Tag Archives: writing

An Old T-Shirt Made My Day

February 24, 2014 D.A. Adams 3 Comments

When I first arrived at the dealers’ room at Con Nooga, I was greeted by one of my earliest readers who was wearing a Brotherhood of Dwarves t-shirt. First starting out, I sold those shirts along with the books as a way of generating additional income at festivals and conventions. There aren’t many of them left in the world. I only have two or three myself. Seeing one in public brought back a rush of memories and emotions that are hard to put into words, but I’m going to try.

I’ve written many times about my hesitancy to begin writing the series, so I won’t cover that again here, but when I made the decision to self-publish, I did so with full confidence that one day I would find my audience and be successful in the endeavor. The t-shirts were part of a larger strategy and were pretty popular, mostly because of their elegant simplicity. They definitely helped make shows less draining financially and increased visibility at many of those early events. In fact, the t-shirts are a big reason why John Rhys-Davies insisted on giving me publicity photos.

I had wanted to give him a copy of book one, but he had refused the gift and demanded a trade. He wouldn’t accept something for free, so he gave me an autographed picture of Gimli in exchange for the book. Later, his business manager (or girlfriend or both) came to my booth to thank me again. When she saw the shirts, she said he would love one and wanted to buy it. This time, I insisted that I would not take any money and gave her the shirt. A few minutes later, a furious (in a somewhat playful manner) John Rhys-Davies approached my booth and demanded that I accept something. We argued for a few minutes (an epic battle between Scottish and Welsh stubbornness) until he asked if I had a camera. My good friend Tilman Goins was in the next booth over and chimed in that he had one. Mr. Davies ordered us to follow him to his table, where he posed for the publicity photos of him reading Brotherhood. Those pictures sold a lot of books for me in the early days.

Because of my marriage falling apart and the implosion of the economy, I never got to do a second run of those shirts. When I finally was able to publish Red Sky at Dawn, I tried doing shirts for that book, but they just didn’t have the same appeal. Looking back, I wish I’d done another run of Brotherhood shirts instead of Red Sky, and I remember vividly wrestling with which one I should do. During this time period, sales for Red Sky were sluggish, very sluggish, because too much time had passed between the release of each book. Three years is too long to let readers cool off, and I constantly felt like I was starting from scratch at each event I attended. Finally, after three years of muddling through, I conceded that I’d gone as far as I could go as a self-published author and began seeking a larger press for book three and the series.

I’m grateful to be with Seventh Star, and today, the series is poised to explode (Stay tuned folks. Exciting news is just around the corner). Moving to SSP was the single best decision of my entire career, and every day I am grateful to be a member of such an amazing team. But part of me still feels the bitter sting of my failure to succeed on my own. I poured so much of myself into those early years and came up short, and no amount of spin can change that basic fact. Although I accomplished some good things, my foray into self-publishing ultimately failed, not from lack of effort but from a combination of bad decisions, bad luck, and bad circumstances. No matter what level of success I may ultimately reach, I will always bear the scars of that failure.

But when I saw that beautiful t-shirt last weekend, my heart skipped a beat, and I was reminded of a time when my oldest son was still a baby and I was full of optimism. I remembered why I chose to dive head first into the publishing world and endure the criticisms and trials and setbacks and humiliations and triumphs and everything else the last nine years have brought my way. The Brotherhood of Dwarves is a damn good book that deserves to be on the market. The series as a whole, as I envisioned it back then and have since brought to life, is epic, and deserves to have an audience. Seeing that t-shirt reminded me of the things that are truly important. Whatever the future may hold, I will never forget the people who took a chance on an unknown author with an “ugly” book. I will never forget the people who encouraged me on my darkest days and nurtured me through my leanest years. You are my friends and family, and I am blessed and grateful to have you in my corner.

I’m D.A. Adams, and I’ve just begun to kick ass.

Inspirational

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

February 20, 2014 D.A. Adams 6 Comments

One of the lessons I try to teach is the importance of taking risks. Not everyone has the courage to step off the ledge into the great unknown, but if not for the people who do, we would never progress forward as a species or a society. Part of taking the risk is exposing yourself to failure, and as a man who has endured my fair share of failures, I can avow that the sting of falling short is palpable. In this society, we tend only to celebrate and acknowledge success, and we have developed this sensibility that prosperity is solely the result of hard work. When someone fails, society at large tends to blame the person for not working hard enough or not having the mettle to succeed.

But failure is a natural facet of risk. Plenty of people have started businesses or written books or performed music, working just as hard if not harder than those with success, and still failed. Maybe the timing wasn’t right, maybe they mistook the market, maybe they just never got their break. But two things I have learned in my life: hard work does not guarantee success, and failure is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. Personally, I would rather endure a thousand failures than live with the knowledge that I didn’t have the courage to try. We as a society need to shift our thinking back to valuing efforts and attempts as much as we value success.

I’ve made the decision to leave education. It’s a risk, I’m aware. Instead of a guaranteed monthly salary, I will be forging ahead into the unknown of freelance pay. Instead of a benefits package, I will have to provide my own insurance and retirement. I understand those risks. The other night on Facebook, someone with good intentions questioned my decision. How will I provide for my sons? How will I survive? She worried that I would regret the decision. On one level, I understand those sentiments. At my age and having been through as much as I have, I grasp the value of safety and security. I get that some people need the stability of a salary and cannot fathom the concept of living without a guaranteed income for the future. I get that. I honestly do.

