All posts by vica

Countdown to the first self-published novel: 6 – Happy ending to an emotional roller-coaster

March 24, 2015Books I write, Favorite quotesvica

The countdown continues. SIX.

The process:

I finished proof-reading my book on Kindle.

If you would like to experience your adrenaline values jump from maximum to minimum and back, here is my recommendation: write a book, improve it as much as you can, then compile it as an e-book or a paperback and read the result. An emotional roller-coaster is guaranteed.

In my case I had the following thoughts, while reading my book. “Wow, did I write this? It is really good!” Followed by, “What’s this? How could I have made such a mistake? This is so bad! Should I publish something like this?” And then back to a high slope and back down. And so on, and so on.

The happy ending to this roller-coaster is that I am still going to publish my book.

There are two reasons for this.

First, I have shared my process with so many people and so many support me in the process that giving up is impossible. I guess my dear supporters will only stop asking about it when I’ll tell them that the book has been published. I bet that shortly after they will start asking me about the second book. Being supported like this is one of main fuels for an author to keep going.

And the second reason is that I am extremely curious where to this whole journey will bring me. I am curious about every step, every crawl, ever millimeter on this path. Of course I have dreams of many liking and buying my book, but I am thrilled when I discover one more person, one more friend following my blog or postings on the Facebook and commenting on what I have written.

It is so exciting to be able to touch someone’s heart and hear in return. I don’t think there is a higher reward for a writer than this.

Quote/Excerpt:

Speaking of happy endings. I love them, but I also love referencing to them ironically. My favourite flying quote about happy endings is the one my sister often uses. I like it so much that I had to use an interpretation of it in my book. See an excerpt from Chapter 39.

***

I sighed. “… I don’t want a lack of food to be the reason that I marry.”

“What should the reason be? Love?” When I didn’t answer, Efim shrugged and said, “You read too many books. I know that many of them are science fiction, like those of your idol Alexei Tolstoy, but they aren’t any better than those films where our army wins and the two heroes marry.”

***

Call to action/question after the quote: How do you refer to happy endings without calling them as such directly?

Picture:

One of my father’s greatest happy endings or rather happy beginnings was meeting my mother, falling for her and being loved in return. This is a picture from their wedding in 1962.

Countdown to the first self-published novel: 7 – How to enjoy chocolate

March 17, 2015Books I read, Books I writevica

The countdown continues. SEVEN.

The process:

The edits are complete! My wonderful editor, Alice Jago, has sent me the last ones yesterday. I’ll incorporate them today or tomorrow.

Along with working on edits, I am learning formatting my novel as an e-book and as a paperback. It is amazing how many things need to be taken into account. And they are extremely interesting.

Have you for example ever noticed that most of novels on paper have first paragraph in a chapter without indentation and the rest are indented? I have never noticed this until challenged but Tim C. Taylor in his book on formatting for CreateSpace (Amazon’s daughter business for self-publishing paperback books). He challenged his readers to go and check the novels on one’s bookshelf and when I did it with many books on my shelf I found that he was right.

The same is with page numbers.

“If you are publishing a conventional novel, most people will never read the page numbers.” Tim C. Taylor in “Format YOUR Print Book with Createspace …and Lulu, using Microsoft Word”.

True. The page numbers are only observed when they are missing. I’ve learned that there are mostly two practices with page numbers. One is to place them centred in the footer and another in the header in the outer corners, while the book’s title and author’s name are in the middle of odd and even numbered pages, correspondingly. I haven’t decided yet, which to choose, the most important criteria here being, that they don’t attract too much attention.

It is amazing how we do not notice details when everything is to our comfort, but as soon as even a tiny thing is amiss, we notice it.

The same is with writing itself: as soon as we are torn out of the story and notice the written word, we wrinkle our noses. Although we do forgive our favourite authors for a mistake or two. Also a smooth flow of a story for one reader might become a trip full with tripping hazards for another. I am quite excited to further try my pen to create flowing and captivating stories.

Quote:

We learn many of our habits from our parents, and we give them further to our children. Many of these habits relate to how we enjoy our food. We learn traditional meals and we learn how our parents enjoyed various treats. If you ask me what is the best way to enjoy dark chocolate, then you will always get the same answer: with white bread. This is how my father taught me to eat it. He used to say that it tastes best like this. And I agree. Although, I do suspect today that he enjoyed chocolate with bread and taught us to do so in order not to let usually small amounts of chocolate, we could buy on a rare occasion in Soviet Union, disappear at once in our mouths.

