Happy Wednesday!
My friend and client Rachelle Ayala recently published her Biblical romance Michal's Window on Amazon. She's doing this awesome giveaway where if you purchase the book before Saturday 11:59 pm, March 3, 2012, then you can be entered into a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card. It's a wonderful and touching book, so you won't be disappointed. Click here for more details on Rachelle's blog.
My review of Stephen King's On Writing is up on Surrounded by Books Reviews. I enjoyed reading it for the most part. Some advice is golden with the "read a lot and write a lot." I loved the idea of creating your own toolbox to carry in with you with writing. And I really needed the reminder that first drafts should be written with the door closed (and Ideal Reader in mind) and second drafts are written with the door open. Too often I write with the door open, and then nothing gets written. I disagree with his opinion on plotters. It may be because I'm a plotter, but it's how I work and typically see a novel. It's very rare that I start a story without knowing where I'm going, and when I do that, it turns into a hot mess. I also found his views on literary agents antiquated. Then again, a lot has happened in a decade plus.
The Amazon Breakout Novel Award (ABNA) announced its top 1,000 in each category (YA and Adult) from the 5,000 entries last Thursday. They go on the pitch alone. A lot of cool blogger buddies got in. Yay! I did not for Starred. I was a little bummed not to get in with my cool blogger buddies, but at the same time, I'm relieved too. It gives me a chance to really fix the novel I wrote and edited in 21 days.
So March is almost upon us. Besides finishing up my A to Z Challenge posts (26 days of flash fiction set in my fantasy world of Foxwick), I'll be editing The Phoenix Prophetess. If you look to your left in this post, that's the cover art for my A to Z Flashes of Foxwick. Thank you, Aubrie!! I plan to self-pub it in April during the A to Z Challenge, and it'll include a bonus short story from Women of Foxwick (forthcoming 2012). Although I'm really enjoying my space fantasy/sci-fi/space opera (whatever you want to call it), I'm looking forward to delving into some fantasy for a couple months. When I finish Fighting Gravity, I am also going to let it sit for a few weeks before I go back to editing it for its publication on May 1st.
And if you haven't signed up for the A to Z Challenge yet, you should. Go here, now!
Oh, did you know that March is National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo)? Yeah, I found out yesterday. You edit for 50 hours throughout the month, so I signed up. It should be easy for a professional editor, shouldn't it?
I also have new reviews of Defying Gravity and Once Upon a December Nightmare up on Goodreads. Rusty Webb calls Defying Gravity "very guy-friendly" and Christine Rains has called Once Upon a December Nightmare "a nail-biting suspense."
So what are you working on?
