What device do you use?

To read on, I mean?  Do you use a PDA, Pocket PC, smartphone, or dedicated ebook reader?

For me, the discovery of electronic books was a wonderful thing.  In the early days of motherhood, I read a tech magazine that featured the Gemstar Bookstore and their dedicated readers.  The reviewer sang praises and heralded ebook devices as the wave of the future.  I was captivated.  A voracious reader, I had found that the trials of working and motherhood severely limited my reading options.  I was resorting to the supermarket selection for reading material.

I brought the magazine home, plunked it down in front of my husband, and promised never to buy another paperback again if he’d buy it.  He ordered it and before I knew it, my REB 1200 was my newest bright and shiny toy.

Then the bottom fell out.  Less than three months after I bought it, Gemstar announced they were closing their doors at the end of the following quarter.  Their reason?  The ebook venture had proved not to be profitable and their warehouses were full of readers that they said the public had no interest in due to the high cost.  “Why buy a reader when you can zip down to the bookstore?” was the rationale.

I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if they’d justified muscling through for another year.  Back then, all the major publishing houses were onboard with the effort to modernize the industry.  Any book I wanted to read was available at the click of my reader.  I was in heaven and hooked.

Six months after I purchased my last Gemstar download, handheld devices surged in popularity and Pocket PC’s hit the market.

Now, the unanswered questions are if epresses would have evolved as they have or if the mainstream print presses would have just expanded into the digital world without any significant competition if Gemstar would have stuck the low tide out.

As for me, I waited six years for another dedicated ebookstore because I loved the convenience of the Gemstar.  My husband searched the entire Metro DC area to find one when he realized the Sony Store was backordered until well after Christmas that first year.  I was so excited that I cried.

Now, I wished I’d held out another year for the Kindle.

Why?  Because when Amazon.com acquired Mobipocket, they also acquired the full range of mainstream, epress, and small press titles for the device all in one location to be maintained from the same library.

The Sony?  Well, they SAYS it’s *.pdf friendly and that epress titles are easily loaded and enjoyed…but they lie.  It will load *.pdf titles from the epresses, but the type is so small that you can’t read it.  I’m sure there is a way to manipulate it, but I don’t want to have to fight with a book for an hour to read it.  The same can be said for epresses.  Some of them sell the Sony *.pdf format and they work great, but the rest…well, depends on how the tech guys finalized the format.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they act just like regular *.pdf files.  At this point, I only buy from epresses that my reader will read easily.

The Kindle?  All from one library without having to keep track of a dozen sites or receipts or accounts…and guaranteed to work.  And if you didn’t get the title through them?  They’ll be glad to convert it for you, no questions asked.

My email to Sony about the *.pdf issue took a week to get a response.  “We are aware of the problem and regret to inform you that there is no available solution at this time.”

Sony?  Are you listening?  This is why the Kindle is making the Sony Reader look bad – because their support staff is eager to make it our number one choice as consumers.  And just because I shelled out over $300 for your reader does not obligate me to patronize from your sometimes limited bookstore.  I love my reader, but it’s only as good as the content I can get for it.

And what makes it worse?  I’m back to buying mainstream books and reading them on my Pocket PC from sites like Fictionwise and Ereader.com because they load titles faster than the Connect store.  There are some books I want to purchase on release day, but the Connect store doesn’t get it up for a month.  It’s frustrating.  In fact, my Sony hasn’t been turned on in so long, I’m not sure the battery has enough charge to power it on.  The only books I actually go to the Sony Connect store to purchase are from authors I know I will reread more than once…or from an author I know or want to support.

For those authors?  I buy it everywhere I can find it…because you never know just how many books are being passed around and every little bit helps.

So tell me, how do you read?  Print?  Ebook?  With a PDA or a reader?  Or just on your computer?  And how do you like it?

Don’t you wish it were that simple?  Do YOU have a Bat Cave?  Do you want one?  *raises hand* I do.

You guessed it, Summer is here.  Like a lot of work-from-home parents, my children have now turned into the holy terrors my mother warned me about.  Yes, I can hear that laughter, by the way.  While I love them and want them to mature to be well-rounded, well-adjusted adults, I’m trying very hard not to become the great harpy and eat them.

