Marketing Myself and My Writing

Hello world,

The class I'm taking on marketing myself and my writing assigned me challenging homework. -- to write a 50 to 100 word bio that could be used on a book jacket. It appears that this bio will have numerous other uses over time, as well.

It's harder than I thought putting together a short piece about myself, written in third person. Everything sounds commonplace and boring instead of being something that would cause a potential publisher or reader to bounce in excitement. My ego is taking a beating while I work on finding the right words. Maybe I'll see if I hear from any of you before I take this to class tomorrow night.

I've put my first draft of the bio below. All suggestions are welcome!

"Sharman Badgett has a background in technical writing and social science/educational research that gives her fiction depth and believability. Through experience as a therapist, Sharman creates complex characters and explores what causes them to attach and detach. She enjoys visiting diverse cultures and discovering the assumptions that lead people toward either trust or fear. Having ridden elephant back through jungles of Thailand, white-water rafted in Costa Rica and bungee jumped in Canada, Sharman makes her home in the Pacific Northwest."

A Book Report and a Favor

Hello World!

Today I have a book report to share and a favor to ask.

I know several of you follow my blog. I’d like to ask a favor of you. Would you please share with my readers and me one or both of the following?

• sources that you find helpful when you write
• the author you would emulate if you were to write a novel

My responses follow.

I mentioned before that my favorite book on writing is Martha Alderson's Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple. See my April 1st 2010 post for more about why it is my favorite.

The author I would emulate in my novel is Mary Doria Russell. Her first book, Sparrow, completely blew me away. It is a tale of difficulties, beyond language, that keep Earth scientists and clerics from communicating clearly with two intelligent species coexisting on another planet. The expedition occurs because the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) finally picks up signals alien signals. Scientists and the Roman Catholic Church plan and fund the space trip together.

My book, The Game, also looks at the differences between cultures, a foreign communal group that has recently relocated to Eastern Washington and the local people they meet. My two groups are not different as those in Sparrow, but I hope I can make them both as similar and as distinct.

It’s not that Ms. Russell’s three cultures cannot understand each other. Problems arise when the conclusions they draw from facts and observations are incomplete or incorrect. Assumptions based on those findings bring about totally unexpected results, though everyone is certain relations are caring and peaceful between the people of Earth and the two new cultures.

As a person who learns more from fiction than non-fiction, I appreciate how well Ms. Russell presents the fallacy of believing quantitative information is truth. Not only do facts tell only part of the story, they are necessarily viewed through our cultural sieve, something I want readers of The Game to experience.

Ms. Russell’s story continues in Children of God. The two books excel in creating complex cultures containing complex characters. Hers is not a tale of good and bad guys. Instead, each character has strengths and weaknesses and creates success or chaos depending on the situation. How I would enjoy creating characters as 3-D as hers!

Hopefully I can present your writing and fiction choices in a later blog.

Congratulations (At Least, a Mini One)

Hello World!

Today I congratulate myself.

Don’t get too excited -- this is a small celebration. No, I have not yet finished my scene by scene analysis and rewrite, an effort that will undoubtedly take longer than writing my original draft. I have, however, completed a copy edit pass through the entire novel that tightened up its extensive length.

At its longest, The Game ran 588 pages. It now stands at 482 pages. Yay!

Not all of those pages vanished through my copy editing. Several entire scenes did not survive the extensive analysis/rewrite process. Hopefully, I’ll find more of those, because I plan to add several exciting additional scenes as well.

In case you are still concerned at The Game’s length, I’ll let you in on a secret. My pages are a bit shorter than actual book pages. In the end, I will convert them. For now, I continue to estimate the “tomeishness” of my work by counting its original-length pages.

Although a rewrite is more vital than copy editing, I’m pleased by the evidence of my progress. Maybe an occasional celebration should be required during long-term projects like writing a book. It makes feel better about my work and energized to move forward.

Congratulations to me!

Researching The Game

Hello World!

I’ve been thinking a lot about research lately. Most of my life I’ve worked in social science and educational research, which includes a lot of writing. Writing this book, I’ve discovered that writing includes a lot of research, as well. It is fortunate for me that the two fit so well together.

Of course, if I wrote non-fiction, I’d plan for lots of research – after all, think of all those facts! Yet day after day during the writing phase of my novel, I’d come up with answers I needed so my setting and characters would remain believable. Some were quick googles, while others took deeper research. Occasionally I lost an entire day to exploration. ! even took a class on one of my research topics.

The working title for my novel is The Game. My research made me feel like I was one of my characters, involved in my own game. Below are some examples.

Research topics for my novel The Game (selective list)

• What has contributed to various peoples growing taller in some parts of the world than in others?
• In what months do various crops mature in Eastern Washington?
• How are body hair, pubic hair and facial hair similar and different?
• Had the past 60 years of U.S. defense/war resources gone to our space program instead, where might it be today?
• What happens to the mother and the embryo during the first 3 months of pregnancy?
• What allowed the Love Israel family to continue so much longer than other communal groups?
• What changes have occurred over the past 30 years in Walla Walla and the surrounding area?
• Historically, which nationalities and ethnicities immigrated into Eastern Washington and when?
• How long do cows and goats give milk after bearing young?
• When is the yearly rodeo in the Walla Walla area?
• What advances are anticipated over the next 10 year in genetics?

Perhaps my research has been more difficult, in some ways, than non-fiction research. The variety of topics I’ve had to consider may be wider, for instance. However they compare, I now understand why some authors hire researchers on various questions. If I didn’t love the search, I could easily bog down in the writing.