Finding my Niche and My Confidence

By: Natalia Brothers 

I’m awaiting approval for a juried event, a Holiday Gift Fair. I have accepted that writing is a never-ending learning process, and while I still experience occasional spells of self-doubt at three in the morning—though I swear last night it was my Chihuahua who woke me up—my writing career is unfolding one tentative step at a time. My book was released last November. I told my husband that this is what I’d be doing this year, participating in various events as an author in hopes to figure out how to sell my creation.

Darwin's Orchid

My long-time passion is to grow things. I’m accustomed to introducing myself as an orchid expert. For years, I earned my living as a plant specialist. Someone who knew how to bring to bloom finicky Phrags and Masdevallias. Someone who could tell you which fertilizer would keep your houseplants alive in less-than-perfect lighting conditions. Someone addicted to fabulous scents of blooming Neofinitia and Angraecum, Darwin’s Orchid.

Nasdevakua

And what I discovered quickly was that selling a book is very different from selling an orchid. No matter how many beautiful Russian shawls and scarves I used to create the book’s stage, the vibrant displays weren’t drawing passersby to my booth.

Whenever I face a new project, I expect a learning curve, but in this case, the only new part happened to be the item I was trying to sell. I had no problem talking about my orchids—my pride, my passion. Now I needed to figure out how to introduce my novel. My pride. My passion.

I was fortunate. On my second attempt, I shared the table with a YA author who had experience in such events. She listened to my pitches and mentioned how her interest perked up when I explained that the story was rooted in my family mythology.

Armed with this information, I plunged into my next venture, a metaphysical fair.

Besides the book, I offered hand-decorated bookmarks. My creativity allowed me to come up with dozens of unique designs, and those colorful pieces became my little “orchids.” I used cards to open a conversation. The blue-and-purple front side complemented my book cover and offered my website address and places where the ebook could be found online. I speak with an accent, and if someone had trouble understanding my English in a noisy auditorium, I simply referred to my loglines printed in the other side of the card.

                 

A few days ago, I attended a presentation by Pam McCutcheon, How to Talk About Your Book. I’ve been to many of her workshops, and I always benefit from her talks. For the next event, I’ll be tweaking one of the sentences because when I designed the card, it slipped my mind that it’s better to tell who the character is rather than mention his name.

When I looked at my transactions after the fair, I realized I did as well as if I were still in the orchid business. The three-day event was demanding and tiring, but for the first time, I could proudly say, “I’m a professional writer.”

What are the next steps I’m going to explore as an author? I signed up for two more events, for which I’m building a stately bookmark holder, a tabletop tree that will allow me to expand my display vertically and make it more visually appealing. Last night I had a message from my publisher. They wanted to know when they could expect to see my next novel. I would love to be able to offer two books at my table. I’ll be busy the next couple of months, rushing to finish the new manuscript.

I also hope that one day I’ll start feeling confident enough to give workshops. I want to share my discovery of a simple and efficient source of learning how to write a successful query letter, the hashtags I used to gain 5,000 followers on Twitter, and the most important things I’ve done to become a published author. For me, public speaking is another challenge, but not because of dry mouth, sweaty palms, and aggravated heartbeat that affect me whenever I talk to an audience. It’s my strong Russian accent that is impossible to overcome, and for now, my self-doubts prevail over my confidence. Will my passionate presentation keep my listeners in their seats? I hope so. Maybe, when someone on his or her writing journey faces the next obstacle, that author will remember a class presented by a woman with a funny accent and think, “She wasn’t afraid. I can do this too.”

Author Natalia Brothers

About the Author:  Born in Moscow, Natalia grew up with the romance and magic of Russian fairy tales. She never imagined that one day she’d be swept off her feet by an American Marine. An engineer-physicist-chemist, Natalia realized that the powder metallurgy might not be her true calling when on a moonless summer night she was spooked by cries of a loon in a fog-wrapped meadow. What if, a writer’s unrelenting muse, took hold of her. Two of her passions define her being. Natalia is an orchid expert and she writes dark fantasy.

Sweet Success Celebrates Natalia Brothers

Sweet Success Celebrates Natalia Brothers

Soul of the Unborn is a dark fantasy penned by Natalia Brothers and published during November.  Both paperback and digital versions will be available on Amazon. (ISBN9781944728083-print; ISBN9781533770073-digital) City Owl Press is publishing the novel of 370 pages. Following are Natalia’s synopsis and bio.

Posing as a folklore tour guide, Valya Svetlova takes a group of American students and their professor, Chris Waller, to her summer home in the Russian village of Vishenky for a few nights of supernatural phenomena. She plays the perfect hostess. For Valya doesn’t want anyone to discover she harbors selfish motives when it comes to one participant, the only person who can refute a tale declaring her a stillborn resurrected by a paranormal entity.

