Tagged: Miss Brandymoon’s Device

Fill In the ______

We’ve discovered a fun way to gain useful insights into your own prose. Want to know how many modifiers you use? Curious about how obsessed you might be with anatomical references? This one simple trick can help!

Make a mad lib from a page of your book.

We’re sort of kidding about this serving any real purpose. Sure, if you still have adjectives left over after setting up twenty blanks for them, you’ll want to trim a few. But don’t let anything like that get in the way of the hilarity.

Jen invented this and didn’t tell Kent. We do “real” mad libs all the time, so he didn’t suspect a thing. When she asked for a liquid Kent said “coffee” (which will become important in a moment).

The reveal was pretty priceless, and of course Jen made him read it out loud. It was based on a pivotal, though lighthearted, passage in Miss Brandymoon’s Device, which made it perfect fodder for such irreverent treatment. Remember about “coffee”? Take one guess what type of liquid was in the original text.

A co-author is the ideal playmate for this game, but it could also work among members of a critique group, or with a beta reader. Or a stranger on the bus, if you’re looking for novel ways to make friends.

Give me a verb ending in -ing…

A Plethora of Piñatas

So you’ve just finished your first draft. What happens next?

Obviously you celebrate, but after you sober up or get back from Disney World or whatever, then what?

Then you put that manuscript aside for a while. You do other things and try to forget everything you wrote so that when you do look at it again you have critical distance.

Critical distance is among the most important skills for an author, and also among the most difficult to master. It’s what allows you to stand in the reader’s shoes, what enables your own work to surprise you sometimes. And that’s crucial when you’re ready to edit. You need to be able to see the plot holes, the out-of-character moments, and the places where motivation is thin. You need to be able to spot the story beats that are obviously contrived.

That last one can be tricky because all the story beats are contrived, obviously. You wrote them.

So, like we said, you need critical distance. How do you achieve it? Just reading something else is good, but what you want to do is fully engage your faculties. Reading is too passive for this. Nothing will restore your own work’s ability to surprise you faster than editing or writing a different piece. It’s not enough to just look away from a project for a while. You need to actively push other stuff through the system. You need to overwrite that part of the hard disk.

We’ve had a lot of success achieving critical distance by having three series, each set in its own story world. While Miss Brandymoon’s Device was resting between editing passes, we could write the Music Novel. While Tenpenny Zen was tucked away in a drawer we could plot out the entirety of the Science Novel. We’ve been rotating through those three series for a couple of years now, and it’s worked well. Now that we’re publishing the Divided Man series, though, we suddenly have fewer open projects.

It’s really exciting to have our work out there in front of people, and it feels really good to have the end in sight for that series, but it does mean that we need to figure out what our next new thing will be. We don’t want to turn around one day and find that we’ve run out of material, and we need to always have something on the back burner so that there’s always a productive way to get that necessary (dare we say critical?) critical distance.

The Best Kind of Busy

The Writing Cave has been a buzzing hive of activity lately, and it keeps getting busier. So busy, in fact, that some of our operations spilled over into the Auxiliary Writing Cave.

We’re in the midst of writing Son of Science Novel while actively editing Tenpenny Zen (sequel to Miss Brandymoon’s Device), and planning the edits for the third book in that series. When we’re not doing any of that, we’re in early discussions for the third Music Novel and the big scary question of Whatever Comes Next And Probably Will Be Kind Of Supernatural. (Wow! We’re going to have to come up with a more concise name for that!)

As if all of that wasn’t enough, there’s a new demand on our time, and it’s one we weren’t entirely prepared for. Fan mail.

Woe is us, right?

A few months ago we went to see David Sedaris, and we were very impressed with how available he makes himself to his fans. He’s there before the show signing books, and he stays after until everyone in line has had their turn. He talks to everyone and it’s a very friendly interaction.

We decided that that’s how we want to engage with fans of our writing. Right now the flow of emails is just a trickle, but we have little doubt it will eventually become a tsunami. It’s important that we work it into our schedule now so that it becomes a habit.

If you want to fawn all over us, or berate us, or just say Hi, email us at HeyRune@runeskelley.com or just hit up the comments. We’d love to engage with you!

The Glare of the Flashbulbs, The Clamor of the Crowd

We are celebrities!

Last weekend we had our very first book signing, and it was phenomenal. The event was held at a local independent bookstore and there were dozens of people in attendance! DOZENS!

We had a box full of Miss Brandymoon’s Device to sell, and sell we did. We left the store empty-handed. Except for the memories.

One of the reasons we have pursued writing instead of, say, acting or rock stardom, is that as an author it’s possible to have success and a certain amount of name-recognition without all of the scrutiny that goes along with real fame. (Our lack of great acting or musical skill also has something to do with it.) But, we gotta say, getting a little bit of VIP treatment was quite fun. The store’s staff was very kind and helpful, and bent over backwards to make us happy. They catered to our diva demands (one black coffee, one peppermint tea), provided snacks, and introduced us to our adoring fans.