But despite the stability education affords (although that is dwindling daily under the business model), I find myself suffocating from the bureaucracy. Each and every day, the escalating problems within the system kill a piece of my soul. When I weigh the safety of a stable income against the toll it takes on my person, I no longer find it worth the sacrifices. I would rather risk absolute failure than continue down this path. There is so much more to life than a monthly income and job security, and with whatever time I have left on this planet, I intend to use my greatest gifts to the fullest extent I can.

For those who maybe worry about me, please know, I would not make this leap if I did not believe I could survive. There are mechanisms at work behind the scenes that I’m not yet at liberty to discuss, but please believe that this spring and summer are shaping up to be quite an exciting time. For the first time in a long time, I have real hope that my writing is about to become financially lucrative. While nothing is set in stone and there is still tremendous risk involved, I believe that the time is now. If I stay put out of fear of failure or insecurity about income, I will miss my window and wither away into a broken husk of a man.

So with that in mind, I’m stepping off the ledge, trusting that everything I’ve spent the last ten plus years building is about to come to fruition. I accept the risks, understand the gamble, and know that I may not succeed. But then again, I just might. Because the other side of taking a risk is that it offers an opportunity for a reward. It’s not that I write for money or fame or any of that nonsense. I don’t. I write because I must, because it’s the only thing that makes me feel whole when my children are absent, because people seem to like my characters and stories. I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life giving back in the form of teaching. Now, I’m moving forward solely on my creativity and writing, and I accept the risks involved.

General Posts

Guest Post – H.C. Playa

February 17, 2014 D.A. Adams 1 Comment

Today, I am honored to share a guest post by my friend and fellow author H.C. Playa. Her debut novel, Fated Bonds, was released by Inkstained Succubus Press in January. For this post, she shares her thoughts on POV:

First vs. Third

One of the most important parts of writing a story begins with point of view (POV). I’ve heard that some feel that first person POV is “amateurish”. I disagree. Granted, I’ve read some horrid books that did not pull off the POV well, but I’ve also read some great books from the first person perspective. Personally, I think it is far more difficult to write in the first person than in third. In first person POV the focus is very tight, very narrow, which newer writers often have a difficult time sticking to.

In first person, the reader immediately is thrust into the primary character’s life. A lot of YA literature is written in first person for exactly this purpose. It engages the young reader’s emotions as quickly as possible. Karen Marie Moning’s Dark Fae, definitely not a YA series, is written in first person. Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series is another non-YA series that comes to mind. Moning used the POV to emphasize the character’s growth. Brust used the POV to effectively relay humor and attitude. It can also allow for a greater degree of suspense and mystery, because the reader is limited to the knowledge that the main character discovers. This can be done in third person as well, and many, many novels written in third person limited accomplish the same thing. When it is he or she versus “I”, there’s that sliver of divide between the reader. First person invites an intimacy that almost feels as if we the readers are slipping into the character’s skin.

Third person, either limited or omniscient, allows for alternate character viewpoints. It can be used to let the reader in on information that the main characters do not know. The key to writing third person well, is to use active voice and only switch points of view if it serves a purpose. A story told from ten different character points of view will end up disjointed and confusing.

While I have a published short story, What Autumn Leaves, written in first person, my novel “Fated Bonds” is written in third person. I’m sure some authors sit down and analyze which point of view will better serve their purpose. I confess that I’m not one of those authors. While a story might begin its life as a nebulous idea, it takes its first breath the moment I visualize the main character. In a way he or she speaks to me. That voice is what comes out on the page. Sometimes that story plays out visually, with me “watching” as the third person and other times the character whispers his/her story. To date, only a few of my short stories have played out as first person stories, likely because the story is focused on one person. No matter who else appears in the story, it is entirely about that character. My novels tend to have several major players, and it only feels fair to give them all a bit of the stage, so to speak.

I encourage any new writer to try writing in a different point of view now and again. Stretching beyond your comfort zone helps you grow as a writer.

As a treat, here’s an excerpt from Fated Bonds, my newly released novel:

She balanced the plate on the glass for a moment to open the door and then grabbed the plate before it took a nosedive to the floor. She opened the door with a bump from her hip and stood in the doorway, glaring at her guest. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Bathroom,” he growled through gritted teeth.

Tala sighed and marched across the room. “I distinctly recall telling you to call me if you needed help.”

Mr. Werewolf stood beside the bed bent over with one hand holding his side and the other gripping the edge of the rickety old nightstand. The empty water glass lay on the floor. Tala shook her head and set his brunch on the nightstand. He shuffled a foot forward and grunted, his breath coming in fast and shallow pants.

“I do believe you could use a hand.” She extended a hand, but he ignored it, shuffling the other foot forward. The nightstand rocked under his weight. She moved in front of him, blocking his path and folded her arms across her chest, waiting for him to realize he did, in fact, need help. He growled low in his throat, but she stood her ground. “Fast healer or not, if you move too much, you’ll reopen that gash. That nasty purple splotch on your side isn’t paint. You probably bruised a few ribs, too. It won’t break your ego to accept a little help.”

Mr. Werewolf craned his neck from his stooped position to meet her gaze. “Ego?”

Tala cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah. Why else would an intelligent man, who’s obviously injured, ignore an offer of assistance?”

“Trust,” he said, through gritted teeth. “Ego has nothing to do with it.”

You can find Fated Bonds on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or order from InkStained Succubus. Also, feel free to check out my blog (hcplaya.wordpress.com), find my on Facebook (HC Playa), or follow my on Twitter (@HCPlaya). If you’ve read the book and liked it, consider leaving a review on Amazon.