The Wii has broken after 4 short weeks in residence.  Hard rubber balls have been thrown against my smoked GLASS front door because it makes them bounce better on the hardwood coming back to them.  One curtain rod has been bent beyond repair.  WebKinz really DO fly when struck by the ceiling fan…and small children really can throw high enough to reach it in my vaulted great-room when they’re determined enough.

Oh, and let’s not forget that the cat has decided the frogs are a new novelty.  One has just begun to sing at night and suddenly, she’s remembering that cats in the wild enjoy an occasional frog leg…or body…provided she can get him out of the great aquarium I’ve put him in.  Bear in mind, one of my aquatic frogs had his name changed from Tad to Lucky for miraculously avoiding certain death by FLUKE when she managed to push over one of the smaller aquariums several months ago.

SIDE BAR:  Said cat pushed small portable aquatic habitat over so that it splashed enough water, sand, and one small frog into a tea cup that had been left beside said tank.  In the process of pushing over the tank, she had pushed the cup off the counter where it had fallen into a tall shipping box left to be broken down for the recycle bin from earlier in the day.  Said container was about 10 inches tall and about 6 inches square.  Cup knocked container over to an angle - just right for the flying frog, water, and sand to catch it when the habitat hit the ground and broke open.

Wait - where was I?  Oh yeah, the Bat Cave!

Instead of a secret lair, I get coffee and readjusted working hours.  The cat is curled up at my feet, the frogs are beginning to sing in their tanks, and my children are blessedly quiet.  And Tigers have never looked so good.

The price for a double life?  No sleep…but Batman never complained!

And in case you were wondering, the answer is yes.  Well, to the question of progress on Tigers 2, that is.  It lacks a name because I’m still toning and working the kinks out.

Hum…what do YOU think we should call it?

Michelle Pillow and Mandy Roth are two wonderful and hilarious authors.  I love their Wednesday Lunchtime show, but haven’t been able to make it for the past few weeks because of all the school commitments as the school year closes.  WOW - that’s a really long sentence.

Those Raven Nights!

Raven Radio, as mentioned in Romantic Times Magazine, is moving to nights! Tune in every Wed at 11-12 PM EST and join Authors Michelle Pillow and Mandy Roth as they talk about everything, nothing and the paranormal. Guests include NY Times and USA Today Bestselling authors as well as those wonderfully talented authors soon to be there, editors, paranormal tour guides, psychics, ghost hunters, specialists and more!

www.ravenhappyhour.com or http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ravenradio

Listeners are welcome to join the live chat or call in to the show to talk to us and our guests. The show will move to its new evening schedule, May 28^th where listeners can catch us every Wednesday at 11PM to 12AM EST. We have a lot of authors on the upcoming line up and you can see a full schedule of guests here: http://ravenhappyhour.com/raven_podcast_schedule_of_guests.htm

WANT TO JOIN THE VIRAL CONTEST AND HELP SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT RAVEN NIGHTS? Go to Raven’s blog to learn how you could win free advertising packages! Contest open to authors, readers and other groups! http://ravenhappyhour.com/ravenblog/?p=463

I am a first person author. This week, in light of Tiger, I’ve been asked a lot of first person questions and urged to blog about it. Before I get started, I’d like to point out that I’m not Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Katie MacAlister, Keri Arthur…well, you get the point. There are masters of First Person out there and they’re not me. *grins* This is simply my take on writing the hardest point of view there is.

I get asked a lot, “Why First Person? I mean, that’s breaking the cardinal rule.” The answer is easy, “Because that’s the way the story needed to be told.”

Not every story can be told in first person. First person isn’t simply taking your third person limited narrative and changing it to a single POV and substituting “I”. In fact, the best advice I can give on whether or not you should write your next project in FP is to ask if you’ve tried it in third, yet. If a story can be told in third, it should be. It’s not even up for debate. If you, as the author, can write it in third person or even picture it that way, then the character isn’t strong enough to be the single point of focus for the story.

Some stories can not be told in third person. The voice of the character is just too strong. The first manuscript I wrote in first person was started twelve times in third person before I turned to one of my writing circle friends, Colleen, in a wail, “It always ends up with ‘I’.” By the end of the first chapter, the heroine was telling the story so strongly that there wasn’t any other room for anybody else to talk. Her advice was to try it. It was the first project I ever finished. It won an award and I’ve never looked back.

