Darrell Pitt's Blog

Hi all!

My book, Secrets of Successful Writers, has been featured on Gwen Bristol's Writing, Marketing and Life blog. She talks about the advice within the book, particularly in relation to marketing and pricing. 

Check out her site here:

http://gwenbristol.com/2013/02/25/thoughts-on-secrets-of-successful-writers-by-darrell-pitt/

And a big thanks to Gwen!

Happy writing!

Darrell.

Exciting News:

The first book in my Teen Superheroes series "Diary of a Teenage Superhero" is now absolutely free! Here's the link on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Diary-Teenage-Superhero-ebook/dp/B0070ZN80M




The third book in the series "The Battle for Earth" is now also available. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Earth-Teen-Superheroes-ebook/dp/B00AODF29M



Happy reading!

Darrell.

Hi all,

Well, I've been a busy little beaver and writing the third installment of my superhero series. It's called "The Battle for Earth". I should have it finished in the next few weeks. At the same time, I've been getting the covers redone for several of my books. All three superhero books are getting new covers as is my book "The Last Days of Earth". 

"Last Days" has been my slowest selling book, but I think that's because the cover sucks - big time! 

Anyway, I'll update shortly on where we stand with the covers and the new books. Oh, and if you know any big time publishers or movie producers looking for an exciting new writer - send 'em my way!

Hi all! 

It's a very exciting time for me at the moment. I'm getting new covers made up for my books - Diary of a Teenage Superhero and The Doomsday Device. They should be ready in the next couple of weeks. In addition, I've almost finished the third book in the Teen Superhero series and the title of it is... The Battle for Earth. 

It's full of action and adventure and I think you'll love it! 

Hope all is well in your world! 

Darrell.

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How many literary figures will be remembered for all time?
It’s a tough question, but it’s safe to say that only a handful will survive the future. Without doubt, one of them would have to be Sherlock Holmes. The impact of Arthur Conan Doyle’s character has been immense. Apart from the original four novels and fifty-six short stories there have been hundreds of movies, radio plays and stories based on this character.
It is even fair to say that many other relationships in literature are Holmsian in nature. What is the relationship between Poirot and Captain Hastings if it is not a homage to Holmes? And Batman and Robin? And all the dynamic duos throughout twentieth century literature? The importance of this character and his creator – Arthur Conan Doyle – cannot be understated. 
So it is nothing short of bizarre when it turns out that a company in the Virgin Islands wants to partially demolish Doyle’s home in Britain to turn it into townhouses. A legal challenge has been mounted to stop the development work from occurring. A number of literary celebrities have come on board including Stephen Fry, Julian Barnes and Ian Rankin to oppose the demolition.  
The house is in a state of disrepair – which never should have been allowed to occur in the first place. Conan Doyle wrote thirteen Sherlock Holmes stories at the premises including one of his most famous works, The Hound of the Baskervilles. 
The case is currently being heard in the High Court in England. There have been over 1,300 objections to the work including the Victorian Society and the area’s local MP. 
An online Twitter campaign has been started to save the house. Spread the word to your Twitter friends by using the hashtag #savesherlock. Please pass the word. 
Here’s a link to the original story: 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew... Tweet

Rusty Fischer is the author of several novels including Vamplayers, Vampires Rule! Zombies Drool! And Zombies Don’t Cry. Today he speaks to us about how he became a writer and his thoughts on the rebirth of one of horror’s oldest tropes – the zombie. 
Darrell - What made you want to become a writer and how did it happen?

Rusty - I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I could remember. I can remember writing books in spiral bound notebooks as a little kid, 8 or 9 years old in my bedroom. I made construction paper covers and just wrote from start to finish, no room for errors. Later my parents got me a Smith-Corona typewriter and I began submitting my books. I got rejected a lot, but never gave up. Eventually I became a teacher and started submitting stories, anecdotes, lesson plans, etc., to teaching magazines. A few of them got published, then one of them hired me! When I left teaching, I promised that when I wrote, it would be for teenagers, the age group I taught the most. So a few years ago when I finally sat down and got serious about my own writing, going for YA only seemed natural. 
Darrell - Can you describe a typical day of writing for you?