With the quote and scene below from Chapter 20, I wanted to capture this tradition invented and introduced by my father.

***

I never tasted chocolate at the orphanage. The first time I did was in Odessa, when Anatolii shared a small chocolate bar his mother had sent him.

I remembered breaking the dark, almost black chocolate, into small pieces, almost crumbs, on a slice of bread. For that occasion we had bought several pieces of white bread, instead of the usual grey. The gentleness of the bread’s soft flesh and the sweet but bitter taste of the chocolate had made me forget for a moment where I was. When I opened my eyes, I saw Anatolii’s, Nikita’s and Anya’s closed eyes, happy faces and soon finished slices of bread and chocolate in their hands. We laughed to tears when we opened our eyes and saw one another doing the same thing. We all agreed that combined with the tea, this was one of the best meals we’d ever had.

***

Call to action after the quote: If you ever try to enjoy dark chocolate like this, let me know how you liked it. And if you have another particular way how to enjoy chocolate, I would be very curious to read in the comments.

Pictures:

Candy, chocolate, ice-cream. These are the words, and in this sequence, used by my mother when she addresses my children in Romanian. I simply have to share these pictures of my two sweeties playing together.

Countdown to the first self-published novel: 8 – A writer’s dream

March 9, 2015Books I writevica

The countdown continues. EIGHT.

The process:

What happens when a writer’s just about to publish her first novel, this novel is set up in Soviet Union, and she loves watching Graham Norton’s shows on YouTube?

She ends up dreaming of Vladimir Mayakovsky, a Russian and Soviet poet, who wrote about the greatness of the revolution and the Soviet Union, looking in her dream very much like Jamie Oliver, sitting on the red sofa, two pretty young women at each side eagerly listening to him reciting a poem of how his goal is to be himself and serve his country. And this writer woke up realizing that the poem in her dream was in Russian. So she started searching her memories and Internet for this poem. To no avail. Should she start writing some herself?

Quote:

I think the following quote from Chapter 4 somehow contributed for my dream to appear.

***

Fedea looked at me. “Yes. Do you remember, I told you about the mark of two I almost got for Russian Literature, and how learning by heart three additional poems by Pushkin and six by Mayakovsky saved me from it?”

***

Note to the quote above: I still remember some parts of Eugene Onegin, by Alexander Pushkin, we learned by heart at school. Girls learned parts by Tatiana, and boys had to learn what Eugene was supposed to say. I forgot all Mayakovsky I knew. I did have challenges remembering his poems, because for me they didn’t have particular rhythm or rhyme, although the textbooks claimed something different. But I do remember that I liked one or two of his poems, and that he even had some very lyrical pieces too. This was quite a discovery at that time for me, because he was mainly known for his revolution-colored verses.

Picture:

My father loved reading. He made many notes with quotes he wanted to remember. And he had his birth date set up to the birth date of his favourite writer. You will find more on this in the novel. 🙂 Or maybe also in one of the future posts. This photograph confirms my father’s love for books from his early age. On the picture he is the boy with the book in his hands.

Countdown to the first self-published novel: 9 – Little March

March 2, 2015Books I writevica

The countdown continues. NINE.

The process:

It was easy to decide what to quote this month. We have a tradition in Moldova, to give small talismans to friends and family on the first of March, which symbolize love and friendship and how everything is entwined in life. But the curious thing is that without a hint from my editor, I would not have much to quote on this. I got the corresponding edits yesterday and found that I did write about this tradition by naming it but not by explaining what it actually is. I was very grateful that my editor pointed the places, where such explanation and description would suit best. And as per magic, my fingers started moving over the keyboard and composing the scene. See below.

It is incredibly wonderful that we have prompts for creativity everywhere. We just need to see or feel them. And if we don’t see but need to, then life will make us see them anyway. And sometimes, it does it quite gently, in form of a kind advice from a good friend.

Quote:

This is a quote from Chapter 27. As mentioned above, it is about Moldovan tradition of Mărţişor. The whole book including this chapter, but except the prologue, is written in the first person from the point of view of the protagonist, Misha Ikizli, based on my father.