Recently, Samhain Publishing published my third completed manuscript, the second in first person, Tiger by the Tail. I was somewhat shocked by the reception it has received. I love Sasha, but she’s a voice inside my head. If I hated her, we’d have a problem. I wasn’t expecting the world to slip into her skin like I do.

And that’s what makes first person special. It’s like curling up with your best friend over a cup of coffee and talking. She’s telling you a story, or ‘he’ if you’re a Harry Dresden fan, which I happen to be. When I read a good first person, I feel like I’ve made a friend when I’m done. One I’d like to visit again and again and again.

So, you’re thinking of giving it a whirl? Good! The hard part is figuring out how to pull it off. We all have our own voices as authors. In third person, how we turn a phrase is what makes us shine and what we carry with us from manuscript to manuscript. Even third person limited is told from our perspective as authors. Unlike third person omniscient, we can’t be God, but we do control the characters senses. We control what they notice at any given moment no matter how they notice it.

In first person, how your character turns the phrase is what makes them real. How do you separate your voice from theirs? You don’t. You have to trust yourself to be true to the character. It’s like role playing on a grander scale. In order to make first person truly successful, you have to put yourself aside and acquaint yourself with your character on a very personal basis. At a recent workshop I attended given by Bob Mayer, he described it as the most intimate POV as well as the hardest and most limited.

Why is it limited? Because no one else gets to see, hear, think, or define anything. Every tiny detail of your story has to be woven in through subtle details. It’s like painting a portrait. Every detail and brush stroke means something to the grander design. Some details are more obvious than others. For example, your heroine has POV rights – it’s her story – but your hero is thinking he’s going to do something rash. In third person, we’d simply give him some internal thought or dialogue or a POV shift. In first, we don’t have that luxury. We have to build all our secondary characters bold enough so she (and the reader) knows them well enough to pick up on their expressions and body language to address it to the reader. Even if she doesn’t point blank say, “I know he’s up to something,” she can note the details – he won’t meet her gaze, shifting from feet to feet, making a lame excuse to bolt out the door. Without being overt, your heroine tips the reader off to mischief.

Now, I’m also going to make a rather obvious point here about voice. As a first person author, I can’t write the same heroine under a different name with a different premise. My voice has to change according to every POV character. Even though my characters all tell their story as “I”, they aren’t the same person, so the flavor has to change with them. How do you change it? It goes back to the role playing mentioned above. Knowing your character well enough to slip your skin as a person and an author and write from their eyes is how you change your voice every time out of the box. I guess you can say it’s like being a schizophrenic who has permission to embrace the crazy side of themself. Yes, I talk to the voices in my head and let them have a turn at the helm.

This brings me to another point about why first person is so intimate. How deep is deep enough into your character? In third person, we’re allowed a little bit of a narrative filter. In first person, it’s a deal breaker. Falling into narrative telling instead of actively showing (from the POV character) will kill the tone and mood of a first person story. It’s the most common mistake. You just can’t treat a first person story like a third.

It’s another reason why first person is so limited. Until you actively try to write first person, you don’t realize just how much you, as the author, narrate a story. In my opinion, the only way you can successfully write first person is to be deep into character and trust yourself to write the scene true to the spirit of it.

A lot of authors write alternating point-of-views, switching from third to first and back again. That’s not a bad idea if you need to have the reader step back and see things differently or you need to interject plot elements that your point of view character can’t possibly know. By inserting that bit of narration, you also allow the reader to become better acquainted with other characters and other elements in the story.

I’m going to break off here and bring up another type of first person novel – alternating first person views. This opens up the field a bit. It’s adding a different narrator for elements just like using an alternating third person. I am not a fan of it. Why? Because unlike using alternating first and third, you’re not creating distance with your reader in the alternating view. In general, you open the story from the focus point of view and create that initial connection with the reader, create that bond, and then you break it and expect the reader to shift their emotional connection to the alternating persona. It doesn’t work, in general, at least not for me.

