Author Interview with Selina R. Gonzalez
By Jessica Marie I did an interview with six-time author Selina R. Gonzalez. She is a fantasy author and a Colorado native with mountains in her blood and dreams that top 14,000 feet. She loves chocolate, fantasy, costumes, bread, history, superheroes, faux leather, things that sparkle, learning random bits of knowledge, snark, and Jesus–not in that order. She loves all things medieval Europe and is a huge Anglophile. She studied Medieval British history during a semester abroad at the University of Oxford. She also took medieval history and literature courses while earning her bachelor’s in history at Colorado State University, where she graduated in May 2018. Selina loves to travel, and has driven coast-to-coast in the US, visited Britain three times, and moved to Maine for four and half months. She has a list of places to go as long as Pikes Peak is tall, but she always comes back home to Colorado. Tell us a little about yourself. I am the author of six independently published fantasy books, including Prince of Shadow and Ash and a Thieving Curse, which is my most recent release. I am also a freelance fiction editor and book formatter. I’ve been writing fiction off and on since I was about 14 years old, which is when I started attending writer’s conferences, reading books and blogs on fiction writing, and the publishing industry. But I only started publishing recently. My first novella I published in eBook form only in November of 2019. Then released a paperback in January of 2020. Also, in 2020 I published two more novels, a novella, and a novelette. This year I published one more novel. I honestly do not recommend doing that much in one year, she chuckles. I got very burnt out. How did you keep up with that pace of writing and releasing? Part of it was, I had a lot written before releasing. The novels I released in 2020 were already written and in the process of being revised. The novella and the novelette that were released were related to those novels. So, all the planning and characterization work was already done. So, it was a little easier than writing an entire new book and story. But I did get kind of burnt out by the end of 2020. Know what you can do and pace yourself. How did you come to your publishing conclusions? Since high school my plan had been to be traditionally published. To go through the process of querying agents and submitting to publishers. But since about 2018 and 2019 I got involved with online writing communities and writers’ groups on Facebook, which is where I began to meet more independent or self-published authors. What is self-publishing or indie publishing? Self-published and indie published or independently published are fairly interchangeable terms. Though many self-published writers, myself included, prefer the term independently published writer or author. As it emphasizes that we are approaching this as a business because that’s what it really is. Self-publishing sounds like we are doing everything ourselves, which is not usually the case. It varies from author to author how much and what they do themselves. But most authors are hiring out contractors for at least cover design, various edits, proof-reading, formatting, etc. But the term indie publishing can confuse some people as there are indie small presses. Which operate similarly to the bigger publishers. You don’t usually need an agent to work with them, but you do still need to submit and be accepted by their acquisitions team, and work with their editors. Then they foot the bill for things like editing, covers, royalties, etc. So, the term indie author can mean independently published or having worked with and through an indie press. There is this impression we get or are given from some places that indie publishing is for failed writers, or those who cannot get accepted by traditional publishing houses or methods. It wasn’t until I started to meet indie published authors online and checked out their books that I realized, dang, these are really good books! Which launched me into research mode. I honestly spent months researching and making excel spreadsheets with pros and cons lists. I wanted to make the best decision for myself and my work. I didn’t fall into self-publishing, I chose it. I learned how to indie publish and how to do it well. I spent a lot of time looking into traditional versus indie publishing. As both methods have their own drawbacks as well as advantages. Ultimately, I decided I wanted the greater control and speed offered by self-publishing. With traditional publishing it can take months to years of querying agents. Once you get an agent and find someone who is a good fit for you, then your agent has to query publishers. That process can take months to years. If you get to a point where you can sign a contract with a publisher, their editorial team will ask for changes which you may not want to make. For example, title or plot changes. After all that it can still take 6-12 months before you see your book in print. I decided I didn’t have the patience for that, and published them myself. Traditionally publishing will provide you with an advance royalty, which those paychecks are steadily decreasing. But that is also a check against your future royalties. So, you will not get another check until the publishing house recuperates that cost from books sold. No matter how you publish, the average author makes less than the minimum wage when you add up the hours spent versus return income. I started publishing in November of 2019 and May was the first month that I operated at a tiny profit. Which will immediately be going back into expenses. How did you become a freelancer? Freelancing is something I decided to do at the beginning of this year. Part of it was that I had learned how to do my own formatting for my books as a way of saving money. I am constantly learning new things and I get excited every time I learn a new trick and apply it. I decided I could