Amazing. At some point you think you’re done, and you find the little things that are left. Almost done. I might even have my copy in a month or so. It doesn’t feel real.
I got the cover and I love it! It’s done well and very colorful. Sometime this week I’ll post it on site with a new page for the book. I know everyone’s been waiting patiently, but it’s finally here!
I must keep reminding myself this is really fast for a book. It’s only been a year coming.
Might want to think again about those social networking sites like Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter… read article here.
It amazes me just how much we can do on those. I must admit I’m only on Facebook because I can only keep up with so many sites, but I do hear about a lot of the other ones and wonder.
The article talks about how the younger generation has an ‘innate radar’ to know that there may be inaccuracies with immediate coverage of news, but also that they’re out to share it right away. There is only so much space to post little blurbs, but anyone can say a lot with few words when necessary.
I do plan to use the Facebook page for promoting my book when it comes out, but I’m not regular enough to be uploading news. Also, the guy in question uploaded to Twitter via his phone, and mine’s just not that cool – yet.
So next time you hear someone make comments about the uselessness of social networking sites (or you actually hear them spewing from your mouth), you might want to reconsider.
Not always, but often stories ideas originate from places writers can’t describe. We’re just walking along one day when it hits us, that something about that flowerbed looks fishy, and wondering why, and all of a sudden we’ve locked ourselves in our offices and you won’t see us again until we’re done.
Sometimes they sneak up slowly, weaving in and out of our thoughts. Others hit us over the head and don’t go away until we put them down on paper. (or type on screen, as we’re evolving to the computer age.)
Still, I often hear or see(in written form) people asking, “How do you get your ideas?”
Of famous authors, I think it’s because people want to know how to write the best-sellers. It isnt’ the idea, so much, as the delivery.
When people ask it of me, I figure it’s because I’m just a bit off-the-wall with my approach to things. I also guess they’re trying to understand my way of thinking.
It makes me laugh to think back to high school and remember when one of my classmates told me, “You just think wrong!” That might be one of my greatest strengths in my writing career. The wrongness isn’t the issue; it was a difference in the way I approached ideas. I enjoy writing to prompts to twist them to fit my purposes and come up with something completely off where others head with the same idea. I also like things to be unexpected – like in a short story I wrote where the Spider isn’t the monster but the protector.
Ideas are things of beauty, but even the best idea won’t be a best-seller if you can’t deliver it. I like to write the ideas down, put them in a slush pile, and look over them from time to time. Sometimes something sparks later, but often I don’t do much with them because of the new ones demanding my time and attention.
The best answer I can give is ideas come from living. The delivery takes work and often isn’t finished at the end of the first draft. Like everything worth doing, the passion the writer brings for the project is what tempers the idea into the product on bookstore shelves – and it is extremely rare that the author is the only pair of eyes to revise it.(Except, perhaps, for the self-publishing industry.)
I got a new book. It’s about openings specifically, but it also encompasses the elements to make a whole novel rather than ‘pieces’ we often associate with writing exercises.
It is true we break everything into pieces. We talk about descriptions, or word choice, or dialogue as if we could separate those from the whole. While it is one way to get better, we find ourselves clipping those things and not seeing the entire project.
This book is a page-turner. It’s easy to read, clear to understand, and thought provoking. The woman who did the introduction mentioned another book by Les Edgerton about voice. I might have to find that one, too. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m very pleased so far.
I organized my library a bit today, though I still have a long way to go. I could review a writing book every weekend for quite a while without buying any new ones.
Writing, or editing. It’s always one or the other that ocupies my time.
I took a chapter from 3600 words to 2500 today. Most of it wasn’t correcting passive voice, either, though I did manage that. My NaNo Novel from last November has a lot of things that need tightening, and it needs added conflict.
The difficult part is sometimes knowing what to cut and what to keep. It’s YA, and since it occurs in school I think I should have some details of school (I like to do little school details here and there), but I don’t want to beat the kids over the head with it, either. There is a balance between how much school and home life is good, I’m sure, but I haven’t found it yet.
I figured out the parts I want to focus on for this story, and I’m trying to dump the rest. I had an unrelated spelling test, so I deleted it in all its gritty glory. (Oh, don’t worry, there’s a copy. I always keep a copy of the original version in case I get rid of too much or I need to change the focus later. No use trying to remember what it was. I can compare drafts if need be.)
My original estimate was 2500 words per chapter, so I find it amusing to hit that now. I think I should be able to do that with most of the chapters in this book. Some of them are under right now – one of the drawbacks of a writing spring – but at least the story is down so I can tweak it as needed. I find it much easier to focus on the essence once it’s written.
Writing sprints like NaNoWriMo give a good opportunity to get the story down. Just can’t forget that it’ll need a few good edits when you finish.
If the only thing you’re lacking to writing a novel is an organization system, this one looks amazing. It has a trial period and a 50% off sale running. (Which means you can get it for only $22.95) There’s also a trialpay offer to get it free, but I’m leery of those. It often seems like you end up paying more for something you didn’t want in the first place.
Black Obelisk keeps your place, has room for pictures, and automatically backs up. It has places for your music so you don’t have a reason to get out of your chair. Timelines and dossiers on your characters give you instant access to that little detail you need to finish your chapter. That is only the beginning to their list of features, however. It uses simple file formats (TXT, RTF, and ZIP) so anything you create, even during the trial period, is available in the future.