The reading went well because Jen made Kent do it, and since she makes him do (almost) all of the reading aloud at home, he was well-practiced and in fine voice. The audience was rapt. At the end they all held up their lighters for an encore, and did the wave.

The coolest part was after the reading, during the signing. Mixed in with our friends, relatives, and coworkers were several strangers, one of whom had purchased the book before the event and was about halfway through reading it. She came up to us with compliments and questions, and was eager to chat about our characters! It was AWESOME!

So now that we’ve had a taste of fame and fortune, there will be no stopping us. It feels great to have a writing partner to share it all with, especially one who doesn’t mind doing the public readings. Plus, as a bonus, we each only had to sign half of our pen name in the books (Kent = Rune, Jen = Skelley). No writing cramps!

Sayonara (Not So) Sweet ’16

What a year. Politics were shit, and too many cool celebrities died.

But!

It wasn’t total misery! Looking back at our post from this time last year, it seems we more or less accomplished what we set out to do in the writing cave. Son (and Grandson!) of Science Novel are both outlined, and we’re well underway with the composition. Go Team Skelley!

Where we deviated from our plan was basically everything that had to do with Son of Music Novel. It did not get time to rest quietly in a drawer, it did not get a thorough edit. Since the other members of our writers’ group were not at a point where they had anything to share, Son of Music Novel got its critique debut a bit early. It’s been a challenge to divide our attention between the projects, but we’re managing. At least we have each other’s shoulders to cry on.

So how did we spend our year 2016 at SkelleyCo Amalgamated Fictions, LLC?

In January and February we were deep in the outlining for Son of Science Novel. It’s pretty much the only thing we blogged about.

March brought our brilliant scheme to outline both sequels before moving on to prose. We did accomplish that, and as far as we can tell at this altitude, we haven’t fucked it up yet. If we can ever get out of this holiday quagmire and chain ourselves to our desks again, we ought to be able to finish up Son and roll right on into Grandson.

Along with taxes, April brought an end to the outlining, and a trip down memory lane. We cleaned out the Writing Cave and took a look at how we used to do things back in the Olden Days. Then we partook of a different kind of nostalgia, beginning an editing pass on Music Novel, which hadn’t seen the light of day in a while.

May was spent elbow-deep in the guts of Music Novel, editing like fiends. Or skilled surgeons, if you’d rather.

In June we hit a couple of bumps in the road, but our partnership (and marriage!) are as strong as ever.

Come July we were all over the place, working in all three of our story worlds at once, and beginning the preliminary work for self-publishing our very first novel, Miss Brandymoon’s Device.

Happy Anniversary! In August, our chain story reached installment 100! And we were still getting through all the throat-clearing that happens before we actually start writing a novel (or two).

September was mostly spent in the run-up to publishing Miss Brandymoon’s Device. Kent created a beautiful cover for it and both of its siblings. We did all kinds of boring behind-the-scenes technical stuff with fonts and layouts and what-have-you. Jen took care of the final pre-writing tasks for the new novels.

And then Boom! October! Book birthday! We think our new baby is gorgeous, and we hope you love it just as much as we do. Hop on over to your favorite book retailer and pick up a copy of the ebook for free! Or order a physical copy from Amazon. You won’t regret it!

Suddenly it was November. How could it possibly be Thanksgiving already? Please explain to us the passage of time. As we always do, we ignored NaNoWriMo and kept our own schedule, with got us to 20,000 by the middle of the month. Not too shabby, when you consider how many distractions we were dealing with.

Good thing there are no distractions in December, amiright? Despite a very long list of things vying for our attention we’re going to finish up 2016 with about 45,000 words in the can for Son of Science Novel. It’s not as many as we’d hoped we might have by now, but it’s nothing to sneeze at.

Jen was feeling a little disheartened that we weren’t further along, and as we worked on this Year in Review post she was able to diagnose her main issue. It feels like we’ve been working on this book for an entire freakin’ year! And that’s because we have been. But we took a huge break in the middle to edit several novels and actually get one of them out in front of people. Somehow that part had slipped Jen’s mind. But when you look at things rationally and see that we’ve only been actually writing this book since sometime in October, it feels like an accomplishment to be proud of.

So we’ll say it again, Go Team Skelley!

Next week we’ll talk about our plans for 2017.

Keeping Busy

r-avatarA quick progress update from the writing cave.

In addition to the ongoing prosification of Son of Science Novel, this week we began a read-through of our next release.

Tenpenny Zen is scheduled to come out in March. It’s book two of the Divided Man series, following Miss Brandymoon’s Device. (which was released last month — did you get yours yet?) The manuscript has been edited a few times already, but we feel it needs one more polishing pass before we put it out there. The first step is to reread it, so it’s fresh in our minds. Once we complete that, we’ll have to park Son of Science Novel to focus on revisions to Tenpenny Zen.

