Red Harvey's Blog

Being a writer is comparable to the work of a painter in terms of designing a special universe in which the audience is able to lose itself. Creative people appear to be wizards because they form grotesque stories out of nothing. Still, they are human beings who have their own baggage of puzzles, resulting in grievances or thoughts holding one down from doing the job: writing. In fact, authors often struggle with the concept of an idle page, with the construct of story writing format, and failure to love their own art. However, all writers experience similar feelings.


Today, we are going to lift the veil on ‘how to write a story’, along with the major challenges arising during the process of creating.
Writer's BlockUnfortunately, this problem is the most common to creative people, especially writers. At the same time, it’s normal, as you cannot simply have your inspiration overflowing all the time. So, you wake up, day by day, with no creative ideas, and all you want is to push this aside and write, but you can't. You feel totally crushed, and certainly, not in the mood for constructing any valuable content. Such writer's block can be very risky, especially if this emotional state persists. Frequently, such trouble occurs when you are sitting still. To fight this, engage in sport activities. Make sure you are getting enough workouts; it will not only make you strong, but also set your mind in the right direction. Walk outside, meet with friends, and have fun. You will be surprised at how productive you are at the end of the day, and creative writing ideas will come naturally.
The absence of thoughtsYou might be assured that you are skilled enough, but still be out of plan or writing ideas, becausewriting a story is much harder than writing an essay. No worries, it’s a regular thing among contributors, and the good news here is that there is always a solution.
Creative writing is based on two points: observation and reading.  Admire sights around you, be it trees or any other part of nature. Read and discover everything that comes your way. Reading is an elixir to the poverty of sense.
Being timid and doubtlessThese are the main problems which may afflict a novelist. No matter how much experience you have or how valuable your skills , you cannot move on until your confidence with the subject builds. Removing doubt is not only about being aware, it is also about being prepared to claim your own worth.
In case you cannot quiet the crippling voice of disbelief inside, another thing to remember is to find a person who will understand and support you. This individual will help you accept yourself and think big. Also, and this is important...join writing groups or writing courses to get acquainted with someone who can be your ‘champion’ and, in turn, can champion you.
A so-called ‘perfect style of everything’Everything starts before you take a pen or press a button on a keyboard. You try to draw an ideal picture in your imagination, and you never find it possible to transfer the right meaning. It is all about perfectionism, and the whole nine yards. Many people have a battle with the peculiarities of perfectionism, and this is why a short story may take two months to write. The reason for such procrastination is that the artist prefers not to release anything to the audience until it's fully edited and "perfect", and sometimes, this can be our undoing. Do not be afraid to free write, and then improve upon it later. You'll be amazed at how much writing you get done.
Fear of rejection It is the consequence of being criticized by the society or even your followers. You might be overwhelmed by the emotional breakdown. The first step is to realize that it is just a feeling, not a reality. Surround yourself with devoted friends who can help you build fortitude and work on reconstructing your self-assurance.

In fact, there are no perfect “fit-all” story writing tips. There is only self-confidence, getting things done, and being focused. The key to getting more done is to concentrate.
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Contact Jeremy Raynolds at jeremyrray89@gmail.com

After numerous rounds of editing and months of waiting, Daughter of Zeus is now available for pre-orders on the Champagne Book Group website.
Synopsis:


The future can be a terrifying prospect, especially when Ada Freyr discovers she can manipulate electricity. Ada is grief-stricken when her abilities result in the death of her husband. and terrified of being discovered by the Prominent-run State. Unusual citizens are labeled Undesirable, and are never seen again.Ada drives to Atlanta, intent on finding her father. She blames everything that’s happened on him, and vows to kill him for ruining her life. However, once Ada meets her father, she realizes he’s no longer the alcoholic she remembers: he’s now a Congressman with a family and a new name, ready for a Senator’s seat.Ada’s scheme lands her on the Undesirable list, leads a stranger to stalk her, and stunts her relationship with her siblings. Soon, she has to decide which is more important: a vendetta, or forgiveness.
Join the giveaway below for a chance to win an e-copy and a $15 Amazon giftcard!