First person is like falling in love, one little bit at a time. With each scene, the reader takes that little baby step into emotional involvement. It’s why publishers print, “An Anita Blake Novel,” “A Harry Dresden Novel,” “An Aisling Grey Novel,” or a “Riley Jenson Novel” on the cover of a book. Even if you hated the author’s last book, you’re going to buy it…even if you hated the last one in the series.

Why? Because they’re our friends and we want to know what they’ve been up to.

It’s been a couple of days since release day - and my most surprising and joyous moment -

My very first review: Ciar Cullen took a look at Sasha and this is what she had to say –> REVIEW

Yes, I’m still picking myself up off the floor. I taped it to the large windows next to my writing desk (read dining room table).

I’m thinking of having it framed, I’m so tickled. At least I’m not tearing up over it, anymore. Come on, wouldn’t you cry over that review?

See, several years ago, I sent Ciar Cullen fan mail asking some questions that I’m now embarrassed to admit were terribly naive it’s not even funny. She was very kind. In fact, she gave me the piece of advice that I have fallen back on when I’ve wanted to quit a thousand times.

“Write the kind of book you’d want to read and someone will buy it.”

This was in response to my question (cringe with me, now), “How do you manage to write to the market like everyone tells you to when the market changes SO much?”

No, I didn’t ask her to read my book. Sorry, I’m just not that brave. I feel very lucky that she noticed it and went through the effort to write this for my story.

*grins*

So, Ciar, if you’re reading this, Thank you (AGAIN)!

Kaye

Why is it that the morning after the party is always so…icky?

I woke up with an asthma attack a little after 3 am. Yes, that’s early even for me. After learning how to breathe again with the help of my inhaler, I sat down at my computer and plugged away on a couple of non-writing related things before the minis got up.

Despite the seriously depressed breathing issues, I’m still floating from yesterday. I’ve got music pounding and trying to decide if I’m willing to risk caffeine (which can make my asthma worse when I’m congested) before getting rolling.

Motivation that has been lacking lately was sparked with a vengeance with my very first review. Ciar Cullen was kind enough to post a review for Tiger by the Tail on her blog. *GRIN* Skip over and take a look at what she thought of it…

*skipping out to go to work - out of PJs even*

Got up, grabbed my computer before coffee, clicked the Samhain bookmark, and grinned in excitement - until I looked at the page (the home page shows todays new releases, don’t cha know).  No Sasha.  No Cat Shifter book at all.  I’m frowning now.  Clicking to the Coming Soon.  Nothing.  They’re not there, either.

Hysterics bubble up.  I’ve been delusional all these months!  I’ve told my friends!  I’ve LOST MY MIND!

Okay, hysteria over.  They’re just not shifted into the bookstore for sale, yet.  It’s not that big of a deal, it was four o’clock in the morning.  Samhain is on EST, so they should be up sometime this morning.

Did I know that?  Yeah, I did…but there was that one split second of…IT WAS ALL A DREAM! *read as a wail, please, for effect*

Am I excited?  YOU BET!!

What does this mean to me?  Well, when I was in college (a long, long, long time ago in a galaxy far far away), I wrote a list of things I wanted to do - an ultimate goal list.

Travel (Isn’t that at the top of EVERYONE’S list?) - CHECK

Find the perfect man (Again, echoing everyone else’s list.  I promise I get more original as I go) - CHECK

MARRY him (yes, I honestly believed when I found him, he’d probably already be taken because Murphy was not my friend) - CHECK

Have fabulous career - *uhm* still working on that one

Get Published - *pen is hovering over the check box* *deep breath* - C H E C K

How often do you get to cross something off your ultimate goal list?  I didn’t go much further down the list…because there are still quite a bit on it that haven’t been checked off.  Granted, some of them are a bit ridiculous, but hey…it’s been almost twenty years.

Oooops.  Showing my age.  What was the topic, again?

SASHA - Tiger by the Tail - Available today from Samhain publishing.  May you love her like I do.

Kaye

Oh, by the way - don’t forget my contest!  Rules are around here somewhere… *wanders off in search of that post-it*

*grins*  Our darling Angie was the guest blogger at Write Minded today.  Did I mention she’s totally awesome?

http://www.writemindedblog.com/

She started it like this: 

“Do you remember your first time?

