Writing is a bit like creating a recipe. If you don't get all the ingredients just right you can go from bland to rocket-hot in minutes.
There are 'fusses' on the internets right now because some folk, like a Mr.Howey, think self-publishing is the only way to go and others say, oh no, it must be traditional. But there is no 'must' about it. It is whatever suits you, the author. At the moment there isn't a right or a wrong way because publishing is changing.
For me, I see nothing wrong with self-publishing at all, if you have the time and drive to do it. I don't have the hours or dedication needed to sit on the internet and promote and I notice such promotional 'companies' springing up like Easter bunnies. For sure there is a definite need for them, but finding a good one is a bit like finding that wonderful editor.
As for traditional. Many people still find it the way to go, simply because it still holds the clout behind it. When you are trying to poke your head above the grass to get noticed between all the other blades, then, yes, you could certainly wish for a publisher's marketing budget and your book in a store.
My own story is a little different. I was asked for my novel by a small press, but, as I have said before, small means small and it is often like being self-published except that I had a wonderful editor who also did all the formatting, which would have probably sent me screaming to Hell asking for entry rather than press another goddamned button. TechnophobesRus.
All I can say is that money isn't everything. It helps enormously and I wish I could give up my day job, but I have a hungry horse who, you know, likes his noms and his shoes and his worming paste and his jabs....
At the same time, like every author, I want to be read. So I am always left with this conundrum of how much I should shout and how much I should just lets things mosey along.
Yet I still say that good writing *is* the recipe for success. Getting that balance between tension, conflict, plot, characters and especially sentence structure. it is all a balance.
What kind of experiences do you have?

Today's picture - somewhere in Afghanistan -  Richard Curnow.

Brief scene from Vicadia

"I can't do this," he says as his arms encircle me.
I pause, because this is not a man who says anything lightly. I know his body cries out for the release, yet his mind does not. I've never lost someone like he has. I was too young when my parents passed. I've seen into his mind, know how deeply he feels. So I don't pull away, but I don't push either.
"Tell me about her," I say, though it hurts, because I can't compete with a ghost. There are tears in his eyes as he holds me tight.
"I'm sorry."
  "For what? For caring? For loving someone that much? If you hadn't cared, what would make you?"
"Sorry for hurting you."
    I shift in his arms and lay my head on his chest. The beat of his heart sings against my cheek. My fingertips play with a bead in his hair. I don't know what I feel for him, whether it is love or he is the rock that I cling to in all this insanity around me. I only know I want to be here. I want to be held, to be wanted.
"Have you ever wept for her--truly wept?"
His heart skipped a beat as he drew in breath. "Don't," he said, before the floodgates opened.
That strength he had born all this time, held it in as we battled. All those thoughts and images we'd shared, but never this. And I knew that wherever she was, his wife, she watched and she applauded and if I achieved nothing else it was her blessing.

No, it wasn't that cold today. Quite the opposite. That day was -30c, today it was +12c. Which meant the shedding rake came out, and, drumroll, Merlin got ridden. That's been about six months for various reasons and I wasn't sure the girth would go around his tubby belly, but it did, just.
Only had one fly back from him that I quickly curtailed. Otherwise he was a really good boy. I wasn't sure if *I* could get on since I am having huge probs with one hip right now, but last year I trained him to stand still to be mounted, because he wasn't too good at that. He hadn't forgotten as I climbed onto a metal and noisy upturned waterer. My legs were shaky though. Not nerves, just, boy, unfit. So I kept it to ten minutes, let him see what was what around the farm and brought him back happy.

Now Easter is over I hope to get back into the swing of writing. Am still working on Vicadia and edits of "Discovering of Demons".

It's a difficult time of year for me. I get very down about Rich but Merlin cheered me up, and I also wrote to Canadian Heroes because Rich's picture and info should be on their page and it is not. I am getting very ansty about things which have not happened, like A's silver cross medal, and the Board of Inquiry report. There are going to be phone calls soon.