Definitely looks worth checking out. I wonder if that snazzy black and gray color is the only theme it has.
The debut novel by Nancy Famolari promises an interesting read. When Summer Langston loses her father, she has few options for her livelihood. She’s been training horses on a farm owned by Ned. She’s determined to keep her only inheritance, a potentially great trotter Meadow, for her own.
On her way, she partners with Davis, a famous race driver. They fall in love, complicating Davis’s original plan to get the horse away from Summer and into Max’s hands. Max is a wealthy owner who has reputation for fixing races and drugging horses and has been paying Davis for help to get Meadow.
Summer claims the right to drive Meadow on race day, dismissing the concerns Davis has about trouble. Meadow and Summer are both injured, though Summer has a much longer and harder recovery. Davis blames himself and leaves the scene for awhile.
She finds a place for herself and Meadow at a stable, but will she end up with Davis? Does continued trouble from Max cause her to lose Meadow? Will someone else sweep her off her feet?
Purchase information for Summer’s Story.
ISBN: 978-1-60435-244-3
What inspired you to write this story? Summer’s Story takes place in the fast paced world of harness racing. For fourteen years, my husband and I had a small Standardbred breeding farm in New Jersey. We raised and raced these marvelous horses. Harness racing is very exciting. There are many heart warming stories about an owner or trainer believing in their horse and against the odds getting the horse to win a big race. This is what happens in Summer’s Story. There are also people who take advantage of both horses and people for personal gain, not caring the least about how the horse is affected. I believed these elements would make a good novel. I hope people agree.
Do you have a favorite character? Summer Langston is my favorite character. She’s a very determined lady who cares about her horse, Meadow, and overcomes severe personal and professional obstacles to get her horse to the winner’s circle. In the process, she learns something about herself and how to give and receive love. I like the fact that she’s gutsy and doesn’t give up easily.
What are your future writing plans? I have a second book under contract to Red Rose Publishing. This novel is a murder mystery, Murder in Montbleu. The setting is a small town in Pennsylvania similar to the one I live in. I’ve become very friendly with the characters in this novel and have two other novels that use the same setting, Lake House and Buttermilk Falls Murder. I’m still in the process of editing them, but hope to find a home for them.
Seems like a lot of shows cover teen pregnancy these days – not just TV, but also in the movies. Some make more publicity than others, but often it shows some choices that aren’t the best for teens, but so many of them make – whether they’re thinking about it or not.
It’s a difficult topic for a YA writer. Do you put on your kid gloves and pretend sex doesn’t exist until marriage? Do you get in the gritty and gruesome side and show actual choices teens face? Do you take a middle road and acknowledge it? Do you show your personal opinions in the writing, either way, and risk alienating those on each side of the fence who make up the readership?
Each writer must make the decision for herself. Those decisions color everything we write and make our books more personal. Personal, meaning closer to the writer’s thoughts and closer to readers. I haven’t tackled this topic yet, but it doesn’t mean I won’t.
Ever noticed that each new portable electronic device leads to another power cord? I guess I’m not the only one… Splashpower has developed a new pad to charge our electronic devices without plugging them in.
Each device would require a small change; the addition of a chip less than one millimeter thick and an extra cost of only a quarter would make them compatible with Splashpower’s new pad. (I’m sure the quarter reflects cost to the company, not the price they’re going to charge end consumers.) Splashpower’s charging pad has a projected retail between $25 and $50.
Over the holidays, I’d volunteered to take a friend to the airport. Early that morning before we left, she called to figure out if I could help her charge her iPod. She’d grabbed the wrong cable as she left home the week before, and her battery didn’t last a week. (She’d listened the entire flight, which stretched her NaNo’s capabilities.) Lucky for her I had one, but this new device would put both of our worries to rest.
I’d love it if my only issue was to remember one thing, instead of one cord/cable for each device I take with me. I’m well-known for forgetting my phone charger, which is why I keep a charger in my vehicle. It’s added up to a lot of extra money, because each phone needs a new one.
I hope they do manage to market it as they plan.
Read more: Splashpower and BBC News.
I find myself needing to stay away from bookstores. The temptation to go and liberate them to a new and loving home is too great sometimes. I can’t even say a certain section is worse than the others; most of them draw me in.
That’s part of the reason I have a ‘library’ in my home. That, and when we moved in the room just begged to house my books. Two walls are nearly filled with bookshelves, and most of the bookshelves are stuffed with books.
What can I say? I’ve always loved the written word. I’m trying to leave a shelf open for my works; there isn’t much on it right now, but I have high hopes.
Except too man trips to the bookstore may require a re-evaluation at some point. So many things to learn inside: calligraphy, feng shui, yoga, Star Wars, classic cars, science fiction and fantasy worlds to explore, romances to share, mysteries to solve. Each enriches my world and my writing.
Countless topics yet to be explored draw me to the bookstore again. They may or may not show up in future writings, but I’m challenging myself not to have all my main characters be artists or wannabe artists. It shouldn’t be hard with as many research boks I have on hand, but I might have to pick up another book or two – just in case!
That reminds me: I need to get out the books I was building the science fiction world with, and finish it.
Ransom Noble 