Entry-Form

While reading Parmasad, I thought about tone and voice. Many of the students I tutor value what they call "objective writing", and many pride themselves on the ability to write for a nameless audience. I tell these same students that even though it's academic writing, it's still writing, and writing should never be boring (a.k.a. voiceless). Good intentions aside, writing to the god of the nameless usually leads to a nameless tone in the writing, and there's no "there" there.In writing a scholarly personal narrative (or a SPN), one injects personal experience into a larger academic conversation. Thus, to "signify" in a SPN, a writer need not adhere to an autobiographical format, because focusing on specific moments in time as they relate to bigger issues can be just as impactful, (Nash 30). Parmasad displays the effectiveness of SPNs when writing of the cultural disconnect she experienced while growing up as an Indian in Trinidad. Putting moments of her life under the microscope, Parmasad analyzes the importance of writing: "this remarkable exclusion, this invisibility, this feeling of voicelessness filled me with a maddening need to use my writing not as a shield but as a weapon to contest the historical marginalization of a whole people and the negation of my experiences" (135). From her viewpoint, writing is a tool to challenge the cultural limits and bring others to a higher level of understanding. In my estimation, an SPN is essential to academia because a properly executed SPN will delve into the "raw marrow" of the writer's life, while bringing the validity of the experience to the forefront of a larger framework, (Nash 26). Developing confidence in writing often goes hand in hand with constructing a narrative, as writers glean key concepts after a re-telling of their experiences. Writing narratives can never be counterproductive, as I'm of the mindset that every high school student should write an SPN, and then again as an undergrad, and then again times again. Much like Nash's idolization of Kimble, the fugitive who reinvents his story in weekly episodic arcs, all writers should endeavor to find their ever-evolving voice to establish meaning (34-35).Art can be lost if it cannot be understood. An important aspect in writing involves connections and how they're made. To sustain a connection, the language must be effective, and what better use of language as a learning tool utilizing your own voice? As an undergrad, many students are required to write a narrative essay, with no research or larger connection necessary. In contrast, writing an SPN is similar to cutting out a part of oneself, laying it across a table, and magnifying the meaning to fit a larger context. Both types of writing have a purpose, but at differing points in an academic career, an SPN is more purposeful. In fact, several drafts into either, new voice and meaning can be found..Works Cited
Nash, J, Robert. "What is scholarly personal narrative writing?" Liberating Scholarly Writing. New York: Teachers College Press, 2004. Web. 

If you enjoy free books like I do, you have the chance to win a copy of A Gray Life, now through July 25th.

The giveaway is featured on , so click here to activate the good luck monkeys!
As an added bonus, I'm giving away three e-copies of A Gray Life from my blog. To enter, all you have to do is comment below. Tell me about the first book you read and why it was special to you. 

The first chapter book I read was from The Babysitter Club series. I can't remember the exact book, but I can remember the static joy that came after. When I finished the last page, I jumped up from the couch and grabbed my mom, full of the largest sense of accomplishment my 2nd grade self had ever held.

Good luck, readers!

It's an understatement to say the Internet is littered with bloggers and book reviewers, especially when the sentiment is coming from a blogger! However, blogger Cassie Sparks is different from the rest of the herd because of a few things:

1. She doesn't charge for reviews or promotions.

2. She's open to reviewing most genres, except for Westerns (sorry, Westerns).

3. Her response-time is quick (for the time being until she becomes too popular for her own good!)

4. She supports indie authors. 

From her mouth:

I am a full-time mom of boys, nursing student, and professional reader/reviewer. I love to read anything and everything but usually shy away from westerns. I love helping out authors, especially up and coming authors. Feel free to contact me for reviews. I will let you know a general timeline on when to expect my review. I will post reviews here, goodreads, amazon, smashwords, and audible if an audiobook.

Read about her review and promtional policies on her website.

On April 24th-25th, A Gray Life will be available on Amazon for free!

