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Ksenia Anske

June 30, 2015

Market your book your own way

by Ksenia Anske


Photo by Rafael Mantesso

Photo by Rafael Mantesso

Photo by Rafael Mantesso

Photo by Rafael Mantesso

This will be ridiculously funny (I'll be mostly making fun of myself) and only moderately useful (more of a moral tale of what not to do). As you have seen, my second little book of tweets arrived, and I have screamed about it everywhere. Which was a good thing because it prepared me for marketing The Badlings, which should be ready this week or the coming week, and about which of course I will also scream everywhere, albeit louder. (Screaming equals marketing, by the way. Coupled with free hugs.) 

As you have also seen, there are a ton of tips and tricks floating around in the self-publishing universe that you can employ and that can make you dizzy (they make me dizzy, that's why I don't read them). At first I was trying all those tips and tricks, and I have just fallen into the trap of trying them again and have decided to write this cautionary tale for myself lest I forget it when birthing my next book (and I do, I tend to forget, which sucks).

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TAGS: marketing, self-publishing, promotion, giveaway, funny, dogs, hugs, do you even read these tags?


June 24, 2015

GRANDMA'S REVENGE, a short story by Peter Ustyugov & Ksenia Anske

by Ksenia Anske


Illustration by Zaczarowana Walizka

Illustration by Zaczarowana Walizka

Illustration by Zaczarowana Walizka

Illustration by Zaczarowana Walizka

Well, it happened again. Peter wrote another story. Actually, we wrote it together (see if you can spot the places that are mine), but it was him about 70%, I'd say. Maybe 73.65%. Yeah, that sounds about right. Anyway, we were eating lunch. Russian shchi! So we started talking about soup, and he came up with this idea about a boy who has to eat soup but doesn't eat soup, and his grandma gets angry at him for not eating soup. Then it got really weird, and he was excited to write it down.

"But you said you don't want to be a writer?" I teased him.
"Oh, it's not writing. This is just for fun," he said.
"Okay, I see. That's what it should always be, you know? Writing is fun."
"Come on, mom. Let's do it!"

So we did. Here is the result.

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TAGS: flash fiction, short story, Peter Ustyugov, Grandma's Revenge, funny


March 8, 2014

The art of sarcasm

by Ksenia Anske


Photo by Rosie Hardy

Photo by Rosie Hardy

Photo by Rosie Hardy

Photo by Rosie Hardy

I've been asked to write about this for a while now, probably because I'm never serious when chatting with folks, whether it's on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or in some other wondrous online place. (Yes, I'm online a lot. No, really, I'm NEVER serious.) I also want to write novels that are so very silly, they choke on themselves from laughter, albeit my first trilogy was soul-rending, but that's because I was going through shitty times. Now shitty times are behind me, and my 2nd novel, ROSEHEAD, is fully edited and in my hands! To those of you who pre-ordered it, you're so patient, thank you. I'll ship you a banana for patience, together with the book, in the same package. Just wait a few more weeks. I have to read it, send it for formatting, and it will be published. Anyway, in ROSEHEAD I have finally flexed my sarcastic muscle (there is one, it's close to your anus), and this is why IRKADURA was so hard for me to write. It felt too gruesome and bleak, so I injected 2nd draft with bitter sarcasm and magical realism. Cue Roald Dahl a la Stephen King, people! Anyway. My next novel after this, PAGE TURNER (not sure about the title yet, maybe it will be BOOK JUMPER) will be packed with sarcasm, because that's what I love, making fun of people and people making fun of me (didn't you figure it out by now?!?!). Ahem, of course, except those moments when I try to translate a Russian joke into English and it renders my audience speechless. NOT because they're struck by my genius. Some jokes just don't translate very well. By no means am I a comedian (I wish, I wish... there are so many awesome comedians on Twitter who put me to shame every day, my tired quips, oh well...), so I'll dish on you the things I do, and see if you can apply some of it to your writing, that is, if you want it to be funny.