Within hours of their arrival, Valya learns that the students foster some dangerous agendas of their own. Her nascent feelings toward the handsome professor inhibit her ability to control the supernatural manifestations and her inquisitive guests. When her unforeseen affection turns Chris into a target, Valya faces an excruciating reality. It’s no longer in her human power to ensure her guests’ safety. Yet to keep them alive, Valya must brush off her humanity and become the thing she fights so desperately to prove she is not—a soulless monster.

Born in Moscow, Natalia grew up with the romance and magic of Russian fairy tales. She never imagined that one day she’d be swept off her feet by an American Marine. An engineer-physicist-chemist, Natalia realized that the powder metallurgy might not be her true calling when on a moonless summer night she was spooked by cries of a loon in a fog-wrapped meadow. What if, a writer’s unrelenting muse, took hold of her. Two of her passions define her being. Natalia is an orchid expert and she writes dark fantasy.

Email: NataliaBrothersAuthor@gmail.com

Website NataliaBrothers.com

Where to buy/read website https://amzn.com/B01MD03ERD

A Farewell to My Characters

By: Natalia Brothers

My publisher just sent me a photo of my ARCs. I no longer must call what I have written “a story,” “a manuscript,” “a novel”—the words I used in my queries and pitches. Now I can call it a book. But there’s something else in the fusion of delight and excitement I bask in as I await an announcement of the release date. The sentiment is bitter-sweet, reminiscent to a stroll through a garden on a bright September day. Chrysanthemums are blooming, the dew sparkles on the grass plumes after the night’s storm, and every leaf and berry looks beautiful and vibrant; but the scent of autumn fills the air and you know the summer is over.

So, what causes all this brooding when I’m only weeks away from fulfilling my ambition and getting published?

It took many drafts before the manuscript turned into the story I envisioned, the tale I aspired to tell. The cast—the characters—resided in my head throughout the process, and I had grown accustomed to thinking of my fictional crew as if they were real people. Her face and smile, his voice and mannerism, the food they liked, the melodies they hummed…Their fears, joys, heartbreaks, victories…I knew more about them than I know about some of my friends.

Every detail popped into my mind whenever I sat down to write a scene. My characters accompanied me on long mountain hikes, my brainstorming time. The heroine awakened me at three in the morning:

“Hey, this is what I’d like to do. Is it very bad?”

Whoa. Would she dare?

She always did.

I was taught that since our characters exist entirely in our imagination, they possess no will of their own, their actions are fully under our control, and they will do whatever we picture them doing. It seems this conception is only partially true. Yes, I had the power to create these personalities. But once I had my cast, all I had to do was devote my creativity to conceiving the wickedest fight-or-flight, sink-or-swim, life-or-death scenarios. Day after day for several years, I let my characters wrangle with the pressures of the unfolding plot, while I chronicled their struggle.

Day after day. For several years.

Then, all of a sudden, it was over. The last line written, the last revision finished. The end.

How happy I was last summer when the contest edits called for changes in a couple of scenes. I could immerse myself in the plot again. Experience the characters’ emotional states. The situation. The setting.

Speaking of the setting…I’ll miss it too. A sequel will take place somewhere else, and it’s still in a world-building stage. The new locale is more of an impression, a fluid vision, a mirage in the process of shaping up into a major element of the story. The cast is a bunch of strangers I’m getting to know. The new heroine tries my patience. I gave the role to a secondary character from the original novel, thinking it would be easier if I at least knew someone in the new crew. But it didn’t help; it’s as if she’s not used to being the focus of my attention and refuses to be as proactive as her predecessor.

Of course, the logical explanation is that I, a hopeless pantser, shouldn’t have tried to plot that sequel. I don’t enjoy writing a story when I know what’s going to happen. I crave my characters’ spontaneous dialogues and actions. I want a heroine who won’t hesitate waking me up in the middle of the night.

So maybe I’ll tear up the sequel’s outline and start from the beginning.

About the Author:  Born in Moscow, Natalia grew up with the romance and magic of Russian fairy tales. She never imagined that one day she’d be swept off her feet by an American Marine. An engineer-physicist-chemist, Natalia realized that the powder metallurgy might not be her true calling when on a moonless summer night she was spooked by cries of a loon in a fog-wrapped meadow. What if, a writer’s unrelenting muse, took hold of her. Two of her passions define her being. Natalia is an orchid expert and she writes dark fantasy.

Forty Minutes to Reach the Bridge

By: Natalia Brothers

I confess: I’m obsessed with spooky, atmospheric settings. When I travel, I’m on lookout for places full of eerie charm, intensity that would stir my imagination and inspire a new story. One of such spots is a pastoral village where I spent my childhood summers.

The settlement has changed over the years. A new highway slashed the sprawling fields behind the gardens. Beavers moved in, built dams, altering the flow of the river, and disappeared, leaving behind dozens of downed willows.