Hope to have a post soon about my publisher and perhaps an interview or two. Sales for "Voice of the Land" are going steadily and lots of people have marked it to read and maybe win a copy in the Goodreads giveaway.

Sometimes it seems like yesterday, as though I could still reach out and touch. Still doesn't seem real. There is still a part of you that denies; that he will come walking in the door with his sunny smile and his manhugs, daughter in his arms.
I will always ask why, there will always be tears.
Oh, things have changed, of course. Life goes on. You can't live in the past even when some days you want to.
There is my writing and the possibility of a move. There is son #3 doing so well at Uni and becoming an amazing young man. My grandaughter, all legs and five years old in a couple of days.
There were the birds singing outside my window this morning - a herald of Spring. A time of renewal and awakening from winter's long grip. The snow is metling, the sun is shining, the animals are shedding. Can't wait for some greenery, although that is jumping the gun here in AB, another month or two yet. But the idea is there.
Have a Happy easter everyone, and remember what you've got

Erren sent me some questions back, so....

Erren Greywolf http://www.errengreywolf.ca



My 11 questions for you are:


 1. What is your favourite book?
Can I cheat and have two? "To Ride hell's Chasm" by Janny Wurts & "Cyteen" by CJ Cherryh, because I love them both for very different reasons.

 2. What can you do to change the world?
 Oh my, what a question. I guess it would be for people to read my novels and maybe find words in them that touch their hearts. Because, my son's death changed my life, in some small ways I can share that horrid learning curve of grief, and if that helps people then it could make a difference.

 3. What was the last kind thing that you did?
 Brought someone a cup of coffee at work this afternoon.

 4. Why did you decide to create a blog?
 Because although I am not a chatty cathy in person unless I know you well, I like to talk about books and animals and life in general and I can do that through a blog.

 5. What is your favourite character in any book?
I loved Mikael in "To Ride Hell's Chasm". I loved his grittiness and his honour.

 6. If you had a superpower, which would it be?
To turn back time, not necessarily to change anything, but so that I could ask my son what happened.

 7. What is your favourite genre? 
Speculative fiction.

 8. What is your favourite place to visit?
The mountains.

 9. Have you written a book and, if so, what is the title?
Ha! Which of the seven or nine did you want to hear about - lol? Two published - "Games of Adversaries" and "The Voice of the Land". Both science fiction but very much character driven stories. More science fantasy really.

 10. Do you like tea? If so, which is your favourite?
Rooibus Honeymoon.

 11. Describe a perfect day for you.
When all my family are safe and I can relax and write a damned good book.

I've been wanting to do a post for some time now, on why you should read my book(s). Because, given the amount of books published every day, whether independently or through mainstream publishers, what makes you pick up one book over another?
We all know how we personally choose a novel, but it is no good knowing about the best novel ever! and then not being able to find it. And when you do the first thing you do is pick it up.
What do you see? The cover of course. A cover can make the difference with sales. The cover on the left has created some controversy. People either seem to love it or hate it. But it is intriguing, because the first thing you ask is, what is it? You flip over to the back cover, unless it is an e-reader and you read the blurb. 
 
  In this science fiction novel by Susan Elizabeth Curnow, a clone
created for no other purpose than to serve his ruthless master finds more than
insight into the suicide of his friend and fellow clone when he is sent to the
world of Cavan. 
It may be the answer to all he's ever longed for if he can avoid the
imminent danger of insanity and death--and accept that the land is a sentient
entity he has been chosen to defend once gifted with the alien blood that gains
him so much more than a powerful pair of wings.