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TAGS: fun, funny, sarcasm, irony, satire, how to, Daniil Kharms


December 26, 2013

How to pee your name in the snow... as a woman

by Ksenia Anske


Photo by Sarah Ann Wright

Photo by Sarah Ann Wright

Photo by Sarah Ann Wright

Photo by Sarah Ann Wright

Merry Christmas! Or merry whatever it is you're celebrating. The following is probably for those of you who want to start writing but for some reason haven't yet. Before I dive into the meat of this very interesting topic, let me preface it a little. First of all, it's not me who thought about writing it, okay? So don't look at me like this. And it's not me who even started the whole conversation. It began at Christmas dinner a few nights ago at the house of my dear friend and my ex. Yes, we're divorced, we have two kids, but we totally have dinners at my place or his place, and we alternate Christmas dinners every year, celebrating it together, one year at my house, one year at his. This time we were making pelmeni, sorta Russian dumpling things, from scratch, and somehow the topic of the conversation turned to peeing. I think it began from one of the girls mentioning to boys how it was unfair that they could pee anywhere anytime, and what a pain in the ass it is for girls to pee in public. Then switched to peeing in the snow, pertinent to the holiday season, then to peeing your name in the snow, and then to the wonderment of how one would do it if one were a woman. You can make a sour face right now, but, you know, it was the best Christmas dinner I've had so far and I prefer conversations about peeing techniques and laughter to boring weather talk and people yawning, wishing they were somewhere else. Anyway. It was so funny that of course, I tweeted it. And got a bunch of responses that made everyone laugh even harder. One of them was, PLEASE MAKE IT A HOW TO BLOG POST. See, I told you, it wasn't me. 

What's up with this whole business of leaving our names on walls and snow and shit? It got me thinking, why do we like to carve Kate was here (albeit more often it's John was here) on the trunks of trees or on school desks or on a mountain where it clearly says on the sign to please not touch the wilderness and not inflict any kind of damage to it? Fast-forward to 4square and apps similar to it, what's up with this idea of checking into places? What's up with the whole thing of "Hey, fuckers, check it out, I've been here, see my name?" It goes back to the stories, doesn't it? We have this intense desire to understand the world and life and everything, and a simple answer of 42 just doesn't cut it. So we wander around and we marvel and we ask questions and we do stuff and we tell each other stories, about being to that mountain or to that city or to that other special place. We like to have proof, too, either in the shape of the picture of us in front of it (remember the garden gnome in Amelie?) or us carving a picture (or name) into the said poor place, or both. Preferably both. We like to leave our mark. Curious, eh? Kind of like dogs. Hey, look, I've been here, haha! Immature? Yes. Then why do we still do it? Because we love love love to tell stories. Stories help us believe that things can be done. Good can conquer evil. Dragons can be slain. And love can win over everything. We're suckers for stories. Like, why are you still reading this nonsense, tell me? I know. You're waiting for something good to come up. Something that will make it worth the wait for you. All right, here you go.

Some people suggested to use the "funnel". Now, I can't imagine how that would work, peeing into the funnel and spraying it not just like a stream, but also wiggling it this way and that to spell out your name in the snow. Not mentioning cursive. What if you wanted to write it in cursive? I can speculate here on special techniques of doing it by sticking out your bum a clean ninety degrees and jiggling it in a special manner to get the desired outcome. I could even suggest hopping around to get it done, or, like one of you suggested, doing it in several sittings, so to speak. Look, you've read this far. Amazing. Why? What's so fascinating about peeing in the snow? Nothing, right? It's gross! Go away! Go read something else! But here you are, still peering at the screen. I'll tell you why (that is, if you haven't left already). This is like novel writing rule number one. The hook. The opener. The thing that sucks you into the story and holds you by the neck. See, you're mine, I can do whatever I want now, because I got you hooked in the idea that by the end of this blog post you will learn how to pee your name in the snow, if you're a woman, or you will be enlightened as to how women do it, if you're a man. Stephen King does this a lot, the genius whom I love so much that I hate him because he is so good. I want to punch him in the face and then I want to kiss his feet, and I'm all confused because how can one both love and hate someone and claim that they're BOTH out of the goodness of one's heart? Anyway, I blogged before about summarizing your entire novel in the opening sentence, and this seems to be the case. 

