Susan Miura Book Review

Shards of Light by Susan Miura

Review by H. Schussman

Reader’s POV:

Miura pulls the reader through two young ladies’ lives… exciting adventure and heartbreaking tragedy. Each must learn from their situations.

Shilo has inherited her great-grandmother’s gift of healing. This gift is fragile and powerful. Shilo has to learn when to use it and how to make sure she gives credit where credit is due—God. Her time in Sicily is an opportunity to learn from Nonna Marie and to become embroiled in yet another life and death adventure.

Back home, Melody watches her most cherished dreams as a ballerina crash about her damaged body. Her struggle from anger and self pity to acceptance and new dreams is both painful and encouraging to read. Amidst this is her desire to learn who her biological mother is without hurting her sweet real mother.

Best friends, Shilo and Melody grow in maturity, faith, and womanhood. They both learn what true romance is with their respective boyfriends.

Writers POV:

This is a fast read… a page turner. The language of the young adults is modern and relevant, yet the writing is clean and almost poetic at times. Miura masterfully describes the scenery, action, and emotional angst. Here’s some random favorites:

*  “Can I go with you?” His [a little boy] hope-filled eyes stare as though a blink might ruin the possibility of a “yes.”

*  The green, earthy scent of rain-washed garden mixes with lemonade air.

*  My eyes remain closed. I refuse to acknowledge her perky existence.

At first I struggled with the changing POV between Shilo and Melody, but Miura clearly marked the shifts and I soon adapted. It’s especially tricky because Miura writes in first person for both characters. And present tense. It’s not an easy writing style, but she carries it off well.

Great mix of long and short sentences, with a few illegal ones thrown in for good measure. Well done and enjoyable young adult novel.

I received this copy in exchange for an honest review.

EBook, Paperback, Book Cover Questions

How do you publish to so many eBook sites? How did you make your book into a paperback? How do you design a book cover? (I've answered the book cover question in more detail on a previous blog post) I've been asked this by so many people, I don't know who to attribute the question to :)

There’s basically two ways to get your book fully distributed. You can either go to each and every eBook website and download your document file to their library, or just download the document to Smashwords.com. I’m not getting paid by them to write this, but seriously Smashwords is by far the most comprehensive approach. That’s not to say it’s easy. The document must be prepared per their standards… stripped completely clean of any possible corruption. Fortunately, a step-by-step book is free at their website to ensure you can do it properly. Smashwords then takes your perfectly formatted Microsoft Word 97-2003 ‘doc’ (not docx) and formats it for all e-reader devices (each device is different). Believe it or not this is a free service up front. As the sales come in, then they get a portion of the profit. I tried a Fiverr formatter but the guy couldn’t do it right and I ended up doing it myself. Don’t be suckered into their re-assurances that they can do it. Make sure they can, and tell them you won’t pay them if Smashwords doesn’t place you in the premium catalogue.

I’m going to say it again because it’s that important. Follow the Smashwords guidelines exactly. It will probably take you a couple of days. BUT, if you do it right, you will be in their premium catalogue with maximum distribution.

There is only one place who doesn’t accept Smashwords. Can you guess who? Yep, Amazon! When you complete your work at Smashwords, you have to go over to Amazon and follow their instructions. Another couple of days to figure it out. But while you are at Amazon, check out the paperback option at KDP. You have to go to “Author Central” to publish paperback. The great news is they also don’t charge you for the process (which is good because you’re the one doing all the work). They will pay you a percentage. You can choose your price and it calculates your royalty. In the old days, when you had a book made into paperback, you had to purchase cases of books and pile them up in the spare room. Now it’s print on demand. When someone buys your book on Amazon, KDP prints it and then ships it directly to the reader.

Now let’s back up to the question of how to make a book cover. This actually needs to be done before you publish on any site. The easiest way is to go to Fiverr and choose from the hundreds of designers. It’s super cheap (less than $50 usually). At that point bundle your needs for eBook cover, paperback cover, and audio book cover. When you get your cover back you can then publish at Smashwords, Amazon eBook and Amazon paperback.

In my next post I’ll discuss how I got an audio book made…

Guest Post: K. Bartow

Jim Foster (narrator for Audible) asked, "What drew you to writing? What did you hope to accomplish?"

K. Bartow helped me out by answering this question. Thanks Karina for taking the time to give such a thoughtful and inspiring answer.

Like most children, I skipped around from one idea to another with regard to what I wanted to be when I grew up. I went through the usual choices—ballerina, teacher, and carpenter, my dad’s occupation. As I matured, though, I realized my having Cerebral Palsy would impede my success in all of those fields and many others.

