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Monday, October 31, 2011

Words Rule the World, A Collection of Quotations - Volume One

My fourth nonfiction book has been uploaded to Amazon!  It will not be available online for at least twenty-four hours.  I will proceed with the Barnes & Noble upload another day.  After you format your ninety Word pages into probably double that in Kindle screen loads, it takes a few hours to fix the quirks in spacing and formatting about 700 quotes/verses.

This collection has famous sayings and not-so-famous ones along with Bible verses--all geared to making a better man, and a better business.  Since I love stockpiling great quotes, I foresee other volumes in the future.

But for now, I'm taking a deserved rest.  Later on, I may meet up with an authors' group I have missed too many times because of one day job (now gone).  And NaNoWriMo starts at midnight tonight!  Thus, my downtime will be short and enjoyed immensely.  Although one of my "rules" for NaNo is:  To Have Fun.  To Enjoy the Process. 

I plan to follow my own advice.

Best wishes to all NaNoWriMo participants!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Dave Farland's Guest Blog Postponed Until November

Sorry, guys.  The release date for Nightingale has been delayed, tentatively to November 4, 2011, because of the enhanced nature of this novel.  Hang tight, all.  Dave will be with us later.  I look forward to it!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

NaNoMo Tips

Two wonderful blog posts, both courtesy of Alexandra Sokoloff, will prep you for NaNoMo.  Cut and paste the links below into your browser:

1.  http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com/2008/10/story-structure-101-index-card-method.html

2.  http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com/2011/10/nanowrimo-prep-index-card-method.html

Otherwise click on each using my "Favorite Links" found in my right-hand sidebar.

The first (from October 2, 2008) utilizes index cards to write down short snippets of what scenes you envision now, whether sixty or one-hundred-and-sixty, for your proposed NaNoMo 2011 project.  Others will come as you type these up during November.

The second (from October 5, 2011) consists of a homework assignment that involves watching your ten favorite movies, the ones closest to the novel idea you have in mind to draft over November.  This exercise helps you map out your story structure, hitting the inciting incident, (at least) three try/fail sequences, the black moment, the climax, the resolution--or whatever you have been taught to call the high-impact moments of your tale.

Alexandra also supports my theory that screenwriting formulas can assist us in our novel writing.

Enjoy!

Monday, October 17, 2011

NaNoMo

To novelists all over, NaNoMo (or more exactly NaNoWriMo) means National Novel Writing Month and occurs each November as far back as the early 2000s.  Its tagline is "Thirty days and nights of literary abandon!"  Check out www.nanowrimo.org for more details.  Click on the link found on the right-hand sidebar under "Favorite Links."

It is a great event.  I recommend it.  You write like mad for thirty days/nights and hopefully have the bones of a short novel done at the end of the month.  In my seat-of-the-pants way of writing, I did just that.  And was pleased to see some order of a book, even though I wrote scenes out-of-order as my intuition and imagination led me, placing them where I thought best each day.

Post-NaNoMo, I added in descriptors, of people and places.  I beefed up the internal world of conflict with thoughts and emotions.  I added clarifying words to sentences and some rhetorical devices to style.  That is why I also recommended in an earlier post the great (screen)writing book by Robert McKee called Style (in its truncated title form). Because I was doing more of a screenplay during NaNoMo--hitting all the action and dialogue.  It works for me.

As a NaNoMo participant, you post your word count (WC) for each of the thirty days of November.  It is a big deal to be among the various authors with WCs greater than 50,000 at the end.  Plus there is something about the accountability factor that can spur you on to write--even 250 words--after a grueling ten-hour shift at a day job you have come to despise. And chatting with a fellow NaNoMo author from the Netherlands as you do it.

While searching through the NaNoMo website, I found a NaNoMo 2011 widget you can add to your blog, too.  Pretty cool all the way around.

If you don't choose to visibly enter into NaNoMo, that accountability factor works wonders for those who just exchange WC totals daily with a trusted critique partner. However, there is something magical when a mass of authors get together via NaNoMo.  I can compare it to watching a football game on TV at home, or being among the crowd at the stadium with the footfalls rattling your seat.  What a ride!

And what do you have to lose?  Some time working on your dream?  Oh yeah, you may lose some TV-watching time, some sleep, but you'll gain momentum as an author, maybe self-confirmation as well.  It feels euphoric to type "The End" on page 204 of a book where you wrote it (albeit a rough first draft, double-spaced) to completion.  And in a month.  One month.  Thirty days.  Thirty days that will pass regardless.  Those calendar pages fold over, gone, without your permission.  Whether you wrote those six-and-a-half pages daily average toward the novel that resides in your heart and soul--or not.

Go for it!  Whatever your dream . . .

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Change in Date for David Farland Guest Blog

Due to a release date change for Nightingale, the date for Dave Farland's Guest Blog here has been changed from October 18, 2011 to October 28, 2011.  I will keep y'all posted as we look forward to hearing from Dave.

Monday, October 3, 2011

No e-reader? No problem . . .

For those without a Kindle or Nook or other such e-reader, do not despair.  You can download for free the computer version from Amazon or Barnes & Noble and read e-books on your laptop, via the "Kindle for PC" and the "Nook for PC" options.

P.S.  Then when you purchase books therefrom, your e-book selections should be for the PC reader and another window post-purchase will connect you to your computer-resident collection.  Thereafter, you can access your library of e-books via the icon that will appear on your desktop.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

David Farland aka David Wolverton to Guest Blog on October 18, 2011

Feel free to pass this info on to other authors, author groups, bloggers.

Dave will be available to answer some Q&A on October 18.  Hopefully his brother Jim can help me set that up--ha!

Looking forward to hearing from this fantasy author extraordinaire, maybe seeing the cover for Nightingale and other interesting news from his publishing venture, East India Press.