Tag Archives: Books

A blog about writing, Sharon C. Williams

I have an addiction: Author’s life

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I have an addiction. In fact it started early on as I was growing up. It has continued to grow within me. To make it worse I married someone who has the same addiction.

Books.

My husband and I love books. We love going to used book store and scoring the deals and also books we been looking for. In fact one of our moving trips from one home to another involved a U-haul van that had only books in it.

The shame of it all. But we are shameless. One of our problems is we rarely give the books away. I did purge about 110 books years ago by getting rid of 95% of my James Patterson books to a battered women’s shelter in town. I have donated a bit to the local libraries. I have placed some on my book swap site online.

I alone have nine bookcases. Six of which are large-sized. And while that might seem a lot it does not come close to my husband and his own bookcases. We are addicted. Again we are shameless about it.

It doesn’t help that companies have asked me, and yes I have accepted, to review for them meaning free books for Sharon and hubby.

It’s a disease. It is. I don’t try anymore to explain it to non readers. There is no point. Either you get it or you don’t. Either you love it or you run away from it.

This is my addiction. I might need to purge some more to make room for the others I am more than sure to bring into the house.

But this an addiction that we are glad we have.

A blog on writing, An author and her thoughts on writing

An awesome book versus a crappy book: Can you tell the difference or do you care?

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Can you tell the difference between a great book versus a crappy book? Most people, if not all, would say yes. And yes it should be yes. I am not talking from a writer’s perspective. We all know what we like when it comes to art, music, books and movies.

But what if someone told you that this is what you should like in these forms of art? If I told you that the book you read had a poor plot line, poor character development, head hopping from character to character, poorly researched and rushed at the end would you not like the book anymore?

If I told you it should have gone through a beta group, a critique group and if nothing else to an editor one more time would you not like the book anymore? If I told you it had many loop holes, your protagonist wasn’t believable, how the transition between the beginning to the twist was flawed would you not like the book anymore?

I bring this up for one main reason. I was on Amazon leaving a review for two books. I tend to read the reviews that are placed there for the same book. When I see many positive reviews it causes me to wonder. Didn’t they see the error filled chapters? Didn’t they see that in one chapter it was her boyfriend and the next chapter it was her husband and the next her boyfriend again? Did they not see how the ending was just tidied up with little rhyme or reason? Either you are a friend of this author or you like what you like and nothing above matters to you.

We like what we like for reasons that works for us. I read a book hat had an amazing plot, twist and well-developed characters. The grammar and edits were atrocious. If I can let go the writer in me it would work. Other times I just want to pull my hair out.

But a the end of the day what works for you is what matters.

A title for your book, Naming your book

Your book is done: Do you have a title for it?

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Earlier this year I posted about how I didn’t have the title for a certain WIP of mine. How I wondered how writers come up with their titles and so on. Well now the time is really upon me. My editor just handed me the last edits for my manuscript which is the third installation for my Jasper series. At this point there is still no title for it and to be honest I have not given it much thought. While people get stressed over this I am more wanting to get the story out from my brain and onto the paper. But now it is time to come up with the name for it. I guess it is now my turn to stress.

I been thinking of having a contest with this in mind. Though how someone can title a manuscript that they haven’t read could be interesting. I could give a short synopsis of the book and people can draw from that. I hadn’t expected this series to well turn into a series. And at the moment I have ideas for a fourth and fifth. May this help me to find titles for them or if nothing else not take so long to title it.

I have to date never done a contest when it has come to my writing. There are so many options out there. You can do one on your social platform which I have seen on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads just to name a few. Whoever comes up with the title I choose could either win a free book from the list of books I have written or I can write them in an upcoming book. What do you all think? Could this work? Or do I need to buckle down and figure this out on my own?