And we’ll take this opportunity to wish you Happy Solstice!

Wordcount is Happening

r-avatarThings tend to repeat themselves, here in the writing cave. It’s natural for a cycle to emerge, given that we consciously follow a process that we’ve honed over several projects. But what’s interesting is how the unplanned things also seem cyclical. Falling down the research hole when we’re supposed to be writing? Check! Both Jen and Kent have resumed everyone’s favorite form of procrastination. (Okay, playing mindless games and messing around on Twitter are also popular choices here in the writing cave. But research has such a sheen of respectability. Ooooh, shiny!)

What are we researching? Well, that’s need-to-know. For now we’ll only classify our studies as diverse and rewarding. Hence, their effectiveness at slowing down the actual writing.

Despite such impediments, we are making progress. It’s not as fast as we planned, which come to think of it, it never is. And even though it’s absolutely, positively, not a competition, Jen does have a bit of an edge if you score things by words, although Kent is ahead by one if you count scenes. We might require adjudication to settle that one. Probably smarter to just keep writing.

Another source of distraction is the launch of Miss Brandymoon’s Device. (We might have mentioned, but in case it slipped our minds — it’s available free from our site as well as at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.) We got the first hard-copy proof yesterday and we can’t stop fondling it. My, oh my, that’s a sexy book.

Spooling Up the Fiction Engines

r-avatarWe may have mentioned our novel launch once or twice in the past few weeks, but in case you missed it: Miss Brandymoon’s Device is available! For FREE! Right NOW! Go download it, we’ll wait.

You’re back? Great. Before you go immerse yourself in our book and forget about the outside world, we’ll give you a quick update on our activities in the writing cave.

Son of Science Novel is next on our agenda. We thought we were ready to write it. It’s been discussed to death, outlined thoroughly, and broken down into scenes (at least the first act has been). We know the characters and settings pretty well, have reference photos for inspiration. From the outside we look overprepared.

But from the inside we’re still finding gaps in our knowledge. The layout of the not-so-abandoned-after-all cold war doom factory will be important not just in this early scene, but in blocking later scenes as well. We need a floor plan now so we don’t write in errors that we’ll need to fix during revisions. Kent fires up Illustrator and puts his brain in Dungeon Master mode!

Do we really need to write a whole scene wherein Boss tells Underling to recruit Heroine, when we can simply show the recruitment? Will readers question Underling’s motivations? Is that necessarily a bad thing? Jen puts on her Problem-Solving hat!

Some of this might look like procrastination, what with the multiple visits to Pinterest and the innocent google searches that turn into bottomless research clickholes, but it’s all valuable. It’s all immersing us in the story world, one we haven’t visited for a while. The better prepared we are, the less we’ll need to change later.

And as everyone knows, it’s dangerous to go alone. For us, having a writing partner makes the journey less perilous.

mbd-cover-cropRead a description of Miss Brandymoon’s Device

Read a sample

Get it free from Amazon

Get it free on iTunes

Get it free at Barnes & Noble

Get it free at Kobo

Cover Reveal: Miss Brandymoon’s Device

r-avatarIt’s one week until launch day for Miss Brandymoon’s Device, the first volume of our Divided Man trilogy! We’re very excited and proud to reveal the cover design Kent created.

Feast your eyes!

mbd-cover-crop

Miss BrandyMoon’s Device: A novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp.

As soon as it launches we’ll provide info on all the ways to get your hands on it. Stay tuned!

We’re Covered!

r-avatarLast night, Kent completed the cover designs for all three volumes of the trilogy. We’re very proud of them (they’re gorgeous, in our unimpeachably unbiased opinion) and they bring us one very important step nearer to publishing the books.

We can’t wait to unveil these to the world. Stay tuned for the releases very soon!

The cover design project required about 60 hours, and produced a set of three coordinated designs. But it wasn’t anywhere close to an equal distribution of 20 hours per cover. The early stages of the process took up a disproportionate amount, and most of that went into searching stock photo libraries for the right base images to work from. Sites like Shutterstock have a seemingly infinite inventory, but we found it difficult to narrow things down to the right images. Eventually we decided to stop burning time on image searches and instead burn it on photo manipulation. Kent’s Photoshop kung-fu, accumulated over years of professional design experience, was up to the challenge.

Most authors don’t design their own covers. The publisher typically handles that, but if you’re self publishing then that puts it right back on your plate and you need to budget for art and graphic design services.  A strong cover is essential, so this is not a place to wing it. In our case, design skills came along as part of the partnership package so it made sense to capitalize on them and get the covers we really wanted.

Every partnership is unique, and the background of each partner confers knowledge that can be leveraged — whether that’s in the form of subject matter, story structure, process, mechanics, or production.