SISYPHEAN (mostly titled this because I love the word)

2021: Forced Introspection

So, if y'all have been following along, it's been a year of figuring things out. You'd think in my 40th year of life with 7 books under my belt, I'd had found a rhythm of how to do this whole book thing. 

Write

Edit

Publish

Promo

Repeat. 

It's a cycle that used to work well, but with the changing market and new online retailers and, frankly a younger generation to engage with (because I've been writing over 10 years), there is always writing, always editing, always promotion to be done. It's like trying to wrangle four spinning plates. 

And for a long time, I did it that way. The same slog over and over and over. Book tours. Blog posts. post cards and author events. 

 Thanks to the 2021: Year of introspection and reading and watching and generally avoiding the writing game all together, I did finally realize that when playing with time loops, change and growth is inevitable. 

From this week's episode of Loki  to the infamous time loop of Dr Strange, time loops in entertainment have become the ultimate obstacle for any potential hero,  used as both a prison cell and a classroom. 

You either learn, or you perish. 

For example,  Life after Life by Kate Atkinson. Her protagonist Ursula dies a billion ways over and over and over again, but every time she dies, she gets the chance to learn about herself and her troubles. In Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl, the characters aren't in a time loop, but they have to keep going through the same actions to learn more about themselves in order to move on. 

In Russian Doll on Netflix, the main character Nadia has to repeat her birthday over and over again. No matter how she tries to change the events, she still ends up dying again. 

But in my FAVORITE example of time loops, Groundhogs Day,  the main character Phil has to relive the day over and over until he actually becomes a better person. 

So like these other protagonists, I've grown in my game. Last month I told you what I had learned about the writing loop, and what needed to change. This month, I can tell you what has changed in my promo loop. 

1. You got to do it all the time. People are finding new-to-them authors ALL THE TIME. I've come to accept that its okay to be proud of my books. Even the ones with flip phones in them. It is okay to pimp yourself everyone once in a while. 

2. You have to change. You've got to learn new ways of doing things, even though they might seem scary. Get on Instagram, do an interview (me with Romancing the Story), try just a twitter chat with the lovely ladies over at #momswritersclub. 

So this month, I did a little promo with the KISS App. You can find me reading the first few pages of THE TRUTH ABOUT NIGHT on my Facebook page!

Talk about something slightly scary!

3. Always help friends promote. Good will is good will. So check out the fun stuff the Kim Falconer has going on this month with her book!

Turns out, those time loops are not as scary as you might think. Not evolving is scary. Getting stuck is scarier. 

And, honestly, there is a YouTube video for EVERYTHING. 

Until next time, gentle readers. 

Amanda Arista

Author and Human

www.amandaarista.com

@pantherista

Birthing a Book

Yep- here's the book cover again.

Year of Genesis: Timeline to publishing

I have often compared writing a book to having a baby. There are aches and pains and lets downs and you feel like it just takes forever. But I think that most mothers, like writers, will tell you that once it has been done and you see the fruits of your labor out into the world, you sort of forget how hard it is when you get the notion to have another.

The Truth about Night was one of these stories I couldn't shake and Merci Lanard was one of these characters that just wouldn't go away. I had to get this book out of my head. It just took WAY longer that I wanted it to. Like an elephant's pregnancy, it just went on forever.

As I mentioned in last months post, Merci Lanard came to me fully formed as I was writing CLAWS AND EFFECT, the second book in the DIARIES trilogy. I wrote that book at a breakneck speed on contract in 2010. So Merci and I met in 2010.

In case your life has been as stressful as mine, let me remind you that it is March of 2020.

I've officially known Merci Lanard for ten years.

Ten years.

Just let that sink in really quick.

According to my word document files, the very first Merci narration was around August 2012. I think I remember taking a few of her scenes to a critique group to test it out. It took me a long time to write the first draft of this one. I wasn't sure if it was a romance or a mystery. But I kept hacking away at it on weekends and after work until I had a final draft (saved as TruthAboutNight-FINAL.doc in Sept 2015). I still laugh at how hopeful and naive I was, labeling it FINAL. 

I started submitting versions of The Truth about Night to editors and agents that I met at conferences. And I got some really good feedback on it. Or at least it looks like I got some feedback on it, because I kept producing new versions:
Version 2
Version 3
Version 4
Version 5
Version 6 - Last saved on March 2017.

