UnSung is Here!

This book, like all books I finish, had a very special goal. I wanted it to be a true epic entry. I'd gotten caught up in the word count for traditional publishing years ago and I always feel like it might have affected, for better or worse, how I approached writing. Instead, I removed those mental restrictions and just set out to bring in a word count that the book needed--I could get carried away, but it would still need a limit if I were to put it in paperback. There's only so much a spine can hold (or that a reader might want to hold). Luckily, with a decent font size, it still came under the 825 page limit by about 100 pages so it's definitely not stretching the next book too thin either.

Ahem, first things first. The universal book link to find the retailers is HERE but feel free to just pop into your favorite store and type in my name (Krista Gossett-- I have no clue how people are arriving here, so I'll not take chances).

UnSung is a part of the UnQuadrilogy, a series that explores the mistakes of the four Gods broadly through the messes that the humans and other creatures have to clean up. The layers come in bite-sized subplots, driven by a cast of characters of all different fantasy races and backgrounds. At least one main character tends to have a disability that also makes them more open to abilities that the 'able' do not. There are typically several plot threads that are character-driven and these tend to establish the 'chapters'. The only format that is consistent is that each book has three parts and an epilogue. The Prologue in UnSung is actually used to shift the view point from Talia's view in the Epilogue of UnNamed to some of Aiden's history and his view of events. This means that, at this point, it's not necessary to have read UnNamed (although you may appreciate knowing some of the characters reappear in UnSung and there are some Easter eggs tied into the story). UnSung does mention some of those events in passing, enough that they make sense on their own. I can't guarantee I'll keep this up for later books, since it gets more difficult (and tedious) in an epic to keep mentioning past events. For UnSung, it was not cheesy or tedious or I might have scrapped it.

In truth, it's not difficult to make at least 90% of each book completely standalone. For one, each one deals with new main characters. This is because their roles end up taking on a more significant one later. I also attempted to make it difficult to discern which of the characters is actually a 'main' character. Someone who plays a significant story-telling role may not be around for the long haul. The way the plots move serve to: 1) develop a character, 2) create an understanding of a subplot, or 3) support the main plot. I don't set out to kill or protect the characters, only to make sure each piece plays a clear role.

For this reason, it feels odd to assign each book a description. I can tell you the leading story-tellers (at least, to a point), the main plot, even some of the more significant subplots. However, knowing the books as I do, I can't really place significance on anything for you. It's a slow-burner fantasy that changes pace. It plays with politics, adventure, deceit, psychology, light and dark humor. I've always been drawn to fantasies with layers--not ones where the romance is the only driving force or constant or death and nihilism is the goal. I like it to be a multi-faceted playground that leads to a definite conclusion, yet still lets the reader keep it open to their imagination.

So-- each book concludes something. Each part concludes something. Each plot finds a conclusion. It's my hope that readers can also connect to at least one character, if not more. My expectations as a writer certainly considered what might appeal to a fan, but ultimately, my focus was on telling a complete story, yet one that I could expand on again and again.

UnNamed is already in the process of receiving more short stories. My nameless mercenary keeps me curious, keeps me wondering how his early life shaped the man he would become. The tricky thing is though that the short story spin-offs are more difficult to classify. Some of my short story spin-offs have verged into erotica, some adventure, and some seem more like investigative mysteries. I wonder if this is a sign of lacking discipline, or... Rather, I am willing to write what the story needs to be rather than restricting it to rigid requirements.

I know I'm roundabout getting to this, but UnSung starts with two scared young people, Aiden and Talia, who flee from the scene of a horrific murder, neither sure if anyone will believe they aren't responsible or that they can withstand the consequences regardless. They journey to the continent of Melikai, each trying to establish their own lives, each bothered by the whispers of a vast trade city turning ghost town. When they realize there is no such thing as a normal life for them, it leads them to extraordinary circumstances and deeper mysteries.

