Writer Wednesday: Pick Your Poison

It's no secret: I don't "do" YA. Hell, I rarely do anything considered NA. I don't think that any of my works actually fall into either of those categories. (Well, Patient Zero might, but it has less to do with becoming an adult and facing life challenges as it does with dying horribly and becoming a zombie. Not really YA.)

And I'm perfectly okay with this.

Most of my friends write strictly YA and NA. 

And I'm also more than comfortable with that as well.

Why? Because you shouldn't view other authors as competition. You should look at them as friends, companions and resources. 

Besides, I don't write YA, so that's one less person that my friends have to "compete" with when submitting/querying and that's like 5 less people I have to compete with when I submit and query.

On the flip side of that coin, though, I have less insights to offer to my friends as a beta reader/CP and vice versa because we run and read in different circles.

I'm a little off topic here.

What I was originally wanting to talk about was the fact that yes, you can build a successful brand for yourself writing in a specific genre.

If you wanna write vampire romance or 50 shades of bad smut, GO FOR IT. Who am I to stop you? 

The problem that you're gonna run into is pigeonholing yourself. If you write strictly about YA vampires, what happens when vampires aren't "in" anymore? Then you're gonna struggle to turn your YA vampire brand into something new and exciting. It's kind of a shame that it's something that you need to think about when embarking on your quest for publication.

Personally, I write a little bit of everything. 

I write about zombies, cowboys and elves, dragons, magic, gods, mortals, vampires, Noir Detectives and robots, time-travel...

And yet, I don't write YA. 

Maybe that pigeonholes me in a way, but this is my poison. I'll drink from the cup that I've chosen and hopefully I'll have spent enough time building up an immunity that I won't keel over and die.

Writer Wednesday: Traits of a Writer

I've been talking a lot about status for your characters, and that's great, y'all should go read those posts if you wanna take your writing to the next level.

Today though, I'm gonna turn that lens on us -- the writers.

Let it be known that today, I have decreed that writers TEND to be introverts.

I'm borderline. I work on both levels, somewhere right between introversion and extroversion. I love to talk to people and I go to conventions and whatever, but for me, a good time tends to be home alone on a Saturday night with a cup of tea and a good book.

Introverts tend to be more apt to being lost in thought and introspective. Introverts are more in tune with feelings and while they seem to be lonely, the opposite is true. Introverts have fun watching as opposed to actively participating.

Introverts tends to display all the characteristics of being shy and "low status".

Introverts tend to get nervous in large groups.

Anything sound familiar?

Don't worry, this is totally okay. You're a writer. You're allowed to daydream, to get lost in thought, to listen, to people watch. It's almost expected of you. 

The problem is that you're also expected to engage your audience. To do meet and greets. To do book signings and all manner of press things.

Introverts, repeat after me: thank heaven for the internet. You can do so much to engage your audience with the internet and social media. Applied liberally (and directly to the audience) even an introverted writer and build relationships with the people who would be buying your work and stuff. 

So fear not. You may be introverted, but we know that it's okay. It's kinda what being a writer is all about.

Status Flip Side: Low Status Characters in Novels

I've been talking a lot about status, and I focused last week on High Status. This week, I'm taking a look at the flip side of that coin -- low status.

If you read the High status posts, then I'm sure that you can imagine what a low status character is like already. Fidgety, shy, can't make or keep eye contact, stammers, takes up as little space as possible, seems insecure, very quiet.

Wanna get a feel for lower status people in real-life? Watch an interview with Norman Reedus. Seriously. The man is charming and outgoing and clever, but he displays every single characteristic of a low status character. If you wanna get a good look at the differences between high and low status, watch an interview with Norman Reedus and pretty much any of his co-stars. Particularly Sean Patrick Flanery (searching for Boondock Saints panels at Comic-Con and such is a great place to start) or Michael Rooker (which again, panels at Comic Expos, but this time search for Walking Dead and the Dixon Brothers.) You can see a vast difference in the way these men behave and it's a stark contrast in high and low status.

However! Using Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery as a case study for high and low status (Or Norman and Michael Rooker even) is extremely interesting because while the statuses are clearly defined in body posture and mannerisms, the actors view themselves as equals.

This is not the case in most character studies where status comes into play.

Low status characters tend to become 'shy' when confronted with someone even remotely higher in status than they are.

When writing a low status character, remember that the low status only applies to people outside of the character's own head. If the character is alone, he is the king of his own world. He can sing, and dance and be generally high status, but as soon as his boss, or sister, or mother, or king walks in the door, the low status character is immediately back to begging and prostrating himself, unable to make eye contact, no longer singing, now very determined to take up as little space as possible in the room. 

