NaNo Wins Again...

Ahhh NaNo, how I hate thee, let me count the ways.....

:D

Seriously, I don't know why I try. I think I must have some subconscious aversion to this activity. Last month, I wrote almost 40,000 words without really trying that hard. I'd write anywhere from 1000 to 7000 words a day. This month....I maybe managed about 10% of that.

And now that NaNo is just about over, with the last day looming tomorrow, my motivation to write has jumped into overdrive and I can't WAIT to get to my manuscript. I already have my file open and am forcing myself to go get dressed and write this post before I dive in.

I find this odd...Maybe I'm allergic to NaNo :D

Ah well, I guess as long as the words get written that's all that matters. But I don't know that I'll be attempting NaNo again. I seem to do much better when I don't put a label on my productivity :D

How did everyone else do?

Mystery Agent Contest Heads UP :D

We have another Operation Awesome Mystery Agent contest coming up on Thursday Dec 1st!! This time we are looking for ONE SENTENCE PITCHES.

Genres:

Fiction - pretty much any and all commercial fiction, but especially: science fiction and fantasy (and all subgenres), high-concept women’s fiction, contemporary and historical romances, cozy mysteries, and young adult books, including sci-fi and fantasy.

 No MG or picture books.

 Non-fiction - popular mathematics, popular science, and spirituality, especially church history and philosophy (but not for the Christian market). So get those one sentence pitches polished up and head over here bright and early Thursday morning! The contest will open at 9 am EST and will go till we hit 50 eligible entries.

See you Thursday!!

Unplugged Week

Hello my lovelies. All right, I'm taking an unplugged week this week. For several reasons. 1. I keep forgetting to post LOL 2. My kids are home all this week, which is probably why I keep forgetting to post. I keep thinking it's Saturday.... 3. It's Thanksgiving this week *yummmm pie* and 4. My birthday is on Friday :D

So! I hope everyone out there has a wonderful Thanksgiving and all you Nanoers out there - write on!!!!

Movie Trailers of Awesome :D

Here's a little glimpse of what keeps distracting me from my ever-failing Nano word count :D

These two I'm looking forward to for different reasons. 1 looks epically awesome, dark, edgy. The other looks funny and entertaining. Can't wait to see them :D What is your favorite book to movie adaptation? Which are you looking forward to?

Winner of BECOME by Ali Cross

And our winner is.......

Mercedes (aka abrokenlaptop.com)!!!!!

Congrats!! Shoot me an email (addy on the sidebar) with your address, be sure to tell me if you'd like the ebook or paperback, and I'll get your copy sent out to you.

Don't forget! You have TONS more chances to win! See yesterday's post (below) or Elana's blog for the full schedule. Thanks for entering and helping us celebrate Ali's book release!

Become by Ali Cross - Giveaway of Epicness :D

I am so excited to be a part of this awesomely fun giveaway :D In celebration of the release of BECOME, you will have 15 chances to win a copy of Ali's brand new book. That's right...I said 15 chances!


Here is what you'll be winning:

Sixteen-year old Desolation Black wants nothing more than to stay in Hell where it’s cold and lonely and totally predictable. Instead, she’s sent back to Earth where she must face the evil she despises and the good she always feared. When Desi is forced to embrace her inner demon, she assumes her choice has been made—that she has no hope of being anything other than what her father, Lucifer, has created her to be. What she doesn’t count on, is finding a reason to change—something she’s never had before—a friend.

Now how awesome does that book sound? :D And gorgeous cover love!!!

To enter for your first chance to win a copy of this book (your choice of Kindle book or paperback) all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. I will announce the winner tomorrow morning.

And stay tuned for your other 14 chances to win a copy!! Here is the schedule:

5 chances on blogs according to the following schedule: 
Monday: Right here, right now! :D
Tuesday: Sara Larson
Wednesday: Stacy Henrie 
Thursday: LT Elliot 
Friday: Nichole Giles 

5 chances on twitter according to the following schedule: 
Monday, November 14 - 11 am MST, 1 pm Eastern
Tuesday, November 15 - 7 pm MST, 9 pm Eastern
Wednesday, November 16 - 1 pm MST, 3 pm Eastern
Thursday, November 17 - 4 pm PST, 7 pm Eastern
Friday, November 18 - 3 pm MST, 5 pm Eastern

We'll be chatting with the hashtag #BECOME so join us for your chance to mix and mingle and win!

And 5 chances through the google form found on the awesome Elana Johnson's blog.

If you'd like to purchase a copy, you can do so HERE for the Kindle version and HERE for the paperback.

