Sometimes you’ll read a book and you’ll think—um, did a vampire write this?
That’s not because it’s sexy and sparkling like the Twilight vampires or sexy and bloody with a rocking 1980s soundtrack like the Lost Boys vampires or sexy and in New Orleans like the Anne Rice vampires, but because the language in the story is so flowerly, so overwrought, so full of clauses that you think, “Only someone over two-hundred years old could have written this.”
Yes, you could argue that M.T. Anderson successfully did this with Octavian Nothing, which won a butt-ton of rewards, but you are not Tobin Anderson.
And that’s part of the point. A lot of us authors look to the classics, to the past and think, “Yo, Charles Dickens, man. Peeps are still talking about him. I should copy his style.”
No.
Also, don’t try to sound hip when you aren’t hip like we just did up there.
If you’re writing historical fiction and like Tobin or Paul Kingsnorth or Dorothy Dunnett, and you think you have a really good handle on the syntax and speech patterns of the time, go for it.
But if you’re writing a contemporary novel about a woman in Maine living with a tall man and two dogs and three cats and one kid and figuring out if writing is worth it? No.
Honestly, even most historical fiction is written in modern language and style.
Why?
Well, that’s because the novel is a communication. It’s you writing for the reader. It’s not just you writing. And you usually want the reader to feel comfortable in that novel, all snuggled in for a cool journey into the character’s world aka your book.
Write like you’re communicating with an audience that’s living right now if you want most readers to enjoy it and keep turning the page.
Here’s an example or what we’re talking about.
While, she stood, one foot upon the ancient sleeping device, and then seemed askance at what stance she had partaken, inhaled a breath so great that it moved her bosom in a terrifying rapturous way, pivoting and climactically inhaling without any scant emotion.
Rather than:
She stood with her foot on the bed. Her face flushed and some sort of scandalous thought crossed her mind. She turned away, sighing so deeply her whole body moved with it.
Okay. Neither are awesome. But one’s a lot easier to understand, right? That’s because it is in the style that’s today’s speaking/writing style, not the style of undead cats and vampires.
Writing Tip of the Pod
Remember that writing is communication. Make it understandable for the people who are alive now.
Dog Tip for Life
Be obvious about your wants. If you want to hang out with the undead, let them know.
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
LINKS FROM RANDOM THOUGHTS
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
You’ve all read a story or heard a story that just bores you to tears, right?
You don’t want to write that story UNLESS boring people is your goal. That’s a fine goal! You get to have that if you want it. Don’t let anyone take your goal away from you.
But if that’s not your goal? Let’s talk.
To not bore your reader, at the most basic level, you have to do three things. And these three things are the basic elements. Bare bones here, okay?
Keeping your damn word.
Just like in a relationship, when you write a book for someone or tell them a story, you set up an expectation in them that there is going to be a payoff there.
There is always an expectation the reader will have.
Will they catch the murderer?
Will James get out of the giant peach? Will the rich family get out of the town?
Will Lassie save whoever Lassie needs to save?
Your book is full of these promises and questions that you the author set out for the reader and that you have to answer. If you don’t? You’re a promise breaker! And you’ve ruined your relationship with your reader.
Making your damn character interesting (This has to do with plot too, actually.).
Your character has a journey. They make choices. The bigger the story and the scarier? The bigger the choices. The character in a thrilling story has to be the hero, the brave one, the choice-maker. Those choices lead you to a thrilling and amazing finale.
Making time matter
If you have your whole life to hunt down the monster that’s killing everyone in town, there’s not as much tension there.
If the bomb is going to explode in 10,000 years? Same thing. But the pressure of a villain who is killing people, the pressure of the bomb about to explode, the pressure of a destiny that might not happen if you don’t hurry up?
That’s a big deal. It’s a trope. Who cares? Use it.
There’s some other things that make a good thriller, too.
There needs to be high stakes. Time limits. Multiple problems increases those stakes.
There needs to be an actual threat to the characters or society.
There needs to be some things that you don’t expect to happen, happen.
The characters need to be multiple dimensions, not flat little cardboard figures or game pieces. But interesting.
There needs to be some cool action going on. That might be mind games. Mind games count. Car chases do too.
