What is Art?

"Ideas alone can be works of art….All ideas need not be made physical.…A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist’s mind to the viewer’s. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist’s mind." 

-Sol SeWitt, American artist.

I view any form of creating as art, whether it be painting, writing, dancing, cooking, or arranging flowers. As a creative person, I have a few forms of expression. Writing is one of them. I thought I'd share with you today another form of art which I enjoy.

If you've read my about me page, you've seen I also enjoy quilting. It's not a stretch to consider quilts as art-- they have been featured in several museums including the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Every step of making a quilt is a form of expression, from creating a design to picking a pattern, selecting fabrics, and how they're sewn together.

Like many forms of art, quilting can be passed down from generation to generation. This was not the case for me. My great grandmother made beautiful quilts, and I'm pleased to have one of her quilts at my house, but I didn't get an opportunity to learn from her. The other women in my family knit or crochet (or both) and I have learned both from them, but never really thought about quilts.

It wasn't until after my first child was born that I thought about quilting. I wanted to make special blankets and things for my kids, but crochet and knit blankets take a ton of time. I already had a sewing machine which I used only occasionally, and figured sewing something together would be faster than crafting something with yarn.

I looked for a tutorial on how to make quilts on the internet and found a series of YouTube videos by the Missouri Star Quilt Company which went through all the steps of making a quilt. It was intimidating, but I knew I could figure it out.

My first quilt was made out of precut squares which I simply sewed together. The second quilt, I cut my own squares. By the time I started my third project, I had gotten a cutting mat, ruler, and rotary cutter to make the slicing of fabric into tiny little squares much easier. I had also delved into much more complicated designs and layouts.

The great thing about art and creating something is that you leave a piece of yourself in your artwork. Those who have read any of my writing, even fiction, see the reflections of myself in my stories. Similarly, in creating a physical object, I have imparted a piece of myself in it. The design reflects my personality, the colors my personal aesthetics, and each stitch a moment of my concentration. I think this is part of what makes a handmade gift so incredibly special.

My dad works with computers, and I wanted to make something for him that gave a nod to my nerdiness and his profession. I decided on a simple grid of squares in grays and greens, but added digits, 1s and 0s, like the binary language computers run on. But if I added digits, I wanted them to actually say something.

The finished quilt is 8 squares by 11, so I decided to make each row a character in ASCII. The secret message on his quilt (which is no secret at all) is, "I love you!" He was pleased with his gift this Christmas, and I was so happy to make it for him.

Do you agree with my definition of art? What kind of art do you make? Let me know. I'd love to see and experience any of your creations.

The Many Hats of an Indie Author

Writing for me has very much transformed from just a hobby into something much more. In the back of my mind, I knew that there would be more to being an author than just writing books. But as I'm gearing up for the release of my first book, I'm very much realizing how much work is entailed in being an author.

I've had to readjust my perspective. If I want to be successful in indie publishing, I need to treat it as my job. I thought I'd make a rough list of all the 'hats' I've worn so far as a writer to let others who are considering self-publishing know how much an indie author does.

Idea Generator

Sometimes you get lucky and an idea pops into your head and won't let go until you follow through. And sometimes it's a dry spell with no ideas in sight. I can't just wait for inspiration to come to me. I need to seek it out. I've already written a post on how I find inspiration. You can read it here.

Researcher

Any writer's research includes reading lots of books in their genre. At least that's what I tell my husband when I buy yet another sci-fi dystopian strong female protagonist novel. It helps to know what's been done, what's been done too many times, and what readers tend to expect.

Once I have an idea pinned down, I get into more specific research. How do other stories handle warp travel? What's the structural integrity of concrete? What's all the folklore associated with unicorns? How does cloud storage actually work? Once I have all the information collected, I can switch hats to:

Writer

My favorite part. Writing. Sit down with a scene or two in mind, and let them flow from my fingers to the keyboard and on the computer screen. I hope everyone gets that gut gripping feeling that need to create something beautiful. Just that feeling makes the whole writing thing worth it to me.

Editor

"You're your own worst critic." Nothing I make will be perfect, but I can at least find most of the plot holes and pave them over along with a spelling and grammar check.

Manager

This is really where I feel the differentiation between hobby and business lies: eliciting help from other people. Some people have gladly helped with my novel for just the chance to read my work (even though it was still pretty rough). But for other things, I wanted professional help. That meant seeking out businesses and freelancers, weeding through potential services to hire, and making sure everyone I do hire does their job. Some do an amazing job (I highly recommend Bublish) and some can be stinkers (I'm looking at you fiverr). In the end, it's my name on my book, so I want to make sure I have good help backing me.

Formatting

I've used so many programs to get the most beautiful print and ebook I could make. Scrivener, Komodo Edit 10, Sigil, KindleGen, and Word (I have a tenuous relationship with Word-- you can read more about it on this post). Not to mention all the fonts I downloaded, coding I learned, and hours spent trying to get Kindle Direct Publishing to accept the formatting on my ebook. I guess the idea was that if I learned to do all of this myself, I wouldn't ever need to hire someone to format for me.

I probably should have hired someone.

Graphic Designer

Around 10 years ago when I was a student at Georgia Tech (was it really that long ago?) there were photoshop classes every week in the library. Since I attended several of those classes and knew what layers were, I figured I was a good candidate to make my own cover. I'm very proud of the cover I've made for The End of Refuge, but it was a heck of a lot of work to get there. (If anyone wants to hear about how I came up with the cover, let me know!) I've learned the pros and cons of stock photos along with what elements make a good cover vs a bad one.

