I still consider myself an amateur writer to some degree. Yes, I’ve been published a few times and have completed some novels. But right now I’m not on the verge of making the New York Times Bestseller List or anything. I’m small potatoes. Small potatoes who is seriously wanting to be a bigger potato, but knows that the bag of potatoes is very large indeed…and how do I know *I’ll* ever be the next big potato?

Enough starch metaphors and onto the point of this post.

Over the years, I’ve learned some important lessons about writing and getting to that next level. Sometimes the advice is killer and right on the nose, other times, I’m not so sure…Especially when I read a book that is by some big name or medium name author, and they seem to get away with breaking certain ‘rules.’

However, info dumping is one that I really cannot stand.

What is an ‘info dump’ you say?

Info dump is when you pick up a book, read that first chapter, and you learn all about a character’s history in long paragraphs of description. You get nothing of the current situation or anything about the true plot of the book.  Many times authors will tack on prologues that are really info dump in disguise. Either they don’t trust you will figure out how great their character is without this dump or they don’t have the writing chops to let you know who their character is through other methods…action and dialogue.

Refraining from the info dump is really hard. I still do it in my first drafts, but I try my best to get rid of it in the editing process. Sometimes you just have to get that background out of your head so that you can move your character forward in the scene. Most of the time, you really don’t need that background info to make your story work or your character more interesting.

So, I have my own unwritten rule…when writing a longer novel, no back story allowed for anyone in the first three chapters. It really helps me to work on the actual story rather than worry about those details at the very beginning. It can be hard to not tell *something* about your characters’ backgrounds. But it’s easy to excise, if you can’t help it in the first draft.

Do you have any tried and true writing rules that you stick to?  What do you think of the info dump?

Kris

Today is the day much work gets done on our renovation project. We have an electrician rewiring the new bathroom, adding a small electric baseboard heater for winter time, and installing a couple of lights.  And the plumber, who was here yesterday and installed our tub, is back to finish up the job…get the sink pipes ready, add the toilet pipe stuff, and hook up our two hot water heaters in series.

Getting the work done is great…anticipating the bill is not. I’m going for the max end of what the plumber said all this work would cost. So I’m not shocked. What would really suck is if he went OVER that max amount. Then I’d probably be crying in a corner.

Once these big pieces of the project are done, we can go to town on other aspects of finishing this project. My husband has to finish up some new drywall, add some trim to a brand new window, put in the ‘fake’ tile floor, and then we can paint. The final piece of the bathroom will be the countertop install which happens early next week.

Then, we have a carpet cleaner coming in to salvage this well-used carpet. After that, we can start placing furniture.

Yesterday I spent a pretty penny on some necessary pieces for the room. We are lucky that we live near a couple of furniture manufacturer outlet places. I got a deal on a loveseat/sofabed, these nifty leather box-shaped ottomans that will be used as a coffeetable and/or footrests, and a couple of chairs for a table we will have in this new space.

I still need to buy two nightstands, some lamps, an end table, artwork, and accessories. I would also like to find a padded bench or large ottoman type thing to put at the end of the bed we will have in there. And I’m hoping to find some of these items tomorrow.

Nice to see everything FINALLY coming together. We’ve been wanting to do this project for four long years. What a relief it will be when we are done. Everything else we want to do to the house will be cosmetic stuff…taking down more wallpaper, putting in some new carpet/flooring. But no more major plumbing! YIKES!

My book, SNOWDRIFT, is now up for sale on Fictionwise. Here it comes…the constant checking, the hope for even one reader review.

If you are someone who likes to buy through this site, now’s your chance to get my book at a 15% discount.

Click here

On another topic, I seem to be the target of comment spammers. So, in my attempts to dissuade them I had to delete one of my favorite hottie posts…my Brian Austin Green post. Sorry about that. Somehow this picture got onto several different foreign sites, and the creeps would click through to my blog to dump their junk comments.

I also had to switch to moderated comments in order to rid myself of the problem. But they still keep trying.

Ugh.

Since I am quite the Word Press idiot, I have no idea how to upgrade to a new Word Press version. And I have no idea how to add those thingies with the letters and numbers to make comment spam that much more difficult. Guess I’d better contact my web designer for some assistance.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know why it takes awhile for your comment to appear.

Kris

In the last six months I have discovered how useful IM can be. (I know, I’m a little behind the times.) Many author buddies are in my list…in fact, those are pretty much the only people I ‘talk’ to on a regular basis. Recently, I have had the fun of joining in on some IM ‘Word Wars.’