When I was nine, my mom took me to meet a children’s book author at our local library. I listened to her speak and could sense her passion for it, sparking something in me. In the days that followed, I pondered it further and discovered I could do that. I was already a gifted student, especially in English class, and even with only one usable hand, I knew I’d make it happen. 

Once again, however, age made me reconsider my aspirations. As I neared adulthood, I resisted doing something “just because” it was almost the only job I could physically do. I didn’t commit to it upon graduating high school, wanting to investigate other options. In the end, my creativity plagued me and pushed me to put the pen to paper—or nowadays, the keyboard to the word processor.

I didn’t have true objectives starting out, other than having a career and being allowed to use my active imagination every day. Sure, I wanted to create works that publishers and readers alike would enjoy, but that concept eluded me for quite a while. Overall, I guess my main goal was to get to know myself and any talent I may have.

Once I began, I saw everything the craft could give me. I could create a whole world and take charge of every twist and turn and outcome, without there being rights or wrongs. I could use the experiences that had hurt me and state the way they affected me or how I wished I could’ve handled them. Regardless of whether anybody would ever read my words or not, it was a therapeutic release and gave me a freedom I had never known before.

Thus, what started as a sort of “career of convenience” has become a lifestyle I truly cherish.

To connect with Karina visit her at:

Website 

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Space Adventure

This adventure began early this morning. We were picked up by a beautiful compact limousine and whisked off to go get Clay Boyce. You may have heard me talk about my newest endeavor… writing a biography? Well Clay Boyce is the subject of that biography. We met him a couple of years ago and were immediately charmed by this guy. It didn’t take me more than ten minutes to realize his story needed to be told. Trust me, as a rocket scientist from the Apollo era, there’s a lot of stories.

We agreed to meet every Tuesday to put his incredible life in writing. I chose to organize the biography in a storytelling format. The reader will join us at the kitchen table and experience his journey in his own words and my response in mine. We’re going on two years now, and he’s going on ninety. Recently he admitted that his Houston days were probably coming to an end. He was debating whether or not he should go to the RNASA black-tie gala for the last time. With the recent loss of his best friend and wife, he would have to go alone. Naturally, being little Miss Adventure herself, I volunteered to go with him. Joe volunteered to carry the bags.

So here we are on a working vacation. The culmination of all the stories Clay’s tried to explain to me about what it was like to be Aerojet’s Chief Engineer on the Apollo Program. We will tour the Space Center, go to old haunts, have dinner with old friends, and party with astronauts (they won’t notice us, but we’ll be there!).

For now we’re enjoying the experience of traveling on Clay’s coat-tails. He uses a wheelchair at the airport, so Joe and I follow him as he’s taken to the front of every line. 

Because he’s a very, very frequent flyer, he gets all the special treatment like pre-boarding and extended leg room… sweet! We also get free booze during the flight, which doesn’t do us any good on a morning flight, but it’s a nice thought.

So, this blog series is a space adventure and it’s mostly about Clay :)

Guest Post: K.S. Mitchell

This is an opportunity for readers to ask questions about our craft. Thanks fellow authors for helping me out! I know you are busy.

Musti asked: Do you pay someone to proofread your work?

Children and YA author, Kimberly Mitchell, responded to this question.

The short answer is no. I've always partnered with other writers in a critique group while I develop my books. Once I hit the stage where the book is ready for beta reading, I ask a few friends. My twin sister has been one of my best beta readers as well. During this process, most of the proofreading gets done. Then I'll do a final version before I send the book out and focus closely on grammar and sentence structure instead of the plot line, trusting that the earlier edits have ironed out the story.

However, I did hire a sensitivity reader to read through a middle grade novel that contains diverse characters. Since one of the characters is black, and I'm not, I wanted to be sure I wasn't falling into stereotypes or presenting the character in any way that might be offensive. I found the reader's feedback valuable and I was able to revise the character accordingly.

If I were to self-publish a book in the future instead of pursuing the more traditional route as I am now, I would definitely hire an editor before I released the book.

How Do You Design a Book Cover?

My friend, John, asked me, “How do you design a book cover?”

Finally a technical question! There’s several different ways to go about it. I designed my first book on the Windows Art program. Honestly, it’s my favorite cover. Unfortunately I had to cave into business pressure and go with a photograph based cover… mainly because my second book had a photo cover.

Speaking of that, my publisher of El Tiburon was amazingly cool to have given me a great book cover. I’ll admit I asked them to stay with my design style, but no. So I had to approve their design, which meant saying no to several models because they didn’t look right.

