PURE VISION: The Magdalene Revelation

By weaving myth, history and international intrigue, my novel PURE VISION: The Magdalene Revelation addresses the Middle East imbroglio through the eyes of a woman determined to discover the truth.

Pure Vision poses a challenging resolution to the Middle East crisis — the internationalization of the old city of Jerusalem — an idea initially proposed in 1947 by a fledgling UN. Although a controversial resolution, the novel presents the notion that purely political and military solutions will lead to nothing but more dead ends. Instead a spiritual leap is necessary to create peace.  The novel also poses a question: Where are women in the peace process, and how is subjugation and violence against women around the globe directly connected to furthering conflicts and tensions, creating even more danger and instability.

Sixty years after Eleanor Roosevelt helped establish the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN, the struggle for international rights continues. As far as female activists are concerned, that long and arduous road has led to the modern-day heroine — a dedicated, passionate woman who understands that her involvement with the world’s struggle for peace and equality isn’t just a choice. It’s a must. The days of listening to devastating news reports and simply shaking our heads is over. It’s time for all of us to put our hearts on the front line.

Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie, academy award-winning actresses, prove over and over again that they are in touch with the world and are prime examples of front line activists, not hesitating to use their superstar status to voice their concerns. Global citizens, both women work tirelessly as UN Goodwill Ambassadors. So what about the rest of us? It’s not necessary for us to be celebrities to make a difference. We just need to have some heart, the desire to help, and the courage to go beyond our fear.

Pure Vision asserts it’s within our reach. The novel maintains that feminine wisdom is playing a huge part in creating a new paradigm. By connecting the powerful Magdalene energy with two ancient myths from the East and the West — the Wish-fulfilling Jewel and the Grail – the novel encourages a look at the spiritual forces that infuse the world’s political battles.

If you thrive on unraveling mysteries and discovering threatening secrets like those found in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code, then Pure Visionis a must read. The novel’s additional ingredient of social conscience and an ending that stimulates readers to create a new paradigm makes it all the more powerful and explosive — a contemporary statement meant to move you out of your mind and onto the street.

REVIEWS:

"A thrill ride in the vein of The Da Vinci Code but with a much larger vision for all of us. The alchemy is part historic fiction, part spiritual adventure, and a variety of interfaith metaphysics that metamorphosize into a golden vision of world peace . . . a page turner." -- Paul Hertel, Whole Living

"Presents a fascinating story full of intrigue and history. Birney's fiction seamlessly blends science and religion into a tale worthy of Indiana Jones . . . The book left this reader confident that idealism is not dead and that, sometimes, it can be the road map by which we might save ourselves."-- Cynthia Warren, Daily Freeman

"Birney infuses this epic novel with feminine echoes of The Da Vinci Code and The Red Tent, with her eyes on the prize of world peace. Reporter Maggie Seline courts controversy by championing an international Jerusalem . . . when she disappears, women around the globe march for peace . . . powerful men vie for two ancient artifacts." -- Chronogram

Soapbox

Guest Spot by Gil Hardwick


After so many years in Anthropology I am passionate about literature as a way to reveal and discuss pressing public issues in an entertaining and thought provoking way. I wrote my Honours dissertation on two boys growing up on colonial frontiers, in Xavier Herbert’s ‘Poor Fellow My Country’ and Mark Twain’s ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’. In that I take something of a Dickensian view, though I am also considerably inspired by such writers as C.J. Cherryh, Frank Herbert, Raymond Feist, David Eddings, Ernest Hemingway and Robert Drewe, for example.


Most of my stuff is outdoors and blokey, but I do enjoy rendering capable female characters in that setting, showing the guys a thing or too. I have no problem with my male characters being sensitive, or gay perhaps, so long as they stand on their own feet and their skills, talents, and personalities are explored, but I also enjoy exploring liminal and frontier spaces where different cultures and expectations interact, not necessarily conflicting merely allowing the strength on either side to be explored in the way conflict unfolds.

Race for the Fiction Writer

First of all, I’d like to thank Nadine for having me on IndieEbooks. The topic for my guest post is something that wouldn’t need to be said in a perfect world. Unfortunately, our world is imperfect and there are things that fiction writers should take into account as they hone their craft.

You knew this was coming.

It's that subject people don't want to talk about even though it's often in the back of our minds. No, I'm not talking about the birds and the bees. I'm talking about race. Most people avoid the subject because it has a tendency to evoke a lot of negative emotions for people of all backgrounds but I do believe that there is a way to broach the subject without angering people.