Download a copy to your respective devices, and then look out for a giveaway and fanfic contest soon after...!

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Micro loans. They're presented as a benevolent force, especially the NGO's operating in Bangladesh. Most forms of capital, i.e. loans, have been traditionally denied to the poor, who had no collateral to offer. However,  micro loans in Bangladesh are offered without the expectation of collateral, barring the strategic use of honor and shame. 
According to Lamia (1998), honor and shame already play a heavy role in Bangladesh society, beginning with women. Honor is an exemplarary asset to wield in rural Bangladesh, and can be measured and lost by how honorable a woman behaves. Even as micro loans are offered to women,  Lamia (1998)concludes that over 90% of the loans are used by the men of the household. Therefore, the practice of lending money to rural women under the pretense of economic freedom seems a bit misleading, further complicated by the issue of shame.

As theorized by Spradley & McCurdy (2009), philanthropic efforts and/or gifts, usually come with unseen strings attached. With micro loans, the unseen string is shame. To lose face, or experience shame, in Bangladesh is something a family might not recover from. Since women are the extensions of family honor, and therefore shame, when the loans are not paid on time, shame is a powerful instrument used by NGO's to secure a return on their investment.  Lamia (1998) goes into detail about how women are shamed into paying back their debt: spitting on them as they go by, pulling their hair, hitting, cursing them publicly.  Lamia (1998) suggests that the 98% repayment of micro loans can be viewed in a whole new way when shaming is considered.
Overall, micro loans in Bangladesh have positives and negatives,  but mostly negatives.  One positive thing about the micro loans would be the 50-60% interest, compared to that of rural loans, which can inflate to 120% interest (Lamia, 1998). Many negatives attached to micro loans stem from the revolving sides of honor and shame.  If not for those two societal elements already present in the society of Bangladesh, the high success rate in repayments would probably be a lot lower than it is. 
Read more about micro loans here.

Or

Watch the documentary Women's Bank of Bangladesh.

Recently, Obsolution was selected as one of four Honorable Mentions for both the 2014 Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds Grants.
The jurors said of the story:

We enjoyed your piece very much. One of our jurors said, "Engaging and addictive. I didn't want to stop reading."

Read Obsolution for free via the Wattpad website, or by downloading the Wattpad app to your phone (works much like Amazon's Kindle app, and thousands of free books are offered).

Also, today I received the link to a 4/5 star review of A Gray Life from Horror Cult Films (HCF) UK (read it here: http://horrorcultfilms.co.uk/2014/11/a-gray-life-by-red-harvey-book-revew/). 
Not only that, but HCF editor Stephanie Andrusjak expressed a positive response to my work, and suggested I query Tor. I've queried many a publishing house, but I've yet to try Tor. Today is as good a day as any for a fresh query...!
All in all, a good day :D