Bonus Element:
Cool locations. Your reader wants to explore the world from the safety of their bed/couch/porch/subway seat. Your book lets them do that. Use details. Make those locations real.
Writing Tip of the Pod
Think about your damn audience not just yourself.
Dog Tip for Life
Make your own excitement like Gabby. Every moment can be thrilling.
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
Generalizations can be so inspiring and they can have truth in them for some people and sometimes even for most people, but they’re never going to work for everyone.
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Keep Your Cat Out Of Tinder and Other Sucky Advice
In our Random Thought section of the podcast (Notes not transcribed), we talk about how straight men aren’t supposed to let the world know they like/have cats on social media. Shaun has thoughts.
The rest of the podcast follows.
Every weekday Carrie posts on her personal Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, inspiring quotes from our dogs and cats.
Sometimes they are just about bacon and naps because bacon and naps can be inspiring.
But it made us think of famous writing quotes and whether or not they are kind of b.s. And how very privileged some quotes are.
Like Marianne Williamson, who we are sure is an incredibly lovely person wrote this:
“Nothing binds you except your thoughts, nothing limits you except your fear; and nothing controls you except your beliefs.”
Which is lovely and partially true, but it comes from the perspective of a really lucky person who is white, who is good looking, who had a lot of advantages as a white American, right? It’s hard to say nothing binds you except your thoughts to a political prisoner who is legit in chains, to a Black man or woman in the U.S. who is jail for pot, for someone who has paralyzing fear because of trauma that’s happened to her or him or them, right?
Generalizations can be so inspiring and they can have truth in them for some people and sometimes even for most people, but it’s never going to work for everyone.
Writing advice and quotes are like that, too.
Like even the most amazing Ray Bradbury wrote
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
That’s a good quote, right? Us writers are easily destroyed. But being drunk on anything all the time usually means for most of us that we’re not helping create a solution to problems. Instead, we’re being drunk, putting lampshades on our head and saying, “Nah. Nah. Nah. I can’t hear you.”
It’s not the best look, really.
But sometimes the advice is pretty cool.
“Be strategic and resilient in the pursuit of your dreams. That sounds like a cheesy quote, right? But nah, I’m serious. Resilience is one hell of a quality to master and not many have the skin for it.” —Tiffany D. Jackson
“People are going to judge you all the time no matter what you do. . . . Don’t worry about other people. Worry about you.” —Jacqueline Woodson
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” — Henry David Thoreau
“Write what should not be forgotten.” — Isabel Allende
“Healing begins where the wound was made.” -Alice Walker (The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart)
WRITING TIP OF THE POD
Blow off the b.s. And realize where it’s coming from. Sometimes it’s coming from people whose lives and brains are nothing like yours and sometimes it’s just coming from people who want to make a butt ton of money selling their advice to you.
DOG TIP FOR LIFE
Cats are okay. They’re good to snuggle with, too.
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
loving the strange the podcast about embracing the weird
This week during the blitz of U.S. election news, there was an article gaining some traction called “Seven Life Lessons Everyone Should Learn Sooner Rather Than Later” by Nicholas Cole who Carrie wants to call Nicholas Cage because she is old like that.
Carrie has a tendency to hate these kind of articles because she thinks they are trite and insipid.
But his first point hit home. It was, “If you want to ‘do what you love,’ you have to work three times as hard as everyone else.”
“Most people do not get to spend their lives doing whatever it is they love. Instead, they do what they are told they should do or what their parents or town or friends or peers suggest that they do. Or they simply pursue nothing close to their heart at all.”
N.Cole
Is this you?
Do you love something?
Do you do it?
He said, “But if you want to do what you love, you need to see that as a privilege, not an expectation.”
Which is interesting. What does that mean, right?
Carrie does what she loves. But to be fair, Carrie loves everything she does whether it’s being a YMCA gymnastics coach, a church secretary, a student, a newspaper editor.
“I love all the things,” Carrie says.
Cole never says anything about his assertion that you have to work three times harder to do what you love. And we’re not sure where that comes from because he doesn’t source anything. It might just be a generalization, but we wanted to make sure.
WORST CAREER ADVICE EVER?
Despite an exhaustive internet search of five minutes, we couldn’t find anything that backed Cole’s assertion, but we did find an article by Jeff Haden, which said the worst career advice is to do what you love.
“Telling someone to follow their passion–from an entrepreneur’s point of view–is disastrous. That advice has probably resulted in more failed businesses than all the recessions combined… because that’s not how the vast majority of people end up owning successful businesses.
“Passion is not something you follow,” he adds. “Passion is something that will follow you as you put in the hard work to become valuable to the world.”
Cal Newport
According to Haden, passions are a bad choice because:
They take time to cultivate.
It’s rare to actually have a career passion.
Passion is a side effect of mastery at something.
Working hard and improving your skills is more important than finding the perfect job.
“Roughly speaking, work can be broken down into a job, a career, or a calling. A job pays the bills; a career is a path towards increasingly better work; a calling is work that is an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity. (Clearly most people want their work to be a calling.)
“According to research, what is the strongest predictor of a person seeing her work as a calling?
“The number of years spent on the job. The more experience you have the more likely you are to love your work.
“Why? The more experience you have the better your skills and the greater your satisfaction in having those skills. The more experience you have the more you can see how your work has benefited others. And you’ve had more time to develop strong professional and even personal relationships with some of your employees, vendors, and customers.”
Haden
So, yeah? So, no? What do you think? You can hear what we think in the audio of our podcast and hear the random thoughts from our daily lives, too.
WRITING TIP OF THE POD:
To be the best writer you can be, write. But more than that, figure out why you want to write? Is it a job? You’re doing it for some cash, hopefully. Is it a career? Or is it a calling?
DOG TIP FOR LIFE:
Don’t let random people subvert your passion. Just because they wrote it on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true. That goes for us, too.
SHOUT OUT
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
I have a quick, pre-recorded Teachable class designed to make you a killer scene writer in just one day. It’s fun. It’s fast. And you get to become a better writer for just $25, which is an amazing deal.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Carrie’s number one writing pet peeve is when authors write,
I thought to myself.
Seriously. You are always thinking to yourself, sweet writer, unless you’re telepathically communicating to a zombie hamster and then all bets are off.
But the thing is that I, Carrie, get why authors like myself do this. It’s because:
We’re worried that the reader isn’t going to get what we’re saying.
We’re padding our daily word count totals for NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month where you try to write a 50,000-word novel in November.
But here’s the thing. Your readers are smart or smart enough to know that when your characters are thinking, they are doing that to themselves and not anyone else.
Cut those words, sweeties. Trust the readers. Trust your writing.
If you say, “I think” or “I thought,” everyone knows it’s to yourself… unless, you know, telepathic zombie hamsters.
So how about you? What are your writing pet peeves?
WRITING TIP OF THE POD
Trust your readers. Don’t write down to them. Believe in your words.
DOG TIP FOR LIFE
You don’t need to be insecure. Be proud of what you’re doing, who you are and what you’re putting down for the world to hear.
SHOUT OUT!
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
Carrie has talked about this in her blog before, but we decided that it’s time to talk about it in the podcast thanks to an inspiring presentation writer Sami Main made for the Writing Barn last week.
It’s about one of the basic tenents of improv comedy and how you can use that for your writing and/or your life.
Do both! Overachieve.
Anyway, it’s amazing how Patricia Ryan Madson’s Improv Maxims, apply to writing and life and love and all that sexy stuff.
Her first maxim in Improv Wisdom (New York: Belltower, 2005) is basically, “Say Yes.”
In improv, when two characters are doing a scene, both characters have to be positive, to say yes to each other’s suggestions.
If one guy stands up there and says, “Let’s go party.” And then the other guy says, “No way.” Well… the scene falls on its face and everyone goes home saying they hate improv and the improvers think they suck and everything is just BAD, BAD, BAD.
So, writing is like that too.
When our characters want to take us to new unexpected places in the plot, we just have to go with it. If we don’t, our story stagnates.
We have to be willing to say “yes,” to take risks with our characters and our plots and our language.
According to Madson, “Saying ‘yes’ is an act of courage and optimism; it allows you to share control. It is a way to make your partner happy. Yes expands your world.”
I could go on about this forever. Like, how we get in ruts. Such as, my characters always have a love interest. And it’s always a boy. How cool would it be if the love interest were a cat? Or a hamster? Or a fig tree?
Okay. I know. Banned book.
