Jade Varden Official Blog

I've avoided writing about this subject in all possible ways, and believe me I could have kept my head buried in sand much longer. But the question cropped up recently during a standard interview, and I've been thinking about it ever since. So today we writers have to ask ourselves a question: where does race belong in books? This Land is Your Land Some literary characters are very clearly defined when it comes to race. James Patterson has never made it a secret that Alex Cross, his main protagonist, is a black man. Tony Hillerman writes about Native American heroes. But did any of the Harry Potter books implicitly state that he's a white boy? Race is often implied in books, more than stated, and that's my personal approach. Through descriptions, it's possible to convey race without stating it outright. A pasty or pale-skinned character can be a presumed Caucasian. The phrase "coffee-colored" appears a lot with African-American charact...

Every time you sit down at your keyboard to write a book, and actually do it, you've won a battle. Writing a book isn't just about finding a pretty way to put the words down on the page. It's not just about entertaining, or educating, or agenda-pushing. It's about defeating that little voice inside yourself that tells you you're crazy for thniking you can write a book.  Every writer faces insecurity. And when you keep writing anyway, you're winning the battle...but you're not ever going to win the war.  Fooling the World It takes a certain amount of bravery to put a book out there for someone else to read, whether you're self-publishing and inviting the world at large to judge your words or you're asking your closet friend to take a look at some chapters. It's frightening to put yourself in another person's hands like that.  Insecurity stops lots of would-be writers from pursuing their dreams, and it trips up even the mos...

In the world of the theater, a term developed to describe the invisible but very real barrier in front of the stage. A classic stage is made up of three sides -- a back, and two wings. The front of the stage is open, but that doesn't mean it's passable. This part of the stage is protected by the invisible barrier that puts the audience on one side, and the performer on the other.  This is what's known as the Fourth Wall. And when you're in indie author mode , you're on one side of it. Everyone else in the world is on the other. In other words, you have to learn how to maintain your professionalism -- and that means holding some of yourself back from the world...maybe even most of yourself. I'm Rubber, and You're Glue Now, the phrase Fourth Wall is generally used to refer to movies and television. The Fourth Wall separates us, the viewers, from those who are entertaining us on the screen. They're acting something out for us to see...

Indie authors should always have their own space on the web, and a blog is the easiest option. But if you aren't using it to sell books, you're wasting your own time. Always Selling Authors are salesmen (or women). Yes, all of them -- that includes you. It's your job to think about selling books, or finding ways to give them away for free, at all times. You're not doing this to make money , because you're probably not going to make a lot of money so don't waste time on that ambition. You're doing it so that you get read, and that's the ultimate goal of any author. You want people to read.  To facilitate that, you've got to get them to buy. So use your blog, because it's yours. You've got to pay money for Facebook ads, and you've got to spend a lot of time with Twitter to get big results from that. You put a ton of work into being an indie author because you write your books, and edit them and put them together beautifully...

When you need to move a story forward, it's tempting to start looking backward. But this is a slippery slope, and it might keep you from finishing that book.  Don't Look Down You know that moment in the movies when Character B is walking across some narrow piece of something-or-other over a dangerous chasm of doom -- and they're just one freefall away from being at the bottom of it? Character C, like an idiot, always hollers out "don't look down!" Inevitably, Character B looks down. More than half the time, it makes them fall or otherwise screw up what they're attempting to do.  So the last thing I want to do is tell you not to look back when you're writing a book...but don't. You have to keep writing forward. Remember that it's just a first draft, and doesn't have to be perfect . It's not going to be perfect in the first draft anyway, no matter how long you take to write it. In the first draft, you may not have all the ...

Hobbies are fun. They're what you choose to do when you don't have anything you have to do. But when you make the leap to indie author, writing is no longer your hobby. It's not your job (in most cases, it's only one of the jobs you have). And to be good at it, you have to learn how to sacrifice. Your Books, Yourself When you work all day at a job, and I'm going to go ahead and assume that you don't get to write novels all day at your job, you're going to be tired when it's finally over. You might be frustrated, grumpy, all sorts of stuff. You might be looking forward to some relaxation time, maybe doing a little unwinding with some video games or a movie.  Forget it. If you're an indie author, your second work day just begins when the regular work day ends. You can't play games or watch a movie, because you have plots to imagine and pages to type and paragraphs to edit -- so get to it. And when the weekend rolls around? Well, ...

Too many people have no idea that Fast Times at Ridgemont High was a book before it was a movie. Those who have read it largely agree that it's even better than the famous film, yet the book is currently out print. If you haven't been exposed to it, you've truly missed out on one of the most authentic high school stories ever told. The Book Cameron Crowe is a talented writer who got an early start (the film Almost Famous is loosely based on his life). While working for Rolling Stone , Crowe went undercover at a high school while in his early twenties in order to research Fast Times at Ridgemont High . He attended for an entire school year, and a very memorable book and movie were the result. The book itself very closely resembles the movie, but the story has much more depth. Linda and other characters become less shallow on the page, and there's much more dialogue and interaction. Since it's out of print, you'll have a hard time finding a ...

If you've got strange writing habits, don't worry. Many great authors did lots of weird things while they were writing. Maybe one day, your weird habits will become the stuff of literary legend.  Getting Weird to Write Do you have any of the strange habits of brilliant authors who have come before you? If you write lying down, you've got something in common with Truman Capote. The Breakfast at Tiffany's author said he had to write horizontally. He wrote in longhand, and began every morning sipping coffee as he wrote. By the time evening rolled around, he'd moved to martinis.  T.S. Eliot wanted to be called "Captain Eliot" while he wrote in a room above a publishing house in the 1920s. He had another writing hideaway in the city where he was known as "The Captain." According to legend, he wore green powder on his face to look "cadaverous" while he wrote. Dan Brown, who penned the Da Vinci Code , wakes daily at 4...