Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Win a Kindle and Other Great Prizes!

This week, KM Weiland from Wordplay is giving away a ton of awesome prizes in a contest to celebrate the launch of her new book, Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success.

I haven't read the book yet (although I did buy it), but Weiland's advice is stellar and her blog is amazing, so I imagine it will be a fabulous, helpful read.

Some of the prizes include:

* A Kindle 3G

* $100 worth of writing books donated and signed by the authors

* A poster from PosterText (I love these!)

And more ...

So head over and check it out. You have all week to enter.

The 10-Year-Old Writer

This past weekend, my husband and I drove up to Indiana for my cousin's wedding. I grabbed a random notebook out of a box of them I keep in the study so I could have something to write with on the drive up.

This notebook turned out to be an old one from my younger years ... and it was chock-full of hilarious stories, complete with weird drawings and misspellings.

We passed this lovely attraction on the way.
I thought I would share one of them. I was around 10-11 when I wrote this, and a terrible speller (I am still a terrible speller, but I am MUCH better at faking it now). I have kept all the spelling errors, as I think they add something to the ridiculousness of it all.

***

SPACE SETTLERS: THE DIARY OF SKY LUNARMOON

(a story by me, age 10-ish)

My notes are in red.

August 18, 2052

   Dear Diary,

   Hello, I am Sky Lunermoon oh my gosh, that name!, and you are my brand-new, battery-powered type writer diary. Apparently this was the best technology I could envision for 2052, LOL. Let me tell you about myself. I am 11 years old today. I have 2 brothers, Mark, 13, and Cris, 9. I also have 1 sister, Ivy, she's 16, and another sister on the way. I Mom had an ultrasound and knows for sure. This was the extent of my knowledge about "knowing you were pregnant" at age 10.  Also, I thought big families were cool, so my stories always included an army of siblings.
   Then there's Volb-35C (Volb for short) and Lunar\-J-5 (Jay for short). They're our robots. LOL. I was reading the story aloud, and this was the point where my husband started laughing hysterically. He didn't stop laughing for pretty much the whole thing, either.
   Next, pets. Rigal and Andrea are my cats (they're named for stars). Rigal is a boy, and Andrea a girl. Then, Meteorite, our German Sheperd [sic]. We call her Meter for short.
   And I'll call you something. Something like ... Georgia. Yes! I'm from Georgia, and I know a really nice lady named Georgia. You'll be my friend Georgia. I lived in Georgia. Don't think I knew any "nice ladies" named that, though...

August 20, 2052

   Dear Georgia,

    Dad is getting more power converters, so we can get another "sonar star trek" game for our gameroom. I can't wait! The only explanation I can offer is that I watched a lot of star wars and star trek at this age. Hence the "power converters."

August 24, 2052

   Georgia,

   We're moving! It's not that bad, 'cause Star, my best friend, is going with us! Her family wants to go to [sic], which I think is really good. There's someone for everyone. Jake, Star's brother, for Mark and Cris, Star for me, and Star's 17-year-old sister Konnie for Ivy. (And of course, thier [sic] mom and dad.)
  Were [sic] are we going? To Tordian, a warm distant planet. We will live in a house connected with a big base, like living in a mall. There will be stores to shop at and resterants [sic] to eat at. There will be a big greenhouse full of grass, plants, and animals, and will have a glass roof to let sunlight in. We can go there any time we want! This was pretty much my dream life as a child--a space station with greenhouses and a mall-like area where I could hang out with my friends.  

August 27, 2052

   It's a good thing the robots can help pack! It's so hard! But our main computer helps us and most things we have are programed to fold up really small. Got to go pack ... I guess at this point I got tired of the "dear Georgia" thing ... Also, I was very fond of exclamation points as a child, as you can see.

August 29, 2052

   Today we went to see our spaceship we'll travel in. It is very big, and in a cylinder shape. It has huge energie [sic] engines on the back. It's really nice inside, with comfy bedrooms, a navigator control room, a kitchen, and a sitting room with a hologram gameboard in it! Nope, I had no star wars influence AT ALL when it came to my imagination :) Also, a sitting room? What the heck. I also like the computer, it was nice!

September 7, 2052

   Dear Georgia,

   We have to wait for the rest of the convoy and the supply ships before we can leave for the other planet. I'm excited, but also sad, because I don't want to leave earth.

September 8, 2052

   Dearest Georgia,

   Star and I watched some 3-D TV. It was a really neat movie about laser guns and how they work. I'm glad we get to take all our TVs with us. Two things. 1) the future is now! 3-D TV in 2011! and 2) my siblings and I were weird, because we loved "educational TV" and watched Discovery channel stuff all the time.

September 12, 2052

   Oh, Georgia! Good grief, this is the lamest thing I've ever read. But then, I was totally prone to drama at that age.

   The supply ships are convoy are here! I'm really nervous and happy at once, because we leave two days from now!