do this to keep my skills sharp and help other authors. Plus, it is very hard to make a living as an author. I wanted to do something writing related, flexible, and that still allowed me to write. What is your writing process like? Honestly, I lean toward plotting and outlining things. I like to have a fairly good outline before I dive in. I have tried a few times to completely pants a book, and usually, it just does not get finished. But I do a combo of planning and pantsing. As I am drafting and writing, things will change. Characters will go, ‘nah, I wouldn’t actually do that’ and I have to adjust. A timeline might not make sense or may drag on, so I may trim or remove it. I write my outline and let the things change course if they need to. The rabbit trails that arise don’t always work and may get cut, but sometimes they do and I keep them. I also find that it varies from project to project. Prince of Shadow and Ash I had a pretty solidly outlined story and it didn’t change a whole lot from outline to finished book. But Staff of Nightfall had big holes in the outline, so it changed a decent amount. A Thieving Curse, I had written the outline years prior, but when I came back to it, I wrote almost the entire thing without looking at the outline. The bones stayed the same, but it did turn out different from the outline. What writing advice would you like to give? Writers love to give advice like, ‘this is what worked for me so it must work for everyone!’ But that isn’t the case. It is an art and everyone writes differently. Some authors can pants a story and it comes out perfectly, some only abide by strict outlines. It is subjective and whatever works for you and your story is the right answer. But it is good to try different methods and see what works best for you. If you try something and it doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean you are a failed writer. It simply means that method didn’t work for you. Tips for aspiring authors. It is a lot of work! It is also a lot of fun. If you are never having fun, then you may need to take a closer look as to why you are writing in the first place. But it is not always going to be fun. Some days are a lot like pulling teeth. There is a lot to think about and keep track of like continuity details, plot, character development, crafting strong prose, understanding grammar, punctuation, etc. It is also something fairly personal. I often put my own values into the characters and stories. It takes hours of work and many tears to write, edit multiple times, get feedback, edit again, then finally release into the world where not everyone is even going to like it. It is an art, it is subjective, not everyone is going to like it, and that is okay. Then there is the whole business side. You don’t just write a book, throw it online, and call it a day. If you are self-publishing you need to hire cover artists, decide paperback size, buy ISBN’s, make sure you don’t break any laws, know copyright, etc. No matter if you self or traditionally publish you have to be your own marketer. The author does the bulk of their own marketing. So, you will need to build and maintain a website, run social media, decide prices, run sales, pay for ads, do accounting, taxes, figure out shipping, sales tax, etc. All this to say, please know this is not easy. It is not a get rich quick scheme. It is a lot of growing, learning, and work. Which can be so much fun and be a beautiful process. I love looking back and seeing how much I have grown and learned. But sometimes the process is just hard work. Even if you traditionally publish you may not think you will need to know the legal side as much, but you will need to know how to read and understand contracts. There will be a lot of teamwork with your agents and publishers. Or lots of research if you go the indie route. Know what you are getting into. I am not trying to be a discouragement, but I also don’t want to sugarcoat this process and career. People often think this is going to be easy. When it turns out to be hard, they are discouraged and may want to quit as they didn’t know what it would really be like. If you want this, know it will be hard, but it will also be worth it. You need to know why you are writing. Something that motivates you outside of prestige or money as it is such a small fraction of authors who become James Patterson, Danielle Steel, Leigh Bardugo, or Pierce Brown. You can’t do it because it’s fun either, because, as we have covered, there will be many a day when it is not fun. On those days your why will keep you motivated. Answer these questions. What does success look like to me? What do I want to accomplish? Why do I want to write and publish this specific book? Who am I writing this book for? Why is this story so important to me? Who do I want to read this book? These truths can be a lifeline to cling to when it’s difficult, when it isn’t selling as much or as fast as you hoped it would. Which is how I decided to publish the Mercenary and the Mage duology when I did. I had A Thieving Curse written at the time, but decided to publish those two first. The Mercenary and the Mage duology was my, if I die tomorrow, I want these to be published as they were very important to me. Your why and your community are what will sustain you over the course of your writing career. Steps from first draft to publishing? One. You should self-edit at least once before ever looking for a beta reader. After writing I get other people to read it. Don’t ever publish a book that no one has ever given you feedback on. Your mom doesn’t count, she has to say it’s good. You need feedback from different people with different backgrounds as much as possible. Don’t pay for beta readers, at least I never have, people will want to beta read. Being involved, friendly, and helpful to other writers in writing communities will help. Fully explain the story and ask if anyone is interested in reading and giving feedback by x date and see who