If I can manage to hook you for the long game, it will all become clear. As a fan of Sherlock Holmes and authors like Dean Koontz and James Patterson, I've always been a fan of dropping clues that feed you bread crumbs along the way. My characters, no matter their vocation, all play a bit of an investigative or driving role. I've said before, I don't set out to write paragraphs of self-congratulatory prose--enough to romance you to the elements, but not so much that you lose track of where you're supposed to be. If you WANT to wander in thought, I let that be your prerogative, not the hostage situation I put you in.

Between the drawing and the winter hobbyist stint, I haven't yet gone back to UnHeard. It got a huge draft boost during NaNoWriMo and I'm invading short story territory as well. UnHeard, like my other books, sometimes gets ambitious boosts (I've hit 10K in a single day more than once), sometimes a few modest 2-5K stints, sometimes dry spells because... I do more than write. I've had a few people urge me to pick an area. 

Easier said than done. I love drawing, but that's a challenge on my physical health that writing isn't, namely because I have bad habits in posture and ergonomics that I can't seem to correct without expensive equipment. Comics would be a lot more lucrative to do for me, but I need to take different risks and the planning is trickier. I'll certainly try it, but...

I do resolve to at least finish up the UnQuadrilogy first. So writing will be full-time at least for the next couple years. It won't be going away, at least as long as there are ideas I like better in that medium. However, if comics take off and I can handle the physical demands, it will become the priority.

That's a 'we'll see' situation. Being a modern artist is largely about flexibility, rather than just humping the same tree. We just don't live in a time where we can staunchly master one area, room and board a part of our apprenticeship. Certainly some can, but they are not only extremely lucky, but exceedingly rare. Most of even the most successful artists I know are rarely able to just master one area. Rather, they have to get pretty damn good at a lot of things and hope they actually like the ones that come into demand.

I loved crochet (and still do) but as a business, it sucked all the fun out of it, made it into something I didn't like. I find that writing and art don't poison in their reception, good or bad. It's easier for me to turn people down or accept/ignore criticism. With crafting, I just don't seem to have the same patience. Nevertheless, I treat it with integrity, refusing to sell crafts for peanuts. If I love you, I'll gift my work, but otherwise, don't even bother asking me to make something if you're not up to paying crafter prices. I don't fuck with negotiation or tolerate being devalued in any area. I won't demean the ones who brave the market by undercutting them. You want days of someone's life for a handcrafted piece, pay for it.

Uh-oh, someone is avoiding creativity today... (me...). I started some lifestyle changes today and the morning hours passed by fast. I might draw a bit, but really, I'm still adjusting to things that might require a bit of forgiveness for the break in ambition.

Is It That Time Already?

Yesterday marked the deadline for submissions concerning the fantasy anthology I will be a part of. Wow. In a couple of months (on Halloween), it becomes a thing. Because I've really only been working on my long game, it will be the first officially published short story I've done. I've free-published a lot of things over the years, but there's always something special about doing more than just poking at a keyboard and hitting the Publish button (coughbloggingcough). That's not to say blogs can't be researched and well-edited, but it's not the same beast.

If you flip through my many posts on self-publishing-- formatting, covers, etc. it still only covers the tip of the iceberg. I had to go through a lot of processes to make sure the quality was to my standards.

Namely from the time I finally finished my first series (I had decided early on that I wouldn't publish them until I'd written and edited them all meticulously), it took at least a month per book to get them all publishing ready. While a lot of that was learning, correcting, and trial and error, getting better at it really only shaved minute amounts of time off of the process. 

The first big hitch in my process came in formatting, the very first place I started. I've talked about it in detail before so the short version is that Word HATES imported text and styles and makes a mess of it. I did a lot of transferring the file to different versions of Word or mobile word processors without realizing that I confused the hell out of them. The first three books suffer from this problem since they were in various stages of completion over the ten years I started them and poked at them half-heartedly. Even when I've had to go back and reformat them for Smashwords Premium or do some minute edits, they've consistently been uncooperative. The best solution had been to import them into a generic text program to strip the formatting before pasting them into a clean file and NOT messing with the Normal style to create new body and header texts. (I'll paste the links for my tutorials at the end here since I'm bringing them up more than once.)