September 13, 2052

   Nervous!!

September 14, 2052

   We leave to day [sic]! Oh, what lies ahead? That inky black expanition [sic, I meant expansion] of space and stars is scary. What does the future hold? This was my attempt at some kind of ending. Most likely I got bored with my space diary. Too bad I didn't keep writing about the journey itself, because I'm sure THAT would have produced some serious hilarity.




The cat is a sticker, BTW.


***

So there you have it. An authentic, ten-year-old Katie story. The notebook is full of little gems like this one.

The writing itself is fairly lame, even for my age, and my only defense is that I possessed the understanding of a typical 10-or-11-year-old's diary style and thus wrote accordingly. My actual short stories were at least a LITTLE better around this time. But anyway. 

Funny stuff!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Four Lies About Writing We Tell Ourselves

Confession: right now I'm in a bit of a slump. I'm struggling with writing consistently every day, I'm struggling with discouragement, I'm struggling with feeling like a hack.

I will also freely admit that I experience a lot of wildly fluctuating emotions, so ... this is nothing new.

But I just read this marvelous article by Susan Kaye Quinn on Four Nasty Lies We Tell Ourselves About Writing, and it was like getting a good kick in the seat of the pants. Well, in a comforting way.

It was so good I wanted to share it.

Do you ever tell yourself any of these lies? I've told myself every single one at some point.

And they are just. not. true.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Free Copies For Review and MORE!

YAY FOR FALL!
Happy Wednesday, all!

First things first:

Well, it's finally happening. Fall is circling Atlanta, trying to decide if it wants to stay or not. The days are getting darker, the humidity is beginning to dissipate, and the air is beginning to feel freshly laundered. My lawn is punctuated with a few golden leaves, the first of the season.

I cannot WAIT for October and November, for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because I have a few new books coming out at the end of this year.

(Okay, I have this weird thing were I don't like to talk about things because I worry that they won't happen, which is why I'm not going to go into great detail at the moment. Also, I am a fickle little author who changes her mind on projects a lot. That doesn't mean they won't *ever* happen, they just might happen later than I'd planned.)

But these books are both already written. I'm just ... tweaking them.

In the meantime, I would like to offer a free (digital) copy of Once Upon a Beanstalk to anyone who promises to write an honest review somewhere.

This offer is good for one week, so don't worry about who else might have contacted me. If you're interested, feel free to do so!

SOMEWHERE = Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, your blog, etc.*

Now I know some people prefer not to write reviews that can't be nice--that's fine too, although let me reiterate the honest thing. You are allowed to not like it. But I'm not going to hunt you down and force you to write a review if you read the book and decide you'd rather not. BUT I would really like you to consider it.

*Some sites do prefer it if you note that you received a free copy for review, so do note that if that is the policy. Also, if anybody wants to read my 1st book The Curse Girl free in exchange for an honest review, let me know and I will totally hook you up with a copy of that as well, because I'm feeling like giving stuff away right now for some reason! That offer is also good for 1 week.

These copies can be gifted through 1) Amazon (Kindle/PC reader) or 2) Smashwords (any format--epub, PDF, adobe reader, etc).

On to other things now! 

I read this great post by author Michael J Sullivan, and it made me laugh and go awwww all at the same time, which is rare and special. I think what he says is so true, especially the part about how one's spouse can really provide much-needed support for an author. OF COURSE not every author has a spouse, and not everybody needs that support, maybe. But I read this aloud to my husband because he's been there for me every step of the way, and I couldn't have done it without him.

This post by Amanda Hocking is from a few weeks ago, but it is so good that I wanted to share it anyway. I 100% agree with these sentiments (even though I'm not always upholding them, which must change) and I applaud her for expressing them so eloquently. I freakin' love Amanda Hocking, btw. She is so classy and cool and inspiring, and fame and fortune doesn't seem to have gone to her head at all. Anyway.

ALSO

This is the funniest thing ever.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Hoarding

The truth about me and ideas:

Sometimes I have a great idea.





But sometimes instead of writing it down in a story, I hoard the idea instead. It's like I'm afraid that if I use that idea, I'll never get another idea even half as good, so I have to save it for something special.



I didn't even realize I did this until a few years ago. And you know what?

It's not true. Not even remotely true.

I've discovered that when I use those great ideas, I get more of them.

Also, they turn into books! Yay for finished books!

Why do I have so little faith in myself sometimes?

Am I the only person that gets afraid they won't have any more good ideas?

Other Announcements:

I am hard at work on several projects, including a steampunk novelette/novella/something short. It has detectives. And airships. And mysteries.

AIRSHIPS, people!!!!

I'm wild about them.

I am also brainstorming for cover art for a previously-written book that I'm thinking about putting up on Amazon (also steampunk, well, sort of). I'm pretty excited about it. More information on these and other projects coming soon!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...