Gabby & Chewie Comic Strip #7

There's no such thing as a restful night's sleep
when Gabby and Chewie are involved...

Guest Post: Author Rob White On Faking It ‘Till You Make It.

I’m an introvert. If you’re a writer – or any kind of artist, really – I bet you dollars to donuts you’re an introvert too, or at least have some ingrained introvert tendencies. Can’t speak for everyone but growing up I found my mental and creative stimulation through fantasy rather than through social interaction. I was the kid swinging the wooden sword in the woods at invisible goblins. I was the kid drawing monsters in the back of class instead of passing notes to cute girls. I was also the kid who had more than one epic fantasy tale mapped out in my brain before the age of 18. As an adult who allowed himself to believe that he could be a “real writer” (I’m one of those guys who says that being a real writer is about intention rather than measurable results) I finally began to share those fantasies with the world. If another lonely kid can gain the same thrill from my stories as I gained from Tolkien or Stephen King or Final Fantasy then I’d say all these hours in front of a keyboard or notepad covered in chicken scratch have been worth it.

Buuuut - and it’s a big but and I cannot lie – being a writer who releases his/her work to the public means that an introvert suddenly has to develop skills usually associated with that mysterious and alien race known as extroverts. We have to smile and greet passersby in hopes that they’ll buy our book (and therefore buy us lunch). We have to say hey, hi and how are you to dozens of names and faces online and in bookstores in hopes that they’ll carry or review our book. And if we’re really bold and really lucky – or persistent – we’ll get to sit at a table in front of a microphone and tell prospective authors about our experiences and how to get ahead in the business.

If you can’t guess, that’s what I’ll be doing soon as a panelist at Timegate, a Doctor Who and Stargate convention held in Atlanta in May.

I am horrified at the idea of not only being on stage in front of who knows how many people, but being up there in a position of supposed authority about a subject many of my audience members may actually be more experienced than myself at. I could look like a phony. I could look like a fraud. I probably will look like an idiot.

Yet I’m going to do it anyway. Why? Because I’m learning in this tricky, sticky business of being an artist that the only way to get up there, over there, out there and beyond is to carry yourself as if you’re already there. One year at DragonCon I decided to cosplay as the successful writer I wanted to be. I felt damn good that day. Better than the day I wore a Space Cowboy outfit. Better than the day I dressed as the protagonist of ThePull  and got mistaken for Snake Eyes. Better than the time someone thought I was Neil Gaiman. In a way, I’ve been wearing that costume ever since.

So my plan for Timegate is this: load up on caffeine, climb up on that stage and sit down at that table and be my own wise-ass self. The self who makes jokes to empty rooms while he writes alone in his office. The self who yells at the screen when Carl walks backwards away from a zombie and then falls on his ass on The Walking Dead. The self who posts ridiculous non-sequiters on Facebook and then comments on his own post. You know, that guy.

I hope I’ll be entertaining. I hope I won’t appear like I’m talking out of my ass. I’ll either be funny or I’ll be the quiet guy on the panel who says one helpful thing and then lets the experts talk. Or – worst case scenario – I’ll be the guy who says something inaccurate about Season 7 Episode 4 of Doctor Who and gets lynched by a mob of angry Whovians. This is the risk we take in putting ourselves out there, be we introvert or extrovert; and let’s be honest, it’s the extroverts who more often end up with their feet planted firmly in their mouth.

So I’ll fake it and believe that I’ll make it until one day – just maybe – I won’t be faking anymore. With each risk I take, public reading I participate in, story I submit and festival I sell books at I find that I’m faking it just a little bit less. One day, perhaps that guy you see at DragonCon will not be a wanna-be-writer in the costume of a real one, but will in fact just be me.

Maybe it already is.

Rob White is a novelist, a comic book author and a professional dreamer. He makes his home in Athens, Georgia where he revels in the chaos and magic of living in a town full of artists. He is the author of the Pull Series  and a local writing hero as he inspires and assists members of the Athens Writers Association to follow their writing and publication dreams.

You can find Rob on twitter: @robwhitethepull 
on The Pull's Facebook page 
and on his website: followthepull.com

Both book one and book two of The Pull series are on amazon.com: 
The Pull - Book One 
and 
Home is Where the Monsters Are 

Reading In Public - Eek!

So the Athens Writers Association had their second Writers Read event, and as a good member of the organization, and as a writer who wants to learn how to be comfortable in front of a crowd, I stood up and read some of my writing.

The fear of the stage, while prevalent across people of all backgrounds, professions, and experiences, is pretty common among writers. I guess this makes sense. A lot of writers write to avoid the spotlight, letting their characters be center stage while they work in dark rooms away from the public eye. But to be a "professional" writer, one has to step out of the writing dungeon and in front of crowds - at least occasionally.

So how does one do that? Find an opportunity and throw yourself to the wolves. Okay, so it's not really that bad, although your brain and body might make you feel like it's that bad or worse. Even though I had practiced the hell out of my story (okay, I hadn't memorized it or anything) once I got on that stage the nerves set in and I almost collapsed like a derailed train before I even got the first word out. But I held it together, stumbled a little, and read my piece to the very last painful line before allowing my jiggly legs lead me off the stage and straight to the bathroom were I could shake out my jitters in peace.

One thing that helped was having the writing in hand. To see the words on the page meant I could focus on the paper and not the crowd. Some people will argue that the paper gets in the way and that you should be ballsy enough to face the people who are listening, but I'm not that ballsy - at least not yet. So I hold the paper and even though my eyes are mainly just skimming the print, (since I know the piece almost by heart), it's still gives me a false sense of comfort and helps me make my way through the reading.

Another thing that helped was remembering that at the end of the day, I'm up their to entertain. If I stumble on words, if I stutter (as I can be prone to do when anxious), if I have to pause and regain control of my voice, my breathing, my place in the story - all of that is okay, because I do it all with a smile on my face. Perhaps it's an apologetic smile, but I know that what words do flow smoothly are interesting and the ones I fumble will appear more comical or lighthearted if I have a good response to them. If I were to read, stumble, start to swear, and kick my feet, or even apologize each and every time I feel like I've screwed up (and feel is a strong word here because our own perception of how something is going is very different than the listeners/viewers perception) then the reader will be put off, offended, or "over it" long before I'm finished. If I pause and smile and continue on, they will bear with me. Since I am kind to myself when I make mistakes, they will feel compelled to be kind as well. And, frankly, if they even noticed the mistakes I make, then they're going to be kind because they came to hear people read they didn't come to heckle people. If they want to complain they'll do it after the reading is over and hopefully out of my earshot. ;)

Long story short, I taped myself reading my piece (which I'm sharing here) since I was a bit discouraged with how shaky I got on stage. This way I can remember it as something I read well, instead of something I was reading while feeling like I was experiencing one of the levels of hell - you know the one where your legs are jelly, your hands won't stop shaking, your vocal cords won't stop wobbling, you're sure you're either too loud or too quiet, and the certainty that everyone thinks you're the dumbest moron who ever spoke takes over all logical thought.

Character Bodies and Believability

I've been thinking about character descriptions lately. While I often struggle with describing my characters fully, and I often want to make them unique (not just your cookie-cutter thin, white, protagonist), the characteristics a writer gives a character not only shed light on that character, but on the writer and their audience as well. There is a lot of power in how we present heroes and heroines; writers shape the beliefs of readers, and can break down previously held ideas about what makes a person attractive, and what qualities help them succeed. At times, the tried and true forms of body shape, hair color, eye color, skin color, etc., is needed (especially if you are poking fun at a cliche), but most writers should try to break the molds presented to us from previous generations. As readers, we must also challenge what a writer has given us if it no longer rings true. Specifically, the representation of women has been historically skewed into body shapes and levels of attractiveness that do not apply to the average reader (and at times not even to the rare human).

So, recently I started reading a new series that I've had my eye on for a while. The series has been around for a while, it has lots of fans, and I really like the author (although this is the first time reading a book written by this person). I wouldn't say I had terribly high expectations, but for an urban fantasy book with a female main character, I had a few expectations about how the woman should be represented.

The character describes herself like so: "My upper body is slender, petite if you will, muscular and not bad to look at. Unfortunately, my legs are about five inches too short to ever be America's ideal legs. I will never have skinny thighs, nor anything short of muscular calves." Okay, I can picture that. She's short, fit, even muscular. I accept this description, but the page before the character says this: "I could bench press a hundred pounds, not bad, not bad at all. But when you only weigh a hundred and six, it puts you at a disadvantage." WHAT?!?!?!? 106??? Unless she is 4 feet tall, how can she possibly be muscular AND 106. The human body, if closer to 5 feet, would have to lose muscle mass, and a person's legs would be VERY skinny at 106.

Now I'm no doctor, even though I play one on TV, but that's how I see it. If you tell me your character is 106 lbs and not 4 feet tall or shorter, I assume they are wheel chair bound and their muscles have atrophied. Okay, so that's a little extreme. But I don't know any women who weigh that little, and don't have "skinny" thighs, unless this character suffers from body dysmorphia. Why even mention the weight? Why do we even describe women by these terms? None of the men in the book have described themselves by their weight, so why boil women down to a number (unrealistic or NOT) on a scale?

I will say that the book has been entertaining so far, and the series has sold millions of copies, so obviously this description is just a glitch in an otherwise interesting book. It's just something that made me think about characters, descriptions, and believability. I can accept that vampires exist in your world, that your character is awesome enough to kill them, but that she is only 106 lbs? Nope. You lost me. Maybe to some writers and readers it doesn't matter, but just as I hope to embrace characters of all backgrounds/circumstances, I also hope to bring characters to life that are believable in all aspects.

Cover Art

Cover art has always been important to me. A cover doesn't just sell a book, it also represents the author's care and attention (in my opinion). When I used to look at publishers I would look through their catalog and examine each cover they posted online. If the artwork was poor then I was very unlikely to approach them for publication. When we started writing "The Beginning of Whit" we had some thoughts on a cover. In a moment of boredom I actually worked on a rendition of "Night Hawks" that could work as the cover but when the flash drive that the image was on died, so did the image. 

(The original "Night Hawks" image by Edward Hopper.)

While I came up with a lot of images throughout the process, to get the right "feel" for the book we finally approached some actual artists. Even though we still were kicking around the idea of doing a play on "Night Hawks" we knew that if we started a series with that image then we'd have to maintain a series of covers based on famous art (if we wanted continuity between book covers). 

Ultimately, when I found an artist whose work was something I was interested in, I went with a design that fit her already established portfolio. The final image is something I think really represents the book and the care that my co-author and I took in selecting a cover. The color choices for the cover give it an urban fantasy feel and the youthful/fun feel of Whit. The scary chickenman in the shadows gives it some intrigue and the stake and donuts gives some hints about the character and the book.

Two parts of the cover are extra touches conceived by the authors. Andrew chose to have the broken egg at the bottom of the page. I chose to include the one-eyed cat beside Whit. When I told Chewie that she was featured on the cover, this is how she reacted:

An Experiment of Sorts...

So this past weekend I took a box of books and went to a local event in the hopes of selling a few copies. Indie South Fair is a two-day, twice a year event that is held in Athens, GA. Unfortunately, it was held outside (gah!) and the second day was rainy and in the 40s temperature wise. But I did sell three copies of my book, one of which was to a complete stranger, so I guess it was a success. Here are some photos of the event:

Me next to my books and my display. Also note the beautiful banner in the background provided by AWA's founder Katherine.

The tent on the first day. Books galore and fellow AWA members (and my sister Amanda).

A prop provided by Rob (pictured here), this sword was a hit with several kids and a few adults.

About a month back, Athens Writers Association was at a similar event and afterwards we discussed the need for props to bring potential buyers to our table. Because I constantly over complicate things, I made a plethora of props. 

What's a demon hunter without a box full of supplies? And since it's Whit, the box obviously has to be shiny and pink.

Some of the internal contents of the box. A red diary, some Big City paraphernalia, quartz, gold stone, a tiny magnifying glass, a leather bracelet with a ward sewn into it and a bottle of sparkles.

Another shot of what the box contains. Some Big City stickers, a bottle of holy water, and a mysterious box containing some strange items...

A guide to Big City.

The guide is full of interesting tidbits about the wonderful world Whit lives in.

A good knife is always helpful on the hunt.

All hunters need stakes. I made these and the leather sheath.

On the first day of this event, my stuff was tucked deep into the tent and few people felt comfortable venturing that far into our book abyss, so no one actually looked at the paper products I created (like the Big City tourist booklet). I did have two different kids (probably around 8 years old) ask me about my stakes. The second day was too wet to put anything out really without risking it getting damaged. So yeah, I went overboard on my props and they didn't really bring in sales, but it was fun making them (if that counts for anything). It's all a learning experience, and with each new event I'll know better what works and what doesn't work. Now that I have two events under my belt I'll be that much more successful at the next one. :)

It's a Milestone!

mile·stone

ˈmīlˌstōn/

noun

1. 1.

   a stone set up beside a road to mark the distance in miles to a particular place.
2. 2.

   an action or event marking a significant change or stage in development.

So the second meaning, not the first. My first novel is now live on amazon.com! It is now an actual physical book (thanks createspace), and it's the achievement of a lifetime. I wrote my first story when I was 6. Back then I didn't really think about it, this short tale about two kids, a kite, and a kind stranger. But it was the beginning of a very long journey. When I got older I fiddled around with a variety of potential careers but I kept coming back to writing. Even though I've been known to take hiatuses from my dreams, writing is always waiting for when I'm reading to give it a go again. I've been writing for 24 years and being published has been a life goal of mine. Now I have made that goal - it's a milestone.
Sure this won't be my only book, and yeah, it's not like some bona fide publisher picked it up and agreed that it's awesome; but it's my first book and it's now available for the masses to read and agree it's awesome. So I guess congratz to me. To most people in my life it's just another day, but big things have been happening for me and even if we're not all out celebrating them, I won't ignore their importance. 
This is a dream achieved, a moment of greatness, the beginning of an even bigger adventure.
Okay, enough blabbering. If you're interested in comedic urban fantasy's then check out book one of my new series - "The Beginning of Whit" (available on amazon, kindle, and at smashwords)

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Whit-Full/dp/1493782673/ref=la_B00GR4LEB2_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384801072&sr=1-1

1.