As I sit here looking at the clock and my fingers type as fast as they
can trying to get my thoughts out before they get all jumbled in there
with the rest of them the time is 4:34 AM Monday morning. Why am I not
asleep with thoughts of Adrian Ivashkov dancing in my head you may ask.
Or maybe not but I'm going to tell you anyway.
I was on
youtube,tumblr and blogspot all that same time as I seem to do with most
things ( I like to call it multitasking but really I just have the
attention span of a three year old :) ) and I decided to look up some
information on e-publishing. Specifically this Author by the name of
Amanda Hocking. You may have heard of her you know the self made
millionaire who started off selling her books herself through Amazon and
other self-publishing platforms.
This in turn lead me to thinking
about my own stories. I have heard many authors give the advice to
younger authors to work on fleshing out one story at a time and making
it the best you can. Me I have about 5 stories going at the same time.
All different.All needed different lengths. So then I got to thinking
about how would I go about self-publishing something of my own. One of
the books that I have been working on is a High Fantasy staring a female
protagonist. This book will most likely take about 90,000-100,000 pages
to tell. It will of course have to be revised and re-written until I am
as satisfied with it I can get without a full rewrite.This is not the
type of story that you would see on self-publishing platforms and if you
did it wouldn't make as much money for you to live on. It just takes
way to much time. Not only do you have to worry about your content but
your marketing and cover and formatting for e-book as well. You have to
decide if when and where your going to spend your outta pocket money if
at all. A book like this is better left to the professional publishers.
Another
book that I am working on his Apocalyptic it is fast paced, drama
packed and has potential for sequels. This would work a lot better in the
self publishing e-book format because it will be entertaining and have a
faster turn over rate . Not to mention you will already have a fan base
from the first book for the next one and the books can come out faster .
I'll wrap this up by saying that I may try both e-publishing and traditional . Updates to come .
*Originally published at whitneychakara.livejournal.com
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Monday, December 16, 2013
The P.O.C Character of Popular YA fiction (Or Lack There Of)*
Now I'm Not ashamed to admit it, I've read a lot of YA and a good amount
of Children's Fiction in the past 6 or 7 years. All the popular ones
like Twilight,City of Bones, Wicked Lovely etc. I particularly love a
good Fantasy. The stories are captivating and a great escape for a young
child especially one who has a lot of responsibilities of those thrice
her age.
As other children played outside until the street lights came on . I would sit at my window, their laughter the soundtrack as I escaped into a magical land such as THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE or A WRINKLE IN TIME. Books I had been introduced to by my favorite Language Arts teachers who encouraged my love of reading and story telling.
Those characters of my beloved books were usually Caucasian. As a child absorbing everything as quickly as possible, devouring these stories in large gulps at a time I hardly even noticed. Now at the age of 23 reality has finally set it. After deciding that there is nothing else I would rather do than to tell magical stories to a younger generation I finally see the cold hard truth. There are very few POCs in children's/YA literature and when there are they are very minor, poorly done, card board stereotypes( More about the types of stereotypes in later posts).
How frustrating. How frustrating.
As a children's writer I face the challenge of trying to feel that gap and build more diverse and well rounded characters. I want, No I need to tell a story that children of all races and religions can see themselves in.
But...
As a Black writer I feel lost at times because if I make my main character a P.O.C is it going to be likeable? is it going to be sell-able? And I think the most embarrassing thing to admit is that I have no idea how to do it.
* Originally posted at whitneychakara.livejournal.com
As other children played outside until the street lights came on . I would sit at my window, their laughter the soundtrack as I escaped into a magical land such as THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE or A WRINKLE IN TIME. Books I had been introduced to by my favorite Language Arts teachers who encouraged my love of reading and story telling.
Those characters of my beloved books were usually Caucasian. As a child absorbing everything as quickly as possible, devouring these stories in large gulps at a time I hardly even noticed. Now at the age of 23 reality has finally set it. After deciding that there is nothing else I would rather do than to tell magical stories to a younger generation I finally see the cold hard truth. There are very few POCs in children's/YA literature and when there are they are very minor, poorly done, card board stereotypes( More about the types of stereotypes in later posts).
How frustrating. How frustrating.
As a children's writer I face the challenge of trying to feel that gap and build more diverse and well rounded characters. I want, No I need to tell a story that children of all races and religions can see themselves in.
But...
As a Black writer I feel lost at times because if I make my main character a P.O.C is it going to be likeable? is it going to be sell-able? And I think the most embarrassing thing to admit is that I have no idea how to do it.
* Originally posted at whitneychakara.livejournal.com
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