This makes for very interesting dynamics in pairs or groups and creates sort of a "pecking order" which I will discuss another time.

For now, I recommend going and having a look through celebrity photos and watching interviews with celebrities, see if you can't pick out who is high status and who is low status. Then, start applying these things to your characters. It'll open up a whole new playground with your writing.

Round 2!

OH MY GOSH! You guys and gals are the best.

Voting for Round Two has gone live and I would love it if you'd head on over there and give me and Blaze Tuesday another chance. There's some kickass prizes available to be won from Curiosity Quill Press, and a new cover challenge. PLUS! You get to read more of Blaze Tuesday and the Case of the Knight Surgeon.

Not too hard, right?

Anyway, I'd totally appreciate it if you'd hang out and go spare me a vote. And if you don't like me, feel free to vote for someone else, I don't mind. :) I'd also love to hear what you think of Blaze so far!

Thank you in advance, I'm hoping that together we can pull this through and keep me int he top 5 and take it all the way!

Link is at the end of this post.

All my love!
-Kai Kiriyama

VOTE FOR BLAZE HERE!

Free Fiction Friday: Kick It

Here we go, a little short for Blaze Tuesday. Because, I love him.  

A kind of silly aside in the story timeline, kind of a fan fiction f my own work because, why not?

Be warned: Blaze cusses. If you don't like it, I suggest you turn back, now.

Otherwise, enjoy.

-Kai Kiriyama

Kick it, Tuesday.

It was already shaping up to be a worse day than the day before.

Hell, it was shaping up to be a terrible week overall. It was the kind of week that made you seriously reconsider the life choices you'd made up until that very point in your life. It was the kind of week that made you want to crawl back into your bed and never get up. Or drown yourself in the bottom of a whiskey bottle, if that was your thing.

It was raining. Again.

And I was stuck outside, sopping wet and miserable. I was just happy that I wasn't actually wearing a good suit. Jackson would have been ruined by the rain. I was just cranky. 

I felt like kicking myself for taking this case; I hadn't wanted to go out, but we needed to pay the bills somehow. We were just starting up and with New York being chock full of coffee and doughnut P.I's wanting to make their name int he biz, I had to fight tooth and claw to make sure that my name got put out there. I was the best in town and with Jacks by my side, I was unstoppable. I just needed the public to know that.

Jackson had taken a case alone. Nothing terribly important, nothing that was even really something we should have been doing in the first place, but who am I to deny my partner a nice cushy indoor job that allowed him to sort through ancient books and settle a blood-feud over some dead broad's fortune? At least, I knew that the take would be relatively good for us.

I, on the other hand, was outside. In the rain. Chasing ghosts more or less. It wasn't even a decent murder. I was busily tailing a guy who was suspected of cheatin' on his wife. Not really my strong suit, and cases of infidelity weren't something I liked to think about. Been there, done that. There was a reason why I never did get married, and that reason happened to be infidelity.

Heh, I'd almost gotten arrested for takin' the boots to that sonuvabitch, but my partner at the time had managed to talk everyone out of it while I had my knuckles cleaned  and my eyebrow stitched up in the precinct's basement morgue.

And now here I was, playing wannabe spy on a dude who was cheatin' on his wife. I kinda wanted to shoot myself in the alley I'd found myself standing in, waiting. Or shoot him for not bein' able to keep it in his pants.

Either way, I was pissed off and the pouring rain wasn't helping.

The entire week had been like this. Cold cases comin' through the front door of my little practice, cases that I had no hope in hell of being able to complete and being forced to turn away. Offers to do illegal things for copious amounts of cash. The blue breathing down my neck because I'd done a great job of pissing them off and now the dirty cops who I used to drink from the same bottle with were constantly trying to find a way to pick me up, lock me away or otherwise humiliate me and ruin my career.

Not that it was doin' them much good. I was clean a whistle, sharp as a tack and I'd just bought myself a building with apartment space above the offices. No one got in or out without my knowledge, despite having an open door kinda policy for the offices where I would conduct my business. No assassin would bother tryin' to get in. It would be too much hassle and not worth the contract price. I wasn't worth it now, anyway. Better to see me humiliated than dead. 

Dead means I won. Dead means I was right.

Humiliated, well, that was something that I was used to and I'm pretty sure that my reputation had been through worse than just a few dirty cops tryin' to pick up a retired cop turned private eye on some bogus charge. I'd never paid for sex, and it was suggested more than once that I liked men. I didn't do drugs, didn't even smoke. My vices were caffeine in unhealthy amounts and booze in slightly less amounts than my coffee.

And when I got blackout drunk, I made sure to do it at home, with the doors locked so that I could pass out in my apartment and keep what little dignity there was to be found in drinking yourself unconscious intact.