Probably many of you have heard of this before. But for the uninitiated, let me enlighten you. A writer meets up in a chat room of some kind with at least one other writer. They set a ‘timer’ and write as much as they can in 30 minutes (or whatever amount of time you choose). Once the time is up, you each share the amount of words you manage to squeeze out in those 30 minutes. Sometimes sharing snippets of your work.

This kind of competition works very well for me. When I am writing alone, I can think of a million reasons to take a break from writing or never even open up a file. But when I join a Word War, I can hunker down and usually get anywhere between 600 and 1200 words written. Yes, in just 30 minutes!

If I could keep that pace all the time and write several hours a day, I could write so many books. Sigh…but it never seems to work that way. However, I am glad that my writer friends are battling it out in the Word Wars, and I will participate as often as I can.

There should be more warring going on today…so wish me luck!

Kris

Okay, one more reason I need to have an iPhone….you can now download a free app that will allow you to read e-books!

From today’s Publisher’s Lunch:

With the release of Apple’s ambitious App Store today, the company puts themselves in the ebook business without having to go through the messiness of dealing with publishers. Among the free app downloads is Fictionwise’s eReader software (bundled with free copies of the public domain books, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes and James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans).

Often-overlooked among those eager to experiment (or simply understand the scale of the potential market here): You don’t have to go buy an iPhone to play along. The apps work just fine on an iPod Touch with updated firmware, connected via wi-fi.

I’m too cheap to buy a membership to Publisher’s Marketplace, but I sure do appreciate the snippets of information that come with my daily Publisher’s Lunch e-mail. This one really caught my eye because the software was developed by Fictionwise people. Very exciting stuff.

Kris

I am up and down this summer. Summer is my big writing season. For some reason, when it’s warm and green out, I get more writing done.

Not this year.

I’ve been writing in fits and starts. And now I’m behind on my JULY newsletter! Whooops. I might just skip it this month because of the whole nightmare of renovations happening.

My mind seems to be on what I need to buy, what I need to do, what am I forgetting, etc. Every day. I feel like if I don’t do some things on my list today, I will be mad at myself in two weeks when the deadline approaches. I don’t want to be painting frantically at midnight or cleaning windows at 5 am. No thanks.

So I try to do something every day.

Problem is, my husband is the exact opposite. He likes to work in long stretches under pressure. He waits and waits and waits until it almost drives me bananas! I think, gee, you could be installing a light today or putting up trim. But he doesn’t see it that way. I have to wait until he feels the need to work, which can really add to my stress.

Sigh.

Today is more painting. I am trying to finish up a cabinet project I gave myself. A couple more layers of paint, and it should be done. I hope. The coverage is not what I wanted. And I think I probably should have done a better job with the primer coat. Whoops.

On another note, I don’t think SNOWDRIFT is going to show up this week on Fictionwise. Guess I’ll look again next Monday afternoon. Sometimes there is a delay in uploading…who knows why. I’ll definitely post a link once it’s up there.

Kris

I work from home. Not only writing, but running a B&B. We also live far away from fast food restaurants, all chain type sit-down restaurants, and the grocery store is a 20 minute drive. In other words, I do a lot of my own cooking…which is fine with me.

Really, the only thing that would be nice is to have a kitchen slave who cleans up after me, because I hate dirty dishes!

Working at home means I eat lunch every day based on what I can find in my kitchen/refrigerator. Today is no exception. Let’s run through a list of my typical lunch time meals:

1) Spinach salad with whatever veggies I have on hand, goat cheese (I like the saltiness of it, plus I have lactose issues), dried cranberries, nuts, leftover chicken chunks. This salad is good with either a honey dijon mustard dressing or a raspberry vinaigrette.

2)  A sandwich. I’m very anti-deli meats. They just gross me out for some reason…so I usually go for a veggie sandwich or cheese sandwich with lots of mustard. OR I do my favorite childhood sandwich - peanut butter and a mound of crunchy, iceberg lettcue. Sounds gross, but it’s quite delicious.

3) Rice and black beans with avocado on top. YUM! If I have leftover brown rice, this is what I’ll make. SO good.

4) Dinner leftovers warmed up in the microwave. That is today’s lunch. I make this homemade nacho cheese sauce that is really good. Then I have some taco meat, black beans, salsa, sliced olives, and maybe some sour cream or avocado on there. Over the tortilla chips, of course. Lightly salted is best, if you can find them.

I’ve been trying to be more salad-y. Avoid the bread. I eat enough bread as it is without adding a sandwich to my day. But sometimes I don’t have enough for a salad. So I do what I can.

What are some good lunches-at-home that you make? I’m always looking to add some new ideas to my life.

Kris

Today is the day SNOWDRIFT should be available on Fictionwise.com. Fictionwise is the Amazon of the epublishing world. Yeah, Amazon sells electronic copies of books in their Kindle store, but Fictionwise is by far the bigger seller of ebooks from smaller epubs.