Whether we all know it, diverse books are all around us. Many of us have been saying it for years. Some have only started to notice. There are authors and/or books who've been present for decades, and there are books and authors who make waves for themselves in our present.When and however you've come to the conclusion, you've noticed that lack of representation in books is evident. The lack of people of color, the lack of characters whom are queer or with disabilities. It's disturbing just how little books with main characters who aren't white, able bodied, cis-gendered and/or queer are released in comparison to those that are not.What's more disturbing is the lack of marketing books that highlight diversity in a positive light. Granted, marketing does not by any means guarantee sales. For the most part, no miracle amount of promotion can "guarantee" to generate sales. But often, authors of color, and authors who write diversely, do not receive strong marketing.Authors who write any book can tell you, publishing companies nowadays expect a bit of marketing from the author themselves. But when a diverse book fails to generate sales, it's often blamed that it's because it's a diverse book.We don't just need diverse books. We need smarter campaigns and marketing plans for diverse books as well. Diverse Book Tours was founded by Sasha Beatty, book blogger of So Bookishly. She approached book bloggers interested in promoting diversity in books, and with everything we've learned book blogging about diversity on our blog Twinja Book Reviews, we were practically shoe-in's to be co-founders. We all have different experiences and ideas on why we came to the conclusion there needed to be a virtual blog tour company.From the words of Libertad: That trip to the bookstore and the dangers of "othering"It's always an interesting trip to the bookstore near my house. I just happen to live directly downtown in the smack of the Yale area in Connecticut. Sure there's a Starbucks at every corner, restaurants of different ethnicities in walking distance, and I don't think I could go six seconds without seeing someone who is not the same race as me as I journey to the Yale bookstore to scope out new releases.I love looking at books. I love admiring interesting covers, reading blurbs, and checking out the tables with the new releases.But there's just one discrepancy. Much of the time I check out books, I walk away more frustrated than I started. Sometimes I'll see eight books with the same cover or blurb. Cute, virginal, Mary-sue archetype, in a pretty flowing dress, who just happens to be white, straight, cis-gendered and for the most part able bodied. I can't assume she is nuero typical, as it is a disability you cant see. But all I see are girls in pretty dresses. Women is a great start, but women should not just be a definition for white.Books at major and indie bookstores sell more books when a cover is facing forward, but it takes more space to turn them this way, and books with main characters of color are often the ones they omit from the selling floor.How are we supposed to know that books with diversity on the cover can sell, when they're not allowed the opportunities to do so?Diversity shouldn't be something that has to be hidden. It should not have to be backdropped to push along the story of a main character whom is a "default."Representation shouldn't just matter to those who are not being represented. It is a necessity that should be in books. It should be a necessity in life, but books are a great way to start. It doesn't surprise me that many do not see it as an issue, but representation should exist to eradicate this idea of "Othering", or an idea, that anyone different from you is an "other" and therefore not normal.This is an idea we have to challenge. But we first need to realize there is a problem in the first place about the lack of marketing for diverse books.From the words from Guinevere: Sales is great, but awareness is betterI'll be upfront. My words will be the most boring out of the three, but it'll be the most obtuse. They may be words that don't effect you now, but when you give yourself time with them, you'll make your opinion of them yourself.When was the last time you saw a Science Fiction author of color interviewed on television? When was the last time you saw an fantasy author with a disability on television? How many queer/Quiltbag stories make your to-read lists? When was the last time you read a character with a religion different from your own?Hopefully your answer was similar or in the realms of my own answer: Yesterday. If it wasn't, well....when was the last time you consciously thought "have I read a narrative that I related to, that wasn't exactly the same as my own?"For people with disabilities, it's nearly all the time. For people of color, it may be on the fence. People who identify with being queer, it's probably more times than you read your own narrative. The issue with this is, for the most part, people who come from marginalized groups have been reading and relating outside there own narratives for years, if not all their lives.I myself, had never read a novel from the perspective of an Afro-Latina until last year. I turned 29 a week ago. You do the math. But somehow in 28 years, I managed to always enjoy reading. My head never exploded because a character wasn't Afro-Cuban. Ultimately, it was rather damaging to have no Afro-Latino role models in books looking back. But I found I didn't lack representation as far as my race went, as the 90's was much kinder to black women than it's ever been.At the risk at sounding sarcastic, eyes don't bleed when you diversify the narrative you read from. But ideas might change. Your critical thinking might. Your ability to connect with people might. And by golly gee, you just might learn it reflects the world you already live in.It's not enough to want diversity in books. It should be a need, a necessity, a given. But books are no where without leg work. Without word of mouth. Without reviews. Without those willing to promote them. Without those willing to read them. You have to be willing to tell EVERYONE. And when you've told everyone, you have to be willing to tell them again.Promoting diverse books is more than just sales. Sales are great. Sales are amazing. But ultimately nothing can guarantee sales, not even a book tour company. But awareness is. Awareness is more than just sales. Awareness is knowing that these books exist. Where to find them. Where and how to purchase them. Who's read and loved them. Who's read and disliked them. Books can't move if people arent aware of them.Our audience is small, but we also have an audience who would be most likely to be open to a diverse book. There are plenty of marketing options out there. Ones who've been around longer, and may promise more than we can. But there are little to no options specifically for those who write diversely. That needs to change.From the words from Sasha: Why I started Diverse Book ToursAll around the world, people are looking to read books that are a breath of fresh air, that are unique, and that include characters who have a different perspective and background than readers themselves. If the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign is any indication whatsoever, then we’re well on our way. However, it’s sometimes difficult for readers to find these books in the first place.I started Diverse Book Tours because I wanted to not only promote the types of books that I seek out and love, but because I want to help facilitate connecting readers with these diverse books and authors in a fun, engaging way. I also wanted to help authors reach a wider audience online so that they can gain an online presence and receive recognition for the hard work they do writing diversity. With the help of my awesome team and partners, and the wonderful bloggers who have signed on to read, review, and promote these books, I’m hoping that we’ll be able to show the book community that diverse books are amazing, are exciting, and are here to stay!We're also offering tons of prizes for the launch of our tour company for those who sign up as Tour Hosts!a Rafflecopter giveaway

