I've not read any of Hazel's books yet, but I have Blood Ties on my Kindle waiting for me, and I can't wait to read it.
Hazel West
The blog of a girl who's looking for God's plan for her life. In the mean-time, she's knitting books and writing scarves ... or something like that.
Hey Hazel! What's the most challenging aspect of the publication process for you?
ReplyDeleteAnd how do you conquer writer's block?
The most challenging aspect of the publication process for me is promotion. I am a lot of times just as anti-social online as I am in real life so I kind of hate social media lol. But I do realize it's necessary. I much prefer stuff like this where I get to interact with other authors and potential readers instead of just tooting your own horn.
DeleteAs for writer's block… sometimes the easiest thing for me is just starting a new project like writing a short story when I get stuck on my novel. My friends and I do writing challenges every other month or so so that actually really helps break up monotony a lot. If I can't write at all and have no inspiration, I like to try out a new book series or tv show. Any new stories coming into my head are good for inspiration or to get inspiration started at least. Especially if I choose something similar to what I'm working on.
Thanks for the question :)
I've probably missed the deadline, but in the off-chance that I haven't . . .
ReplyDelete-What's your favorite Irish myth? (If you can pick.)
-How did you come up with Riordan and Keegan? (They're some of my favorite characters, not least because they're manly guys who do yarn crafts.)
-Who's your favorite character that you've written about?
Thanks!
I'm still here! Thanks for the question :)
DeleteHm, my favorite Irish myth…I love any stories dealing with faery lore in general, but I think that, obviously the legends of Na Fianna are some of my favorites, which is why I wrote about them. Besdies that, I always tend to enjoy stories involving phookas, who are sort of trickster faeries (that you will see in a later installment of the Na Fianna series)
Haha, Riordan and Keevan, like most of my characters just kind of came to me while I was creating the cast. Riordan was there first because I thought it would be cool to have a berserker character (even though it's an Irish book) but one who was totally chill. And then I was like, well, he has to have someone to test him all the time, right? So I gave him a snarky hyper little brother.
And my favorite character is probably Eamon. He's a bit like me actually, so I'm a little biased ;) But I especially love writing him and Killian together. Also Daegal ended up being a big favorite of mine, so much so that he will feature in his own story in Book Four. I also have to mention Oberon who is in Book Two (if you haven't read that yet) he was just generally a fun character to work with.
Hi, Hazel! What do you think are the pros and cons of self publication and traditional publication?
ReplyDelete~ Savannah
scattered-scribblings.blogspot.com
Well, first of all, I have nothing against traditional. I've thought of eventually querying my books, but at the same time, I love the freedom self publishing gives. I would rather depend on a few trusted beta readers who actually care about the plot line of the story to tell me what needs work on my books, than a publisher to tell me to add x-amount of female/"diverse" characters just to get them to sell. (For the record, Blood Ties is very diverse, it has goblins ;) But I think that's the main reason. I don't want people to tell me how to write my story.
DeleteOn the other hand, it would be REALLY nice to have a publishing company to promote my books for me. That's one of the hardest things with self publishing is that it's very difficult to get your books out there. Even free promotions aren't going to get your book seen. But I'm not unhappy with being an indie. I've always been a bit of a rebel anyway ;)
Cool - it was nice getting your views on this, seeing as I'm trying to decide whether to go the indie or traditional route once I finish editing my novel. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Delete~ Savannah
scattered-scribblings.blogspot.com
No problem :) Feel free to shoot me an email in the future if you ever have any specific questions. I'm sure everyone here is a well of knowledge as well ;)
DeleteAlright, thank you! <3
Delete~ Savannah
scattered-scribblings.blogspot.com