Author Closet

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Author Charliane Harris, Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood), is cleaning out her closet for the next few days. She's offering up quite a few different editions of her books including some from Finland, Germany, Britain, Sweden, and Japan. She's accepting cashiers check or paypal to cover the cost of the book and the shipping and she's offered to sign and personalize any of the books.

I missed her signing in my home city so I've ordered myself a copy of the True Blood Omnibus! :D

Follow this link to see what she has available and for more info on who to contact: http://www.charlaineharris.com/closet.html

Put Yourself Out There!

Good morning! Don't you just love Thursday? Today the final top three winners were announced in the line-by-line contest! Congrats, ladies(+ me, yay!)! I've participated in a few contests in the past and whether I've placed in them or not, it's always been a great learning experience. It's fun to read the work of so many people we know from the blogging/writing community. The feedback on not only your work, but their's as well, is priceless.

But with contests, like anything in the writing world, you need to wear thick skin. Sometimes comments can sting, even from complete strangers. As writers we need to keep an open mind and accept criticism. It's the only way to get better. Well, that, a lot of practice and gallons of ice cream.

So long as you can take the negative comments along with the positive, contests are a GREAT morale booster. Even if one person flat out tells you your writing sucks, ten other people will tell you what they like and what you could improve.

I know a lot of people don't enter contests because they're hesitant to have strangers reading their work. After all, anyone could steal it! But I think most writers are good people and 250 words or less isn't enough of a glimpse into your awesome plot--you won't even get to the space monkeys. So go ahead and put yourself out there!

And if not that's okay too.

I may or may not have a follow up post to this in a few weeks. We shall see!

Happy Thursday!

Marry Fates Contest

The Merry Sisters of Fate (Maggie Stiefvater, Brenna Yovanoff, and Tessa Gratton) are hosting yet another fabulous contest on their blog:http://community.livejournal.com/merry_fates/95549.html

Eligible prizes include a signed copy of LINGER by Maggie Stiefvater, and a signed ARC of THE REPLACEMENT by Brenna Yovanoff.

To enter, you must use the below image as a writing prompt. It can be a short story, flash fiction, a poem, whatever! Visit their blog for detailed instructions on how to enter and what's up for grabs.

My entry: Then the queen, who never wanted her son to marry, lit the chandelier and gave it a push.

Fun.

Heck yeah!

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Quick Note.

Good morning! I am happy today despite being woken up at 6:45am by jackhammers. Again.

Not a lot to blog about this morning, but I wanted to let everyone know registration for write on con is now open. The conference is totally 100% FREE and open to all MG and YA writers who register. Valerie had a great post with all the into on the conference.

Also, I made it to round 4, the top 10, in the Line-by-line Novel Opening contest over atAdventures in Children's Publishing! There are some seriously awesome first lines over there and I'm honored to be listed among them. Good luck to all who entered!

Shelli, along with literary agent Suzie Townsend of Fine Print Lit, is having a novel pitch contest. The contest is now closed (sorry I didn't post sooner, but I just found out last night) but feel free to hop over to Shelli's blog to read more about Suzie and get a peek at some of the great 140 character pitches!

Happy Thursday!

It's Real!!!

So, today I received my author's copy of REBEL MOON in the mail!!!! And I can not contain the *squee!* It's one thing to know you're story has been published, but when you actually hold it in your hand it's flipping amazing!

In honor of my happy moment, I'm sharing with you the first paragraph of PARALLEL, as it appears in REBEL MOON, an Anthology of Supernatural Tales.

Parallel

By L.J. Boldyrev

I walked in to school like nothing had changed even though I couldn’t stop thinking about that night. That one wonderful, terrible night when I had finally given in to him. It was weird to think about it now—while walking down the locker-lined halls of my high school on two legs—but when I ran with him through the forest under the light of the full moon. He was everything to me.

And there it is! Yay! If you hate it, please don't tell me because my fragile heart can't handle that today. Thumper's mom knew best," If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Annnnd if you want to purchase the anthology because you love me, or one of the other 16 authors, there are links in my sidebar to various online book sellers. And in advance, I thank you and give you a great big e-hug. *hug*

Robbing Your Readers

It's Thursday already! Wow! I've been super busy with rewrites and reading manuscripts and family stuff. This week just flew by me.

One of my *sisters* read my manuscript, GREYSKIN, recently and gave me awesome feedback (as always), but one thing really stood out to me as most important: I've been robbing my readers. Well, future, potential readers.

My protagonist, Charlie, is a sixteen-year-old girl. She gets thrust into some pretty heavy stuff and she ends up having to go at it alone. My problem was that I was having other characters relay information to her, and I had way too much awesome stuff happening off screen. I kept thinking, she's a teen, her parents keep this stuff from her to protect her. This is an adult situation, she wouldn't know this stuff. She wouldn't be able to handle it, or discover it for herself.

But I was totally wrong. I was thinking with my mom-head and not my inner teen. Not my inner Charlie. Charlie can totally do this! She can handle that! She would so easily figure that out herself! Now that it's been pointed out to me, it's so blatantly obvious. It's embarrassing, really. Hopefully, I can save you some embarrassment.

My Sister shared this great link on author Janice Hardy's blog:http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/06/re-write-wednesday-telling-yourself-to.html and I wanted to pass it on to you.

Think to yourself: would this scene be better if I dramatized it? If the narrator saw it first hand? is it possible for her to discover this herself instead of through a third party?

If yes, do it! happy re-writing!

Teaser Thursday!

Why not?

Here's a tiny piece from GREYSKIN, because I freaking LOVE Jack O'Donnell. He's such a manly man (even though he's only 21, just barely). If my husband ever gets tired of me, I'm living in my head with Jack. For reals.

“Getting good at those tall tales, Charlie,” says Jack, lighting a cigarette. “I think I might be rubbing off on you.” He says the last bit with the cigarette in his mouth. It makes the words come out in a growl and it stirs something in me. I pinch my lip with my teeth. My whole body pulls toward his. I want to take the step to close the gap between us and press myself against him.

“Let’s go,” he says, words smacking me back to where we are, with the curious eyes of the lawn chair men. “B*tch’s gettin’ restless.”