I’m so excited you found me!
And I’m so excited that I’ll soon be publishing my first middle grade novel, The Tzohar Legacy, on all ebook platforms. I’m just waiting for a final editing pass and the cover.
I’ll update with a pre-order announcement and a cover reveal as soon as I can.
Filed under writing
It’s been a long time since I published a post here. It’s because of that secret project I mentioned in an earlier post – I was busy writing and publishing books for adults under a pen name.
And now I’ve made a big decision.
I’m going to take all the knowledge I learned about indie publishing and use it to make sure my young adult novels see the light of day. I’m going to make sure my young adult novels get into the hands of readers.
It won’t happen right away. Those novels have been neglected for the past two years, and they need some love and attention before they’ll be worthy of the hands of readers. So, sit tight and join me on the journey.
I’ll have a short story for you soon…well, soon-ish.
Until then, thanks for finding your way here!
Filed under Getting Published, writing
One reason I’ve been too busy to update my blog in the past six months is that I’m working on a kinda secret project. I’ve been writing in a category and genre completely different than I have for the past ten…um, twelve years.
It’s been fun to explore a new genre and to write for a new age category. Really fun. And I plan to work towards publication of this new project.
Hence the big question: to use a pen name or not?
Using my real name will make promotion so much easier. I can build on the base I’ve already created and I won’t have to fear someone finding out who I really am. I won’t have to duplicate social media efforts and have multiple web sites.
But, using a pen name means I can protect my real identity and my reputation as a children’s writer. And just because I’m experimenting with something new doesn’t mean I’m turning my back on my MG and YA projects, so I do need to protect my reputation. Someday, my novels for tweens and teens will be published and I wouldn’t want to confuse my readers.
If you’ve used a pen name, why? How have you handled the marketing and promotion piece? Would you do it differently if you could start over?
If you’ve chosen not to use a pen name, why not?
I’d love to hear from you so please leave a comment with your answer to the above questions or just some support. I wouldn’t have survived this long on the journey without my friends, so thanks to all of you!
Filed under Getting Published, writing
Writers write.
I’m sure you’ve heard these words. It’s how we explain what we do, our addiction or obsession or compulsion or whatever. It’s how we keep ourselves motivated.
I’ve even used them with Sprite. He told me recently he wants to be a writer when he grows up. But I never see him writing and he doesn’t express an interest in writing now. Most writers I know started as kids. We all have stories of the journals we kept or the stories we wrote in elementary school. I wrote a mystery story set on a cruise ship in middle school and entered poetry contests in high school.
For Sprite, I think it’s a matter of wanting to be like Mom. I can’t imagine why. I don’t exactly make it look glamorous. But who knows? Maybe he’ll catch the writing bug when he’s older.
While I have no trouble accepting myself as a writer, as an author is another matter. I’ve now had six books published, all freelance projects for the educational market, and one in my own name. By definition, an author is someone who writes, but we commonly use the word to mean a published writer.
So why do I find it so hard to accept the title of author?
Maybe because the freelance gigs were just jobs and I haven’t yet published the kinds of things I always dreamed of having published: novels for teens and tweens.
Is it a magic pill? Once I (finally) get a novel traditionally published, will I suddenly feel like an author? How does an author feel that’s different from a writer?
All I can do is continue on my path. To write.
To my published friends, when did you start feeling like an author?
To my pre-published friends, do you think you’ll feel differently once you’ve been published?
Filed under Getting Published, writing
Another year has come and gone. Another year filled with reading and writing (and work and family).
2015 saw more freelance work, and a friend and I chose to concentrate on characterization. We read books about character and studied new and old characters to see if we could figure some things out that would help us in our own writing.
My not-so-little-anymore readers have continued to be great readers. Sprite has been devouring anything written by Stuart Gibbs. A-Read finished The Hunger Games trilogy and is now obsessed with Rick Yancey’s new series which started with The Fifth Wave (and he and RocketMan saw the movie last night).
I’m looking forward to some changes in 2016. More writing opportunities. Maybe a change at work (shh). And, of course, lots more reading.
What’s on your plate for this new year?
Filed under Reading, The rest of my life, writing
While I wasn’t very busy writing blog posts this summer, I was very busy writing. And some of that writing was actually pre-writing.
Now, my definition of pre-writing may be different from any other definition. I’m okay with this. For me, it’s not about whatever writing or thinking I do before I start drafting. (I usually think of that as plotting and planning and researching.) No. It’s more about the specific writing I do to help me get into a character’s head. (If this has a different name, please enlighten me.)
Recently I had a male character who was too good to be true. He was whatever the main character needed him to be, so he wasn’t very interesting. He needed his own goals, motivations, conflicts. His own personality. Somehow I’d forgotten to give him a personality. As a result, his relationship with the main character wasn’t very interesting either. And it needed to be. Their relationship was important.
So I had him write the main character some letters at different points in their relationship, starting with the first time he saw her. At first mostly backstory came out of it, but that backstory was important to figuring out who he was. Then I had him write letters to people in his life from before the story, and journal entries about the major turning points in his relationship with the main character. And voilà. I had a character.
I have found this method useful in the past, so really should make it part of my normal routine. Instead, it’s like a wonderful surprise every time I think to try it.
What are some of your favorite ways to get to the guts of a character?
Filed under writing
Well, gosh, I sure didn’t mean to let almost 2 months go by without a post. But here’s how that happened:
So, here’s what I’m up to now:
What’s keeping you busy this summer?
Filed under Reading, The rest of my life, writing
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about character. What makes a good character? How do you balance a character’s flaws with the qualities needed to move the plot along? What makes a character likable (or, better word, relatable)? What does likable really mean anyway?
A few months ago, A-Read read The Hunger Games and I was reminded about how prickly Katniss is. During her preparations for the Games, she is often told she has to find ways to make others like her, or find ways around her unlikability. A writer friend and I decided to reread the beginning of The Hunger Games and try to determine what made a potentially unlikable character likable.
(Preface: It’s hard to find what makes Katniss unlikable when I’ve read the entire trilogy and seen all the movies. I know her. I like her. I root for her.)
In the first chapter, there are several small things that make her potentially unlikable. But there are many things that make her likable and they all have to do with relationships. Her relationship with Prim. Her relationship with Gale. Her relationship with Madge. Even her relationship with Peeta at that early stage when they’ve never spoken a single word to each other. It’s especially her relationship with Prim, both gentle and fierce at the same time, that humanizes Katniss and makes you like her. How she’ll protect and provide for Prim above herself, to the point of risking death for her.
This importance of relationships really struck me. Agents and editors often say they want character-driven novels. But what makes a character? It’s more than someone’s likes and dislikes, goals and dreams. Conflict moves a plot forward. And conflict comes from relationships.
People can tell you how to create relatable characters, over and over and over. But sometimes you have to see it for yourself, see it in action, and really feel it (show don’t tell, right?).
Who else would you describe as prickly and potentially unlikable, and how did the author make you root for her or him?
Filed under writing
I’m currently in the process of spiffing up the synopsis of one of my manuscripts, so I thought I’d share the best advice I’ve received lately: The Essential 10 from YAtopia.
Good luck to all those in the query trenches!
What are you currently spiffing up?
Filed under Getting Published, writing
The great thing about living in the internet age is that it’s so easy to find out almost anything instantly. A couple of weeks ago, I was revising my MG wip and wanted a minor character to use a tire iron. The main character, however, has never seen a tire iron and so would have to describe what this other guy was using to bat away huge birds bent on doing damage. So I looked up tire irons and within seconds was looking at various images of…yup, tire irons.
On the flip side, however, is that now Amazon keeps showing me tire irons for sale on a bunch of websites I go to regularly. I’m not planning to buy a tire iron. I don’t need to look at pictures of tire irons when keeping up with friends on Facebook.
And…if the FBI ever searched my internet history, they’d see I’d looked up tire irons. Hopefully they’d draw the obvious conclusion: I’m a writer doing research. Yup, that’s the obvious conclusion. Because why else would I need to look at tire irons?
(Maybe I grew up reading and watching too many mysteries, but what the heck is a tire iron really for? I’ve never seen it used on anything to do with tires.)
What other potentially incriminating things have I researched? Various endangered animals. Poisons that occur naturally in certain plants. Ghost-like creatures of legends. Deadly weather events. Mummies. Visiting hours at sensitive places like the Temple Mount in Israel and the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Stuff related to the Rwandan genocide.
(Can you imagine if all of those subjects were for the same novel? Yikes!)
What’s the most incriminating or embarrassing thing you’ve researched?
Filed under writing
YA Author VB Tremper 