Editing is where a lot of people lose confidence or just get frustrated, but it can be enjoyable once you develop some effectiveness for the process. I know this goes against most "rules" writers are fed, but the first edit is usually more creative than my first draft. I'm taking everything I was wobbly with at first and refining it, developing the characters and story, and so on. If I ever ask anyone to read my work, I've already done two or three basic content edits by that time. My first draft is more like 1/8 of a treasure map and not one with the location on it. I usually develop the most confidence in my story well into the second draft, if not the third. Editing about 80K words take approximately 2-3 full days or a week with more of a part-time dedication. This includes content, grammar and corrective edits. If I end up having to add entire scenes, it can take another week. (Sometimes I consider this more drafting than editing since it's new content that I'll have to pass through editing.)

Design. It is what I went to school for, but graphic design also took me through formatting (I had to do catalogues, pamphlets, package design, copyediting-- so it's not just making collages and doodling). Book design carries a number of factors. Marketing or vision or both, it's creative control and also substantial time spent in the designing itself. The font and placement factors aren't such a huge deal with time, but remembering that the image will need to leave room for them is important (something I didn't much consider in the beginning-- oops).

Eh, for the hell of it, I'll share one of the first book designs I did for school.

Not bad for a beginner, but it's a tad bit cheesy and I'd use less glow and more textured backgrounds these days.

This tends to be where a lot of writers decide to outsource, but when you're an artist first, it just seems like a missed opportunity to improve that skill. If you do decide to go for it, I'd say it can take anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks to make a decent cover. Sometimes I do a cover design while writing the book and decide to tweak it or redo it, which throws the time off from any window of certainty, but I tend to be a quick though quality designer. While interning, I heard that a lot so it must be true.

The hamster wheel. Even when you're sure you have everything formatted, edited, and designed, self-pub services aren't perfect. They'll flag you for correction of weird and invisible mistakes, not auto-adjust an image that is 1/32" off-- fun stuff, you know? Every time, you must go through approximately ten minutes of uploading a new file. Smashwords gave me so much shit over my third book, the ebook constantly making odd sections of text bold when this anomaly wasn't showing up in anything but the epub file. I eventually fixed it, but it was an odd one that took a couple of weeks to iron out. Smashwords records all old and new updates so anyone can view the many times it took me to fix that.

To put it into perspective, I was finished writing all nine books by May 2017. The first was published August 7, 2017. The final one was published July 11, 2018. It seems 'fast' (when you consider most authors publish one book a year) but fast writers actually finish books in about 2-6 months on average. This is actually considered the slower part of the process since it entails most of the editing, formatting, wording process. However, you can expect about a solid month of aftercare, if that's also a fulltime+overtime level of dedication. One year is both ambitious and generous for a new writer. If you do take the six month deadline, then it's probably best to spend the next six months marketing.

Marketing... yup, I'm still not there yet. But props to my friends/fans for dropping my name here and there while my head is still in the writing game.

I could add more but the weather is making me lazy about hanging out on my desktop to blog these days, so I want to surround myself with sketchbooks and notebooks on my floor instead. I'll throw my technical links below for easy use. 

Cover Design at a Glance

So You Want to Get Technical? Formatting 101

Where to Self-Publish 

Self-Publishing: A Process (This one takes you through some steps and requirements)

I've done tons of blogs dabbling in editing and method so it would be tricky linking those specifically. I've gone over some methods as I 'discovered' their use through trial and error to see what best fit any story I was working on. Most of these weren't described in great detail, but I might condense that into a post later, just some editing methods, what they were useful for and why. Editing is one I haven't specifically focused on, other than the mentality you can use to turn it into something fun rather than the chore some people make it out to be. I have picked up quite a few tricks to content and grammar editing. I'll have to bullet-point this one to hash it out best, but what is editing if not effective organization?

From time to time, I'll repost those links, but I'm going to tag this post with 'book links' for easy access.