Welcome to the Name Before the Masses book tour for Daughter of Madness by Amanda J. McGee. In addition to introducing us to her book, Amanda is reflecting on the good, the bad, and the ugly of being an author versus a writer. Please feel free to leave her your own thoughts on the topic or ask her any other burning questions you have. Also please enjoy reading an excerpt and then enter the giveaway. If you follow the tour, you’ll be able to read even more interviews and guest posts by Amanda, as well as other excerpts. This also gives you more opportunities to enter the giveaway!
Please note that affiliate links are present within this post. Should you make a purchase through one, I may earn a small commission to help support my websites, at no additional cost to you.
The Pros and Cons of Being an Author
What’s the difference between being an author and a writer? If you’re reading this, you’re probably already a writer. You put pen to paper with the intent to create and you’re in. Being an author, though, means that you’ve stuck to things long enough to get published, one way or another.
If you follow many authors on the internet, you probably already know that writing isn’t all sunshine and roses. Some of my favorite authors to follow include Kameron Hurley and Chuck Wendig, both of whom are pretty open about their writing processes on Twitter. It’s wonderful to connect with their struggles, and to gain insight into how I can address my own challenges. Kameron Hurley greatly inspired me this past year when she opened up about having to throw out a draft that she had completed and start over. At first, I was horrified. About a month later, however, I found myself in the same boat. My book – the very book I’m on tour promoting, Daughter of Madness – was done, but it didn’t work. What had I done wrong? How did I fix it?
Thanks to Hurley, I was able to do the unthinkable. I cut a third of the draft, heavily rewrote another third, and finally had a draft I was happy with. It was painful and demoralizing in some ways. I lost some really fun scenes and characters in that cut, but the book as it stands is something that I’m incredibly proud of because I feel that I’ve leveled up.
We use the words author and writer interchangeably. An author writes. But being published also means you find yourself making hard choices about where to spend your creative energy. It means you spend a lot of that energy marketing your books, doing things like blog tours, interviews, and running and designing advertisements. It means that sometimes you cut a third of a story because you don’t feel like it is good enough to give to your readers and write it all again from scratch. It can take some of the fun out of writing, and it’s a lot of pressure. But at the end of the day, being able to share my work with everyone is an honor. Seeing my books out there, selling them, meeting readers – I wouldn’t trade that.
If you’re a writer thinking about becoming an author, I recommend that you think about why you write. Getting into publishing of any stripe is a perilous business for the ego. Grounding yourself in the why of your writing is the only way to stay sane. Do you write for fun? Do you write because you want others to read your work? Is this a passion, a calling? Or is it a hobby? There’s no shame in either. There’s good parts of both. But you need to know the answers before you decide to make the jump.
I hope you enjoy Daughter of Madness, and if you haven’t read Mother of Creation I hope you get a chance to read that, too. I’d love to chat with you about them both. And if you want to learn more about my writing process, please check out my blog in the future, where I do my best to pay forward the honesty of other writers by being honest myself. Writing, any kind, is hard. You’re not alone. So get out there and make some words.
Daughter of Madness
Liana has lost much to Herka’s manipulations, though nothing so precious as her sanity. Emerging from her madness, she finds the world changed – her body wasted, her son gone, and her kingdom still beyond her reach. Only the fires of vengeance remain, and she will build the flames high. DAUGHTER OF MADNESS tells the story of a princess and her twin, a soldier and his king, and an oracle who is more than she seems.
Read an excerpt:
He remembered the moment that the curse had claimed him.
The king sat in the garden, and the moon shone down. There was a phantom caress on his skin, an ice cold hand.
Darkness bloomed in his blood.
He remembered the moment, over and over, the darkness rising, rising, swamping him.
There was terror there, but for the king it was an old terror. He had lived with the darkness now for a timeless time, and in the darkness he was sheltered. He remembered nothing. He was nothing. That was good, for the man that had been a king sensed that he had failed, that he had hurt. The world beyond the darkness was made of nothing that he wanted to see again.
But no night could last forever.
The man who had been Alexander came back to himself in blood.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Amanda J. McGee is fantasy author living in Southwest Virginia with the love of her life and two cats. She likes baking, gardening, and flights of fancy. You can find out more about her books and her blog at www.amandajmcgee.com.
Twitter: @skylit1
Facebook: facebook.com/amanda.mcgee13
Patreon: patreon.com/amcgee
Mother of Creation: https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Creation-Saga-Book-ebook/dp/B00LQUHRV8/
Daughter of Madness: https://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Madness-Book-Creation-Saga-ebook/dp/B07BPB2HK9
Amanda J. McGee will be awarding a copy of both published volumes of The Creation Saga: MOTHER OF CREATION and DAUGHTER OF MADNESS, (after the June 2, 2018 publishing date, US participants only) to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Thanks for hosting!
Thanks for having me!