Tis the season for giving! Hi everyone, I hope this holiday season finds you happy, healthy, and ready for more desserts than anyone should consume in one sitting. (I know I am!) I don’t know about you, but the thought of extra time off from work means one thing: more time to read! (Well, maybe …
Fracture
Meet My Character: Biz Clement from the Flicker Effect series
Welcome to the Meet My Character Blog Tour, where you get to learn a little about my main character, Biz, from FLICKER, FRACTURE, and the still-in-the-works FADED. Special thanks to my BFF Stacey Graham, who forced nominated me to join the fun! Her post introduces you to Clementine, the character in the novel she’s writing, …
FRACTURE is Free for Two More Days!
Hey everyone, Just a quick note to let you know that it’s not too late — you can still download FRACTURE for FREE from Amazon! Over 500 people have already taken advantage of what my CFO* says “is not the best idea” but the CEO** thinks is a “great way to get my book out …
Download FRACTURE for FREE on Amazon!
You heard right. Today through Tuesday, September 2nd, you, your loved ones, your friends, your acquaintances, your coworkers, that lady who makes your coffee in the morning, the guy who nods hello to you on the subway home, your son’s preschool teacher, your daughter’s softball coach, your personal trainer, your spiritual leader, your local congresswoman, …
Interviews, Reviews, & a Chance to Win a $25 Gift Card!
Despite my vacation, I did manage to do a few writing-related things…
Interviews
I’m a featured guest blogger at All the Write Notes, which is a music site that features writing, or a writing site that features music — however you want to look at it. In my article ATWN Guest Post: YA Author, Melanie Hooyenga – The Pressure of Number Two: Let Lorde Lead the Way I talk about the pressures of writing a sequel and how Lorde’s music helped push me along.
10K, Okay!
FADED, book three in the Flicker Effect trilogy, is my fifth novel (sixth full-length manuscript), and one of the things I’ve learned over the course of writing a half dozen books is I don’t feel like I’m officially into the draft until I’ve passed the 10,000 word mark. I started writing this draft when I published FRACTURE at the end of June, and as of yesterday I can finally declare this draft a WIP!
Fracture is Published!
I’m thrilled to announce that Fracture is now available on Amazon! Today you can only get the ebook, but tomorrow (probably in the evening) the print version will also be available!
Things I learned (or remembered) while prepping this book for publication:
Take This Draft and Shove It
It’s been a very hectic several months, which I’ll get into in another post, but today I’m here to tell you that I’ve finished Fracture! If you recall, I said something similar while buried under three feet of snow, but since then I’ve tackled four rounds of revisions, the most strenuous of which I completed today! I’ve added roughly 3500 words, which is nearly fourteen pages, and I’m really proud of how this novel has developed.
Outlines, Plug-Ins, and Beta Readers — Oh My!
Hi everyone! There’s a lot going on in my writing world, starting with yesterday’s exciting accomplishment: I downloaded the Kindle plug-in for Adobe InDesign that allows you to format an ebook from the page layout program. This may not seem exciting to you, but as a designer I pride myself on figuring out how to do things on my own (well, I pride myself on that in all walks of life. My dad used to fret that he raised me to be “too independent”, but that’s another story for another time) so formatting my own ebook is important to me.
The Importance of Beta Readers
For those of you who are NOT writers, a beta reader is someone who reads a draft of your manuscript to tell you where you’ve screwed up and how to make it better. Some even tell you where they laughed out loud, gasped, or wanted to punch a character (thanks Nadine!).
Dictionary.com defines the slang version of beta as: