Browsing Tag

identical twins

Publishing

The Engagement Diary

I would be remiss if I didn’t catch you all up on some of the conversations I’ve been having with fellow writers and poets.  The predominant topic of conversation has constellated around expressionism and the subjective aberration of emotions in order to spark moods and/or ideas.  I believe documenting these sparks in a journal is the key to engaging your mind with the creative writing process.  To render a subsequent cache of the current mind’s fleeting stream of thoughts, phrases and original ideas is worth its weight in gold.  There are certain excerpts from my Extra Innings books that were scribbled down in my journal long before they ever appeared on the pages of The Diamond Thieves, Race of the Gemini or A Hero Among Thieves.  Likewise, I’ll do the same with my next novel: Sheldon’s Falls.

Where I have found the most value in this practice of documenting original ideas is in my songwriting and poetry.  Thoughts, phrases and ideas may spark from conversations with friends, images seen throughout some of my travels, or perhaps while I’m on a  casual walk, etc.  In fact, I get most of my ideas while sitting on a plane or at an airport waiting for a plane – but that’s just me.

The concept of the “engagement diary” exists when you find a particular idea or emotion that truly captures your attention above the rest.  This is typically one involving a broader scope and, therefore, begs for more development.  Once documented in their journal, the writer and/or poet should then leave additional space so when they have time to revisit this particular idea they can continue writing more.  This is exactly the practice that fostered my initial developments of The Extra Innings Trilogy.  I began with concept of identical twins; including what they looked like, personality traits, hobbies, emotional struggles (considering they were facing puberty), etc and developed the story’s plot(s) from there.  In order to do so, I really needed to get engaged with concept of these characters, revisiting them day after day and, in the end, these journal notes made formulating the story much less governed and restricted by in the moment calculations and head-scratching writer’s block as many writers I’ve spoken with find to be their primary struggle.

As oxymoronic as this may sound, writing should feel like an engaged freedom.  The writer should feel comprehensively involved in the telling of the story while, at the same time, experiencing a sense of liberty with their prose.  Having this journaled inventory of thoughts, phrases and ideas has certainly helped to furnish this sense of liberty and engagement in my writing, for whenever I get stuck in a writer’s rut and don’t how how to proceed, I have a backlog of original ideas to revisit to help get things moving again.  Try it for yourself and let me know what you think.

 

May 20, 2015 by
Publishing

Niche Rhymes with …

Completing this sentence: “Niche Rhymes with …”  all depends on how you pronounce the word “niche.”  Some pronounce it “neesh” but I’ve always pronounced it “NITCH.”

Today’s blog title is referring to niche (‘nitch’) marketing and I’ve’ phrased it this way to suggest that this particular type of marketing CAN be a real pain in the @$$.  Allow me to explain myself  …

The goal of offering a new product or service is sales and customer satisfaction.  In order to optimize this effort you must have a clever marketing campaign which communicates the value of your product or service to potential customers.  Your niche is whatever category or area you specialize in.   And within the entire marketplace there is a subset  interested in your niche.  The trick is effectively reaching these folks with the right target marketing.  Some writers and bloggers may have a niche that makes it more difficult to reach their specific subset and when you’re a novice like me, it can feel like you’re fighting a losing battle.

Let’s start with bloggers.  One of the most popular blog sites on the internet today is called bloglovin.  Bloglovin makes it easy for blog enthusiasts to “follow their favorite blog as well as discover new ones.”  Bloglovin features the most popularly searched blog categories on the internet.  These niche categories include: Art, Beauty, Design, DIY & Crafts, Music, Books, Film, Fitness, Family and Travel to name a few.  Nowhere among this list the most commonly blogged about categories do I see “Marketing” or “Target Marketing” or “Historical Fiction.”  There’s not even a category for Writers & Poets.  There is a category for “Books” but it’s is more for book reviews.  I’m not blogging about book reviews.  Since my blogs do not match one or any of those “most popular” categories I am, therefore, climbing a much steeper hill towards gaining followers.  (My goal is to gain at least 2,000 followers by the end of this year).   So see what I mean by the title I’ve chosen for this particular blog?  If you’re not marketing within a popular niche it can become a struggle.  I’ve been researching dozens of credible bloggers to help enhance my knowledge to write a good blog that will hopefully help or inspire new and emerging authors, however, my topics are not in a category that produces a large volume of followers.

For example, Celebrity updates and gossip is a very popular niche market.  Just look at American Blogger Perez Hilton and the fame he’s self-generated.  He’s stepped into the real of television personalities based on his blogs which generated hundreds of thousands of followers because he blogged about what people want to hear: Celebrity Gossip.  Unfortunately, for me, identical twins Jimmy and Billy McGee of my books from the Extra Innings trilogy are not celebrities – although they do have some very interesting drama between them (especially in Books 2 and sadly Book 3).

Now let’s talk about writers.  Marketing Expert in Small Business Success Kim T. Gordon recently wrote a great blog titled “3 Rules of Niche Marketing.”

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/49608

The first rule she talks about is “Meeting Unique Needs.”  I’ve read this article numerous times and I believe I am doing this with my blogs and especially my book.  I spend a lot of times in Barnes & Noble perusing the historical fiction and young adult fiction aisles to study my competition.  I feel this is a critical task for a new authors.  These are some of the questions a new author should be asking themselves while they are researching their competition:  Does your story provide something that is new and compelling?  Are you speaking in the language of your niche market?  Are you matched up to the key selling points, pricing and distribution method that your niche market requires?  If not, you have some revamping to do.

I feel my books are well-tailored to the young adult readers who enjoy historical fiction, are family-oriented and concerned with racial injustice and social issues.  Of course, it does help that the relationship between the 2 main characters, Jimmy and Billy, sparks some pretty juicy drama.

The difficulty I am having is communicating this to potential readers.  Primarily because Book 1 focuses on a different theme than Books 2 & 3 which are more about young adult issues.  What readers mostly perceive when they see the cover of Book 1 (The Diamond Thieves) is that it’s a baseball book.  This is the primary theme of Book 1 but it’s wrapped around a much deeper and more controversial context.  The boys are trying to secure usage of the school’s baseball diamond but their best friend, T.J., is black.  Being that the Extra Innings trilogy is set in the Deep South circa the late 1940’s, T.J. becomes a main focal point with respects to the enemies (known as “the mob”) who are trying to take over the diamond from the twins and their friends.  Much of our nation’s current morale foundation has been shaped by our past struggles with racial injustice.  I wanted to show this town as a beacon of hope during a time of extreme intolerance.  I like that the character who steps forward as the principle hero around this topic is not who the reader is expecting.  It’s very endearing.  This is actually one of the best parts of the story (aside form Chapter 12 which I have mentioned in past blogs is one of my favorite chapters out of every book I’ve ever read).  The trick is, at face value, the book screams baseball.  So I am missing a more important subset of the market.  Baseball fans are not particularly going to get a re-invention of “The Sandlot” – if that’s what they’re looking for.  So when targeting my niche marketing efforts I need to find a clever way to reach the young adult subset that would be interested in a story pertaining to social injustice in America without confusing them by the book’s title.  I’ve been considering blogging more about topics followed by young adults.  Although this would not help provide advice to new and emerging authors, which is my goal, it would help attract more followers from the subset of the market which is more likely to read Extra Innings.

Thoughts?

 

July 19, 2014 by
Publishing

Does Your Book Have Charisma?

Webster’s Dictionary says the word ‘charisma‘ comes from Greek meaning of “a divine talent or a gift.”  So if charisma is a gift from God, it begs the question:  Are you born with charisma or can it be developed?

Let me first give you a little background on my inspiration for today’s blog.  My local Chamber of Commerce  had a luncheon today at the Hilton Hotel.   The speaker was Kordell Norton aka “The Revenue Mechanic.”   Kordell is a motivational speaker, business growth and marketing expert and author of 5 books.  The topic of Kordell’s discussion was “charisma” being the “secret sauce” behind the worlds most successful organizations.  Kordell brought some some very interesting points about how businesses use charisma to increase sales and profit margins, motivate employees and build a world-wide brand.  Of course, my mind immediately synced what Kordell’s ideas with my book Extra Innings:  The Diamond Thieves.  I asked myself: does my book and it’s characters have charisma?  I feel confident in answering “YES” to this question.  Although the story, set in the Deep South, is based on a period in our nation’s history (The Cold War), the characters are fictional.  I believe they possess a unique charisma that will hopefully capture the hearts of young adult, as well as adult, readers.

So I took a mental inventory of which writers inspired me the most?  Two authors came immediately to mind: Mark Twain and Nicholas Sparks.  I then asked myself, did the books of these authors have charisma?  ABSOLUTELY YES!   Two of my favorite books of all time are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  What I love about these stories is the dichotomy of Tom versus Huck.  Tom, the extreme extrovert, is outgoing and thrives off the energy of other people.  Tom Sawyer was the epitome of social charisma.  Socializing is where Tom gets his energy versus Huck, the intense introvert, is shy and reclusive.  I always thought, how selfish of Tom to suck the energy out of Huck who strives to be on his own and out of the public eye.  This concept of conflicting personalities is so interesting to me that it influenced the dichotomy between my main characters Jimmy and Billy McGee.  These are identical twins who couldn’t be more different.  These differences are evident in Book 1 but the story really digs deeper into theses different personalities as the twin’s relationship struggles more and more in Book 2 (Race of the Gemini).  I believe both Jimmy and Billy act in selfish ways each one practically demanding the other twin to be more like him.

Mark Twain has a very distinctively sophisticated style of writing.  Mark Twain was a realist, although the popular style of the time was more romanticism.  Stylistically, I think my writing is more influenced by Nicholas Sparks.

Overall, Nicholas Sparks does not have a distinct writing style.  His style of writing is more theme-based.  However, he does have a natural gift for narration.  It’s as if, the main character or Mr. Sparks is sitting right there at your beside telling the tale.   For me, Nicholas Sparks is a charismatic writer.

As I wrote, revised, proof-read and tidied up the Extra Innings trilogy, I found Spark’s style of writing to be inspirationally motivating.  A few my favorite Sparks books are “The Lucky One,” “Dear John” and “The Notebook.”   There is no doubt that I am a slow reader.  However, when it comes to most Nicholas Sparks books, I’m able to fly through them.  He has a natural charisma for storytelling.  It’s eloquent.  I hope my readers are experiencing a similar charisma with Extra Innings:  The Diamond Thieves.

I shop for books at Barnes & Noble and when choosing my next book to read, I usually read the first two paragraphs.  First off, they have to flow and secondly there has to be something interesting that makes me want to continue reading.  Frankly, this topic could be a  whole other blog (and most likely it will be hint hint).  For example, Chapter 1 – Paragraph 1 & 2 of “The Notebook” are brilliantly written.   They almost sounds poetic:

WHO AM I? And how, I wonder, will this story end?

The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of a life gone by. I’m a sight this morning: two shirts, heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck and tucked into a thick sweater knitted by my daughter thirty birthdays ago. The thermostat in my room is set as high as it will go, and a smaller space heater sits directly behind me. II clicks and groans and spews hot air like a fairy-tale dragon, and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a cold that has been eighty years in the making. Eighty years. I wonder if this is how it is for everyone my age.  Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
This simply flows. It is not at all choppy or awkward. It’s charisma is how it captures readers with its natural flow into a cadence and before you realize it you’re onto page 2, 3 and so on as the plot grabs you by the gut. Sparks possesses a unique gift granting his stories worldwide success.
Chapter 1 – Paragraph 1 & 2 of The Diamond Thieves, as my editor Mary Kay Landon knows, underwent major overhauling revisions until I felt the same way as when I read the beginning of a good Nicholas Sparks or John Grisham novel (John Grisham is my 3rd favorite author).  I am so proud of what has finally come to be the beginning of the Extra Innings trilogy.  Take a peek:

Today was their thirteenth birthday.

It was Saturday, June 21, 1947 and summer was off to a great start. Identical twins Jimmy and Billy McGee were upstairs in their spacious, attic bedroom of their parents’ three-story home in Eugene, Mississippi. Both boys would have preferred to be outdoors playing baseball with their friends but the McGee family house rule was that birthdays were to be spent at home with the family. This year, however, Billy designed a plan that would allow them to see their friends. In order for it to work he and Jimmy needed to be upstairs in their bedroom. They would have to make enough noise to wake their toddler brother, whose bedroom was downstairs, directly across the hall from the attic door. If this happened, their mother would want them as far away from the house as possible.  B.W. Gibson (The Diamond Thieves)

Today’s Chamber of Commerce speaker, Kordell brought his charisma talk in for a landing with the following question:  “Are you going to be successful or are you going to be significant?”  I believe Twain and Sparks, although quite successful, are more importantly significant to the history of literary.  Their style of writing and creative storytelling exceeds readers’ expectations.  I can only hope to achieve this sort of significance with my works.

Thank you Kordell for your inspiring words of wisdom!

July 15, 2014 by
Publishing

Why Twins?

Identical twins have always fascinated me.  It was purely a selfish reason to have the main characters of Extra Innings be identical twins because it gave me a purposeful excuse to research the topic.  As the original storyboards were being developed and my excitement grew I realized that this topic gave the story very unique opportunities.   After all there are very few fictional novels on the market about identical twins.  I think the trilogy would make for a fun movie.

I was fortunate enough to encounter a handful of identical twins throughout my research.  One question in particular, I will not disclose in this blog as it will give away too much information. Readers will just have to complete the trilogy to find out.

One of the first and very apparent concepts I learned was that the general stereotype of identical twins acting identical is grossly mistaken.  Learning this really helped me to develop the characters of Jimmy and Billy McGee.  I wanted them to be almost polar opposites so I was pleased to learn this concept is widely justified.  At the same time, this is where the pieces throughout the story become intellectualized WITHOUT becoming ponderous.

The correct term for identical twins is monozygotic.  This is where two embryos are formed from a single (mono) fertilized egg.  Because the two embryos are formed from a single egg/sperm fertilization, the twins have the same genetic origins and, therefore, the identical DNA.  However, despite this shared gene set, they have clearly individual personalities.  Studies are done as to whether parents should encourage this individualization more by not permitting the twins to share the same bedroom growing up or not to dress them alike, etc.  Right from Chapter 1 of the Diamond Thieves the reader learns that Jimmy and Billy both share the attic as their bedroom  I touch a little bit on their infancy and the whole concept of “twin ESP” and “twin talk” but mostly the story focuses on how the cavern of their individuality expands as their teenage years move along.  Still, what I find fascinating is how despite their differences they both often find the same platform with which to express themselves.  My favorite example of this is in Book 3 (A Hero Among Thieves) when both twins are experiencing stress they both express it through writing.  Jimmy, the more deliberate and intellectual of the two, completely emerges himself in a research paper at Ole Miss (The University of Mississippi) while Billy, the more free-spirited and creative type begins to write songs and poems about his experiences in Korea (during the Korean Conflict).  It’s also interesting that Jimmy naturally begins to develop a rigid routine to his mornings at college while Billy is forced into a rigid routine with the United States Air Force.

In book 1 (The Diamond Thieves) the reader is immediately told that Jimmy and Billy McGee are “clearly individuals.”  Behaviors, actions, expressions and thoughts help to illustrate this.  However, this book constellates more around the battle over their baseball diamond and how to handle the prejudice of their enemies “the mob” with respects to their good friend T.J. who is black.  With respect to this topic, both Jimmy and Billy have the same feelings although Jimmy (like his character describes him) is more in tune and responsive to T.J.’s emotions.

Book 2 (Race of the Gemini) lives up to his title by digging deep into the progression of these boys growing more different.  The story describes a lot of how one twin (Billy) feels like a living shadow of the other (Jimmy).  This was an interesting idea that I picked up in many of my interviews with twins.  They felt that the other was more of a favorite of one or both parents.  Some felt the jealousy of one twin being more popular in school or better at sports or a natural at socializing.  As I asked more questions I was very intrigued by the pressure and jealousy that was felt around this topic.  Often times these feelings sparred a sense of competition between then, hence the title “Race of the Gemini.”  The trick with writing about this was trying not to intentionally downplay one twin over the other.  If the readers found themselves having a favorite among the two brothers, I wanted that to be their choice and not triggered by some intentional or subliminal seed I planted.