But other things remain the same. In May, nightingales’ intricate whistles fill the night and the orange full moon peeks through the birches before beginning a hurried journey across the black sky. The cemetery on top of a hill grows, but its crawling edge doesn’t affect the aura that lingers under ancient lindens, where the rusted fences guard abandoned graves, and forget-me-nots and lily-of-the-valleys are lovely against the thick carpet of moss.

An avid photographer, my childhood friend Olga wants pictures of the church in the soft light of the setting sun. Alex, my cousin, gives us a ride on his lovingly restored 1976 motorcycle. The old machine grumbles and sputters but makes it uphill. Alex offers to wait and bring us home. We ask if he’d like to join us on a walk. He glances at the graveyard and shakes his head.

He knows what kind of stories I tell. He doesn’t understand why my genre is dark fantasy. I smile. He’s proud I took the picture for my book cover on one of our motorcycle rides.

Our homes are just across the river, but I warn Olga that the rains have damaged the bridge. We have forty minutes to reach it before dark. If we don’t make it, we’re in trouble: there are no shortcuts through the overgrown meadows peppered with hidden waterholes, curtesy of the beavers. And I’m not ready to walk back through the cemetery long after sunset. Thin trails zigzag among the plots, some of which are well maintained but others neglected. It’s easy to end up in a dead end between fences.

Alex leaves. As Olga and I take pictures, the approaching dusk changes the quaint atmosphere. The shrubs, heavy with moisture after a recent shower, and blue columbines blooming by a tiny abandoned house seem too quiet. Someone dumped discarded wreaths onto the dilapidated porch. I check my watch. Olga turns off her camera.

We leave the church yard, cross a stream, and enter the labyrinth of graves.

“Fifteen minutes till darkness,” I tell Olga. “We must hurry.”

Except, we lose our way. We left the main trail too early, took a wrong turn, and now every path we try leads us to an older part of the cemetery, under the canopy of the old lindens, away from the bridge. It’s hard to see the deep-green ground. I trip over a border stone of a forsaken grave and realize I’m still wearing my dark glasses. Olga giggles nervously. She looks around. “I know where we are,” she says and points at another grave. I recognize the picture. We used to play together when we were children. Olga and I bow our heads and stand in silence. Then she leads me out of the maze.

We pause on the hilltop, the darkening sky and the cemetery behind us, the river below, and the vast fields ahead, framed by a forest on the horizon. The slope under our feet is covered with lupines that will soon burst in bloom. In a week, the landscape will look like a colorful painting.

It’s nearly dark when we reach the bridge. We tread carefully on the rickety structure.

I’m a dark fantasy writer. I better take more pictures.

About the Author:  Born in Moscow, Natalia grew up with the romance and magic of Russian fairy tales. She never imagined that one day she’d be swept off her feet by an American Marine. An engineer-physicist-chemist, Natalia realized that the powder metallurgy might not be her true calling when on a moonless summer night she was spooked by cries of a loon in a fog-wrapped meadow. What if, a writer’s unrelenting muse, took hold of her. Two of her passions define her being. Natalia is an orchid expert and she writes dark fantasy.

Quote of the Week and the Week to Come

“I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.”  

                                                                                      ~ Beatrix Potter

Source: Wikipedia

 British author Beatrix Potter, born July 28, 1866, wrote and illustrated more than 20 children's books. She spent a solitary childhood, loved to sketch animals and later invented stories about them. In 1902, Potter published The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which launched her career as a children's author. More than 20 other books for young audiences soon followed. Potter's tales of Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Benjamin Bunny and others have become children's classics. Ms. Potter died in 1943.

This week on Writing from the Peak:

July 11          40 Minutes to Reach the Bridge by Natalia Brothers

July 13          Where Do You Get Your Ideas by J.T. Evans

July 15          Sweet Success Celebrates Shannon Lawrence 

Sweet Success Celebrates Natalia Brothers, The Bride's Vestige

By: Kathie Scrimgeour

Natalia Brothers’ dark fantasy short story, “The Bride’s Vestige” (ASIN B01CUVBF5A, 17 pages, Amazon Digital Services) was released March 10, 2016 on Kindle.

Peter Moss ignores little mishaps that start happening to him after he pockets an antique locket he discovered at a disturbed gravesite. Dark local folklore surrounds the grave, but Peter, a rational college student, doesn’t believe in curses.

His nonchalant mindset crumbles when he learns that the locket could be the same as the one featured in a portrait of a beheaded woman. Fascinated and mortified, Peter rushes to see the painting. But whether or not mystic forces are behind the incidents, his intent to uncover the jewelry’s history might be the worst decision of his life.

