The Quirk Flag

It is my greatest pleasure to have a guest blogger for today!  I 'met' Edie online at the original GIAM goals group.  She's a good friend who offers a shoulder to whine on or her foot to kick someone's sorry butt into gear.  I'm in awe of her trail-blazing ability by self-publishing this wonderful story called Cattitude through Smashwords.

Without further ado, Edie and Cattitude:

THE QUIRK FLAG

When I needed a beta reader for Cattitude, Margaret was the first person I asked. I had read the short stories she’d posted on her blog, and I connected with her writing. The stories were full of quirks, and I loved every single one. I also love her imagination and her plotting and characterization, but her quirky writing voice sealed the deal. I had the feeling she’d get my writing, too.

My stories are different from hers, but the quirks are the one thing we have in common. On Saturday I was at my chapter meeting and I was talking about becoming an indie writer. I said I had quirks and I wrote characters who had quirks. (People either had the “Duh” half-smiling look or they laughed, ‘cause they know me.) But there’s no Quirk subgenre, and though I had some really close brushes with New York print pubs, what I wrote just wasn’t fitting in.

That’s not to say there aren’t quirky books published in print. I’m reading one right now—“Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs by Molly Harper (which is really good). And you can’t tell me that Jennifer Crusie doesn’t have some quirk in her books. But Molly’s book fits into the vampire books. And Jennifer Crusie’s early single titles fit solidly into contemporary romance. But mine … well, my heroine is a house cat (although she thinks she’s the house queen) that changes into a woman. Belle’s not a shifter, though there’s a chance that she could change back if she can only find the woman in her cat body. So Cattitude doesn’t even fit into the shape-shifting genre.

For most of the book, my heroine is a woman with the attitude of a cat. Not many subgenres for that book. But when I had the plot summaries on my old website, Cattitude was the one that people would email me about, saying they wanted to read when it was published. So I knew there was a market for it.

My favorite TV characters are filled with quirks. All the characters in NCIS. Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson in The Closer. House. Mad Men. And look at the classic comedies. I Love Lucy, Mary Tyler Moore Show, I Dream of Genie, Bewitched. Isn’t it the quirkiest characters that you enjoy the most? Don Knotts won five Emmys for his role as Barney Fife in The Andy Griffith Show.

I’m not alone. All those shows are wildly popular, which shows that a lot of people love quirk. So why not my quirky characters?

Going it Indie might take longer than if I had a publisher behind me, but I believe in myself, I believe in my books, and I will do it.

And it helps when you have friends like Margaret, who isn’t shy about unfurling her own quirk flag.

Who’s your favorite quirky character in fiction or TV?

Edie Ramer

http://edieramer.com/
http://magicalmusings.com/