The excitement, the nerves, the almost painful anticipation of something you wanted so much…and yet were afraid of all at the same time?”

Let me tell you, I’m so excited, my skin might not hold me.

And this brings me to a question that was asked last week by another author.  How did Sasha’s story first open up to me?  Sasha’s story is written in first person and begins with the line:  “Anxiety is a bitch of monumental proportions.”

I write in first person and it’s almost scary to think that I remember the first line all my heroines have said to me.  That was Sasha’s first whisper on an early morning drive to Disney World.  My husband was driving and I was watching the sun rise over a cotton field bordering I-75 in South Georgia.

Frantically, I managed to get my laptop up and pounded away until I ran out of battery 1500 words later.

But I filed it away.  Since I didn’t even know where it was headed - no plot outline, no idea beyond that one scene that stood out so vividly in my mind.

It was almost a year later when another author friend urged me to consider working on it.  Suddenly, she was breathing, again, as if she’d been lurking in her room until just the right moment to come out into the sunshine.

After submitting it, I thought, “It’ll never happen.  No one wants to read a first person story like that.”

Then, I got the email.  I screamed…and then I cried…and my husband looked at me like I was nuts.  It’s been a surreal journey since.

Tomorrow is a dream come true.  I’ll be published.  Maybe by the time May gets here, I’ll have my feet back on the ground.

I hope you enjoy Sasha’s story and fall in love with her like I did.

HUGS and Thank you for coming by!

Kaye

Hello World.

I forgot to mention my contest!  In celebration of my debut release from Samhain Publishing, I am giving away an iPod nano - 1G first generation - with a tiger themed hard skin.

There are two ways to enter:

1) Email me the purchase receipt of Tiger by the Tail.  Send it to kayechambers@msn.com with CONTEST in the subject line.  Please send it once and only once.  Please make sure CONTEST is in the subject so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle and I can dig it out of the junk mail folder if it ends up there.

 2) By mail:  Send a Tiger themed POSTCARD with the following information:  Name, Mailing Address, VALID EMAIL ADDRESS, and the answers to the following questions which can be found reading the excerpt available on the Samhain publishing page:

A) What is Sasha’s title?

B) How did Sasha know they were driving in circles waiting for the dark?

C) Who is she talking to?

D) What used to be grown on her property?

Mail to: Kaye Chambers, 1321 Buttermilk Lane, Griffin, GA 30224

Yes, you may enter ONE time by EACH method (that makes a maximum of two entries).  No purchase necessary to win.  Multiple entries by either method will disqualify an individual.  You may only send ONE email and ONE postcard.  Yes, I will acknowledge receipt of all contest entries by email so you know it got here and you’re good to go.

The winner will be chosen by random drawing and notified by email on June 21st.  There will also be an announcement posted on my yahoo group.

***PLEASE NOTE*** You MUST live within the United States OR CANADA to win OR have an APO/FPO address.  Military bases are the exception.  I will ship to them.  I’m sorry, but shipping expenses to other countries can be expensive and receipt is chancy, at best.

***CHANGE*** I updated this on 4/15 to include Canada - and it will out USPS.

I’m sitting here listening to iTunes playing one of my writing playlists - and what comes on but Nick Lachey *sighs* Resolution.  “Living life without a plan” really hits a nerve right now, but in a good way.

In four days, my novella will be available for sale.  Tiger by the Tail is an example of how plans can run awry.  Sasha’s plans certainly didn’t include tigers running amok in her life, but that’s certainly what she got by stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight.  Funny how one little decision based on curiosity can launch a major shift in life.  Well, curiosity did kill the cat, let’s hope Tigers aren’t quite that impetuous.

I was talking to a fellow debut author, Paige McKellan, this week about plans and those wonderful moments we wait our lives to experience.  Her novella, Claiming Their Mate, releases at the same time Sasha’s story does.  She’s also having a rockin’ contest (www.paigemckellan.com) to celebrate her debut, too.  We’re both very excited.  Take a jaunt over and check her out.

So, anyway, Tigers and my pending publication have me in a spiral of excitement.  It’s as if it’s not real.  I’ve been writing for as long as I could remember, dreaming of this day.  If you read it and want to share your opinion, I’d LOVE to hear it.

Counting down…

Kaye