Still intrigued? Want to know who that clone is and why the guy on the front has wings? Read on. You open the first para and read:

Splashed with violence, the small ship’s bridge stank of death. Viscous fluid
coated instrument panels, bulkheads, and the deck. In space, blood would have
floated in pearl-like globules. It had never had a chance to reach the filters,
which meant Jon Harvey left his suicide until the last moments.
 In the  hatchway, Carogan paused, observing the disarray. Harvey had been a friend. Now he sat belted in at his console with gaping wounds up his wrists. A combat knife
lay on the deck, as though just dropped.
 Carogan reached out a hand, pushed away the collar of Harvey’s flight suit, and touched the pulse point on his neck. Warmth filtered through the thin fabric of his
gloves.
 “Lieutenant? Your heart rate has increased,” a tinny voice informed him into his earpiece.
 Had it? Harvey’s bloodless face stared back at him. Still, so still, and empty. Would he look like that in death?  Sweat trickled down the side of Carogan’s face inside his suit’s helmet.
Grantham wanted answers. “I have him, sir. He’s  dead.”
 Grantham would already know that. The Terran Population Control Board director had sent Carogan into the ship knowing.

You read and partake of a snippet of the author's voice. Those first couple of paragraphs are all an author has, both with a reader and with a publisher.
A story which opens with the violence of death. But the land is sentient? A clone is sent in to discover what? And why has the damned guy got wings?

*G* Find out. That's why you should read. Discover the world of Cavan and its winged natives, the cavalana and how Steven Carogan got caught up in their lives. The story is about choices; it's about the bad corporate guys who don't care about anything but their profit. It's about the callousness of one man and the courage of another, and about a dying world and how far we might go to save it. It's about a world fighting back.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Voice-Land-Warriors-ebook/dp/B00BOB964A/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1364338544&sr=1-1&keywords=susan+elizabeth+curnow

Many people have asked me this question. Why publish with a small press when the big names are still out there? Is it because you aren't 'good enough' for the big league? The simple answer is personal choice. Plus, given the latest Simon and Schuster and B & N shemozzle, would I want that kind of heartbreak?
A good agent is still a writer's best friend, because they have the knowledge and connections to place your novel where it belongs. But those are few and far between also. Mainstream publishing sees your novel into a physical bookstore, where people can lay their hands on it and take it home. Via a Small Press, although a few do get into the stores, you mainly purchase by the Internet. Not many Small Presses have much of a marketing or promotion budget. Hey, they are 'small', but there again, even mainstream authors are meant to do a lot of that themselves these days anyway.
You can see where I am going with this?
The main difference is that placement on the shelves, which, let's face it, is invaluable to any author. But lately, the number of fellow authors I've seen disillusioned by being mainstream breaks my heart. Authors who once would have been carefully nurtured are now tossed aside, not just by the houses but by the numbers people. Heartbreaks where a bookstore won't order a certain novel because the last numbers were so low, but then, forgot to place the book on the shelf in the first place so the author could gain numbers? Sound familiar? Of course, there are always the horror stories and always the success stories and balancing them out is indeed a numbers game.
I'll do a write up on Artema Press in the near future, but for now, just let's say I am happy where I am.
How about you? What main advantages and disadvantages do you see in publishing today? Or do you just prefer to go it alone and publish yourself?

I am calling it that, because having a second book published is not quite the same as the first. There is a terrifying excitement with book one. My first book! OMG everyone will hate it! No! Everyone will love it. I don't care. I care more than...
That schizophrenic conversation with oneself is quite common, I believe. Part of the crazy life of a writer.
I've spoken before about my pathetic ability to promote or 'market', but actually I am learning. Slowly. Hey, I can tweet! Wow, you say, we can all do that, that's nothing. And it isn't that hard. But the people who mainly seem to want to follow me are other writers and, er, are they going to read my book? I doubt it. Although I have tried a couple of odd books I wouldn't have picked up but for tweeting, so who knows?
But going back to book one versus book two. "Games of Adversaries" is still being picked up. I did get the publisher to reduce the price as a promotion for "The Voice of the Land", simply because I want people to read it. An author gets a warm glowy feeling when people read and enjoy their books that has nothing to do with ego but a quiet satisfaction. Which is why I don't always get the buy my book mentality. I get that you want people to read, but why the desperation? It is like rushing around with an armful of books, thrusting them under people's noses and shouting READ THE F*&^%ING THING WILL YOU!
Ah well.
Games and Voice are two very different books. I've already been told that Voice is 'better' and it should be, given I now know how to edit better thanks to my publisher. But Games certainly has its charm and I am proud of it as a debut novel.
So I am still going for that exponential effect. Letting people read and discover and hopefully want more. Because there will be more. I have some more editing to do on 'The Discovering of Demons', book 2 of the Warriors trilogy and set five hundred years down the road, or, I guess, across the stars. There are a few too many pov switches which need straightening out. It is a damned good story though. Sometimes, however, that isn't enough. It has to be an incredibly good story, with incredible characters, and I think Luqa Drendun is that character. Somewhat of an anti-hero, troubled, like many of my 'heroes', but we will see what folk think of him soon enough.
I am just as excited about that third book and the WIP I am writing as I was the first. A quiet excitement and a hope that people will love it as they have the first two.
And just to show I get excited about the smaller things. 117 have entered the Goodreads giveaway for 'The Voice of the Land'. That is so cool.
The day I stop getting excited and passionate about my work is the day i stop.