Eventually I asked them to remove the models from the cover because it looked like a steamy romance (after about two years and multiple complaints from readers that the cover was misleading). Don’t get me wrong… El Tiburon has its romance, but steamy doesn’t quite fit the bill.

My first experience with making a professional quality cover was through a friend who used a Fiverr tech. We made Counterpart’s new cover. Again, I only had yay or nay power. I wanted to have control from the beginning.

For my recently published book, In the Crossfire of Revenge, I contracted with Fiverr all by myself. I felt so grown-up! :) I chose from their long list of book cover specialists based on reviews. I wanted one who allowed for multiple revisions. My lady was in Germany. We dialogued back and forth about how I wanted the cover to look. I was directed to an enormous photo bank to choose the photo I wanted (it took me about a week to decide). Then I sent it to her and she went to work. It took about six revisions until I was satisfied. I love the results… and it only cost me about $45 bucks! She gave me a cover in 3D, a thumbnail for eBook sites, and a square one for the audiobook, and the cover for the paperback.

Then I learned how to make it animated with glittering light using Glitterboo. I think it looks pretty cool on the cover I made for the McGee Series. That one I did using the phone app called Canva. My nephew took an artistic photo of his police gear for me to use. Canva is a great app.

Did you write stories or books when you were a child as well?

Megan Pagan asked, “Did you write stories or books when you were a child as well?"

“I know you ask because you have little ones at home,” I commented.

“That’s what made me think of it. It’s so interesting to hear how some things stick with people since childhood or how people stumble into something they’re passionate about later in life. Also, Levi writes books all the time. It’s so cute.”

I’m going to answer this from two angles: Firstly, did I write as a child and secondly, how to be an encouragement to the little writers in your charge.

My beginnings as a story teller started with just that… story telling (some call this fibs). Plus, I was an avid reader from childhood and was encouraged to relate what I’d read to my family. We all loved ghost stories and would sit around the campfire (we camped a lot) telling goose bumpy tales. Even when I was little I was expected to tell a ghost story. My dad was a bit of a prankster, and loved to tell us tall tales just to see how much we’d believe. We would sit around for hours and tell jokes. To add to that environment, my mom had the nickname, “Little Miss Adjective.” She could describe things to death! It was never a simple cloud in the sky… it was a puff of dragon’s breath chasing a dream! Or some other equally extravagant description. A favorite game on road trips was Mad Lib. Have you ever played that? It’s a fun way to engage the whole family in silly creativity.

English classes were always my easy classes. I started a couple of really, really cheesy romance novels in high school. I’ve kept them for a good laugh. My college coursework required an English class so I took creative writing. My professor challenged me to clean up the cute little stories I wrote, and to get serious. He felt I had the potential to be a writer. I was going to college to become a physical therapist, not a writer. It turns out there’s a lot of writing going on in that career. I found I had a skill for documentation and Medicare rebuttals.

In the meantime I had an intense dream bordering on nightmare that woke me up from a dead sleep. I wrote down the dream and that was the first chapter of my first serious work of literature—Counterpart. It took a decade to write while going to college and then working, but I finally did it.

My recommendation to parents of any child who writes is to let them write. Don’t correct anything they write. Even if you’re an English teacher. Writing can be taught, but creatively expressing yourself cannot. It’s a natural instinct (I think in everyone) that should be allowed to develop young. If a child thinks their ideas are stupid, they will usually stop. Let their teachers teach them the rules later in life. If a child shows you something they wrote, my recommendation is to make a private moment and have them read it to you.

Listen with sincerity. Question things that don’t make sense graciously. They can become good when they’re twenty. I also think this teaches them to start writing projects without getting too hung up on how it should turn out. That’s paralyzing. There’s nothing wrong with being overly confident when they’re ten! Trust me when they go to publish their first book they will become humble.

Okay, I’m stepping down off my soapbox now :)

How do you select the names of your characters?

Debra Lewis and Kelly Spencer asked: How do you select the names of your characters?

Good question. It really depends on the character. I choose names based on personality, age, and nationality. For basic American characters, I just name them whatever seems right. I may (probably will) change my mind and go with a different name before I publish it. I may feel I have too many people with names starting in M. Or the names are too similar in cadence, such as Harry, Larry, and Gary. That can be confusing to a reader. So I’ll go back and change Harry to Hank. It still fits the age group and style of the name, but sounds different.