As such, just know that there isn't much of a concise argument I attempt to make with this post. These are mere musings meant to encourage open and collegial dialogue at least in your mind if not on this blog or on Twitter.

As one of the very few fiction writers of color that I've met on Twitter and in the blogosphere (and perhaps that's a sign that I need to virtually get out more), I feel that in the eyes of the book-reading public, the color of my skin automatically makes my work both potentially unique and, somehow, potentially unreadable to a large portion of that book-reading public.

There is a prevalent theory (one not held by this writer) that a reader of color will read any book written by a White writer but that a book written by an ethnic writer will most likely only have their books read by folks of the same ethnicity. Someone I know recently compared it to dolls in a toy store. Any girl will want White Barbie but only Black girls will want Black Barbie.

While I think the doll example rings true, I believe that this theory as it relates to books could be debunked by someone willing to do the research...research that I'm sorry to admit I haven’t had the time to do.

As it is, I do think that there is pressure on ethnic writers to write books that cater specifically to readers of the same race. As a Black writer, quite a few people will be shocked when I release novels and short stories with White or Latin protagonists. Some may even be surprised that in my debut novel, Agents of Change, my Black protagonist does not have a Black love interest. This pressure originates from the idea that there are so few ethnic writers out there that there's not much material to which ethnic readers can relate. I understand that and appreciate books like that but I think the pressure to produce such material can be somewhat constricting to the writer.

After all, the point of reading is to get lost in the story, is it not? That's why I write...to take the reader places they've never been (or maybe to places they have been but not necessarily in the same context). If a Black reader is perturbed by my protagonist's taste in women, then the book probably wasn't for them to begin with. My goal is to get the reader to think about things they've never thought of.

I say all of this to tell my fellow writers of color that, ultimately, you can write the story you want to write. If you want to write a story specifically for an ethnic readership, that's admirable. We do need books like that. At the same time, you shouldn't feel as though that's all you can write. You can write whatever the hell you want. If it's a good story, anybody will read it, regardless of race.

To writers who are not of color, be careful when introducing ethnic characters. You know how the complaints go: "Every Black character is an undereducated thug," "every Native American character is a primitive savage," "every Latin character is heavily dependent on their large family unit." Don't be afraid to make your ethnic characters unique, even if you think people of that ethnic group will view that character as inauthentic.

In the end, you're not going to make everyone happy. Sometimes, that unhappiness stems from the story itself. Sometimes, the unhappiness can be race-related (either the character is too stereotypical or is thought of as inauthentic).

If you write a good story, stay true to yourself and your characters and think outside the proverbial racial box, you shouldn't have a problem with not offending anyone. I'll also say that if you do have an ethnic character that is a bit cartoonish, you should be okay so long as that character undergoes some sort of transformation. Otherwise, it's the same tired stereotypes and that's when you tick people off.

Again, the purpose of this post is not to agitate, at least not in a negative way. The purpose is to sort of break the ice as it comes to race in fiction.

Thanks, again, to Nadine for allowing me and my book to appear on her blog. I hope that my post was at least somewhat helpful for you all.

Introducing author Julie Harris

The first signs of writing talent appeared in crayon on her bedroom wall. Julie started school when she was almost five years old — she could read before she was formally taught, and got in trouble on her first day of school for telling the teacher what was on the blackboard.

She graduated from High School in 1974, dropped out of college after six months, and worked as a girl friday for an auctioneer until she married in 1977 and ‘went bush’ to a mixed grazing property at Weengallon, two hours west of Goondiwindi.

She was a shearers’ cook and woolshed rouseabout amongst other things, and battled daily with drought, lack of water, fresh food scarcity, no television, and big brown snakes living under the washing machine. It was there, whilst living in a dilapidated, haunted farmhouse, that she started to write crime dramas, one act plays and action adventures on a borrowed 1947 Remington typewriter. In 1981 she left life in the bush behind, and with two babies in arms, Julie turned the next page to a blank one, got on a bus and never looked back.

She raised her daughters alone, all the while trying to get a break with writing. This came in 1991 when her first novel, Anna’s Gold was shortlisted in a writing competition and subsequently published. Julie entered the competition again, this time with Encore, a paranormal thriller that took eight weeks to write to first draft stage. Julie remembers the phone call informing her she’d won either first, second or third prize. At the time, Julie was a struggling sole parent of two school age daughters. She was flown to Melbourne for the prize presentation ceremony. Whilst waiting nervously in the foyer of the Sebel Hotel, she ‘befriended a really nice bloke who was sitting on his own and looking a bit sad’. Later that night Julie discovered this new friend was best selling author of The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay, and he was in Melbourne to present first prize for the writing competition. ‘No wonder he smirked a bit when he asked my name. There I was, talking to a famous person and I hadn’t a clue who he was. That’s probably why we’re still friends.’ Her story won first prize. ‘I don’t remember much about it – a journalist at my table kept topping up my champagne glass.’ But she does remember getting to a phone at 2 am, calling her parents and speaking to her father, who never really believed her writing would go anywhere. A couple of years before he died he admitted he was proud of her perseverance, for ‘having a go’ despite a rejection file that filled the second drawer of the filing cabinet. Why? All he wanted to be was a fighter pilot but he was too afraid to follow his dream.

The timing wasn’t right for Encore in 1992 – heavens, the USA will never have a black President, and anything paranormal hadn’t yet seen the light. When the book was released it bore little resemblance to the original story. The editing experience almost put Julie off writing for life. But some stories won’t die peacefully and in 2001 she rewrote Encore, and No Exit was published in Germany in 2003. The story has since been adapted for screen and is now available as an ebook.

Julie is most known for The Longest Winter. One summer’s day in 1993 as she mowed the grass Julie had a vision of a man wearing a fur-lined parka. He had piercing blue eyes and he looked miserable. His face wouldn’t go away, so that evening the first chapter of The Longest Winter was written. The story was about John Robert Shaw, a biplane pilot from Florida who, in 1924, crashed in the Aleutian Islands, and didn’t make it back to the mainland until the evacuation of the Aleutians during World War II.

Many people who read The Longest Winter believe it’s a true story. As far as she knows, it isn’t. But the male brain forever remains a mystery; Julie can’t fly a plane, she’s never seen snow, and the closest she’s been to mainland USA was a Writers Conference in Hawaii (where she met aspiring writers who were busy publicizing stories they hadn’t yet written). In 1998 The Longest Winter was optioned for a movie. In London, 2000, she met Australian director Bruce Beresford, who was hoping to direct and stay faithful to the story, but the movie never took flight. Rob Spillman from The New York Times (1995) described the novel as ‘a moving testament to survival and adaptation’. As well as editions in Germany and France, a UK edition was published in 2005 by Robert Hale, London.Julie’s advice to aspiring authors? To quote Australian film maker AJ Carter, ‘You don’t get what you wish for. You get what you work for.’ Don’t talk about wanting to. Just do it, and keep doing it until you get it right, but keep in mind that when you think it is right, it probably isn’t.

Things I Learned While Writing My First Novel

Guest Post - Shannon Sinclair 




Since I embarked on the adventure of writing my first novel, I have learned many things. I wanted to write them down, so I could remember them when I start writing my second, and third novels! Here are my top ten:

1. Write first thing when you get up. FIRST THING. If I get started on housework, or my mom calls, or the cat meows, I’m a goner. As soon as my mind is going 1,000 mph in the direction of life, stepping into my fiction becomes nearly impossible. When I try, it takes an hour of writing before I find a flow. If I am at the laptop after my first cup of coffee, I can get right into it.

2. Never underestimate the power of a pen and a notebook. Inspiration strikes at the weirdest times! On the toilet, in the shower, at the grocery store, and especially in my car during my commute. Jotting epiphanies in a spiral bound notebook has lead to great paragraphs.

I think writing long hand, accesses a different part of your brain. It is sometimes easier to channel the muse through my left hand, than through my fingers on a keyboard.

3. Take naps. When I hit a block, it feels like a smashed my skull into a brick wall. I get an overwhelming urge to go completely unconscious. When I start feeling that sensation, I lay down for 30 minutes and take a nap. Giving myself permission to nap has been a breakthrough.

4. Create a Playlist for your novel. I have a playlist created just for this novel. It includes songs for the whole story, for specific scenes within the story, and for specific characters. When I am stuck, or uninspired, or in a funk, putting on a song creates a mood, reminds me of a character and puts me right into the story.

5. Eat. Pray. Write. Vocabulary, grammar, structure and plot need nourishment. My synapses do not fire when my stomach growls. I must eat!

I also like to set the mood for writing by lighting a candle or a stick of incense. I touch base with my little "writing" totems I have on my desk; a large rainbow onyx stone, a jade turtle and mother of pearl butterfly that belonged to my grandmothers, who both inspired me to read, and a couple of found objects that inspired Dream Walker in some way.

I say a prayer...asking to be open to hearing the muse. I feel I am in cooperation with the Universe in creating this tome, so it is vital to my process to say hello and then listen to that voice.

Then I write. Sometimes if I am frustrated about work or family issues, I get out a pen and vent on a sheet of paper. It gets the muck out. When I feel my story again, I write my story.

6. Don't Hate. I did not realize how much I could hate myself until I started writing a book. Oh, I get down on myself for looking old, or having a big butt, or for being too rude to someone, but these are nothing compared to the loathing and belittling my left brain has lashed upon my right brain about my writing. If you find yourself in a "You suck" diatribe toward yourself, stop. Be gentle with yourself.

Don't hate...just write. Don't judge the first crap you put on the page. It's like moving to a new house. You get all the boxes of your stuff open and everything is a horrible, disjointed mess. It’s the same with a book. At first the sequence may be off...it may sound flat and colorless. But when you go back through it a second time, clean, spruce and rearrange a bit, it starts to have flavor. Just think what it will be like when you do the second draft. It'll be AWESOME!

7. Find friends that will remind you that what you are doing is worthwhile and valid. Having good, supportive friends who are totally looking forward to reading my sucky, first FINISHED novel kept me writing.

Join a writer's group. I was really intimidated by this at first. The idea of sitting down with writers more experienced than I, then having them read and critique my chapters, scared the crap out of me. If it does you, too, feel the fear and do it anyway! The feedback, networking and support is invaluable!

8. Find some published authors and pick their brains! Other people have walked the writer's way, traveling from unknown hack to published author. I found myself a few of them, met them for coffee and chicken dinners, listened to their horror stories and followed their advice.

9. Establish a web presence. Uuuuugh! Right? Who wants to spend all their time facebooking, blogging and twittering? I know. I get it.

BUT! I have been amazed by how many contacts I have made in such a short time and the information I have found via social media. Especially from Twitter, which really surprised me. I was never a tweep before and now I am hooked.

10. Reading about other writers' processes does not help. Although I have wanted to pick up the phone and call Steven King, Margaret Atwood or Joyce Carol Oats and ask a million questions about how they do it and what their challenges are, I am sure I would find that what works for them ~ would not work for me.

They may not outline first and just start writing away...I found I had to do an outline first. They don't hold down full time jobs AND write...they just write. So they couldn’t tell me anything about fitting the craft into a 50+ hour work schedule. I had to bear that cross on my own and figure it out.

They may have hard, fast rules that didn’t fit my personality at all. So my rules, and processes were unique just to me. I got to discover those quirks as I write along.

In other words, everything I just said above, toss! In writing, you are going to create and break your own rules! Enjoy that process.

Guest Post - A Little Bit of Beauty by Vik Rubenfeld

First, I'd like to thank Nadine for the chance to appear on her site and speak to you all.

On my author blog (http://vikrubenfeld.com) I like to look at samples of really famous works of art and talk about what's so cool about them. It's like a little bit of beauty for you each day.

Here's one. This one is super-famous.

That is pretty easy to get with. Feel every word of that with your whole heart. Does it fill you with emotion and meaning? That meaning is the meaning of Shakespeare’s emotion.

It's fun to try to restate it in information-only terms, like you would see in a journalistic report, or an academic paper. Let's try: Shakespeare is saying that in some way it’s as though she radiates light, turns night into day, etc. Yadda yadda yadda - it’s just not very meaningful when you restate it like that. The beauty of Shakespeare's words is a beauty of emotion, and can't be restated in information-only, intellectual terms.

Here's another one. It's from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Huck Finn is escaping from his father, who has held him prisoner for several months. (Link)

Do you feel that? The stillness, the mystery that Huck is experiencing as he makes his escape? If you feel it, then you are witnessing emotional insight. That’s what a work of art provides.
You yourself may very possibly have felt something before, like what Huck is feeling in this passage.

Here's one last one for now. This is fun. It's one of the most famous paintings in the world. You’ve probably seen reproductions of it many times. But there’s something you may never have noticed about it before.

Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party”  

No two people are looking directly at each other. Check it out. Renoir even put in a little joke about it. The only two looking right at each other are that chick and her dog.