Rusty - I’m a full-time freelance writer-slash-ghostwriter for a variety of professional clients, so most of my day is spent writing for others. I enjoy helping businesspeople, athletes, actors, coaches, nutritionists and lots of other experts turn their dream of writing a book into a reality. So from morning until early evening, that’s pretty much my day job. Later, after dinner and some down time with my wife, in the evening I’ll write for another hour or two on my own stuff. 
Darrell - Horror seems to generally take two forms: scary horror and laugh out loud horror. What are you thoughts in general about horror as a type of
literature?

Rusty - I think you’re right. I’ve tried both, and I’m really no good at the scary horror. I don’t think I’ve ever had a reader accuse any of my “horror” books as flat-out scary, although with zombies there is usually an “ick” or gross effect, which is the fun of it. Why write about zombies if you can’t get gross? I think it comes down to your personal writing style and what “feels” write when you sit down to start a story. Every time I’ve ever tried to write scary horror, it’s a real effort and I forget about halfway through and just start laying on the snark. I can’t help it!
Darrell - Zombies seem to be really popular at the moment. Do you think zombie's are the new vampire? Will they become as popular?

Rusty - I don’t think zombies will ever become the new vampire because, in my experience, folks don’t think of them as “sexy.” Every day I hear from readers, “This is the first zombie book I ever read.” You never hear anyone say that about a vampire book. There’s just a lot of “ick” factor for readers to get over, and I haven’t quite figured out how to do that. One way I’ve tried is by making my zombies kind of petrify versus rot; they lose their body fat, muscles get harder, more rigid, they have to stretch a lot but things just don’t generally fall off or putrify. So, I’m trying to do my part!!!
Darrell - What sort of methods do you use to promote yourself?

Rusty - I’ve written a lot of free content – zombie poems and stories and story collections and poem collections – and do a lot of giveaways/contests on other blogs. It’s pretty much all social media, all the time, Facebook and Twitter mostly, and my own blog. I just don’t have the time to do a ton of “live” events and, frankly, I’m not very good at it. 
Darrell - You've been published through Medallion Press. What are the advantages to that as opposed to being a indie writer/publisher?

Rusty - I very much need the support of talented editors, cover designers, marketers and overall professionals to help me craft, shape and fine tune my message. I believe in myself as a writer, but I’m not a great self-editor. My characters are always leaving the house in sweatpants and getting to school in jeans! I just, I’m so focused on the big picture issues and I “see” them in my head, so I forget little details like that. It’s just one of examples of how important that kind of support is. Plus there are so many different things a traditional publisher provides for you, like review copies, distribution, returns, amazon.com listings, promotion, libraries, foreign rights, I’m just not there and don’t have the time and it’s nice to “hand off” those duties and focus on the writing. 
Darrell - What do you think is the secret of succeeding as a successful writer?
Rusty - This one’s easy: persistence. Yes, you need to hone your craft and be creative and confident and have a vivid imagination and storytelling skills, etc., but if you give up the first time you get a rejection letter, that’s it; game over. Even getting published isn’t the end of the game; you have to promote, think of you next book, keep the readers in mind, deal with bad reviews, more rejection, the paperback versus ebook deal, there’s just SO many obstacles to becoming a successful writer and above all the craft and publishing stuff, there is just the general habit of getting up every day, overcoming those objections and moving forward. That’s where persistence comes in. You. Just. Can’t. Give. Up. Ever. Period. 
And a big thanks to Rusty! The link to Rusty on Amazon can be found here and his blog site is here!
And that’s all for today!
Keep writing!