Or, how we get into habits with our writing just like we get into habits with our lives. How cool would it be to break a writing habit and make a better writing habit? To get out of the safety of routine, change our process and expand? To just say yes?
Writing Tip of the Pod
Say yes to new ideas. Don’t be in a writing rut or hold to your preconceived notions of what your story or writing life should beDog
DOG Tip for Life
Try new things. Eat food off the floor. Go for it, humans!
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
Over the past couple of months, we’ve been talking a lot about archetypes and how you can use them in writing and life, but we’ve failed to discuss where all this talk stems from.
It’s all from Carl Jung who is an old, dead, psychology pioneer who didn’t agree with another old dead guy, Sigmund Freud.
Jung was about the ‘collective unconsciousness.’ And he thought that in humanity’s collective unconsciousness there were basically twelve archetypes of character. We define this in our last podcast and this week, we’re finishing up with those twelve archetypes as they relate to finding poop in your driveway because we’re weird like that.
THE REMAINING ARCHETYPES!
7. The Magician
It’s all about growing and evolving but the crankier magicians are not revolutionaries who lift up others. Instead, they are cranky buttfaces who turn positives into negatives and their attitude is contagious. A magician will see poop in the driveway and potentially think of a way to make it an energy source that will reduce carbon emissions. Or they might just tweet, “Poop in driveway. Angst. Everything completely sucks. What is the point?
8. The Hero
Ah. Power. The hero likes it. The hero is vital and all about battling for honor or power. They do not like to lose. They do not give up. They find that poop and loft it at the doghouse of the enemy. They tweet a photo of poop smeared, “I protect my own. Consider yourself warned.”
They then make a neighborhood watch for pooping dogs, create some HOA rules, call the police, and try to control the situation with some outdoor spy cameras. Remember. They do not lose. They like to control situations. They can sometimes be a little too controlling and ambitious.
9. The Rebel
There is poop in the rebel’s driveway. They probably put it there. They don’t care if people have opinions about this poop. They should all mind their own business and stop pressuring the rebel.
The rebel does not use social media because social media is all about other people’s opinions and the rebel could care less. Poop is definitely in their driveway and the rebel does not care.
10. The Lover
Poop? Poop is in the lover’s driveway? But the lover is all about love and loving others and feeling loved and this? This poop is not pleasing. It is not about love. It is a blob of yuck.
The lover cries and tweets and asks for uplifting sayings and photos. People send memes and photos of their kittens. One comes and takes care of the poop for them. The lover feels #blessed.
11. The Jester
POOP! OMG! Poop is in the driveway! Hahahahaha! The jester gets the joke. And the joke isn’t just poop. It’s life. Crap happens. You might as well make it funny.
The jester tweets something terribly lewd about the poop. They get Twitter banned for a day. The next day they do it again and start a 120-day spree of poop tweets. It goes viral. They get a podcast.
12. The Orphan
Our last one is so sad. It is the orphan. The orphan is already a sad little human who feels like they are basically a walking wound. And here? Here is someone putting poop on their wound. Well, really on their driveway, but it’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it? It’s all about disappointment and betrayal and hurt and pain.
The orphan quickly manipulates all of Twitter into a GoFundMe to help them survive the trauma of the dog poop. They ask someone else to set up and be in charge of this Twitter so they can maintain their innocent brand.
Since this is the 564th GoFundMe they’ve been a part of in the last four months, they only raise four dollars. The innocent is disappointed that nobody is helping or taking charge of their life. They go out and poop on their driveway themselves again. Maybe this time it will work? The orphan hopes so.
Writing Tip of the Pod
Be original in your writing. Hook into those archetypes, but don’t have your characters just be an archetype.
Dog Tip For Life
Don’t stop moving. Live your life now while you have one.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
Vivian Garcia Rodriguez is a secretly the queen to pixie Astley from my NEED series, but we’re not really going to tell anyone, right? Sadly, fate currently has them in different worlds but luckily for us, Vivian is in our world today! Math tutor, cosplayer with a flare for everything, I’m so psyched to have Vivian with us today.
Vivian talked to us while she was in lockdown because of Covid-19 and in her home in Puerto Rico. We talk about how cosplay makes her more confident and forces her not to pick the farthest seat away from the board at school and how different books help build up people and friendships.