If you wanted to just pull out the intellectual content by itself, you'd probably get something like, "Sometimes in groups people don’t look at each other but they feel very close." Very true, no doubt, but kind of boring.

Yet looking at the painting, you feel how tight they all are, how close they are to one another emotionally. You even feel something about how they make a group that’s alive and bigger than any individual there. If it fills you with a sense of the beauty of all this, you are feeling the beauty of Renoir's painting.

I hope you enjoyed these!

Guest Post - The Creative Landscape by Rejean Giguere

Over the years I had been told frequently that I described things better than a lot of people did. I never understood the significance of that statement. I assumed it was just me taking the time to be thorough in my explanations.

Then I had discussions with my brother on the subject of writing. He was an intellectual, a teacher, the kind of guy who read statistics books, medical and political journals for fun, and had his own ideas about writing. I think he was too rooted in fact to allow his creativity to stretch those truths, facts, and knowledge into fiction. He most assuredly could have written a non-fiction book about any number of subjects.

Finally I come to my editor. We haggle and work back and forth on issues as you would expect. When she says that I can’t have some lawyers sit in on a meeting of government officials who are deciding to award a contract, I ask why. She'll tell me it’s because lawyers don’t do that and aren’t allowed to sit in on those type of meetings in the real world, I say they do in my book.

Rules, regulations and the proper ways of doing things can hamper, restrict and hold back someone who doesn’t have those cares but has the ability to tell stories, or better yet allows themselves the freedom to create ideas and stories.
The other day I asked someone to tell me a story about a bouncing ball and they sort of stared back, saying, “I don’t know, ah…”
I responded, “The old man stood wavering on the side of the road, teetering off the edge of the side walk. He heard a sound and turned to see a bouncing ball coming his way. It was reaching ten or twelve feet in the air on each bounce and a number of kids were chasing it. Then the old man noticed the bounces were getting smaller as it approached. Finally the ball was hardly bouncing at all and stopped in front of the old man.”

I did another one, “A small boy started climbing the long flight of stairs that burdened him every day. Today he noticed a ball bouncing down the steps towards him. Great, he thought, a ball to play with. Then as the boy got a little farther up he realized the ball was bigger than he thought and he wondered how big it was. Then he realised he was too far up to go back down and that the bouncing ball was bigger than he was.”

Once I have an idea, like the Merlin engine in Merlin 444 or the Asylum for my latest book, I let my creative imagination go to work on building a story, playing with different hooks and angles. Eventually I have a rough outline of a story and can see the beginning, middle and end.

I do worry about the story making sense, and keeping the reader intrigued, involved, guessing or confused, depending on what the story calls for, but I don’t worry about rules whether or not this or that is really possible, because it doesn’t have to be.
Someone said, “But you’ve never been in an asylum. How do you know what goes on in there?”
I asked, “Don’t you have ideas and visions of what goes on somewhere in your head? I sure do.”
My creativity is always turned on. It is part of the creation of the initial story vision, and it is ever-active as I write, providing me with new twists and ideas as I go.

Don’t hold it back, let it run free.

Guest Post - Self Publishing Forged in Fire by Trish McCallan

Two months ago I launched my debut romantic suspense Forged in Fire.


As a new author with no fan base, and no name recognition I thought it would take Forged several months to connect with readers. Instead, readers across the globe have embraced the book and I’m feeling incredibly blessed.

As I type this, Forged in Fire is #20 in bestselling romantic suspense within the Kindle Store. This is a huge thrill to me since it’s outselling all the new releases of my traditionally published idols. (At least in the Kindle Store!) Forged also has 86 reviews on Amazon, 69 rankings and reviews on Goodreads, 9 on Barnes & Noble, 3 on iBook and numerous reviews posted on blogs across the internet.


In appreciation of my readers’ tremendous support, I will be holding a drawing for a Kindle Fire, or Barnes and Noble Color Tablet. (Winner’s preference) This giveaway will include a $25.00 gift certificate so the winner can download some new reading material to their new e-reader. The winner will be chosen on December 19th, by random draw.

To enter this drawing all you need to do is send me a review of a self-published book. Ranking does not matter. The book reviewed does NOT have to be mine. Any self-published book, with any ranking will enter you in the drawing. The more reviews you send in, the more chances you have in the drawing.

The only reviews that will not be eligible for this drawing are reviews on self-published works that were previously published through a different publisher. This drawing is for reviews on work that has not been previously published.

