet fellow writers and contest judges were quick to fill me in.

No Rock Stars: I learned this one after I’d completed a story called Follow That Dream. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have a rock star hero. No sports settings. Hmm, I had one of those, too. Evidently there are several occupations on the no-no list. Politicians and artists, please step this way.

The hero and heroine should meet in the first few pages. This one made a little more sense if the book was a short story or category romance, because we want the hero and heroine center stage. But what about a 100,000 word novel? Surely it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t meet straight away?
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Every day I take our little dog for a walk, and we’re both a source of amusement to everyone who sees us. I have no idea why. I mean a writer and a dog going for a walk shouldn’t provoke smiles. Scotty is 14, almost 15 now. We used to go for a walk morning and night. These days we’re guided by her enthusiasm. I go out armed with my ipod, lead and doggie-do bags. We walk reeeeaaaly slow, but no matter how slowly I walk I end up with the extension lead at full stretch and Scotty dragging her paws. Some days are good ones and she surprises me with a brisk trot, but those days are few and far between. I try to jam my impatience away because she is old and she loves to check her pee-mail. The vets says a walk is good for her, and I agree, being of the use it or lose it school of thought. Once we hit the reserve I let her off the lead and walk ahead, pausing to wait for her while bopping to my ipod. It’s okay to look silly cause it’s during the middle of the day and most people are at work.
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I’m busy with edits at the moment. As luck would have it, they’ve all arrived at once, which means I’m going to be a little quiet for the next few days.

Tomorrow is the start of my spotlight week at Long and Short Reviews. Here’s the link. I’m giving away a few prizes, so come along and check it out.

On Friday a young female orca washed up on the West Coast. She was loaded on a trailer and taken across Auckland, with a police escort, for release from Takapuna beach on the East Coast. Boat traffic seemed to confuse the orca, and DOC staff are asking the public to ring them in the case of a sighting. Here’s the full story here.

Did you have a fun weekend?

Things are pretty busy in the Munro household at the moment. I’m busy with writing–someone please tell me why I thought it was a good idea to sell three books before I left on holiday, because after sales, the edits arrive. I worked on edits for most of the weekend. Mr. Munro had to work for part of one day and went off to play golf for the other day. He arrived back home with a meat pack and was very pleased with himself. Today I worked on my current work-in-progress. I’m not following any of the “so-called” writing rules, and I’m having a ball. Writing for the sheer joy of it is so liberating, although it’s not always practical when it comes to selling the manuscript. Sales equals income. I always need to factor that into the equation.

This year I’ve done a lot of soul-searching when it comes to my writing. I’ve analyzed my strengths, my weaknesses (I swear my commas move around like loose cannons every time I hit send), and I’m working to a plan of attack. I’ll let you know this time next year if it works.

I’ll leave you with a video of an ad, which I love. It’s about success and was filmed in New Zealand. The beach in the first and last frames is in Auckland and looks out over Rangitoto Island. It’s one of my favorite views.

The writing has been going pretty well. I’m almost 15,000 words in on my sci-fi romance. It’s always fun working on something new, and this time I even have a synopsis. It always helps if I know the direction I’m writing, but it’s never set in stone. I like to make stuff up as I go along, which sometimes means my synopsis ends up very different from the completed book. I also have this point mid-way where I wonder if I’m ever going to get to the length I planned, if I have enough plot. Somehow, it all works out. Don’t ask me how because I can’t explain it at all!

I mentioned the scavenger hunt I’m doing with Rainbow Reviews last week. I’m also participating in the Sultry Summer scavenger hunt, which closes on 30 June 2008. There are some great book prizes. Go on. Join the hunts. You have nothing to lose, although I bet your to-buy list will lengthen.

I love Body Shop’s body butter. Each year they have a sale where each tub is around $10 off. I thought I’d missed it so was very excited to receive an email informing me the sale was on during June. I went shopping in the weekend and brought six tubs to stock up the cupboard. My very favorite is the Brazil Nut butter, and I was aghast to hear they’re discontinuing this particular one. I’m going to have to buy some more. Evidently it’s popular in New Zealand, but not so much everywhere else in the world. People, have you no sense?????

I’m blogging over at Danger Zone today – Dr. Livingstone, I presume?