Most of this quote as not edited yet. So, please disregard any apparent failures.

***

Zina glanced at me briefly and then looked out again at the shady veranda. “Only a few weeks before, Ion and I had been in Tiraspol buying red and white wool for the Mărţişori. It was almost time for the children to start making them for their teachers and friends.”

I nodded. I remembered well how we would all sit together braiding red and white threads into strings, then making little men and women or flowers out of the same wool, binding these to the ends of the red and white strings, and finally making a small bow on each of those strings. How we gave these little Marches, these special little talismans, to each other on the first day of March. How we made wishes, when we bound them to tree branches on April first. And how our teachers had a whole display of Mărţişori decorating the left sides of their jackets and sweaters through the whole March. Mărţişor from every child had its place of honor on a teacher’s cloth.

Misha used to hide when he was making one for me. He wanted it to be a surprise. I always made small pompons out of the wool before binding them to a white- and red-braided string.

***

Note to the scene above: Misha mentioned in the scene is Misha Fiodorov, one of the best friends of Misha Ikizli at the orphanage.

Pictures:

1) Some Mărţişori, I made this year. 2) A pompon Mărţişor, I made last year. The idea to make it came from remembering my father’s ability to make perfect pompons. 3) You can see for yourself on the third picture with me in a jumper knitted by my mother and pompons made by my father. My father took me shortly after we came back from Algeria in 1982 to a photo studio to have this picture taken. Wishing all wonderful March and spring!

Countdown to the first self-published novel: 10

February 24, 2015Books I writevica

I love countdowns to the books by my favourite authors.

And now I am starting my very own countdown!

While starting into space they start with 10, so I will also start with ten. Self-publishing my very first novel is for me not less than starting a space shuttle or a rocket into space. If anything, it feels like much more.

Since this is a weekly post and we start as bespoke with 10, my first novel “The Truth about Family” will be available for purchase as an e-book and in print in ten weeks or less. My goal is to publish it this spring and I give myself ten weeks to do so.

Please excuse me if I forget and sneak a blog post outside of the countdown series. I am sure you will enjoy those too. Apart from that there will be some shortcuts in the countdown as well, like one post for 6 and 5 for example. Or maybe it will be 3 and 2? I have no idea when this will be. We will discover this together.

The countdown will be about the process of self-publishing. I find it so exciting, that I simply have to share it. And I will share some quotes from the book, with each of these posts. Further I will share photographs of my father, which are mentioned in the book, and/or which inspired various scenes in the book.

So, here it goes…

The process:

I am working with a wonderful editor on my book and enjoy seeing the transformation of the text in the book. It is the same text, the same story, but better. Difficult to describe. Yes, as many writers I was scared to open the edited files, but when I started going through them change by change, I started to enjoy what I saw. Very inspiring experience.

The cover is also almost ready. My family were the main advisers in brainstorming the cover. My editor, who is also the cover designer, has brought the whole cover to a very rounded concept.

More details on the whole team of helpers and supporters of the book will be of course in the acknowledgments section.

I will learn formatting the inside of the book soon. The text-books and resources found are in place. I am quite excited to see how the book’s text will take shapes of an e-book and a book for print. It is scary, but very exciting. If you are interested what I will use for it, here is the information. I will use the widely used writer’s software Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/). I must admit I became its addict. It is fun to use and write in it. This blog post is also written using Scrivener.

Quote:

Today I will share not a quote directly, but the back cover blurb of the book. I think it worth sharing in order to introduce the book to the new readers and remind the supporters of this page what it is about. At some point this description will replace the one on the homepage. But right now, you are the first to read the almost ready draft.

Misha lost his family.
He can’t rest until he has found them,
if only to find himself.

Inspired by true events in the life of the author’s father, Mihail Ikizli, this remarkable novel tells the story of an orphanage graduate, who set out from a village in Soviet Moldova, to the University of Odessa, Ukraine, in the hopes of finding the family he had lost as a toddler during World War II.

His quest will not be in vain. But will what he discovers bring him a much longed-for peace, or will it only bring him misery? Little does Misha know what he will find out – not only of his own past, but also about the orphanage; a place he believed he had left behind for ever.

Picture:

Working at the orphanage’s workshop. My father is the first from the right.