This contest is open to readers outside the United States as well, although in some cases a gift certificate of equal value may need to be substituted.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will address it.

Please send all emails with reviews attached to trishmccallangiveaway@gmail.com


Good luck to everyone!

Todays Guest Post by Author Richard Buzzell

Why Sports Are Better Than Literature 

Sports are better than literature as a career choice because sports will give you a fighting chance. Both of these fields of endeavor require some level of talent, so they’re the same in that respect. Both of them require an extensive investment in the process of developing the necessary skill to succeed at a high level. No difference there. Both of them provide an attractive level of reward for those who rise to the top. Both of them allow you to become a drunken sot after you’re washed up and nobody cares about you anymore. So what’s the big difference?

Competition. In sports you have to compete against those who are your approximate age-mates. In literature you have to compete against every writer who’s ever lived. In sports you don’t have to compete against old people. In literature you have to compete against dead people, and some of them make for formidable opponents.

This critical difference goes a long way toward explaining why sports are so devoted to developing new talent while literature seems to be the opposite. All sports have an elaborate system for identifying and cultivating new talent from a very young age. There are endless opportunities to showcase one’s abilities and move up to higher levels. Aspiring writers have to get by with much less support.

If a new writer does manage to persevere in spite of societal indifference they will inevitably encounter the obstacle of the publishing industry. Here the reality of the marketing profile will become evident and it goes something like this: famous people only need apply. Faced with the prohibitive costs of marketing new writers, the publishing industry has turned to celebrities to shoulder the marketing burden.

The most egregious example of the celebrity author has to be “Snooki” the semi-literate star of MTV’s reality show Jersey Shore. She was welcomed with open arms by a major publisher and did a tour of television talk shows in support of her literary offering. Unfortunately she’s not alone. The fact is that media exposure has become the primary qualification for getting into the wordsmithing business.

Aspiring writers need to recognize this new reality and devote themselves to enhancing their public profiles. My suggestion is to get arrested for stalking a celebrity bimbo. Try camping outside of Lilo’s house and when the paparazzi start snapping photos of her, run in front of the cameras, douse yourself with gasoline, and set yourself on fire. This will certainly get you in the news and then you’ll be on your way to publishing success. Of course this isn’t the only option. You could find a cure for cancer, resolve the climate-change problem, or bail out the euro, but the celebrity bimbo route is probably the most realistic one.

Jack Kerouac’s first amateurish attempt at a novel has recently been released, demonstrating once again that famous writers don’t even need a pulse to be more attractive to publishers than new writers are.

So for any aspiring authors out there wondering how to best improve your writing skills I say, don’t worry about it. Your words won’t have any effect on your success. Start thinking about outlandish but not offensive stunts that you can pull to get yourself some media attention. That’s how to endear yourself to your future readers.

Guest Post by Author Cecilia Gray

Best Writing Advice

Most writers in my acquaintance have always wanted to be writers. They were children scribbling crayon onto paper or dragging their fingers through sand. Being a writer was simple when you were a child: you told a story.

Then you grew up.

You began to compile a writer’s tool kit. Learned about character arc. You learned about goal, motivation and conflict. You learned about tension and reversals in plot. You learned about scene structure. You learned about dialogue and making it sound natural. You learned about using setting and senses to bolster all else. You learned about theme and subtext. Yes, you learned a lot of schmancy things.

These are all good things. These are all great things.

But the learning doesn’t stop there. Soon, you begin learning about the marketplace. About gatekeepers like agents and editors. About social networking and promotional opportunities. Even about this blog – here – this very blog that I am writing for this very specific promotional opportunity. I learned this. You learn about trends and vampires and werewolves and dystopia. Maybe, just maybe, you even learn that the marketplace doesn’t want your story. Not how it is.

Somewhere along the way, you learn to think like a business person.

This is also a good thing. Sometimes, this is a great thing.

I’m guilty of being bogged down in minutiae and detail. I have thought to myself: what’s the craziest thing that could happen right here to make the reader sit up and gasp? What clever way can I insert the thematic tone of forgiveness into this arc and can I somehow make this weeping willow tree a physical touchstone of that theme????

When I find myself going down that rabbit hole, I have pull my way out by holding on to a simple, timeless piece of advice: tell an honest story.

