Farewell Giveaway!

Edit: Yes, giveaway is open internationally ;)

Okay. So. First of all, just because I am closing this blog, it does not mean I shall be non-existent on the interwebs. I still have twitter, facebook, and the website (which needs updating - schedule that on the to-do list :P), and as hinted at the previous post, a new blog. If you want, you can come hang out with me at http://decluttermanifesto.wordpress.com/.

Two things about that: One, I chose wordpress just so I didn't have to keep logging out of my email (gmail) all the time if I wanted to have it not connected to the profile I use on here, which I do, just because. And two, please don't be freaked out by the title. "Declutter" doesn't mean it's a cleaning blog. If that was the case, there'd be like one post on it EVER, outlining my tempestuous relationship with cleaning and leavning it at that :P No. It's about decluttering my HEAD as much as anything else, and it's a completely ecclectic bunch of stuff - basically whatever I'm reading/thinking about on the day. Rah.

Okay, next up, books. I have three books to give away: NYT BS Kiersten White's Paranormalcy; Holly Lisle's Create-a-Plot Clinic (ebook); and a pre-order of also-bestselling Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys, because OHMYGOSHYOUGUYS, this book is awesome. Edit: Oo, oo! And because my book The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs has just been released, I'll throw in a copy of that, too :D (ebook)

To enter, leave a comment with your email address and which book you'd like to win (you can choose more than one). Or, if you don't like leaving your email in public places, form is below (feedreaders may need to click through). Entries close on August 25, so you have a week. Good luck! And thanks again, you guys. It's been great.

Blog Tour + Giveaways!

Hi there! Just a quick reminder that while I've been off busy spawning a minion:


...the giveaways are still active, regardless of what they might say in-post. See here and here, and please! Encourage people to enter! Share and spread the word!

Also, belatedly, I am part of a blog tour! Random Writing Rants is a week-ish long blog hop that we are actually nearly at the end of (sigh), but it's never too late to join the fun! My post, called "When Less is More", will be up HERE TOMORROW.

Check out the rest of the contributors, starting here with Chrystalla Thoma's rant about hopping :)

9 Febr: A. Merc Rustad – On Voice

10 Febr: Marie Dees – Building a Novel from Nothing

11 Febr: Krista D. Ball – Avoiding the Heroine Stupid Juice

12 Febr: Marion Sipe – Rant on Stereotypes, Cliches and Tropes

13 Febr: Ada Hoffmann – On Blundering

14 Febr: Amy Laurens – When Less is More

Prizes! Contests! BOOKS!

Hurrah! I love announcements like this :o)

So I know I just had a couple of contests, but I found some awesome books recently and needed a good excuse to give them away, and you guys provided me with the perfect opportunity: the blog has hit 100 followers :o) You guys are awesome. I'm really not sure why most of you follow me; I'm rarely coherent, frequently random, and I'm not entirely convinced that anything I say here is of the slightest use, but nonetheless, there are a whole CENTURY of you that approve well enough to let your little avatar be displayed in the box over there --->

THANK YOU.

Thank you, also, to the exact-number-indeterminate of you that follow through other methods, like feedreaders, or who click through from CC, twitter, or facebook. Seriously: you guys rock. I quite literally would not be here on this blog without you, because really, what would be the point? I talk to myself enough in my own head, I don't need a blog to acheive that :D

SO. Contest #1.

To say thank you for being awesome and tolerating my weirdness, I will be giving away to one lucky winner their choice of the following:

Danyelle Leafty's debut Catspell (ebook pdf version)

Kiersten White's debut Paranormalcy (trade paperback)

Brenna Yovanoff's debut The Replacement (trade paperback)

Michelle Davidson Argyle's short story anthology True Colors: And Other Short Stories (e-version, multiple formats available)

And randomly, John Steinbeck's The Pearl (mass market paperback - Popular Penguins series)

To enter, you must be following me somewhere (either the blog via the sidebar gadget, me on twitter, or my facebook page) and leave a comment in the, er, comments. Just say you want to enter and which prize you'd like; I'll extricate the private details from the winner privately ;) :D

And now, Contest #2!

I recently review Divergent and raved about the awesomeness that it is. It is, in fact, SO awesome, that I bought a second copy ESPECIALLY so I could share the awesomeness with someone else. Because truly, it is awesome. So, to enter for your chance to win Divergent, all you have to do is sign up for my newsletter. It's delivered right to your inbox's door once every second month (or so) by the carrier bats, and has an article, a book or blog review, a contest (yes, THAT'S RIGHT, you could WIN A BOOK EVERY SECOND MONTH! *dies of the squee*) and more of the fun and random stuff you'd expect from me. Because, you know, I live to bring the random into your life. #mottos #likegrottos #onlylesswet

So! Contests! Hurrah! Spread the word (or, you know, not, if you want to increase your chances of winning??) and join the love! HURRAH.

Remember, for Contest #1, leave a comment below saying where/how you follow my crazy ramblings.

For Contest #2, sign up for the newsletter. If you're already subscribed to the newsletter, you're entered by default ;)

BOTH CONTESTS will close on February 2 when I will draw the winners at random. I'll announce the winners asap - I'm planning to announce on Feb 2, but I reserve the right to extend that a little should the minion not have appeared by then (which he jolly well better have OR ELSE).

Yay! Contests!

Monarch Winners!

Thanks to everyone who entered the Monarch contest. Sorry I'm a little late drawing the winners, but I hope that those who won a prize enjoy it. There will be plenty of opportunities for everyone else to win more prizes soon* (hurrah).

So, without further ado, the winners!



First winner, who will get their choice of either the final Monarch ebook, or the ARC Monarch ebook:

Chrystalla Thoma!

Second winner, who will receive the other ebook:

Cee Martinez!

And the final winner, who will receive a signed mini-poster and bookmark:

Emily W!

Congratulations, winners (I'll be in touch shortly) and thanks once again to everyone who entered.

*Hint: Sign up to my newsletter for a chance to win Veronica Roth's Divergent in November.

New Stuff, Free Stuff, Pretty Stuff

So! This is an admin-y sort of post, but be not alarmed! It contains all sorts of fun, good stuff for the most wonderful readers on the planet! (That's you.) So make sure you read to the end, or, you know, skip down to the end and read the last sentence so at least if I quiz you, it'll LOOK like you read the whole thing. O:)

First of all, new stuff. The astute among you will notice that there is a 'Readers' link in the link bar at the top of the blog. The ones among you that have generally decent memories will also recall that I mentioned a little while ago that I was in the process of populating that link. Well! The link! She is populated! For now she is just a small, back county town, population 57, with a single street called Main Street and a butcher and a grocer and not much else, but she LIVES! Hurrahs!

If you click on the link you'll be taken to the readers' section of the site, which contains extras for stories and the like. At the moment, population 57 means that the extras for some of the short stories are up; you can find photos, fairytales, the sound of my voice, not-especially-brillant drawings and even special offers, all related to shorts I've had published. Squee!

But because I am lovely (and now on to the free stuff), I have also made MORE special offers available for you. Certified, Forget, Sculpting and Shoe are all free downloads all the time. However, until October 31, the following coupons also apply:

1. Download Sea Foam and Blood for free using this coupon: LG27M
2. Download Leaving (new story - somewhat of a prequel to Jesscapades) for free using this coupon: DK33L
3. Download What You Wish For, a new collection of three short stories, for free using this coupon: UY83D

But wait! That's not all! Your free set of steak knives... Er, okay, so posting steak knives to you all may be grounds for governmental investigations into my doings, and none of us want that. (You don't. Trust me). So I can't offer you steak knives.

I CAN, however, offer you the opportunity to win a super-shiny, highly awesome, brand new BOOK (and other stuff) every second month. How? As of November 1, I will be sending out a bi-monthly (as in once every two months, not twice a month; stupid confusing English) newsletter*, complete with competitions for subscribers only. Sign up now so you're all prepared for the first competition, which will be for a copy of the highly, HIGHLY awesome Divergent, by Veronica Roth. And yes, that's the pretty stuff. I mean seriously; have you SEEN the cover?? *dies of the shiny* So yes. Sign up to newsletter! O:)

And to finish, cookies. Because you are awesome just for reading this, and deserve a cookie. Or three. <3!
*Newsletter will be delivered by carrier bat to the email inbox of your choice. Carrier bats are of limited intelligence and prone to confusion, hence you can be absolutely sure that they will never spam you. This is why I use carrier bats. >:)

Pictures and Linkies and Fun Stuff, Oh My!

If there were a prize for writing-blog-posts-in-your-head-then-never-posting-them, I can pretty much guarantee I'd be a winner. In the past week, I have written blog posts on looking for happiness, learning stuff from marking, why exercise is like writing, and of course, the two posts I've been writing and rewriting in my head for over a month, investigating self publishing and Holly Lisle's courses. Oi. *facepalm*

It's now like an hour and a quarter past my ridiculously early bedtime (hi, bump-who-drains-my-energy *significant look*), but I was DETERMINED to say SOMETHING today, so here I am, saying... something.