So come celebrate with us!! Leave a comment below and follow the links for more chances to win! Congrats Ali on an incredible accomplishment and amazing book! :)

(The comments feature wasn't working earlier this morning but it is working now! Comment away!)

Blog Chain - Accomplishments

Blog chain time! Check out PK's post from yesterday and head over to Tere's tomorrow. This round's topic was chosen by the lovely Michelle Hickman who wants to know:

This is the month in creating writing goals and making big accomplishments. What is your greatest accomplishment -- in writing, your life or perhaps something incidental that had a big effect on you?

This is such a great question. In my writing life, my biggest accomplishment is that I made my dream come true. I have a published book on the shelves. And while fiction is always nearest and dearest to my heart and a goal I'm still working to obtain, I gotta say I LOVE that my first published book is one geared toward helping people with something I love - writing.

In my personal life...one of my biggest accomplishments was getting my master's degree. It was hard lol Especially because when I got it I was a mommy to two very small children who had a husband that was gone for weeks at a time. I'm still not sure how I pulled it off - but I'm extremely proud that I did :)

And in my even more personal life - the fact that I somehow managed to bring two amazing kids into the world and haven't killed, seriously maimed or in any other way caused permanent mental or physical damage (that I know of) to any of us yet...though we've had some close calls :D My kids are a handful, but they are intelligent, hilariously funny, thoughtful, sweet and genuinely loving kids - it feels weird to call them an accomplishment, but I just don't think anything else in my life will ever come close to the pride I feel in those two amazing little human beings :) I am awed and blessed to be their mother.

What are your greatest accomplishments, in the writing world or in your personal life?

And - Happy Veterans Day. 

My deep, heartfelt thanks to those who make it possible for me to live the life I want to live.

Fairy Tale Explosion - You Tell Me...

While I was enjoying Grimm and Once Upon a Time this weekend, and looking forward to the two new Snow White movies and browsing through all the fairy tale retellings that are out in book form, I paused for a moment to marvel at everyone gettin' their fairy tale on lately.

Now, I'm loving it. I'm a HUGE fairy tale nerd. I've got more fairy tale books then you can shake a stick at and I keep buying more (I say they are for my kids but...yeah...not so much) ;-) I love the originals, the Disney versions, the tales from other cultures, the new tellings, the old tellings. I love them ALL. I'd  love to write my own retelling and even started doing so several times (but shelved them for various reasons).

But it's got me curious. Why do you think there has been such a fairy tale explosion lately?

Friday Funnies

Nano Update:

Ugh, I'm behind I know. But not by much - gonna catch up this weekend! If I can stay awake. I've been ridiculously tired lately. Zzzzzzzzzz

How are you all doing? Have an awesome weekend!

Don't Play Hard to Get

Well we had a bit of a snafu with the Mystery Agent contest at Operation Awesome yesterday. Several people went over on the character limit for their entries. Wanting to give them a chance to change their entries so they wouldn't be disqualified, we decided to email those affected.

There was one slight problem - there were several people I couldn't find email addresses for. Not on their blogs, their websites...nowhere.

Some of them had twitter handles so I was able to tweet them. Some had contact forms which worked fine. And some I just posted on their blogs for lack of any other way of communicating with them. There was one person I couldn't find anything for...their profile didn't have blog links, website links, email or twitter addresses or any other sort of identifying or contact info. So, I wasn't able to let them know about the problem.

Here's the thing about social networking - it only works if people can communicate with you. Why make it hard? You should have contact info plastered EVERYWHERE. I went on some sites where I had to search for the person's name just to make sure I was in the right spot. This just makes no sense to me.

You want people to know who you are. PUT YOUR NAME SOMEWHERE PROMINENT. You want people to be able to contact you. MAKE IT EASY TO FIND. You want people to be able to find you wherever you might be on the web. PUT UP LINKS.

The whole point of social networking is to connect with people, so people know who you are, where to find you, and how to contact you. Agents and editors DO go to sites. I actually very recently had an editor find me on Twitter and tweet me about a project. I ended up being able to submit a manuscript to a publisher that is currently closed to submissions. Because of TWITTER. It does happen.

That never would have happened had that editor not been able to find any contact info for me.

Moral of the story = DON'T PLAY HARD TO GET. 

Make sure your contact info and links to places where you can be found are EVERYWHERE and easy to see. I have my email addy and links to all the sites I'm on plastered all over every website, blog, and social network I own or belong to. Just make sure that people have a way to easily communicate with you - it might come in handy some day :)

Nano Update: