Blog
Pitch Live!
Chelle Bruhn & I have created a video for the Laugh.Write.Play, Brenda Drake, Leigh Ann Kopans Pitch Live! contest. We’d seen a number of video pitches prior to filming ours, and let me tell you, it’s harder than it looks. Without further ado, our pitch: Title: VEILED Genre: YA Science Fiction Word Count:...
read moreHow to review friends’ books: a poll
I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the issue of whether/how to review books written by friends. Over the last two years I’ve made many writer friends, and this fall a number of them have books coming out. None of them have specifically asked me to write a review for them on goodreads or amazon, but I’ve noticed a chilly response from at least one of these ladies and I fear it’s because I didn’t review her book on goodreads after reading it a number of months ago. Up until this point I had decided...
read moreReview of R. L. Stine’s Red Rain
First, the premise: Travel writer Lea Sutter finds herself on a small island off the coast of South Carolina, the wrong place at the wrong time. A merciless, unanticipated hurricane cuts a path of desrutction through the island and lea barely escapes with her life. In the storm’s aftermath, she discovers two orphaned boys–twins. Filled with a desire to do something to help, to make something good of all she witnessed, Lea impulsively decides to adopt them. The boys, Samuel and Daniel, seem amiable and immensely...
read moreR. L. Stine writes a new book for adults? Yes, please.
First an apology. I’ve been really bad about blogging recently due to being super busy working on an Ottoman-inspired YA Steampunk novel with my awesome co-writer Chelle Bruhn, not to mention other annoying life tasks, but the most exciting thing just happened to me. I’ve been lucky enough to get on Simon & Schuster’s list of bloggers to be given advanced copies of books (before their official release) and when they offered to send me R. L. Stine’s first horror novel for adults, Red Rain, I couldn’t respond...
read moreCheck check check it out
My fellow writing group member Amber is hosting the first chapter of my novel GOOD GIRLS over on her blog AmberAfterGlow. This opening has garnered praise from top professionals and has also caused people to tell me that I should be banned from writing for teens because my character is a horrible person that no child should ever be exposed to. (The character is 100% based off myself, so that one hurt.) What do you think? Do you think characters in children’s books should always be...
read moreOn Steampunk
Justin Harlan was kind enough to host my musings on steampunk over at his website The Painted Man. You should go check it out. Do it now!
read moreDear Nostalgia–Guest Post by Justin Harlan
Boy do I have a treat for you today. Today I have my first ever guest blog post, and it’s a doozy! Justin Harlan of thepaintedman.com sure knows how to make an impact in 1000 words or less. I know you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Also, now that you see how awesome guest posts can be, why don’t you think about writing one? No experience required, it’s cathartic, and I’ll pay you (in backlinks to your blog). Dear Nostalgia, I’d like to begin my letter to you today by thanking you for spending some...
read moreWhat makes a book sell to publishers
As a writer, I’ve given this topic quite a bit of thought. There are a number of elements that makes a published book popular (which I should devote an entire separate post to in the future), but there is a completely different set of elements that makes a book sell to publishers. When I was young and naive (aka a year ago), I used to believe that selling one’s book completely had to do with the quality of the writing, but since then I’ve read quite a few unpublished manuscripts that are amazing and yet have so far failed...
read moreTop 5 reasons why it’s good to have a lady gut
I was going to write a professional-sounding blog post about the new work in progress that I’m currently outlining with my best friend Michelle (it’s now named VEILED and it’s going to be epic so stay tuned), but I’m just not feeling it. While Michelle & I were taking a break we started complaining about our excess belly fat. (I know that’s very stereotypical lady-with-body-image-issues, but just go with it). So instead of writing something professional, I decided to come up with a top 5 list for why...
read moreMy first interview
I’m officially an agented writer. You know it’s official when QueryTracker interviews you about your “success story”. If you’re interested in learning more about the book that my agent Amy Tipton is currently sending out to editors (14 editors and counting are reading it) and about my journey as a writer, check out the interview. Let me know what you think about it. I’d hate to sound like one of those smarmy, I’m-better-than-you-now-that-I-have-an-agent writers. My goal is that no matter how...
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