Amanda Hocking on Self-Publishing

A lot of authors tend to over market or they don’t take criticisms very well. They think that their book is perfect. They don’t want to get bogged down with editing or covers, because they think their book is so good. Or they market too hard. All they do is talk about their book and nobody wants to hear, ‘Buy my book.’ They want to have a conversation with you … Also, new writers respond to negative reviews and have great catastrophic meltdowns. You can’t respond to reviews at all except to say ‘thank you for reading the book.’ That’s the best you can do; otherwise, you’re just going to look bad even if the reviewer is totally out of line.

The rest of the article is here.

What's Fantasy FOR?

Author Sylvia Kelso is hosting "The Great Travelling Guest Blog Fantasy Round Table," in which I am participating. The first question was: "One Step Sideways: What's Fantasy FOR?" Here's my response:

What is any fiction for? The earliest recorded stories were, after all, fantasy -- The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Akkadian Legend of Etana, The Odyssey and The Iliad, -- bold, imaginative tales all. Fiction as the literal representation of "real life" is a fairly modern affectation, whereas tales of imagination -- whether they involve the fantastical or not -- have endured for millennia. I will allow that in the most ancient literary traditions, "fantasy" as we understand it today did not exist. It's a dicey thing to lump together creation stories and other sacred texts, some of which still hold significance today as religious literature, with myths and legends of bygone cultures, not to mention ghost stories and tall tales.

So I think the question the becomes Why do we as humans tell stories? Whether we are published authors or not, we do it all the time, and most of us love reading or listening to stories as well. Children play by making up stories, and we're always telling ourselves the stories of our lives in order to make sense of them. Fiction, "story-ness," has the quality of organizing events into an emotional shape. In this way, stories are different from essays or vignettes or diaries, although these can provide fascinating reading and a wealth of insights. In a sense, all stories are fantasy, whether they include specifically supernatural elements or not. They rely upon a sort of emotional telepathy; that is, the story elements -- character, plot, setting, dialog -- evoke an experience in the mind of the reader. Because we humans are not passive in how we read or listen to stories, we experience them with and through our imaginations. We bring our own histories, our dreams and fears and aspirations, our interests and antipathies, to that experience. Fantasy by its very nature includes more of the "life of the imagination and spirit" than does narrowly "realistic" description.

Think of how figures of speech work and how powerful they are at communicating ideas. We say, "sky high" or "dog tired," "as dead as a doornail," "as stubborn as a mule." "The woman or man of my dreams" might be literally true, but more often expresses a hope and a yearning yet to be experienced. Here the comparisons are limited to a single image or two, a few words. A fantasy story is like an extended metaphor. This is not to say that every element represents some deep psychological phenomenon. Good fantasy -- that is, a whopping good tale that also works on the level of symbol and archetype -- expands and enriches the world of the reader. The difference between "ordinary" "realistic" fiction and fantasy is that the former can take you on a walk around a city, and the latter can take you on a walk around the city of your secret dreams. The former can teach us about the world we live in every day, but fantasy can teach us about our selves, the full range of what it means to be alive and human.

Inherent in any fantasy tale is the whispered promise that things don't have the be the way they have always been. That from the moment you open the cover, something will change. It may be the relief of an afternoon's boredom, but it may be something much more. It may be the moment of realizing that you are not alone, that you are not the only one who has ever wished for a particular adventure or a magical companion.

"May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out," Galadriel says to Frodo as she gives him the light of Eärendil's star. That is also what fantasy is for.

I found the other responses thoughtful and moving. Check it out!