Sometimes the character just has a name. When I change the name for my reasons I feel guilty. For example in The Crossfire of Revenge the youth pastor’s name is Pastor Tim. Period. That’s his name. I know this guy in real life. When I’d completely finished the book, I changed his name from Tim to Tom. Mainly because I didn’t want people to think it was a true story about Tim… though he was the inspiration behind the character.

If it’s a really important character with a major role (especially an evil role), or a deceptive character, I’ll refer to Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon. This gives a breakdown of names by country of origin and what the name means. For a character who will seem good but is actually evil, I’ll choose a name meaning “trustworthy” or “noble.” If the character is immediately evil and remains so, I’ll choose a name meaning “dark” or “deceptive.” Sometimes it will be based on modern perceptions, such as Adolph, or Damien, which are both considered dark names. Sadly, Adolph is actually a cool name meaning “noble wolf,” and Damien means “untamed.”

Otherwise I just surf the web, especially if I’m looking for a teen name of let’s say an Italian girl: Sofia, Emma, Chiara, Aurora…. Or maybe I’m looking for a cool upbeat name for a teen boy? I’ll search teen movie stars: Keegan, Skylar, Jake, Penn…. 

There’s lots of different ways to choose a name, but each name is important. As I said earlier, I may change a character’s name a couple of times. My name for example has very specific meanings. Heidi means “female warrior,” Schussman means “sharp shooter” (it was the ancient title for the dude who sat up in the turret and shot arrows down at the bad guys trying to invade his master’s castle), and Gilbert means “shield.” So I’m a female warrior, sharp shooter, with a shield! Hmmm… now maybe you understand why I write espionage :)

Where do you write?

Debbie Bailey asked; Where is your favorite place to sit back and write?

The short answer; wherever I can find the right ergonomics. I usually like to sit bolt upright with my laptop on the surface in front of me. Sometimes I slouch way back in a lawn chair and prop my laptop on my... lap. Another option for me is to stand at a counter, or I place my laptop on an up-ended box on the table.

Most of my effective writing is done at a local Marriott Hotel Starbucks. I can sit for hours and be stimulated by the constant parade of people but never get interrupted by a friend. It’s just noisy enough to be white noise. If it’s absolutely quiet, I can be productive. The only time I cannot write is if there’s someone near me and I can hear everything they’re saying… I’m a compulsive eavesdropper! Trust me, if I can hear you, I’m listening to your conversation.

However, I’m not always home. I write a travel blog (Dashing Bold Adventure), so I write all over the world. Wherever I am, I make it work. In the old days I would find an internet cafe and pay for 30 minutes on their computer. That's when I developed speed! It would always take a few minutes to figure out the keyboard. Not every keyboard is a QWERTY. 

The Spanish speaking countries have the ñ on their board. Then to add to the fun the keys are often so worn out, you can’t read them :)

When we're abroad for months at a time, I find some spot that works for me... The terrace on the hotel roof in Puerto Escondido, the open bar at Columbus Isle/Club Med, an adorable cafe in Florence, the covered porch of our bungalow overlooking Lake Atitlan, a coffee shop in Guanajauto MX, etc… What I write varies depending on the amount of time I’m going to be in one place. I don’t do well with my novels if we’re on the move a lot.

How do you start a book?

Lynn Takacs asked this question, via Facebook, regarding a photo of me holding up three of my paperbacks, “How did you start out on each one?”

Well Lynn, that’s a bigger question than it appears. Naturally, I’ve been writing stuff for most of my life, but my first book was Counterpart. Of course each book has its mental launching point. That being said each one is unique.

For Counterpart, I actually had a super intense dream. Maybe another person would call it a nightmare… you decide. I was at the mall. I’d gone to pick up a friend who worked in a jewelry store. It was one of those posh, quiet stores with the whooshing glass doors. While I waited for to get off work a man came in a demanded a “Box.” The owner said no and got shot. Chaos ensued with my friend screaming bloody murder. I bravely crawled over to the owner (amazing how brave we can be in dreams!). He thrust the box into my hands and told me to run. So I did. I dashed across the parking lot amidst a shower of bullets, scrambled over a fence, hurtled obstacles, could hear the chase, and somehow I ended up in a ramshackle rundown neighborhood. Spotting an abandoned house, I dashed through the broken front door and ran up the steps to the top floor—the attic. I can still remember how I could hear the blood pounding in my ears in that dream. Suddenly a little old woman’s voice broke the silence as she simply said, “Hello.” It scared me so bad, I woke up. I got up and went into my office and wrote it all down. That’s the first chapter of Counterpart, more-or-less. It took years for me to finish that book because I was working full time as a physical therapist.