Extremely thought provoking blog post by the writer Myke Cole about what PTSD is, at least for him.

http://mykecole.com/blog/2013/03/what-ptsd-is

It is interesting from my perspective not because Rich had PTSD, although I am sure he did in some degree. Anyone who takes part in a traumatic job is almost guaranteed to have some PTSD, but the thing here in Myke's post moves away from calling it a 'disease', which seemed, lately, to be the thing to do. It is a condition not a disease, even if it does affect part of your brain.
But the phrase which got me most was this one : Because PTSD isn’t a dis­ease, it’s a world view.
And that strikes me on so many levels. The part where I will paraphrase, you can read his actual words - but that sensation of thinking you are safe and then after some 'event' realizing that you will never be safe again. That is what changes you. That relatively simple realization. And I realized, too that in some ways this applies to losing a child. Because it does change your world view.
Someone wrote a tweet earlier asking this - after a person dies someone always says "it really reminds you of what's truly  important" before returning to their same old senseless ways.
And I wrote back and said - it depends on the person. Because Richard's death did change my world view. It changed many people's world view in the realisation that life is bloody short. And the trauma is constantly thinking that it will happen to someone else you love.
This is what so often incapacitates those who truly suffer from PTSD, that constant fear, and to blot out the fear that flashes in your mind you try to come up with alternatives.
Of course there is no 'cure' for PTSD, there never will be, but that isn't to say you can't move past it or perhaps, learn to live with it. While the mind wants to forget; while the most vivid memories might fade, they will always be there. And part of the problem, as I see it, is that society, as usual, wants to give it a label and a box to place it in. And there isn't one.
I tried to address this somewhat in "Games of Adversaries". Society tries to makes us feel guilty when we shouldn't, because some smart alec in a path coat says we shouldn't be this or that. But the point is, while we can follow a set of morals to a certain degree, how we handle that is as individual as we are. You can't put us in a single box and label us.
So the 'cure' for PTSD can never be labelled. Those flashes of memory are a reminder that life is a scary reality and that sometimes we have to do things we'd never contemplate on a bright sunny day in the park, because at its essence, it is survival. The mind's way of saying whoa!
Grief is like that in many ways. Those flashes of what-if. The guilt of, what if I had done or said so and so. The anger of the helplessness of not being able to stop a death. You wake up and think, what if I'd called him that day and said don't go? What if I'd done more for him. What if, what if, what if. A constant litany of what if I could change the world or take his place, bring him back. And like the PTSD of, I wish I hadn't had to do that, but I did, what if I hadn't seen that, you can't change it. All you can do is accept it, and that hurts. It changes your life, your world view and that of those around you.
The thing is, it isn't wrong to feel like that. It only becomes wrong when other people try to foist their own ideals upon you. It is you who has to accept the truth.
People were so kind after Richard died but they kept saying to us - he's at peace now and all I wanted to say back was - how the fuck do you know that? I never did, of course because they only meant well.