Today I bring you a guest post from my cyber buddy, A.F.E. Smith, fellow member of the Guild of Writers Who go By Mysterious Initials, who is dropping in to say hello to you part of a blog tour to launch her first book. Darkhaven is out soon with Harper Voyager (Yeh, I know big few trad pubbed! She is my ritziest guest ever). In fact, it will be released in ebook format on 2nd July for £1.99 or $US3.99. As well as the blog tour there’s a giveaway and a scavinger hunt and a big launch event on Facebook today, Thursday 2nd July! Oh yes, it’s all go. More on that story … later.
But first, without more ado, let’s welcome A.F.E. Smith…
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and…
I actually finished Charms of the Feykin a.k.a. Book 11 this morning before racing around to finish errands. Supposed to get a storm tonight, so need to finish computer stuff and then the night is outlining or something. The last one was about 10 minutes long, but I know the one time I don’t act like I’ll be forced off the Internet will be when I have to row myself out of the house. Plus side of this victory, is that it’s just in time for my son to start his half days and getting next week off. Probably be a father/son zoo trip in our future. Depends on the heat.
This first draft completion comes with extra weirdness. Not that I’m still not 100% certain about the release of The Merchant of Nevra Coil since I’m never sure of what’s going on with that. There is a sense of wandering since this is the start of my summer editing extravaganza that will cover Books 9-11. It’s that I only have 4 books left of Legends of Windemere. Book 12 is the final temple and then everything heads for the grand finale. Still uncertain about a few titles:
12- The Spirit Well
13- Ritual of the Lost Lamb (not very intimidating)
14- Path of the Traitors
15- Return of the Blood-Soaked Baron (No idea if this is right. Had a great one and lost the file during that computer crash)
I’m really heading toward the end here, which is both exciting and scary. Can I really leave these characters behind and move on to another series? Will people want to move on after the ending? Will I be pigeon-holed into this one series? How long do I wait until I tackle the next one? Should I drop to 2 books and a few smaller works every year? Where do I really want to go with this? Can I stop typing questions in this post? Have I lost everyone yet? Who will be the one to try and answer all of these? Why is Batman and Peter Parker never in the same place at the same time?
Well, I’m off to do something. I have Book 12 outline to glance over while Book 11 is fresh in my mind. Then I have the project that gets a post on Thursday to fiddle with. Fun, fun, fun.
As usual, there may be spoilers ahead, but I’m trying to limit those. This is a fun encounter from Book 9, The Mercenary Prince. Gets to show off Delvin’s new toy and how he’ll be during his spotlight book. WARNING: I haven’t edited this at all.
So, just take this Runaway Smile Adobe Illustrator file to your local tee-shirt printers and voila – one Runaway Smile tee-shirt (mug, hoodie or whatever else you can think of) for you!
If anyone prefers to buy it online, I’ve also set it up with Zazzle, so you can order and have it delivered on your own front door. Even better, Zazzle allows you to order it in 126 different varieties and qualities, from long sleeve to hooded sweatshirt, and from sizes that range from maternity to infant!
There are two options available; with the logo in either black or brick red
This is an odd one that Silver Threading hit me with when I wasn’t doing anything. Can’t do any writing with the little guy running around. To be honest, it doesn’t take much work like some of the others. More of a copy/paste and brief intro, so it’s better for my mindless mood right now. Here we go:
Here are the rules:
Copy-paste, link, pingback or whatever way you want to, your first post.
State what type of post that was. E.G. Introduction, Story, Poem
Explain why that was your first post.
Nominate 5 other bloggers. Five because I know the pain of opening a lot of tabs at once.
Seriously, this was it. My goal was to make my blog all about my writing and this was my introduction. Very little attention hit this thing, but how often does a blog have an amazing first post? I had a schedule, a brief tale of what made me start, and no pictures or links. Very basic. It took a while to get into the groove of things. That’s really it. Kind of a plain intro that makes sense given the goal of the blog.
This is a fairly coming thing to appear in a series, but it’s usually just a chapter or a 5 minute movie section. Unless it’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ where multiple endings make you feel like you’re being tricked into stretching your legs. People want some closure and a brief view of what happened after the final battle. Did the heroes truly live happily ever after or fall on bitter times? Everything straightened up into a neat package. That’s kind of what I plan on doing with Legends of Windemere.
There is another version that I’ve stumbled onto recently. Best thing I can call it is the ‘Epilogue Book’. This is an entire book that takes place years after the main adventure and gives closure to the main characters. I’ve noticed this is done a lot with heroes who fall on hard times or have a run of bad luck. They look for that last piece of glory or regain a lost item. I guess it’s to get them a happy ending or to bring them back to their center. Kind of like a fallen hero finding redemption.
Personally, I think this is a difficult story to write because many readers might have been content with the first ending. It can carry a sense of the author not letting go even if that’s not the case. It really is hard to justify overturning a character’s life when they spent several books earning their finale. This is probably why I don’t want to attempt it right now. There are a few characters that can get spin-offs and one that could feasibly get another series, but I don’t know about having one lose what they fought so hard to gain. I torture my heroes enough. That’s just personal preference.
So, what do you think of epilogue chapters, Epilogue Books, or even knowing about the fate of characters after they defeat their enemies? Does it depend on the heroes?
Being a writer is tough work, but there are ways to make writing easier on you. Today’s guest blogger, Ashley Sanford, is listing just some of the many tools writers can use to improve their writing. Whether these tools help organize you, keep you focused, or edit your grammar, these tools are bound to help some writers out there! So, if you’ve used one, let us know what you think, and if you haven’t used one, let us know which ones sound like something you would use. And—of course—if you have any additional tools you know about, tell us about them.
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6 Must-Have Tools/Apps For All The Writers And Editors Out There by Ashley Sanford
As easy as it may sound to some people, writing is a difficult task and requires complete dedication of the writer. While you need a certain level of interest and skills to become…
You may have noticed that I have been far less present in the blogosphere lately. I’ve gone back to work full-time and have far less time and energy to do much more than eat, sleep, and write. I enjoy this blog and interacting with you all, but I can’t keep up. I’ve played with the idea of closing down this blog, however, I don’t really want to do that. Instead, I would like to open it up to more guest posts.
Do you have a book coming out soon? Consider writing a guest post for me to share here. Do you simply have something you’d like to say? Consider writing a guest post here. I plan to have two guest post spots available each month. If you are interested in guest posting, contact me at elizabeth (@) elizabethhein.com and we can talk about it.
Tomorrow is Father’s Day, so I’ve no idea what’s going on. Happy Fathers’ Day to everyone. For me it’s the beginning of a ‘busy’ week.
I’m 2.3 chapters away from putting Book 11 to bed as far as first drafts go. It’s had a scene that I’ve been planning for a while and I’m slowly piecing more stuff together. My hope is to finish it either Monday or Tuesday morning. Even if I go over, I’ll be getting my celebratory pizza on Tuesday. After that, I’ll be fiddling with the new idea that I wasn’t comfortable enough to mention last Thursday. I might try again this coming week, but it depends on timing. I also want to go over and ‘repair’ the Book 12 outline, but that might be easy. Unlike 9-11, the next one isn’t as heavily affected by the events. It brings a few plotlines to an end and reveals some things that I’ve hinted at, but I’ve been altering the previous volumes to work with the current plan.
I’m looking at 2 weeks of planning stuff before I dive into editing Books 9-11 and possibly Raven’s Hold. A few wrinkles will appear within this plan. One is that I’m still scared to touch the psychological thriller again. Not even sure what I’m going to do with the damn thing. I keep pondering handing it to a few beta readers, but for some reason I don’t feel ready for that. Another stumble is that July/August will have a few birthday parties that I’m working with. One is my son’s 6th and the other is a combo for my parents’ 70th bday (one this May and the other next May) and 40th anniversary. That will take time and I’m still trying to get everyone to respond to the eVite. Finally, I’m apparently getting kicked out of the house from August 13th to the 18th. My wife’s present to me is nearly a week alone in a nearby hotel to write. Means I need to have a project ready for that and Book 12 won’t cut it. Though I might have The Merchant of Nevra Coil to market around that time if everything goes well. I also have to figure out what to do about food since the room only has a fridge. Maybe a lot of yogurt.
All of this chaos kicks off when my son starts school half-days on Wednesday and then his brief summer break starts Friday. My time will be commandeered by my shadow unless the weather is terrible like last break. We’re going to have a long trip for the July 4th weekend too, which means I’ll be a rarity from the 3rd to the 6th. Then he goes to summer sessions and I leap into editing. Seems like September is when everything will settle down around here. Just in time for the Book 12 tackling, which is really nothing more than proof that I can’t stop. Only the plus side, I don’t plan on writing Books 13-15 until next year, so a break will appear. I’m just rattling on about my long term plans here, which I’m sure has lost a few people. A reason I don’t have much to report or short term plan is because I’ve really just been writing and getting things situated. I want to spend time with the munchkin while he’s home and that’s easier to do with only outlining to do.
One thing I have been wondering about is what I can do to market my books. I’m in a spot where the series is too far in for me to quit and potential readers might see it as too daunting to start. I’ve also used so many promo sites multiple times that I think I’m part of the background. Guest posts seem to get my blog followers, tweets get me Twitter followers, and FB posts get me . . . well I never had any luck there. Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoy swapping guest posts and wandering around the blogosphere. But I’m wondering what I can do that’s different even with my issue of limited time. Might need a bunch of time to figure this out.
So what are the goals for the week?
Finish first draft of Book 11.
Outline story that I don’t have a title for. Not 100% certain of genre. Thursday post might help a bit.
Outline a future story.
Fiddle with Book 12 outline. (I sense a theme.)
Celebratory pizza on Tuesday.
Plan stuff for munchkin when he finishes school year.
Possibly watch a DVD if I finish some stuff early.
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