Find Jeff Martin on his blog: The Oak Wheel
Jeff Martin contacted me via Twitter, and was kind enough to offer me a guest spot on his blog, The Oak Wheel. Not only a spot. The spot. As in the first spot for a guest author! I'm flattered Jeff wanted to feature me at all, and grateful for the responses his website has generated for my writing.

Now, it's my turn to pay it forward and tell you more about Jeff!

The tag on Jeff's blog describes it as:  Poetry, short stories, the musings of a druid, guest authors and more!

His blog is as varied as he promises, with thoughtful entries like:

Writing Saved My Life
It’s a lofty title, one that I doubt my prose will live up to. Nevertheless, it is a truth, a simple pillar that constitutes the backbone of my existence.I have always been a storyteller. Ever since I called 9-11 when my grandmother was napping as a kindergartner to tell them that someone had broken into the house, I have been weaving tales in one way or another. Sometimes I have been admonished for telling them, as I was by the slightly amused but mostly annoyed emergency responder that found me hiding behind my grandfather’s rocking chair. For the most part, though, I receive indifference; occasionally, I am given encouragement.It has recently dawned upon me that praise or a lack thereof has nothing to do with why I tell stories. I tell stories because, if I do not tell them, I become consumed by them. This fact did not become clear to me until months after I suffered a seizure in April of this year.From what I remember, it was a beautiful day. My wife, son and I had just got back from a trip to the coastal enclave of Fort Bragg in northern California where we visited my mother for the weekend. It was as relaxing as a vacation can be for a (then) practicing alcoholic. The bed and breakfast we stayed in was quaint although the bed was a bit small for the three of us; the restaurants we visited served top-shelf whiskey and knew what I meant when I ordered a shot ‘neat’. We got back to our home in Sonoma County and decided to have lunch at a small Mexican restaurant in our hometown. Life was good. (more on The Oak Wheel)
Or poetry entries like:
Enveloping
The mists around me were
Enveloping
Just like a cloak
I shivered involuntarily
But stayed the course.
There was nothing that could
Deter me now
Or scare me. How I
Got here, no one knows
But I don’t question
Myths passed down by
Liars.
(more on The Oak Wheel)
Jeff Martin
Credit: The Oak Wheel

(On the About page of The Oak Wheel): Jeff Martin is the main contributor, started the site and maintains it on a daily basis. Jeff is a poet, aspiring novelist and singer/songwriter based out of northern CA. Having a deep love of the written word since an early age, Jeff’s first loves in literature were the fantasy series novels of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. In his teens, Jeff fell in love with the works of Terry Goodkind and Terry Brooks. Jeff has always dabbled in writing but did not seriously begin producing prose until earlier this year. He is working on the first novel in a fantasy series, a sci-fi thriller and is a prolific poet and short story writer.

From the writing he's offered on his blog, I'm excited to see more from this promising new writer!
Visit The Oak Wheel here

Other links:
Links:
You can find Jeff Martin on Twitter by clicking here.You can find Jeff Martin on Facebook by clicking here.You can find Jeff Martin on YouTube by clicking here.