The next book, El Tiburon, was a combination of things. First I ran into a constant question… How’s Sport and Sean doing? Are they having any new adventures? I hadn’t anticipated the popularity of these characters, especially Sport (she’s a feisty, tiny physician—athletic and hypoglycemic—she became a favorite). The second impetus was a visit to Guatemala. This was the first time I’d heard of the Guajeros (the inhabitants living at the garbage dump in Guatemala City). I’m a studier of people, obviously, and I began researching their plight. I became enamored with their bravery. At the same time I fell in love with the ancient city of Antigua. We stayed a month. So this all describes the background, but the starting point was sitting down to the laptop and typing. I had no idea what the story was going to be about… actually didn’t know what the story was about most of the time. I’ve had many readers ask how I create so much suspense? LOL… It’s because I’m in suspense as the author!

In The Crossfire of Revenge was Joe’s idea. He actually wrote the first chapter. I altered it considerably, but in essence it’s his chapter, actually half the chapter. He had great ideas and input for this story about a youth group going on a short-term mission trip. He’s been on several as a chaperone, and he’s been to Colombia a couple of times with a men’s group. I combined his knowledge of Colombia with my knowledge of the jungle in Costa Rica to create the scenes. This story is a coming of age story for the eight teenagers. It starts with an attempted kidnapping of the youth pastor and four of the kids. Then the group escapes into the jungle with the aid of the local church. Sean and Sport McGee are the chaperones. Naturally no one but Sport knows Sean is a CIA agent. With this book I had to research jungle survival, and thanks to Jesse Smith at River City Christian I learned how a large church would typically handle this kind of catastrophe.

Please ask questions using any means you feel like using. I will post your question here.

Do I need an ISBN?

Periodically I get questions from people on social media. I try to answer them immediately. Recently I realized these are good questions and as I get repeatedly asked the same question, I'm guessing they are relevant. So, if you're interested in this crazy world of writing, stay tuned.

Musti asked via Instagram;

“Quick question: I am about to finish my manuscript and wanted to self publish it through Amazon. Do I register somewhere the title? Do I need an ISBN? And how do I get one? Merci.”

Let’s start with the first sentence. Congratulations on your manuscript being almost completed. You’re wise to ask these questions now. I will answer your questions in a brutally honest way because I want a large audience of readers to benefit from it. If I’m reading this correctly, you haven’t actually finished the manuscript (though it’s possible you mean you’re just putting the finishing touches on it). If that’s the case, then you’re a long ways from done. In this new world of indie publishing, the bar is set much higher for the author. We no longer have a publisher to hold our hands, edit and polish our work, or to tell us it won’t sell… no marketability. The manuscript has to be excellent only because that’s what you want. You can publish garbage. That worked ten years ago, but now the readers have caught on. They pay attention to reviews. Now we have to take a good long look at our books first. (I plan to answer the question of ‘How do I get my book ready on my own’ at a later date.)

Do I register somewhere the title?

Art of any sort is protected and doesn’t need to be registered. That includes fiction. However, that being said, I would register your manuscript if it’s a manual, guide, or advice/self help work. The only reason I say that is the titles need to be unique with that type of work. Lots of people can come up with the same guidebook or manual.

Fiction is not the same. Plus you have your computer date imprint on the file. If somebody says, “Hey, that’s the book I wrote!” you have proof on your computer. I periodically email myself the file to establish the date, ownership, and to preserve it in the cloud. Of course I also keep my work on an external hard drive in my safe. All of these have dates that point to you being the owner.

Do I need an ISBN?

Yep! Each and every book out there must have an ISBN, otherwise the powers-that-be wouldn’t be able to track them and their sales, etc.. Actually according to Smashwords, each format should have its own ISBN—e-book, paperback, and audiobook. However, Amazon doesn’t agree. They don’t mind if you use your ISBN from Smashwords… I know because I accidentally did it. I wrote to them in a panic, and they wrote back saying it didn’t matter to them.

And how do I get one?

There are places to purchase an ISBN, but why would you do that? Amazon and Smashwords provide you with a free one. Those two are pretty much the entire market. Amazon sells to all Kindle readers and Amazon customers. Smashwords sells to every reading-device everywhere, including Kindle and distributes to all the large e-book sites like Apple. As you go through the steps to upload your book to KDP Amazon, or to Smashwords, the instructions will ask you if you want their free ISBN. Don’t worry, you won’t miss it. The site won’t move forward until one is provided.

Good luck and keep the questions coming via FB, Instagram, this blog, or Goodreads. I'll post the answers here, but I'll try to answer them specific to your situation privately.