Monday is the day the newest books are uploaded. Sometimes it happens early in the day, sometimes you have to wait awhile. So far, after a few checks, I have not seen my book listed. I’m trying to be patient.

This is a book with only one measly review. And the review is something like three lines long. Not much to go on. I really love to see how the readers perceive my books. Someone who selected and paid for my book. It means a lot to me to know what they think. And Fictionwise gives me that opportunity.

It lets me know if my work is getting better, staying the same, or has flaws. Every writer wants to improve. And if one book out of the several I have written gets lower reviews, I would probably analyze it to figure out why. So far (gee, out of the TWO books on Fictionwise), I seem to be hitting about the same, with my bestselling book doing slightly better in the ratings department.

If you need a hint about which one sold better, you can find out all by yourself (well, which one sold better on Fictionwise). Do a search for “Kris Eton” under “author” in the search function on Fictionwise. Then, you can select to order my books by ‘bestselling.’ Ta-da! My little two book list ordered for you.

Because of a gosh darn crazy weekend, I had no mental energy for writing. I am determined this week to get some pages written. MUSH!

Kris

I watch a lot of those HGTV/TLC shows where people fix up a house to sell or buy a house and then fix it up or shop for a new house. Love them. Some are better than others.

One of my guilty pleasure faves is “House Hunters.”

However, I am astounded at the whiny, picky behavior of some of the ‘first time’ homebuyers on this show. These are generally people who are in their mid-twenties who’ve been living in an apartment since they got out of school. They go into the home-buying process with completely unrealistic expectations of what their money can buy or they just plain overbuy.

These people want high end countertops in the kitchen, all new appliances, remodeled bathrooms with multiple showerheads and garden tubs, perfect floors, huge master bedrooms…and all at a bargain price. It’s almost as if these people couldn’t live with older tile, out-of-date lineoleum floors, or 70s cabinetry. They are willing to go into more debt to get what they want.

Drives me crazy!

I’m no oldster, but when my husband and I bought our first house, we looked for what we could afford at the time…which wasn’t much. But we did have choices. We could have purchased more house, if we’d compromised and bought a townhouse. But we wanted a single-family home with some kind of yard and a garage.

Guess what? We found a pretty good deal. It wasn’t perfect inside and we only had one very small bath and almost no closet space, but we knew we wouldn’t be there forever. And it was more space than the place we were renting at the time. Plus, we could afford the mortgage. The most work we did to it was add all new windows and siding.

After seven years, we had completely outgrown the house. We did do a bit of remodeling in the bath and the basement and a bit in the kitchen. But we didn’t spend a whole lot and did the work ourselves (i.e. I picked things out, the husband did the bulk of the work). We sold it when the market was on a huge upswing and made double what we paid for it!

Not bad.

If we had reached beyond our budget and looked for places with perfect kitchens, high-end appliances, and dream bathrooms, we would have been strapped for cash the entire time we lived there.

Where are the young people of today who EARN their way up? Who start out in the small house and work their way up to something larger? Who buy what they can afford and don’t whine about the lack of granite countertops?

All I ever seem to run into are people who ditch a brand new tv or computer or cell phone after 1 or 2 years, because there’s something bigger, thinner, or faster out there. Unless they have the best, it’s not good enough. And who cares if it’s put all on credit?

Yikes.

Waiting for things and earning your way are probably two of the most important lessons any parent can teach a child. I just hope mine retain what I’m trying to teach them.

Kris

Renovation work has seriously taken over my life this week. However, I now have a completed laundry room and work has started in earnest on our bathroom addition/remodel. Here is the current state of the bathroom project:

The countdown is three weeks. Three weeks left to finish the project. Maybe not down to every last detail, but as many details as possible.

We are going with a chocolate brown/ice blue kind of theme. If you find any pretty things for sale out there that would fit that decor, please give me a link!

So, since I haven’t posted anything in a few days, I thought I would do some random update type stuff.

1) I will be putting together a July Newsletter, it will just be later than usual. If you want to get my monthly newsletters and special announcements, please join my Yahoo Newsletter group.

2) SNOWDRIFT will be available for purchase on Fictionwise starting Monday. This is my longest book yet…so you get a bit more depth of story and character insight.

3) I should be hearing soon about a couple of submissions. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

And that’s about it! Check back in next week for more. I don’t have any more author interviews scheduled right now. I think I might take a break from those until after Labor Day Weekend. Summer is pretty darn busy around here.  However, I fully intend to add a few more Hotties!  I haven’t done a Hottie of the Week in a while.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Kris