Tonight was shaping up to be one of those "drink until I pass out" kind of nights. 

The guy I was tailing walked right past the alley I was standing in, just like I'd predicted. Idiot. I had had enough of the bullshit. I'd been following the guy for a week and it was pretty damned obvious he was cheatin' on his wife. I had photographic evidence to prove it. I needed my own brand of justice though.

My arm shot out of the shadows and grabbed the guy by the collar of his jacket and I dragged him into the alley. I slammed him up against the wall with a wet thud, water from both our jackets spattered to the ground, unnoticed in the rest of the pattering rain. I drew my gun from my under the arm holster I kept her in.

"This here is Nadia." I drawled angrily. "She doesn't like it when guys cheat on their wives."

"Oh God, please don't kill me!" The guy begged. 

I snorted in contempt. "I'm a good guy." I assured him. "I don't kill."

He breathed a sigh of relief and I shook him, pressing my forearm harder into his chest. "Hey asshole." I growled. "Just 'cause I'm a good guy doesn't mean you get off Scot-free." I sorely wanted to pistol-whip him. 

"What do you want from me?"

I shrugged. "I want you to stop cheatin' on your wife to start." I suggested, pointing Nadia at his forehead. "I want you to break it off with your little 'mistress' right now. I want you to go home with flowers and candy and other lovely gifts for your wife. I want you to do whatever she says, goddammit. And, if you're lucky, she won't divorce you and take everything you're worth while she's at it." I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "Because believe me, I can make that happen."

The guy nodded, his eyes fixed on Nadia. 

"Get the hell outta my sight." I growled, pulling him away from the wall and shoving back towards the street. "You have twenty minutes to get back home with gifts, and if I so much as hear of you sneaking away to be with your little trollop, you won't be so lucky next time. Nadia doesn't forget."

He let out a little whimper and scurried away. I snorted derisively and tucked Nadia back in her holster. I was paid for another three days; I'd be following the bastard around to make sure that he did as I was told. 

For now, though, I was calling it a win and I was going home. There was a lot of drinking to do and I wanted to get a head start on it.

Writer Wednesday: Your Own Pace

I've been a member of several writing communities for a while now. I've been a part of several critique groups, both in person and online. The local chapter of the NaNoWriMo participants is the big one that springs to mind, however. And I just helped start the Samurai Scribes - a new kind of open commune for writers in all stages of working towards publication.

The Samurai Scribes is just in its infancy, but we're working towards a goal of cross-promotion as well as self-promotion for our own works, but also towards creating a sort of online community with access to resources and friendly faces right there all in one place. Not all of us are published. Some of us haven't even got a single manuscript ready for much else outside of MORE revisions. Some of us have screenplays and no novels. Whatever. That doesn't matter because we're an open group based on mutual respect and open communication. We work under the idea that we are all on the same path, though not everyone walks that path the same way. It's about the journey as much as it is the destination -- what worked for me may not work for you and vice versa.

But I'm a little bit off-topic here.

What becomes truly important is understanding your own pace.

I have been writing forever, ever since I was little. I decided at 13 years old that I was going to be a professional writer and make a living off of it.

13 years later, I'm still trying to make a living off of it. And that's perfectly okay.

I have gotten to a point where I am no longer satisfied with going to meet-ups and writing in cafes with a group of friends. I am no longer satisfied by editing draft after draft. I have surpassed many of the people in the groups I am or was affiliated with, in my opinion. I feel that I have learned all that I can from interacting with certain people, and that's all right.

I've hit the point where I need to move on from wishing and speculating and drafting and revising. I've hit the point where it's time to get "serious". (Ha! Me, serious. But you know what I mean, I assume.)

It's only taken me 13 years of working my ass of to learn and improve and get comfortable with my craft and with my style and my voice for me to get here. It's only taken me being rejected, torn down, almost giving up and going to flip burgers for a living (which I may yet still have to do, but that is neither here nor there) crushed and despairing for me to grow enough to understand that there is no real magic trick to "making it" as a writer. 

There are methods and shortcuts and ways to manipulate the system, and most of these have actually cropped up in the past few years while I perfected my mind and my craft. 

The point is that there is always more to learn, always more to do. Just because Jane so-and-so is ready to query her 300k word book, doesn't mean that she is what the publishing houses and agents are looking for. She may be ready to take that step, but her craft may not be ready to carry her all the way.

If I'm gonna be honest, my words may not be ready to carry me all the way, but I'm ready to take the next step in getting my work "out there". And I have found the community and strength to help keep my spirits up as I go.

And if you're curious, come check out The Samurai Scribes. We will welcome you with open arms.