Distributer

I never thought about distribution being a big deal. Just sling an eBook on Amazon and be done with it, right? When looking back at my reading habits, choosing just one store for my book didn't make sense. iBooks is so easy to use with iPhones and iPads. Readers can read books for free on Nook while at a Barnes & Nobles. These are great features I need to take advantage of. I'm hoping that selling on multiple platforms will pay off in the end.

PR

By public relations, I mean social media. This was one of those things I needed help with. I use to only occasionally post on facebook, but now I've found a community of writers and readers on twitter and Instagram as well. I'm making myself visible and approachable, and hopefully entertaining as well.

Marketing

Since The End of Refuge hasn't released yet, I haven't really delved into marketing, but at some point, I'll have to consider running ads to help make my books visible to readers.

Accountant

Being a former banker, you'd think I'd enjoy this part. But, no, I do not. Since I'm treating my writing as a business, I need to keep in mind the fiscal and tax implications of that. I'm keeping track of receipts and calculating the taxes I'll need to pay on royalties. As soon as I'm selling my creation, I'm operating a business and need to treat it as such.


We'll see if I need to take on even more hats in the future. Like I said, these are just the roles I've taken on before my first book release. My journey is far from over.

Since my next post will be after Christmas, I want to wish you all a happy holiday. Surround yourself with friends, family, and loved ones. That's what I'll be doing!

THE END OF REFUGE Now Available for Pre-order

I wanted to make a special post today to announce that my debut novel, The End of Refuge, is available for pre-order on Amazon.com, iBooks, and KOBO. So if you want to purchase an eBook copy of my book, feel free to order in advance!

NaNoWriMo Isn't Over

Yes, the month of November has come and gone, but that doesn't mean that the NaNoWriMo challenge has come to a halt as well. Fifty thousand words is an admirable achievement, but that alone does not make a novel. Here are the steps I go through after November is over before I consider my manuscript to be 'finished'.

Keep writing words

Yes, 50k is a lot of words, but novels tend to be longer than that. In reality, 70k to 100k words is really the sweet spot. Yes, there are novels shorter (and longer) than that. Every writer will say that a story should be exactly as long as it needs to be. But in the end, I find it hard to tell an entire story in just 50k words. So once November is over, I'm still writing.

Forget about it

Once I have a finished the first draft, I put it away and try not to think about it. For me, I can usually last two weeks before I need to get back to my novel and start revising.

Read it

Before making any corrections, I read through my first draft, start to finish. I take notes on major plot holes, character inconsistencies, and scenes that should be added or cut. Until I read 'The End', I don't make a single edit to my novel.

Revise

Now that I've identified the big changes needed, I implement them in my novel. A lot gets rewritten. Fluff gets slashed and missing description and world building are added. When I'm done, the second draft will be a cohesive story that should make sense to people other than just me.

Revise again

Just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's ready for others to read. At this point, there are lots of grammar mistakes, sentence structure issues, misused homonyms, and overused words. Since I've been staring at a computer screen for so long, I'll print out the current draft and do line edits on paper. It's much easier to see mistakes that my eyes glossed over using a different medium. Just a side note, I do recycle.

Get some beta readers

Once two passes of edits are done, I ask other people to read through my book and share their reactions and make suggestions. For this part, you have to use someone who will be honest about your work. I rely on strangers. Someone who doesn't know me won't be worried about my ego and that gives much more useful feedback. I usually aim for three to five readers so I'm not bogged down with too much feedback, but can also see what might be personal preference vs weak parts of my book. And since it takes readers time to get back to me, I'll start drafting something new.

Revise

Keeping in mind what my beta readers have said, I revise again. This pass can be hard. Although I trust readers feedback, I have to dismantle and rebuild parts of my novel that I personally really liked. However, once these weak parts are revised, I'm much happier with my story.

One more revision

I've already gone through the book several times, yet there will still be mistakes. You can always find more mistakes, which brings me to the next step...

Have someone else proofread

I tend to err towards using a professional for this step. If you know someone who is an excellent proofreader and can get through a novel in good time, then by all means, ask them.

This is the point where I finally consider my manuscript to be finished. Other writers may use different steps, but to get the best quality novel, it takes time. Getting through all of these steps takes more than a month. I'm hoping with experience, I'll be able to move through them a little quicker. Once all of this is done, I'm ready to move onto the next phase: formatting, which is a discussion for another post entirely.

Here, Take My Card

There was something truly special about the first time I held a business card with my name on it. My first full-time job was working at a bank and within a couple weeks of working there, I was given a box full of business cards with my name in classy embossed lettering. Something about that little card made me feel like I was important, I was finally an adult, and I mattered. I wanted to give one of those little cards to every person I came in contact with. At that point, I didn't even have an email or phone line, but I had my name and my title. Of course, I changed my name the next day and that first box was no longer usable.

Every step of publishing my first book has made me feel more and more like a 'real' author. Making my own business cards is a huge step. This is really happening. I write books, and every person I come in contact with will get my card. Well, at least the people who show some interest.

The whole self-publishing journey has had a lot more steps than I expected. Everyone says that writing the book is the easy part, and finishing a book is not easy. Naturally, I'm proud of everything I've accomplished so far and can't wait until my first book is published and for sale. Until then, here, take my card.