Is she mental? Completely insane? Or both? Yes, both, and worse. I probably belong to one of those institutions where they feed you pills to keep you calm and speak to you in nice voices so as not to aggravate you. But this is what creativity is about, this insanity that becomes your sanity. I mean, who in their right mind would blog about something like this? I waited for a good hour before starting to write, scared out of my mind. I thought, I will alienate people. I thought, this is gross! I thought, I better find something else to write about. But then I thought, no, that's what separates a writer from a wannabe. A writer can write about anything. Give me a topic, and I will write about it. It's my job. If I fail, well, then I shouldn't be a writer, I should go look for an office job and spend the rest of my life shuffling papers. I just posted recently a bunch of my thoughts on art vs sanity (by popular demand) and on how it's wrong we think that we have to be insane to create. Because art IS sanity, not the other way around. Think back to when you were a kid, precisely to that point of immaturity. Man, peeing and farting and pooping were like major topics of fascination for you, weren't they? Farting in public? Farting to the point of pooping your pants a little? Peeing your pants from laughing? Or peeing in public, or trying to find a place to pee, or peeing your pants because the teacher wouldn't let you leave the class and you really REALLY needed to go? That actually happened to me, it was a horrifying experience. I was called to the front of the class to recite some stuff I was supposed to memorize and I twisted my legs this way and that to hide the fact that I let out a trickle and then another, and another, until I couldn't hold it anymore. I was in the 2nd grade, I think. Gross, right? But we've all been there. We all do these things, that's why we get connected over telling stories about them, at least we did when we were little, before we learned the social restrictions, the rules, the ways of the adults, as in, do not speak in public about peeing and such! That's why it's so interesting to us when someone else does. Like me. Like this blog. Like you still reading it.

See? You can write about anything. It all comes down to just... well, sitting down and writing about it, abandoning all fear. I dare you. Write about something that grosses you out or that would for sure make anyone who would read it sick. Just write it and see where it takes you. If you're stuck, it might be just the thing to get you unstuck. And to make you laugh (i laughed while writing this). Who cares if nobody will ever read it. What matters is, while you were writing it, you felt like a kid again, having fun, without fear of being scolded or told that you shouldn't do it, or that you suck, or any of those things that contributed to you feeling insecure in your own abilities to create art. I say, fuck it. Do it anyway. If all of us do it, the world will be a better place, a happier place, don't you think? And no, sorry, no pictures or diagrams will follow. This is the end of this blog post. Goodbye.

P.S.: So my boyfriend read this before I published it, and he said he felt cheated. He said, so how do you do it? Here is my promise to you. Next time in snows in Seattle (it recently did but melted within a couple hours), I will personally try it. I will find a place where there would be no witnesses, hopefully, I will take my pants off, I will attempt to wiggle my butt in a way so as to spell my name, I will probably get very disappointed and embarrassed, will put my pants back on, and will never do it again. The end.

TAGS: absurd, fun, funny, writing, creativity, writer's block, snow


December 11, 2013

Injecting humor into your writing

by Ksenia Anske


Photo by Amy Andress

Photo by Amy Andress

Photo by Amy Andress

Photo by Amy Andress

I've been indulging lately in humorizing ROSEHEAD in its 3rd draft to the point of my boyfriend reading it to me aloud and me laughing to tears. I mean, that's me laughing at my own writing. That's crazy, right? It's supposed to be a good thing though, correct? I think it is. I've also realized something else. No matter what your genre is or what kind of a book you're writing, one of the things you have to do is make your reader laugh. Chuck Palahniuk said it at one of his readings. He also said that there are other things you have to do: make your reader cry, make your reader sick, and make your reader smarter than you. That's a whole another topic, of course, so let's stay with laughter for now. Laughter, humor, sarcasm, satire, they should always be present, because even in the most tear-jerking and sobbing end-of-the-world and we're-all-gonna-die story the reader needs a breather, a smile, to feel good. That's exactly what humor does. I didn't see I've been doing it until my boyfriend pointed it out to me. On the other note, I read a lot, and I've been picking up humor here and there in all kinds of books, be it horror or romance or fantasy. I'm not an expert by any measure, but I was dying to share this with you, how I do it, to hopefully inspire you to inject more humor into your writing too. After all, if you make your reader feel good, they will come back to you for more of your writing, and that's what you want, right?