Actually, I have something I think is exciting to say :o) I've been messing around with the blog and the website trying to actually make the website look something like something I like. What that looks like, I'm still not 100% sure, which is part of the problem. I know what I want ON the site, just not how to prettify it, and it's driving me nuts o.0 Anyone know a cheap web designer out there? Apparently I'm in the market *eye roll*

ANYway, as part of this, you'll notice (if you click through) that the linkage across to the top of the blog has been updated, and there's this handy-dandy section called 'readers' now. Long time readers may remember that some time ago, I had a companion site that had projects I was working on, excerpts, totally illegally pilfered images, etc :P

Well, it's back! Only this time, it's legal! Ah ha.

Seriously, though, I have about 8 shorts up on Smashwords now and another couple to pop up there soonish, and the Dog Book (33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs) is undergoing a major and gruelling revision in preparation for being re-released, and I thought it was about time I threw up some of the extra stuff I have for all these things. I have images, inspiration-trivia and deleted scenes/excerpts for the shorts, and the Dog Book will have a MASS of extra stuff: photos, appendices, linkage, video clips... All sorts of Really Awesome Stuff.

None of this is up yet, but I'll start putting it up in the next week (around marking, my favourite!) and sit back and let you all devour gleefully. Or maybe just devour. Or, you know, nibble around the edges. Either way.

And on that note, I'm really, truly, honestly, I-promisely, off to bed. *snore*

Forget Available

Just a super quick note to say that Forget is now up on the website for download :o) Yay!

Sculpting should join it by the end of the week.

NaNo Bonuses for All!

Sooo, my NaNo adventure is kind of epically failing right now. It's the 10th, and I'm on 4659 words. Wow. Yeah. Flying.

On the other hand, this is more words in 10 days than I wrote in the entirety of either October or September, so you know. Progress. And I've joined a really awesome collaborative worldbuilding project which is keeping the juices flowing nicely :o)

But! Bonuses! I did mention this, dids I not? :D

You know those really wonderful courses I've done and rave on about? The ones which you can get a 20% rebate on through my links only? And you know how Holly Lisle also has a shop full of fantastically awesome writing resources? Two of which are How To Motivate Yourself and How To Write Dialogue With Subtext?

Yeah. All that. I've done all four of these course, plus used a whole bunch of resources from Holly's shop, and really, I can't point to a single other author who has helped my writing as much as Holly. From all the writing books I've read over the years, there has only been ONE non-Holly book that has stayed with me as genuinely helpful and worthwhile and something that improved my writing. ONE.

So here's the bonusy bit: the motivation course retails for $47.95, and the dialogue workshop also for $47.95. Until 10AM US EST DECEMBER 1, you can sign up to either How To Think Sideways (how to survive a novel from idea to edit) or How To Revise Your Novel (the most gruelling, comprehensive editing course I've seen that teaches you how to revise your novel in ONE ROUND OF EDITS) and receive BOTH the motivation course and the dialogue workshop for free.

That's $95.90 worth of free product, available for the entire month of November. It's deals like this that make me almost wish I hadn't taken the courses yet, so I could sign up and take advantage of the offer o.O

And remember, you can get 20% of your monthly payment back just my emailing me your receipts. And you can pull out of HTTS or HTRYN at any time, and receive a refund for lessons you haven't received yet.

So if you read the first lesson, decide you don't like it, and pull out - wow. You just paid like $13 for two freebie bonuses worth $95.90.

And in my head, that's a pretty fine deal.

Announcing Project Native!

Squeet! So, you may-or-may-not be aware that I have been working on a surprise for the Inkfever twin sites (the blog and the website) for the last weekish. If you weren't aware, I have. If you were aware - er, well, I still have O:) :D

BUT. Regardless of whether you knew about this or not - today's the day! It's done! Ready! Unveilable! (Which sounds disturbingly like unavailable, which it most certainly is not.)

*beams at you all, then notices the looks of mass confusion*

What, you mean I forgot to tell you want it actually is? Urgh. *facepalm* Y'all still love me right? And I'll tell you aaaaall about it now, to make up for my earlier lack-of-informacy. Yes, informacy. Yes, I'm slightly hyper today. Yes, I will now stop beginning my sentences with 'yes'.

Ahem.

So. PROJECT NATIVE. WHAT IS IT, AND WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

Because it's awesome, that's why.

Are you a writer whose stories are set in a real, earth location? How about a real location you haven’t been to? Writers set stories in places they haven’t been all the time, but many find it’s a fine balance between inventing details to suit the story and making the setting authentic. Wikipedia and Google can only tell you so much, after all.

Project Native is the answer to this dilemma: who better to tell you what a place is like than someone who lives there, after all? Contributors to Project Native are asked to fill out a questionnaire tha focuses on the attributes about their home location that Google doesn’t think to include – things like what the place smells like, what the locals expect from transport, and what the locals do for fun.

It's an exciting project that I hope will become a really useful resource for writers, and something of a collaborative pool of information. There are only a couple of places up right now, but plenty more are in the works. To have a look through Project Native, head over to its home on my website.