Born in Moscow, Natalia grew up with the romance and magic of Russian fairy tales. She never imagined that one day she’d be swept off her feet by an American Marine. An engineer-physicist-chemist, Natalia realized that the powder metallurgy might not be her true calling when on a moonless summer night, she was spooked by cries of a loon in a fog-wrapped meadow. What if, a writer’s unrelenting muse, took hold of her. Two of her passions define her being. Natalia is an orchid expert and she writes dark fantasy. -Email: Ataski85@aol.com -Website NataliaBrothers.com

Finding my Voice on Social Media

By: Natalia Brothers 

Nearly three decades have passed, but I remember that week as if it happened yesterday…

I’m talking about crystallography.

Crystallography was the hardest discipline I had ever had to study in college. Physics, math, chemistry-oriented German—no problem, but complicated three-dimensional crystal-structure models were absurdly difficult to recreate on paper as two-dimensional sketches (the purpose of that exercise still eludes me). Unfortunately, those sketches were the condition for being allowed to take the final test and finish the course. Have you ever faced a situation when no matter how hard you study/exercise/try, there’s no guarantee you will accomplish the task?

My past year went like that. I signed a publishing contract, and jumping into the world of social media became an unavoidable necessity. The avalanche of things I had to learn hit me with crushing force. It was crystallography all over again. I had no idea how I was going to figure it all out.

First, the technical aspect of any social media platform. Whether I was creating a blog, Facebook Author’s Page, or a website, it started with a big “Okay, how do I do this?” Learning how to set up an account, upload photos, add links didn’t require extensive technical knowledge but took time. Lots of it, because the amount of information was staggering. For example, have you ever participated in a Virtual Book Party? I was asked to enter such an event before I knew how things worked on Facebook, so I joined a “party” in progress to see what was involved. It lasts for hours. If someone comments on a post from two hours ago, that post jumps on top of the feed. You need to refresh the page to see new posts. Complicated? No. Takes time to understand what’s going on? You bet.

Design. I never know what works best until I try it. One of many things that makes me comfortable as a Twitter user is that I can change my banner/cover photo all day long and it doesn’t inform my followers every time I do so. A header that took me hours to create looked beautiful—a wall of framed landscapes—but the number of my new followers dropped while I kept it posted. The header that works? The one with the title of my unpublished novel and the tagline.

Content. A year ago, attending Pikes Peak Writers Night, I announced that I tripled my Twitter followers that afternoon: from a single follower my numbers jumped up to three. During the meeting, someone gave me a few tips on how that platform worked. I’ve been tweeting away ever since. I just celebrated my first anniversary with over 2,000 followers. Of course it took time to learn, but I discovered several hashtags that allow me to connect with other writers on a weekly basis and showcase my writing style. I participate in #2bittues on Tuesdays and #1linewed on Wednesdays. The host announces the week’s theme, and authors post lines from their WIPs. A new hashtag was recently created for Thursdays, a similar idea but tailored for published works. Have you tried #Thurds?

I recently realized that while on Facebook my friends saw plenty of my posts, on Twitter my hobbies—orchids, photography—were disconnected from writing. I wanted to find a theme that would show who I was with a “click of a button,” something that would link my dark fantasy genre with my other interests. Just like with crystallography years ago, when I persevered and passed the course, my year-long social media quest led me to an answer. I chose a theme that always fascinated me as a storyteller and photographer: Atmospheric Settings. I created a new hashtag and use it daily to post pictures of places that inspire my writing.

It has been an eventful year. I parted ways with the publisher; by the time this article is posted, I will either sign a new contract—or make a daring decision to go Indie. I’ve learned so much in the past twelve months. I have a lot more to learn. Would you say that social media is your second nature? Or is it more like what crystallography was for me? I doubt it will ever become my addiction, but I admit that I’m having fun. I hope to see you on Twitter.

About the Writer: Born in Moscow, Natalia grew up with the romance and magic of Russian fairy tales. She never imagined that one day she’d be swept off her feet by an American Marine. An engineer-physicist-chemist, Natalia realized that the powder metallurgy might not be her true calling when on a moonless summer night she was spooked by cries of a loon in a fog-wrapped meadow. What if, a writer’s unrelenting muse, took hold of her. Two of her passions define her being. Natalia is an orchid expert and she writes dark fantasy.

Quote of the Week and the Week to Come

"Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." ~ Harper Lee

Source: Bing and Wikipedia

Famed author Nelle Harper Lee was born April 28, 1926- Feb. 19, 2016, in Monroeville, Alabama. Lee is best known for writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), and more recently Go Set a Watchman, a novel set two decades before To Kill a Mockingbird.

This week on Writing from the Peak:

Mon. April 25           Reading Fees for Short Stories or Poetry? by Karen Albright Lin

Wed. April 27          Finding my Voice on Social Media by Natalia Brothers

Wed. April 29          Sweet Success Celebrates Natalia Brothers