agrees. You can also get beta readers from your social following. For example, on Instagram I talk about my WIP’s a lot and it gets people excited about the story. When I am looking for beta readers, I can reach out to interested followers and some are more than happy to read the story that they have been following. Beta-readers are for when you have a pretty good handle on the story, you feel confident you have done all you can. Then you send it to beta-readers to give feedback on the story as a whole, characters, and plotlines. They give you feedback on making sure it is understandable and people as a whole are liking the story, characters, etc. Two. Set a budget. It is very easy to go over budget. Know how much you can afford to spend and keep that in mind when progressing. Also, know the purpose of your work. Will it be a freebie or a product to sell? Those answers will decide how much you spend on the process. Three. Make sure you are legally allowed to use any images or fonts that you use in relation to your work. Four. Cover design. I went through my online writer’s communities to find cover designers that they used, liked, or recommended. You can get a stock cover from a designer where they will only change the words and name, these are cheap but not customizable. Cost is maybe $25-$150. Or you can have a custom cover created, which, costs can vary on designer, experience, and what you want for a cover. But they can be anywhere from $200-$900. Which is why I taught myself how to format so I could save money on that and put more towards a cover. Five. You will need to buy a proof copy to ensure it printed correctly. Six. Many authors do pre-order goodies now. But that cost, no matter how you publish, comes from your own pocket. Deciding what you will provide, the cost of the goods, and cost of shipping and shipping supplies needs to be factored and decided. Here is a rough outline of the steps. All plot and characterization must be completed first. This comes from your beta readers, editors, etc. Then Line edits, then proofreading. Book formatting lets you know pages, pages informs book spine size which goes to your cover designer. These executive functions can take about six months to complete. My suggestion (as is Make Your Mark Publishing) when deciding when to announce a book release date, it is best to have everything done first. Don’t announce your release date until you have all of the above steps complete. You could release the book tomorrow if you wanted to, but you have nothing to wait on so you can focus on marketing. This is good in case any set-backs occur anywhere in the process, you are not stressed about release date pre-order punishments. For example, Amazon eBook pre-orders will let you push back a release once for up to 30-days, after that you have to cancel it and there are repercussions for that. How do you cope with harsh reviews? Being an author can be a bit of a lonely job as you are alone a lot. Having family and friends to turn to is good. But it is even more helpful to have author friends who are having the same experiences as you and can understand more fully. You can lean on each other. Also, keep in mind that reviews are subjective. Writing is an art and not everyone will like it, remember that people will receive your work differently. You can get reviews where one person says x character is underdeveloped and the very next review can be full of praise for the same character saying how well developed and well-written they are. We bring our own understanding, baggage, expectations, and tastes into a story and it can affect how we understand or like a book, story, scene, or character. Another way of looking at it is to see it like food. We don’t get offended if someone doesn’t, like me for example, enjoy pineapple. If you offer me something with pineapple in it, I am not going to like it. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad cook, or that the food isn’t well made. I simply don’t like pineapple, so I just don’t like that dish. I also don’t read very many reviews. If this person didn’t understand it, but maybe I didn’t write it for them. But you also get good feedback. When someone relates to a scene or character and they feel held, helped, or validated from something you wrote, that is cool to see. Tell us about A Thieving Curse. It was my most challenging release yet. The cover I wanted matte but it kept glitching and coming out glossy. My eBook, the release date didn’t get changed so the day I had my cover reveal, Barnes & Noble showed it as published and available. But it was also my most successful release yet. It has been doing well, I have gotten many good reviews, people are posting photos of it on Instagram. This is the first book I released a hardcover, which I designed the naked hardcover, and people are loving that design. It has gotten some fan art which is like a dream come true. It is a young adult Beauty and the Beast re-imagining. About a princess who is separated from her family on their way to her arranged marriage to the crown prince. She is found by a cursed dragon-man who claims that he is the rightful crown-prince, who is living in hiding because of his curse. This released in April and is available from most major online retailers. You can find Selina and her work at the following:
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5 Sustainability Ideas