It’s deceptively simple. We forget we’re natural storytellers. Look at a cave drawing if you don’t believe me. Consider the epic oral tradition of storytelling in our ancestry. For all that drags the human race apart we can agree on this one basic unifying factor: we are all storytellers.

We tell stories every day. And we want to be told a good story, too.

Every time I meet up with my friends and I ask how their day has been. Every time I turn on the television. Every time I open a book. I am looking for a story? Why – because I want to connect with it, with people, with the world around me.

To connect with the story, a reader needs to find it honest.

No, I don’t mean non-fiction.

I mean honest.

If you consider the most speculative, successful story franchise – Star Wars – and you wipe away the storm troopers and the Force and the Evil Empire and the Death Star and hyperdrive

space travel or whatever else goes on in there, you have the battle for independence against a physically, but not morally, superior force, you have courage and friendship, and you have a boy searching for the truth of his identity.

These are all honest things.

Whenever my friends and I disagree over whether a story/movie/book was good, I find I can boil the reasoning down to our interpretation of honest.

Take this year’s blockbuster, The Help by Kathryn Sockett. This book and its movie remains a top of love-hate debate amongst my group of friends. The ones who hate it feel the language isn’t authentic and neither are the feelings between the women and the ones who love it feel the exact opposite. (Which camp I inhabit will remain a mystery…or not so much a mystery if you spend five minutes on my Goodreads account.)

Writing an honest story takes care of everything.

In an honest story, a character will say what they must. (Dialogue class, check.)

In an honest story, a character will do what they must. (Plot class, check.)

In an honest story, natural themes will emerge. (Pretentious class, check.)

In an honest story, you will write the story you want, and in doing so you will find your most natural audience. Best of all, writing an honest story will make you happy about your writing.

So there it is – the best advice I’ve received, the best advice I have. Honestly.

5 Lessons Learned During a Year of Self-Publishing

          Today's Gust post is by Bella Andre, self published author of 

The Sullivans Romance series.

1. It’s thrilling to be able to give readers the books they want. After Take Me was published by Pocket Books, I received e-mails from readers asking for the sequel for five years. Love Me was my first (non-backlist) self-published e-book. I took the time to write a note to every single person who had contacted me over the years asking for that sequel to let them know the book was finally available – and the notes back from my fans were incredibly sweet and heartwarming. It was thrilling to watch Love Me be so well received by my readers. Another example is my current series about the Sullivan family: I wanted to write about a close-knit family of eight siblings who, one by one, find their true love, but it would have been very difficult to sell that series to a publisher without a "bigger" hook. I couldn’t be happier to watch my first two Sullivan books -- The Look of Love and From This Moment On burn up the best-seller lists! Both books have spent nearly two months in the Barnes & Noble Top 100, the Apple Top 100 Romance list, and the Amazon Top 100 Romance list. They have both been on the Apple best-seller list in the U.K. and Australia, as well. I will be releasing the 3rd Sullivan book – CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE – soon.

2. Readers rule! My fans have been incredibly supportive about my adventures in self-publishing. I adore them. When we're chatting on Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail, I've noticed that they don't seem to care whether my books are N.Y. published or self-published.

3. Self-publishing is a heck of a lot of work. Every time I put out a new book I'm convinced it's going to be easier and more streamlined, but somehow it's always a huge job, especially as more and more e-retailers around the world come online (yay!). I spend months plotting and writing and rewriting the book, then send the book out to several beta readers. After even more rewrites, I hire several additional editors and proofreaders for each self-published book. But the work isn't done yet! I've still got to make the cover, write a catchy book description, coordinate distribution, and let my fans know the book is out. Phew! No wonder I sleep a whole lot less now than I did last year...

4. A new (fun) surprise waits around every corner. Several times a week I have an “a ha” moment about the book I’m working on, or a title, or a book description, or a cover, etc. Plus, on any given day, there might be queries from a foreign publisher interested in licensing the rights to my self-published books in their language or someone telling me they'd like to put together a story or blog about my e-book success. In fact, I've been just invited to Copenhagen to speak at the Scandinavian Publishing Executives conference in November about the rise of e-books and the future of digital publishing. You can probably tell that I’m having an absolute blast with my writing and my career!

5. Enjoy the grand experiment! At the end of the day, the real bonus of self-publishing is the ability for both authors and readers to try new things. So if you have a new idea or platform – if you want to try something completely different from what you’re doing now – I say go for it! Even if you think no one will be interested, the truth is that until you put your book out there, you'll never know.