So many apologies for not posting a bonus episode. I (Carrie) have epilepsy and I had a bit of a seizure last week after a really long time of no seizures (Yay!) and posting a bonus podcast was the thing that had to fall off my to-do list.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
A lot of writers use archetypes in their stories. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we’re doing it, actually.
There’s something really compelling about the heroes that don’t quite fit in especially the mavericks. The Huck Finns and Han Solos of the world and/or universe.
For whatever reason, the mavericks have turned away from civilization. Maybe it’s to find out what happened to their missing mom. Maybe it’s because their own elite family oppressed them and their quirks. Maybe it’s because they are doing a Thoreau and they wanted to see what it was like to be Spartan and nonconformist in a society that stresses conformity above all else.
Literary critic, Northrop Frye wrote about mavericks as heroes in novels in the U.S. and said,
“Placed outside the structure of civilization and therefore represents the force of physical nature, amoral or ruthless, yet with a sense of power, and often leadership, that society has impoverished itself by rejecting.”
Northrop Frye
To conform or to not conform has often been the question. Apologies to Shakespeare. And it’s been a question both in American society and in its books, right?
How the main character fits into mainstream society is often the subject of some really good and compelling books like Gone With the Wind or To Kill a Mockingbird. They reject conforming. They strike out on their own.
The maverick is a character archtype.
Here’s the definition of an archetype from studiobinder.com
“An archetype is a consistent and typical version of a particular thing. It can be human, an object, or a particular set of behaviors, but the point is that it fits into a time-tested mold that embodies a pure form.”
studiobinder.com
Anyways, though that site is about scriptwriting, I think it has a lot of great information about writing characters.
It asks:
“Why do character archetypes exist?
“Human beings tend to find their place within a group dynamic based around their strongest personality traits.
“You may have a group of friends with similar interests…
“But often one will be the “social butterfly” while another will be the “homebody.”
“Your friends will begin to identify each other by these consistent traits.
“You’ve now defined yourself by a character archetype.”
studiobinder.com again.
The maverick archetype is obviously one of many, but what of their key motivations is the act of self-preservation. They break the rules to get their goals. Brave. Competent. Sometimes a bit snippy. Their temper is a bit fiery.
That pull between convention and autonomy has the possibility of making a story truly stick out as something extraordinarily special. Don’t be afraid to lean into it.
I (Carrie) am not a fan of Gone With The Wind because I couldn’t stand Scarlett and the racial tones that happen throughout, but the characters are iconic and are a good reference point for us writers when we think about maverick characters.
Are you a maverick? Do you write them? What’s your archetype? We’ll be looking at different ones the next few months. It’s fun.
Writing Tip of the Pod:
Don’t make all your characters mavericks, but don’t avoid them either. Have you mixed up the archetypes in your story?
Dog Tip For Life:
It’s okay to cultivate your own inner maverick.
Dog Tweets of Love: Gabby and Sparty. Sparty is food focused. We’re sure you can’t tell.
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
This week’s episode link if you can’t see it above.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
Dog Inspiration
Every weekday, our dogs have inspirational or motivating tweets on Carrie’s Twitter. Go check it out and be her Twitter friend.
COME WRITE WITH Carrie!
I coach, have a class, and edit things for you. It’s super fun. I promise.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
This week? Well, our podcast is not our normal format because we’ve been in the car for… um… Okay? Forty-eight hours?
Apologies!
So, this week we drove from Maine to Vermont to Maine to North Carolina to Maine. In North Carolina, we went to Shaun’s dad’s funeral and it was the first time that Carrie’s been in a Southern church.
The Write. Submit. Support. format is designed to embrace all aspects of the literary life. This six-month course will offer structure and support not only to our writing lives but also to the roller coaster ride of submissions: whether that be submitting to agents or, if agented, weathering the submissions to editors. We will discuss passes that come in, submissions requests, feedback we aren’t sure about, where we are feeling directed to go in our writing lives, and more. Learn more here!
“Carrie’s feedback is specific, insightful and extremely helpful. She is truly invested in helping each of us move forward to make our manuscripts the best they can be.”
“Carrie just happens to be one of those rare cases of extreme talent and excellent coaching.”
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
Order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
Get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