By: Jessica Marie When I first began my sustainability journey 5 years ago, I looked to the sustainability influencers on Instagram for ideas on how to start my journey. As I grew more and more interested in the homesteading community, culture, and other methods of living that were in tune with the land I have found a wealth of information. Not just on how to be more self-sufficient, but how to live in closer harmony with mother nature. I don’t want to give you a list of products to buy as that defeats the purpose. It makes it seem like in order to be sustainable you must invest in this non-circular capitalistic system that does damage to the environment. So, here are my current top tips on sustainability. Gardening No, you do not need to make a huge garden that will be your food supply for the entire year. Not only is that difficult and expensive to upstart, it actually takes years to build up to that point. It is also a lot of work to have a large garden. It can be a part-time job to start and maintain a garden. But I do want to encourage you to start small. I started as a plant mom and slowly incorporated herbs and over the course of years my parents and I began to work together to build larger and larger gardens. You don’t have to buy seeds either. Some of my first seeds I collected from bell peppers and squash that I had purchased from the store. I looked up how to harvest and store seeds then I planted them. You can also reuse old plastic containers as plant starters. It can be very low cost to start up a garden if you need it to be. Many gardening supplies are reusable. Once you have them you can use them for many seasons. Most all of our gardening supplies we have been reusing for many seasons now. Compost Composting goes hand in hand with gardening. As you will be collecting food scraps and waste and throwing it away, why not sort some of it out and turn it back into food for yourself? By taking the compost you are naturally enriching the soil, which enriches the plants which you are feeding to yourself. It can also be beneficial to the soil. Make sure not to compost dairy or meat products. While they are technically compostable in time, they smell bad and will generally ruin your compost. Look up backyard composting to get started. Recycle/Upcycle/Thrift I thrift things all the time, from marketplace, from garage and estate sales, from my own house. Beyond buying used clothes, there are tons of things that can be thrifted. I buy picture frames at estate sales almost exclusively; they are far cheaper and it saves them from the landfill. I make lists of things I need or want and then I get to looking. Not from Amazon first, but on Marketplace, thrift shops, and estate sales. The more time you have to find things the more luck you’ll have. I have furnished entire homes for staging using only what I found on Marketplace. Get creative. Is there something that you want that you can make yourself or collaborate together from other things to make what you want? For example, I wanted a sunglasses display rack. I found this really cool picture frame at an estate sale, I tied some twine that had been wrapped on a gift through the frame and now it holds all my sunglasses. Plus, it kind of looks like art. Cost me $2 total. Save the Fat Or the bones, or the veggies. You can pay money for bone broth or bar soap, or you can make it yourself. If you boil chicken, beef, or veggies you can save the water they were boiled in and then you have broth. When a recipe calls for any of those broths you already have it for free. Same with fat, if something you are making cooks off a lot of fat, save it. Pour it through a strainer to get the chunks out, then store it in the freezer. You can use the fat to oil your cast iron pans. Or if you save enough of it, you can use it to make your own soaps. I know this is a very different type of recycling, but it counts. Taking those statements of reduce, reuse, recycle to a whole new level. Start small You have to do sustainability, sustainably. This means that you have to grow at your own pace. Something I see people do that saddens me is comparison. Both inside and outside of sustainability. We see someone who has been on their sustainability journey for years and think ‘I can never be like that’. It is too easy to get overwhelmed and see the expense of changing to different sustainable products or methods. Some of the things on this list are kind of big, multi-step processes and they might seem overwhelming. That’s ok, maybe they are end goals. For example, I’ve been on my sustainability journey for over 5 years now. That means for 5 years I have been learning, growing, and adopting new methods into my life and routines. I did not wake up one day and do everything I do today. It took me 5 years, and a lot of what gets done is a family effort. Do not feel bad for not being able to switch everything right now. Don’t feel bad for only doing one thing. Do that one thing that you feel drawn to until it is easy, and when you want to, when you feel ready, add another. In 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, you will be amazed at how much you have combined into your life. I want to encourage you not to compare where you are to where someone else is. It is good to be inspired, but it is important to give yourself time and grace along the way. Take it slow, take it one step at a time. Pro Tip – Moving: We all know about getting boxes from stores like Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Which are great resources that I stand by. But for packing paper, I have two ideas. One, scuba shops. They get really nice material packaged around their goggles and such that are perfect for moving dishes. Two, local newspapers. If you have a local town paper or university that has a newspaper, call and ask for their old papers. They will gladly pack it in a box and give it to you. You can also check marketplace. I’ve seen people giving away their old moving boxes and materials. This is also an option for you as well. People may not come and get them, but you are at least offering to give these single use packages more than one life or use. Those are my current top 5 sustainability tips. I am sure I will have more in the future. But these are ones that I have been working on/towards recently and I wanted to share them with you. My biggest goal with this list was to help you think outside the box. To think beyond one item, one idea, or one product as a sustainability practice. To realize that maybe something you already do is sustainable, or maybe something you never considered was a sustainability practice. I hope this inspires you. Until next week. Much Love, Jessica Marie By: Jessica Marie
