Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

writer

Can Excel Help Right Brain Fiction Writers Control Their Characters?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

My fiction characters are running amuck. Even with the best of intentions, I realized they were getting beyond me in the current book. Remembered a tool author Linda Needham told me about. She has a humongous whiteboard in her office and uses different colored sticky notes to represent the characters in each chapter. That way she can see who is where.

My whiteboard is on the small size, so not enough room. I decided to use an Excel spreadsheet instead. Now, I’m one of the those right brains who would rather dig slit trenches than use Excel, but I’ve learned détente. Actually, the thought of using different colors really won me over.

Fun with Excel, highlighters and crayons. One way to herd your fiction characters.
Fun with Excel, highlighters and crayons. One way to herd your fiction characters.

Gathered up my horde of highlighter pens and crayons and off I went. Put chapter numbers on the top and lines for character names and colors on the side. Then I proceeded to start from chapter one and work my way through the manuscript. Using 8 1/2″ x 14″ paper I can get about 27 chapters on a sheet.

Each character is assigned their own color. Also came up with the idea to draw a circle when a character is mentioned so I can fix or expand that on editing. Managed to get about 17 chapters dissected this past weekend. Found out I had more walk-on characters than I realized. Seems new people are always jumping into this book.

Not sure I’m getting a true handle on my characters, but it is helping me realize who is where and get reacquainted with all the folks running around on the pages. If this tool works for you, yeah. If not, no problem.

The coloring part is fun. I love the smell of crayons in the afternoon!

Received A Snail Mail Card Recently?

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by Kimberly A/ Cook               (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

The sun is out and it’s going to be a nice weekend here in Oregon. Yeah! Ate my first ripe strawberry out of my garden this week, so life is good. I also have a new favorite tv show to watch; “Signed, Sealed and Delivered,” on the Hallmark Channel.

It’s about Fictional Postal Detectives in the Dead Letter Office who reunite letters, packages and people with the important things they mail. The characters are quirky, so of course I love it! Take a look at the promo for the series to give you an idea.

Have a great weekend and Happy Quirky Friday!

Writers Must Be Young Reader Book Pushers!

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by Kimberly A. Cook                        (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Read a wonderful article on Friday by Frank Bruni of the “The New York Times” about the importance of literacy in our nation and the disturbing pleasure reading figures for young adults. Seems the current digital natives are veering away from reading to plug-in and zone out even more than we thought.

Original keeper books from my salad days.
Original keeper books from my salad days.

It made me think of my book favorites from grade and middle school. I promptly went to the keeper shelf and gathered a few and took their picture.

Interesting to note what I read in my early years is what still drives me now; romance, mystery, suspense. Seems we might know what writers we are to become by what we read as children.

Kids not reading for pleasure is a huge issue. The article quoted a statistic from the Common Sense Media report that reading for pleasure has declined for ages 13 to 17. It goes on to say “Fewer than 20 percent of 17-year-olds now read for pleasure ‘almost every day.’

Whoa! I know teens are busy, but this is not good for many reasons. The article goes on to talk about the symbiotic link between reading and intelligence. Just like exercise the more you do it the fitter you become, body or brain.

It has never been more important for our youth to read for pleasure. This crusade does not belong to only the Young Adult authors, this is a mercenary business need for all writers. If we don’t make young adult readers, we won’t have adult readers!

It’s time to become a book pusher today!

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/opinion/bruni-read-kids-read.html?_r=0

 

 

 

Do Feline Authors Have Plagiarism Issues?

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by Kimberly A. Cook               (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Many beginning writers worry about plagiarism, but it’s a pretty rare occurrence. However, Henri the Cat seems to be having a rather tough go of it in today’s publishing world. Even French cats living in the United States have to be careful when it comes to indie publishing.

Check out his story and see what you think. Happy Quirky Friday! Enjoy the weekend!

 

Can You Climb A Mountain?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

It’s been a bit of a weird Spring here in the good old USA and in other parts of the world. Seems the wackier it gets out there, the more I retreat to my books and happy ending tv shows. Then I come across a story that puts my perspective firmly in place.

These veterans accomplished an amazing feat in February and I wanted to share it. Through grit and determination, they climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. That may sound like a bit of a task, but these military foot soldiers are missing body parts which would make the climb a challenge even if they had all their digits.

Even the “normie” cameraman had a hard go of it and he had all his appendages. The documentary should be out the end of this year, you can catch up with this group at

www.kilimanjarowarriors.com

When it comes to being WIA, wounded in action, the hard road begins afterwards. The long hours and months it takes to not only get physically well, but to also deal with the mental and emotional scars. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have left us with many wounded warriors, each one an important story.

These are the kind of tales which make me write about my fellow veterans and talk about the day-to-day courage of veterans that most folks never see. It seems veterans and especially wounded warriors have been climbing this mountain for years now. Go grunts!

I salute these hard-charging men and women who are still fighting, for themselves and others who can’t make the trip. Take a look. Freedom isn’t free and these veterans are the best of the best.

KILIMANJARO WARRIORS: Teaser Trailer 1 from Bevan B. Bell on Vimeo.

Want To Be A Successful Indie Author?

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by Kimberly A. Cook         (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

My brain has been on fire the past two weeks. I’ve been reading a new book, “Write. Publish, Repeat.” by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant and with David Wright of the Self Publishing Podcast. The book is chockfull of great advice for career indie authors and I mean folks who want to publish lots of books. Many books.

(Truth in blogging: Book buy link in graphic below. I think I get about 5 cents per copy if you buy from this link, so there might be a McDonald’s Happy Meal in my future! Could not figure out the image size thing – sigh.)

These three writers are making a full-time living by producing like crazy and having a viable marketing plan on how they group their products. It’s like taking the book series concept and putting it on Red Bull – hard-charging. The majority of their work is fiction, which we know is an even bigger challenge as an indie publisher, so these guys have got game.

They also are very clear; building a publishing career takes time and hard work. Period. I purchased the ebook and it ended up being 900+ pages on my Nook with the larger font size I use. At 5.99, a bargain. In the back of the book they had several interviews with self-published indie authors. C.J. Lyons mentioned the book, “Start With Why,” by Simon Sinek in her profile, so I bought and downloaded that gem. Another great read, halfway through it.

Now the interesting part is some of the ideas in the Why book contradict a few things in the “Write. Publish. Repeat.” book. What does this mean? Nobody has all the answers and fairy dust may be the ultimate answer.

With both traditional and indie authors crossing the lines in both publishing directions, what remains is each writer/author makes the best choice for how they want to build a publishing career. Technology has put the publishing power back in the hands of authors. We get to decide what we want with the most flexibility since Benjamin Franklin self published.

And with “great power comes great responsibility,” like Spiderman was told. We need to be professionals and wear two hats, artist and CEO/CFO. Both books are helping me clarify my current vision from what I was thinking back in 2006 when I decided to self publish.

Back then I thought “Why should I pimp my writing out to someone else and pay them when I care the most about my work?” It’s the same reason I have a target retirement stock fund and not a stockbroker; I can churn my own money, thank you very much. If anybody is going to pimp/promote my work, it’s me. It’s a lot faster to publish too when you have a polished and pristine manuscript ready to go.

Check out the book and you don’t have buy it, but it’s a great read if you want a career as an indie author.

P.S. Book is NOT an April Fools Day thing. Really. It’s legit.