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Oliver Mol is a young writer who is starting to make a big impression. After being published in a number of literary magazines, he decided to take the plunge and self-publish his first ebook. It bears the interesting title of Boy Sam: Fires in Panama. Today he speaks about how Boy Sam came into being and where he sees the future of reading now that ebooks have arrived. 
Darrell - What made you want to become a writer?
Oliver - I am a writer because I enjoy the act of writing. I like making things up and putting them on paper. I like it when people read. I wanted to contribute to that, something that was entirely mine.
Darrell - Where have you been published so far?
Oliver - I have been published in Voiceworks (editions 87 and 88), Stilts Journal, Offset Journal, Bbetween Journal and have a forthcoming publication in the RMIT Creative Writing Anthology. I’ve also read at The Wheeler Centre for Debut Mondays and at Penguin Plays Rough. Several days ago I published my first ebook Boy Sam: Fires in Panama.

Darrell - What writers inspire you in your work?
Oliver - I like Bret Easton Ellis, Steve Roggenbuck, Tao Lin, Roald Dahl, Dave Eggers, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Ray Bradbury, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cate Kennedy and others.

Darrell - You recently published your first 'serial' novel. Can you tell us about that?
Oliver - One day I was in the city and I saw this kid wearing a tiger suit and holding his mum’s hand and just looking really pleased. They got on the same tram as I did and his mother looked kind of angry but the tiger suit kid couldn’t stop smiling and saying hi to people and I thought to myself he could probably save the world and then I went home and wrote about him saving the world. The idea is that Sam, who is eight, has an ancient soul - a soul that has lived forever, and sometimes, through dream memories, which he calls memory jigs, Sam relives his former soul’s past lives. While in these memory jigs he observes what happens around him and he uses these clues from the past to save the world from an impending, present danger. I will publish one story every month for ten months. The series is aimed at young adults but that is not to say that others could not enjoy it as well. Sam is cheeky; I mean his soul was born in an Oort Cloud, which is where comets come from, so he’s full of surprises and other things.

Darrell - There is a big upheaval happening right now with the introduction of ebooks. What do you think is the future of hard copy books as opposed to ebooks?
Oliver - I love books because you can touch them and smell them and they are weighty. You cannot replace a book. Having said that, ebooks and kindles are really changing the way the industry runs. Never before has an author had such direct contact with the audience he/she writes. Writers are earning better wages due to the lower production costs associated with screen reading and this is also good. I have no problem with ebooks as long as they stay books. 
Reading is fantastic because it makes you intelligent but the moment the kindle evolves into something with hyperlinks and toast makers and other technological distractions we will no longer be reading. We will be doing something else. Maybe, we will just be distracted. We will be distracted from reading and living and there will be a great depression where many famous people will die. Then, there will be a renaissance and they will find old books locked in “libraries” buried beneath holograms. The people will read again and the people will be happy. The hard copy will live.
Darrell - What do you think it takes to succeed as a writer?
Oliver - It takes many things like not wanting to eat too much and not having nice “things” for a while and probably lots of borrowing and patience and feelings and feelings for people and reading and sitting and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and hopefully, eventually, feeling ecstatic and boosted.
Oliver’s website is http://cargocollective.com/wwwolivermol/Oliver-Moland you can connect with him on twitter through https://twitter.com/#!/Oliver_Mol. You can also purchase a copy of Boy Sam through Amazon by clicking here or on Smashwords by clicking here. 
Until next time, keep writing!
Darrell. 
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It's not easy being a creative person.
Actually, it's probably one of the hardest paths to follow in life. To become a doctor or a lawyer or a carpenter or a priest is probably a more straightforward path because you know the path to follow to reach the destination.
I doubt that people like Van Gogh or Michaelangelo knew what the future held when they started creating their greats works of art. All they could do was work their butts off and -.
Well, there was one other ingredient.
Hope.
It might sound sort of corny, but isn't that why we all go on living? Because we hope for a better future? Because we hope there's going to be a tomorrow? A quick glance at the daily headlines will pretty well dampen your spirits for the day. It's a wonder we don't all just throw outselves into the sea.
That's why it's important to support things in life that are full of hope. That's why we need to support friends and strangers who create art and in doing so make the world a better place to live in.
And why is art important? Because we only create art after the issue of self preservation has been settled. Then we begin to look outwards and try to get a larger sense of the world and try to represent it in our own ways.
Is this blog about me? Absolutely not. It's about The Lucky Wonders.
Who are The Lucky Wonders, I hear you ask? They're an up 'n coming band from Byron Bay. They released their first album to wide ranging acclaim and now they're working on their second album.
Have you ever wanted to be part of a creative process? To help someone achieve their creative dreams? That's what The Lucky Wonders are doing. They're working towards their dreams and putting a little love and a lot of hope out there into the world.
If you have a dollar to spend, check out their web site first:

http://www.theluckywonders.com/index.html

and then head on over and make a donation. You can donate as little as $1!!!

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Hey, I was recently interviewed by the good Wattpad people about my books, The Steampunk Detective and Diary of a Teenage Superhero. Here's the link to the interview: 


http://soundcloud.com/wattpad/steampunk-the-superhero 



Check it out if you get a chance! Tweet

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There have been a number of high profileteen suicides in recent times. One of them was Ottawa teenager Jamie Hubley. Hewas relentlessly bullied after coming out as a gay teenager at school and eventuallytook his own life when he decided he could not live with the constantharassment of his school companions.
He was only fifteen years old. 
Another recent teen suicide was JameyRodemeyer who had even made a 'It Gets Better' video and posted it to Youtube. Agay youth, one of his personal heroes was Lady Gaga. On Twitter, he posted apoignant last message to her. He said: 
'@ladygaga bye mother monster, thank youfor all you have done, paws up forever'
He was only fourteen when he took his ownlife. 
I'm not ashamed to say I had tears in myeyes as I read the account of his death. A hollow feeling opened up inside mewhen I thought about a boy taking his own life. I suppose it resonated sodeeply within me because I thought about suicide a lot when I was a kid. 
Although I wasn't gay, I was certainlydifferent. I was bullied. In the pecking order at school, I wasn't at thebottom, but I was close to it. Sports and popularity contests weren't my thing.I liked books and art. 
I still do. I suppose that's why I'm awriter. 
When I think back to that time, I'm amazedI survived at all. Why didn't I kill myself? I don't know. If I knew, I wouldtell people so that parents could save their kids and kids could savethemselves and each other. 
I wonder if you know what the leadingcauses of death are for teenagers? Number one is accidents – usually by motorvehicle – number two is cancer and number three -.
If you guessed it was suicide, you'd beright. The third most common way for teenagers to die is to take their own life.As a society, we have to be ashamed, dismayed and sickened by this statistic.In fact, we have to be more than that. 
We have to be determined to change it. 
That's what Lady Gaga's Born This WayFoundation is all about. Here's the mission statement:
Createa safe place to celebrate individuality.
Teachadvocacy, promoting civic engagement and encouraging self expression.
Provideways to implement solutions and impact local communities. 
The reason being that:
Thesethree pillars form the basis of creating a better world. 
How many of us can really imagine thecourage it takes for a gay or lesbian kid to come out? I don't know if I'veever felt that courage, yet there are kids out there who are doing it every dayof the week. 
Should Lady Gaga be President?
Maybe. 
Love is the answer, but unfortunately it'snot an obvious answer. There are still haters out there. There are still peoplebuilding their egos on the crushed self esteem of others. Their voices stillring all too loudly in our schools and streets, homes and playing fields. 
We're all born as we are, but how we liveall too often depends on others. Do you want to live in a society of hope? Or acommunity of despair? Do you want to help raise teenagers fed on a diet ofacceptance and inclusion? Or a consumption of hatred? Do you want to raise ageneration that believes minority groups should be crushed and segregated? Or aworld that embraces those who are different? 
Lady Gaga, I would love you to bePresident, but you don't have to be. 
You can be whoever you want. 
If we teach our kids anything in school,let it be that. 
You can be whoever you want. 
You might be Born This Way, but how youlive is your own choice. 
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