Happy June my lovely readers, I hope 2021 has been treating you well. I cannot believe it is June already. Time is passing so quickly and it is truly astounding. How much life has changed for all of us and the many ways various events have allowed us to grow and adapt. I never imagined my life would be where it is, how it is, and the way it has all came to be. But in so many ways I have found the most joy and peace I have ever felt. Personal Update That joy and peace is something I am taking to heart right now. I am not sure if it comes from external factors, or due to my willingness to see everything as a blessing. Perhaps both. But I have dramatically changed my mindset over the past year or so to see the silver lining versus the dark lining. Most of my life I looked for the negatives, and while I still have my days that I cannot let those negatives go. On the whole, I intentionally seek out the positives. Another new thing for me is I am feeling a pull towards slow living. I don’t even have a definition of this at the moment, as I haven’t looked into it yet. But it keeps coming into my mind when I go for walks, I am looking forward to learning more about this and reporting back on it next month. Brand Update Last month, I came to terms with my social media presence. The fact that I am putting all of my effort into my blog, podcast, and my writing (outside of work) so I am letting social media go. I am taking the Marie Kondo method to my social media presence, if it brings me joy (to post) then I will do so. Outside of that, I am going to release the pressure to be present there and constantly posting. I am not going to let the ‘shoulds’ decide this area at this time. I am open to change, but I am learning boundaries for myself and my work, and this is how I am enforcing them. Writing update I am currently at chapter 8 or 9 of my novel. I have taken a step back from writing the actual story content as I feel I need more backstory work. I had several pages of various aspects of backstory before I ever began writing. But in the process of writing, I have found I need more. I want to really dive deep into the world. The many aspects and technicalities of it. How the government works, the major religions, the history of everything, and how all of these elements intertwine. I had the bare bones but now I am adding the tendons and muscles to these elements and many more. So, while I don’t foresee my word, page, or chapter count increasing much in June I am ok with that. I am having a wonderful time getting to know these characters and the planet on which they reside in this backstory format. I have two Districts in the political system that are particularly interesting that I could write a short story on their formation one day. When the little voice that tries to speak of word counts pokes its head into the room, I remind it the word count will be utterly useless without this history. A rich world doesn’t happen on accident. It comes from how much I know. And even if what I write backstories that never come out, it can still be felt in the final product. I have also been writing a short story for a writing competition. The competition deadline is June 30th. I started this project mid-May and I have a first draft completed. Now, I am working on revisions and edits. No matter how the competition goes, I am having fun with these characters and the story. It is completely unrelated to my novel or my other short story series. It is a world all on its own. But I’m loving it. Books I read in May reviews: Staff of Nightfall by Selina R. Gonzalez: This was a great book! It was an absolute adventure to read. Full of plot twists and turns I never saw coming. The characters stayed true to who they were from the first book (Prince of Shadow and Ash) and they flowed together seamlessly. Her heroes are relate-able, flawed, and human. Her villains are horrible (in the best way) and gosh darn did I sit on the edge of my seat for a lot of this book. Well-paced, I never got bored, and I read it quickly (for me). It can often take me a month or more to read a book, this one I finished in about 2 weeks (and it is not a small book). If you like medieval settings, YA genre, magic, believable characters, and realistic reactions to trauma, you’ll want to check this out. Discover Your Dharma by Sahara Rose: This was a wonderful and enlightening book. I am not one for re-reading books, even self-help type books, but I can see myself re-reading this book once a year. So much knowledge and wisdom in this book, exactly when we need it most. I think I'm on my dharmic path right now, but as life shifts and evolves, Sahara has so many great tips and ideas for helping you to keep moving forward. To keep progressing, to keep evolving in your dharma. So grateful for this book. I bought a second copy and gave it to a friend for her birthday. Note: All books I purchased myself. I read and reviewed of my own accord. I was not paid, prompted, or promoted to read or review these works in any way. I do not receive any money or other stipends from these reviews. Books I am Currently Reading: The Lost Years of Merlin by T. A. Barron Earth and Other Ethics: The Case for Moral Pluralism by Christopher Stone Thank you for reading this June 2021 Monthly Catch-Up. An overview of what is happening for me personally and with the Wayfaring Jessica brand. As well as updates on how my writing projects are faring, books I have read and am currently reading. I hope you have a wonderful June, and I look forward to seeing you next Monday for my next blog post on: Much Love, Jessica Marie |
AuthorJessica Marie Cunningham - Intentional lifestyle blogger, aspiring author, and podcast host. All things Slow Living, Books, Writing, Art, creativity, Christianity, and personal stories. Archives
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