What is particularly strange about this narrative is that I was also working on a Women's Fiction book at that same time. That WF book got me my agent. The two of us starting working on edits and revisions for The Evil Ex's Bake Club all the way until November of 2018 when we decided to shelve it. Then I wrote another WF and we shelved that. But that is another story that should be told at another time.

My agent asked me if I had anything else that we could work on and I confessed that I had this strange paranormal mystery. She said that she'd like to see it.

I finished our first round of revisions on it in April 2018.
And another in May.
And another in June.

I will always not need a
pic of James Mcavoy

Version Ten is when she felt comfortable shopping it around and the feedback from the industry was split. It was either too mystery and they wanted me to dial back on that and focus on the hot-and-bothery love interest. Or it was too much romance and they wanted me to turn down the sexy and amp up on the mystery and horror aspects. Yep. Welcome to the subjectiveness that is publishing.

And we tried. I kept hacking and switching and baiting and growing, but it never was right. Like trying to put peanut butter on top of your sandwich. The parts were there, but in the wrong order to fit what other people wanted.

After some true soul searching and market research and a bunch of conversations with my agent, she finally asked. "Which one is the story that you want to tell?"

I answered honestly. "The first one that I wrote, back in 2012. The one about the fierce journalist just trying to figure out who killed her partner. The one with the swoon-worthy literature professor. The one with the gore." All three were such strong tenants to the book, that without them, it all fell apart. Without every single one, it wasn't the story I wanted to tell.

So in Oct 2019, we decided to independently publish The Truth About Night. Version Thirteen.

It took ten years to get this book into the world, but I am proud of it, even the few grammatical errors I have found, because it is mine.

She is my baby.

------

Amanda Arista
Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther & The Merci Lanard Files
www.amandaarista.com

Year of Genesis: The Birth of a Character

Available @ Amazon

Hello all, 

We have the second installment of my Year of Genesis for my new series: The Merci Lanard Files. 

Year of Genesis: CHARACTER

Merci Lanard was a bit like Athena in her origin story.

While I was writing Claws and Effect: Book 2 of the Diaries series (author edition out later this year), this investigative journalist just showed up on the page. Because of the situation that main character Violet found herself in, I needed someone who Violet could trust right off the bat to give her some information about her romantic lead. I needed a simple herald archetype.

And Merci Lanard appeared, fully named with her actress already cast. Along with her power. Along with a boyfriend. Along with a backstory that was very strange. 

She was an investigative journalist for a newspaper in Philly. She’s dedicated to finding out all the truths in the city that are hurting the underdogs. She’s like their personal Joan of Arc, and Merci doesn’t mind if that means she only has one meaningful relationship with Jack Daniels. As long as the truth comes to light.

Since she was already within the Wandering universe, Merci really got fun to play with because she is not magically powerful. In a world of creatures who can change their shape, fight with psychic power, cast world-altering spells, Merci Lanard has one small, teeny-tiny magical ability that was so minuscule even she missed out on it for the first 30 years of her life.

When she looks at you, you have to tell her the truth. It was simple. Straightforward.

What Merci had in abundance was guts, determination, and a hunger for the truth that nothing can stop. That was her true power.

All I had to do was tear her world apart and rebuild her over the course of the book.

And this boyfriend character?

Rafe MacCallan was a walking oxymoron from the first time he met Violet on the porch. He’s a Scottish professor who specializes in American Lit. He’s a werewolf Primo without a pack. He’s power wrapped up in a tweed jacket with elbow patches. His control is impeccable, but there is something about his unmovable character that explodes when he meets Merci’s unstoppable force.

So much of the paranormal genre is based on alpha males. Rafe is what I have called an Omega male. He’s not going to start the fight, but it is going to end with him. He’s got baggage, but he knows what it is and he guards others against it.

He was exactly the stable force that Merci needed in her life. I just had to prove it to her.

I'm not sure how other authors write, but these two came as a matching pair from day one, with their names, backstories, and arcs just waiting to be written. 

Hope you enjoyed this little bit of how THE TRUTH ABOUT NIGHT came into being and we will see you next month!

Amanda Arista

Author and slave to her characters. 

www.amandaarista.com