Have your characters say funny things with straight faces. I find dialogue is the best place where you can inject humor. Have your characters say outrageous things with a straight face and have others not get it right away. The thing is, your readers will get it first and they will laugh their asses off. Break up your dialogue with a remark from a character that has absolutely nothing to do with what's discussed at the moment. Or have them discuss something obvious with fervor, with seriousness reserved only for very serious topics. Monty Python folks do it the best. Watch them, read them. Or pick an idea and turn it on its head. Have characters talk about inanimate objects as if they are alive, and vice versa. Have your characters obsessed with some unimportant details that are hysterical, like their facial hair, or their toes, or the color of their shoes, or whatever strikes your fancy. Have every character possess some kind of quirk and have them discuss it or insert it in conversations when most inappropriate. My most recent example, from reading not anything but the genius amazing awesome THE HOBBIT, is Bilbo and his pocket kerchief. Remember how he stops the entire party of dwarves and seriously tells them that they can't go any further because he forgot his pocket kerchief and they have to turn around and get it? It's hysterical, right? Here you go, a hobbit obsessed with his little comfort things, his hobbit hole, his style of life, to the point of absurd. 

Make your descriptions interact with the story. Every story happens somewhere, in some place, some city, some town. Make those things interact with the story like they're part of it. In my story, in ROSEHEAD, I constantly do things like: "Lilith grinned at the room. The room grinned back, and then winked, for an added effect. Lilith blinked and took a step back." All right, I don't have these exact lines in my book, I just made them up, but they're very similar. Here is another one, from a much more reputable source, THE HOBBIT again. When the adventurers waded into Mirkwood, there is a mention of the trees listening in on their conversations. It's not the description of the trees being fantastical beings, no, it's one of those instances where Tolkien injects humor, because the conversation was so intense that even the trees listened! You can do this with couches sighing under your characters, and TV's hissing at them, and shadows jumping from freight, and socks being lazy and unwilling to be stretched over feet, or the sun being mean and blinding people's eyes on purpose. There is a ton of dead objects that you can inject with life and make them funny. It will give an extra character to the whole story. My favorite thing to do lately, love it. Blame Terry Pratchett. I read too much DISCWORLD, that I did.

Make references to sex, cursing and profanities in a very obscure manner. Since we're talking about Pratchett, he is the master of that. I mean, in every book there is something somehow related to either the topic of sex or at least some mutual attraction between characters, unless it's a children's book and you're writing about kitties and puppies and such, although even there could be awkward moments of holding paws. Um. Yeah, let's not go that route. Back to the topic. There are also many moments that could make you want to use words like FUCK and SHIT and DAMMIT and BITCH and ASSHOLE and BASTARD and, well, I'm not American originally, so I don't know the full extent of the glorious profanities used here. There must be worse ones I'm missing. So, instead of proudly spelling them as they are, cross them out and make obscure references to them, the more obscure, the better. It will actually add more spice to your writing as opposed to using straight FUCK word. I like describing the things around the scene itself, or funny details, like, his ears went pink, or her eyes went round. I have a bit of chemistry and innocent love going on between a 12 year old Lilith Bloom and 14 year old Ed Vogel in ROSEHEAD. They kiss a few times and stare at each other longingly, but I always try to find a reference to what's around them that points to the awkwardness of the moment, and that makes it funny. Also, there is not a single curse word in the whole book, but Panther, the talking whippet, on occasion likes to swear, so I describe it as "he uttered a string of such profanities from which Lilith's ear typically shriveled and fell off", or something like that. And, well, read Terry Pratchett.

I kinda just now got that I'm delving into a very dangerous topic here I know nothing about, namely, comedy, and I better stop. I don't know how to write it, although I would love to, one day. I'm sure there are more glorious techniques out there. These three things are simply things I have been doing lately, and they have made me a very happy and laughing writer, and so I wanted to share them with you, of course. MWAH!

TAGS: funny, humor, sarcasm, satire, hysterical, on writing, writing, laugh