In book 1 (The Diamond Thieves) both twins love baseball, however, Jimmy is a team’s all-star batter while Billy has the Ace pitching skills.  Also, Jimmy has a closer relationship with Skip, who is more mature and logical while Billy was closer friends with Whitey – the wild and fun one in the group.

Lastly, I wanted to play around with the whole concept of “switching places” or “trading places” as this was asked of each set of twins I interviewed.  I was surprised to find that this was not just a childhood experience but also performed on more of a strategic level as teenagers.  This was executed for various reasons allowing one of the twins to practically be in two places at once.  For the McGee twins, Billy insisted on Jimmy covering for him multiple times so he could sneak out of the house and be with his girlfriend or go drinking with his friends.  Jimmy, not being a big fan of drinking became almost the victim here so Billy, who was grounded, could still go out and party.

Overall, I had as much fun writing Extra Innings as I did doing all the pre-writing research.  I hope its readers fall in love with the McGee twins and all their friends as much as I have.  #extrainnings

June 29, 2014 by
Publishing

Getting Inside a Character’s Head

Getting inside a character’s head is one of the easiest or most difficult things to accomplish when you’re writing a story.   It takes imagination and constant observation of the human race around you.   In the book “The Diamond Thieves” of the Extra Innings trilogy there are multiple characters of various ages, backgrounds, morals and maturities. I am going to write about 3 principle characters in this story: The McGee twins, their friend T.J. and their mother Ellen.
The story is centered around thirteen-year-old identical twins Jimmy and Billy McGee.  Creating the personalities of the McGee twins required a great deal of research .  
I interviewed multiple identical twin males before and during the writing process.  I needed to get into their heads to understand how they viewed one another and themselves in relationship to the world around them.  These interviews helped me to solidify much of the competition theme came from Book 2 and where Jimmy’s emotional journey and struggles came from in Book 3.  Of course, one set of twins could answer my questions completely different from another set of twins.  I discovered this was based on how close of a relationship existed within each set of twins I interviewed.  Did they consider their twin their best friend throughout life or did they find themselves growing apart in their teenage years?  Note: I plan to write future blogs about these specific interviews as I found them fascinating.

Another critical character in the story was T.J.  This is a young black boy growing up in the South in the late 1940’s-early 50’s. Most of T.J.’s development came from movies I had watched in my life of the societal difficulties blacks faced during this period in history.  Also, my best friend growing up was black and he and I had conversations about how different and how very much alike we both were – despite our racial difference.  
Creating an interesting character in T.J. was a huge goal of mine.  I not only wanted T.J. to be strong, I needed him to be.  Yet, I had to be realistic and ask myself how strong would a young black male have been at this period in time? Most 13-year-olds face a mountain of fears and curiosities and are simply not the least bit mature.  But again, there are some whom have had to endure adult-like circumstances and therefore had no choice but to develop a strength just to survive.  This is who I believe T.J. is and I like the way he interacted with the boys in the story as well as showing a vulnerable side by always making a quick exit anytime “the mob” appeared.

Also, I want to talk about the twins’ mother Ellen.  Writing Ellen was a fun challenge. I had no current observations to base any of her moves, reactions or behaviors on.  I found myself having to ask older women, who would have been little girls at this time in history, to look back on their mothers for nearly ever move Ellen made throughout all three of the books.  I also had to locate women who were raised in the South as most of the women I know are not Southerners (whom hold a very different mentality and demeanor than “Yankee” women. I like that I was able to give her a heroic role in Book 1.   My mission as a writer is to  connect and inspire and, for me, Ellen was the character that stood out in Book 1 as an inspiration.  I hope that readers will feel inspired by her and how she stood up against an entire community for what was right.

I’m sure I will have more to write about this as character development is critical to storytelling but for now these were the top three examples I wanted to start with.

June 16, 2014 by