Category: Author appearance

Who’s your favorite villain?

I’m going to be doing a free online workshop on creating villains with the Muse Online Writers Conference on Friday, October 7:

Creating Villains Your Readers Will Love to Hate: From Darth Vader to Voldemort
Villains are the ones who drive our heroes to achieve their goals. A three-dimensional villain will worm his or her way into your head and make you think. Share some of your favorite bad guys, and I’ll share some tips for breathing life into your book’s antagonist. But beware, the more you like them, the harder it may be to vanquish them.

Did I mention the conference is free? But you have to register by 9/25!

I already know my favorite Thief of Hope villain. Who’s yours?

First author appearance jitters

I have my first author appearance in less than a week. I’ll be at the Baltimore Book Festival, doing a panel on ebooks and the changing nature of publishing, a book signing, and a reading. This is of course a dream come true, to be participating in a book festival as an author, but I’m getting more nervous as the days go by. I hate public speaking. You’d think reading from my own work would be easy (don’t I know all the words by heart now?), but the thought of standing up in front of a crowd give me cold chills. And I do hope there will be at least a small crowd. I’ve recruited a few warm bodies to attend my reading, and with any luck there will be some people I don’t know, maybe new Thief of Hope fans.

My first trial reading to my critique group didn’t go over well. I only got through a couple paragraphs before they made me stop and regroup and rethink my approach. Then we went around the table and everyone read the same paragraphs, much better than I did, I’ll admit. At least that helped me understand what I was doing wrong and gave me some direction. So now it’s practice practice practice. And remember to breathe. And try to look at the audience. And not mispronounce words. And…

Got any tips for a nervous new author? Aside from keeping a flask handy to calm my nerves.