The Realms of a Fantastical Mind

Welcome HEIDI GARRETT, this week’s Blog Ring of Power guest! She was born and raised in Texas, lived more than a decade in Southern California, and now she resides in Spokane, WA, with her husband and their two cats. So far, she loves the snow. Don’t miss the rest of Heidi’s interview at: Part 1 @  Sandra - Monday, Oct. 8 Part 2 @  Dean - Tuesday, Oct. 9 Part 3 @  Terri - Wednesday, Oct. 10 Part 4 @ T.W.- Thursday, Oct. 11 Part 5 @  Emily - Friday, Oct. 12 Let's chat about a few Words of Wisdom with Heidi  BRoP:     Tell us about your route to success – how/when did you decide to self-publish? Did you query an agent first? How did you handle the editing, proofreading, cover design, etc. HG:  I decided to self-publish in January of 2012. I queried two earlier drafts of the manuscript. Both were rejected. I had originally planned to query the published version, but in December 2011 I got an older version of the iPhone for a ...

I'm up on Dragons and Aliens and Wraiths Oh My , talking about the need for thick skin when getting a critique of my work. It all deals with the mindset.  Keep an open mind and remember that your critique partner is trying to help you get better. What do you do to don your armor?  Do you react badly to critiques? How do you get past harsh review?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!

My muse is a little guy who likes to fly and breathe fire.  Yup and his name is Random.  'Cause well... I couldn't resist. ;) Isn't he cute?  Pictures taken from various places on the web, no image belongs to me What's your muse? Do you envision something hovering over your shoulder? Perhaps someone whispering in your ear?  I'd love to hear from you.

This is part 2 of the 5 part series on this blog. To find out more about this go to Dean C. Rich's blog The Write Time for more Terri Bruce on Indie Publishing A publisher is rated "not recommended" by Preditors and Editors—doesn't that mean they are a vanity press? The insinuation that vanity presses are somehow a scam is somewhat old-fashioned and I’d like to see it go out of use all together. A vanity press is one where the author pays to have his/her work produced. In essence, self-publishing is vanity publishing. The term comes from the idea that these types of publishers will take anyone who can pay the fee (which is true), and, by extension, that authors published this way are of lesser quality (which is not necessarily true). I’m going to keep my fingers and toes out of the debate about whether or not self-publishing and “vanity pressed” pubbed authors are “real” authors or not. But I will say this: “vanity publishing” can be a perfectly reasonable ...

Part 1 Researching Publishers: Do you need an Agent? This week it has been decided, with the help of my fellow Blog Ring of Power host Dean C. Rich, to give you a series on Indie Publishing in the eyes of our BRoP creator Terri Bruce.  Between Dean's blog The Write Time and right here on the Realms of a Fantastical Mind we will talk about Publishers.  Let's  dispel  some myths shall we.  Take it away Terri. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Publishing  by Terri Bruce I am thrilled to be here today to talk about navigating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of publishing. Many, many wonderful people helped me on my road to publication—sharing information, resources, and their experience—and I jumped at the chance to do the same when Emily and Dean offered me the opportunity. With so many indie presses, conflicting information, and scam artists out there, Dean and Emily asked me to stop by and talk about what...

The waves crashed against her feet, as Melandra coughed wet sand out of her mouth.  Dazed, she lifted her head to look around.  She was alive, but alone.  Debris from the ship lay all around her, along with the crates from the cargo hold.  However, there were no signs of any other survivors. She was shocked to find that all of her items, though waterlogged, stayed with her, reminding her of her determination to hold on to her only protection.  She was dizzy and weak from floating on bits of wood all night.  Hurt but still alive the wind reminded her that she may not remain so if she doesn't get warm, and soon.  The temperature was only slightly warming with dawns light breaking over the pine trees, past the beach. She searched around but all there was to offer was wet wood. Causing it to be much more difficult to light a fire than it usually was.  She owed it to being so dizzy and disoriented.  Looking around she spotted black smo...

The tension is building up.  I find that I try to distract myself from what I should be doing.  If I should be writing or editing, I'm reading.  If I should be critiquing, I'm editing my own work.  If I should be looking up vow ideas, I'm playing on FB or checking my e-mail.  If I should be working on wedding things, I'm doing anything but. Yes, I've been putting off everything by doing everything else.  I guess when I really need to do something, my lazybones says no.  Sigh... and so I need to find a way to force myself to get focused.  I know there is much to be done in many aspects of my life.  I want to keep editing my book, so as to be ready to start really writing next month on the sequel.  I want to keep up with the crits, some of my critique partners have addictive stories and I hate leaving a good story left unfinished, either in reading or writing one.  I need to work on my vows, I bare...

I've been trying to get my crap together. Organize what I'm doing when and trying to get things running smoothly. And what happens but I find myself snuggled up to my kobo reading series after series of my favorite authors. Nothing I wanted to get done, gets done and my poor book is again neglected like the house plant that hasn't been watered for weeks. It sits with it's pages drooping over the edge of the table, practically begging to get picked up and revised fully into the 5th draft. 'Please' it whispers in the dark of night as I lay sleeping, 'please remember I'm here.' so after 2 weeks of my horrible behavior of reading, in which I've been poking and prodding at other writers work, only because I've done so much to my own book that I can't help but see what the holes are, I opened my critiquing folder and had a crack at a 1st chap of a MS that I should have opened the day I got it. I'm not even saying that out of duty, oh ...

So today I have decided that my Friday mornings will be focused on critiquing fellow writers in their works (and hopefully continuing on into the weekend).  The problem I have with that is not the ones I critique from AQC but the ones from Critters Writers Workshop .  Perhaps it is because I do not talk or chat with the ones from the workshop.  I do not know them in any way.  I have no problems with the site itself or with the people but some of the work that is offered up for review is so raw it is as if they posted their rough drafts without trying to polish and enhance their work.  Some have written stories with not enough research, so it seems beyond reason of suspended belief and others are just choppy and need to learn how to flow more.  It may be that those were the very reasons for them posting on Critters but some how I would think that they would have done more research on what works better, what flows better and the like before showing their wor...

I have this feeling.  Like I could write so much more, add so much more to the story.  Yet, as soon as I open the document for the story, all I want to do is something else.  A feeling of not wanting to change what is there.  Every story needs it's tweaks and turns.  What once was part of the beginning of the story, getting hacked out or completely changed to another part.  I personally took out 30 pages of writing completely.  I may add bits and pieces later of what once was back story but most of that will remain on the editing floor, as it were. So how do I get focused enough to add or subtract from my creation.  It's hard for all writers, so it's nothing new.  My hesitation causes a form of writers block, so I need to just walk away.  The longer I stay away, the more the information I read in the meantime fills my head with other ideas, more to add or take out.  Not a bad thing, but today it seems that all of the inf...