From Polished to Published - a guest post by Clara Frost

I am, as yet, completely unpublished. I haven't even self-published anything, at least not yet. And since this month's theme is From Polished to Published, I asked my friend Clara to talk about her experience on the matter. Here's Clara:

Let’s assume you've finished a book. Inciting incident, midpoint, climax, resolution, The End. A book. You've read it and edited it and polished it until even your mother is sick of hearing about it. This is A Good Book. A book that will make waves, if only an agent or an editor would give it the time of day. All this is a given, because you wrote it. Of course it’s awesome.

But you’re not willing to wait for an editor. Or maybe you have waited, and you’re tired of waking up to an empty inbox. And say, wasn't 50 Shades being fan fiction originally? You can do better than, right, and how hard is this whole self-publishing thing, anyway?

A question, my fellow inkslinger: is this your first book?

If the answer here is yes, then consider this: TSwift is right. Haters gonna hate. But consider also: your first book is not nearly as good as you think it is. Unless you have spent a decade in the arts or journalism, there are flaws in your book that you are not capable of seeing yet. So please, for the sake of you-five-years-from-now, think long and hard about self-publishing your very earliest work.
That little piece of hard-earned advice out of the way, the question is: how do I do this thing?

It’s really not too hard, and it all comes down to time and money. You need four things to self-publish a book.

1. Editing. Yes, yes, you've edited your book already. It’s polished until it gleams. If you've had multiple other people reading it specifically for copy issues, then you might be okay. But if not, I recommend finding a freelance copy editor. The book business, sad to say, is not the best paying gig in town, and many folks that edit your favorite authors will be happy to accept your special snowflake... for a fee.
2. A Cover. While you can create your own cover, it probably isn't the best idea if you want to attract readers. If you choose the DIY route, check out the videos Jason Gurley created in early 2015. They offer a great starting point. If you choose to have someone else create your covers, be ready to do some research and to pay a pretty penny. Kboards is a great place to start. An inexpensive, premade cover can often be had for around $50, but a more professional cover is often $500 and goes up from there.
3. A blurb. Go read the other blurbs in your genre. Copy and paste them. Retype them with your characters and conflicts. Get a feel for how they flow, and how they hook the reader. The best thing you can do here is to write something that fits with the other books in the genre.
4. Formatting. This can actually be done fairly well by an average writer, using software tools you already have. Scrivener will produce very reasonable epub and mobi files as outputs. Even a decently formatted Word document will be converted by the major e-tailors and look alright.

There entire books about self-publishing that cover these items in even more detail. Two that I particularly like are Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran and Write. Publish. Repeat. by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant, and David Wright.

Good luck, my fellow inkslingers. This writing game isn't for the faint of heart, and neither is self-publishing, but the steps here will help you avoid the most common pitfalls.

Clara Frost tells you all about kissing

This week we decided on a theme of kissing in books and especially kissing scenes. I have literally no experience writing kissing scenes and I was starting to worry about finding anything to say on the topic until I realized: I have the option of ringing a friend. Enter Clara Frost, romance author extraordinaire. I decided to interview her to get help in writing romance into scenes.

Fool's Gold by Clara Frost

How do you decide when the characters should be kissing and when to go further?
Authors tend to be categorized in one of two ways: plotters and pantsers. Plotters start a new story by working out what will happen in broad strokes, refining down until they know their direction for anywhere from a few chapters to the whole book, and only then do they begin writing. Pantsers write by the seat of their pants, making it up as they go along. While there are shades of gray between the two, I fall on the side of the plotters most of the time.

Because of this, I know at the beginning who my hero and heroine are, how their relationship will develop, and how far I want their intimacy to go in each scene. Take Fool’s Gold, for example. The story is about two relationships: Trent and Victoria, and Victoria and Beta. I wanted Trent and Victoria’s to be fast and steamy and ultimately unsustainable, but Victoria and Beta to start of much slower and grow into something that meant more at the end. Victoria and Trent start with a touch and a kiss and then fall right into bed. Beta, on the other hand, cares deeply about Victoria, and is afraid of hurting her, so he will hardly touch her until much later.

How much set up do you do for any expressions of physical intimacy?
This is a place where I think fiction and reality have much in common. Intimacy is as much mental as it is physical, and the best intimacy is preceded by plenty of anticipation. In fiction this may mean multiple encounters culminating with one grand climax late in the story, or it may mean a much earlier scene that is slower paced and more drawn out, but ends just as steamy.

Of course, fiction and reality are both sometimes too fast and too messy, and the consequences of a deed may be more entertaining than the deed itself.

Do you have any pet peeves regarding kissing scenes in romance or non-romance stories?
Boredom. I hate boredom in all forms of fiction, but a story that beats me over the head with how perfect a hero is, and then he turns out to be a perfect kisser, too, I feel like I've wasted my time. There are certain tropes most romances follow, and when an author can give me a new take on those tropes, I’ll love them forever.

What do you consider to be the most important aspect of scenes featuring physical intimacy?
It has to have a purpose, preferably more than one. Intimate scenes should give the reader insight into all characters in the scene, it should move the plot of the story forward, and it should surprise me. To me, there’s nothing worse than two characters meeting, go straight into a steamy scene, and then afterward nothing has changed.

Duty Honor Family by Clara Frost

How detailed do you get?
In my more recent work, such as Duty Honor Family, I've taken the approach of setting up the scene and fading to black as the clothes hit the floor. If it’s done well, the reader’s imagination will give them a far better experience than I can as the writer. The secret for me is getting their imagination to the right place.

What are your favorite kissing scenes in fiction?
Rhett and Scarlett is probably the most iconic kissing scene in fiction, though I think you can make a case for Han and Leia being a slightly re-written take on the same beats.

But for my absolute favorite, I’ll defer to William Goldman.
“There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C...(before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy.... Well, this one left them all behind.”

Clara Frost is a romance writer based in the Midwestern United States. You can follow her online at www.clarafrost.com. Her latest novel, Duty Honor Family, is available at all major online retailers, including Amazon, B&N, Kobo and Apple.