And if you'd like to contribute to Project Native (and I'll adore you if you do), you'll want the contact form :)

Why would you want to contribute? Well, besides the fact that I think it's just an awesome thing for you to do, I'm prepared to sweeten *ah ha-cough-bad joke* the deal: chocolate is up for grabs! My trusty informants tell me that I have readers from everywhere from Hong Kong to Luxembourg, and no matter where you are on the globe, I'm offering a block (yes, a full entire block, not a bar) of chocolate to the first five people to contribute*** to Project Native. First! Five!* And you can choose any flavour of chocolate I can get my hands on!**

So. What are you doing still here? Head on over to Project Native and contribute!

:D

* If I've already contacted you directly via email about this, sorry, you're not eligible. You know why.

** I'm agreeing to buy and post the chocolate to you. Whether or not it actually GETS to you (due to damage, greedy customs officials, etc) - well, that I take no responsbility for. Sorry :P

*** Contributing = a full description of a place, not just suggesting a place ;)

Shoe Now Available!

Whee! After many months of procrastination, Shoe is finally available for download from my website :) Huzzah for free stories! *confetti*

Hope you're all having a great weekend :o)

Welcome Back!

Not that any of YOU have been gone, but hey, welcome back anyway :) Thanks everyone for being so understanding while I had my hiatus - while life hasn't settled down especially (and we still don't know when we're getting into our new house!!), several major events have passed with reasonable success, and life is just ordinary-level insane again :D

To kick things off this week, I though I'd turn to you all for some advice. Many of you - especially if you follow me on twitter - will know that back in February, my pretty girl Laura had puppies. Turns out they're pretty good puppies, and we've decided to keep one and see how he'll go in the show ring :o) Yay for keeping puppy!

The only problem is, we can't agree on a name! I turned to twitter for inspiration this morning, and everyone has been so helpful that I thought I might as well make it a bona fide competition, and see what happens.

So, the rules are thus: Suggest a name for our puppy. You can suggest as many names as you like, and you can do it either in the comments here, or you can @ me on twitter (inksie). I'll compile a short list from your suggestions, and my husband and I will choose a winner together.

Enter your suggestion/s BEFORE 8pm Wednesday Australian Eastern Standard Time (6am Wednesday US current east coast time), and the winner (and maybe a few runners up, depending on how many names we like) will receive a book of some description. I'll probably give you either a list to choose from or a budget ;)

Helpful info: Puppy is a male yellow Labrador. His show name is Gentleman of Chaos, and we've been temporarily calling him Blue (for the colour of his rickrack collar after he was born).

Go to!

Quick Splash

Sooo, it's 9:30pm and still no blog post. Oops O:) On the other hand, I wrote over 3k yesterday, and over 4k today. So you know. You win some, you lose some.

Thus, quick and fun stuff today! Whee! Fun! Splash!

...Yes, my brain is broken due to massive word counts this weekend. Your point? :P

Fun bit #1: My short story With This Ring is out! You can find it at Tower of Light Fantasy Magazine, and you can also vote for it as the best in issue! (Please do; why yes, you're looking lovely today! Oh do, do have a cookie. Have another, here!) With This Ring is an Australian twist on classic selkie mythology, introducing a creature of my own creation: platykies. I think they're cute O:) Bwa ha.

Fun bit #2: We all know about NaNoWriMo, that month of insanity wherein writers around the world band together and try to write 50,000 words in the thirty days of November, but do we all know about NaNoEdMo, National Novel Editing Month? It's a fantastic endeavour, inspired by NaNoWriMo but unaffliated, and I encourage you to give it a shot if you haven't already! Are any of you out there participating in it?

Why do I mention all this? Because (and I feel extremely honoured about this) they asked yours truly to provide one of the pep talk letters for this month B-) If you're interested, you can find my article on Train Proof Suits and Why You Need One here :)

Fun bit #3: The final fun bit for the day is, I think, very exciting. I'm extremely excited to announce that my website is finally up and functional!! I'm still adding content (and will continue to do so for the rest of the foreseeable ever), but on the whole it's there, which is a Very Good Thing. You can find it either by following the link in the tabs at the top of the blog, or by heading straight to www.amylaurens.com :)

And if you do head over there, you'll notice there's a shiny little tab at the top called 'Free Stuff'. Under this are two sections: one where you can find all sorts of writerly resources, like outline sheets, spreadsheets for keeping track of your word count, and the first third of Holly Lisle's fantastic Create-a-Plot Clinic. In the other you're now able to download in pdf form some of my short stories!! Yay! Sea Foam and Blood is up presently, and Shoe will be coming soon.


Finally, if you weren't already aware, I have a LiveJournal which I use to update the specifics of my writing progress. It's sporadic and probably not sane, but hey, I have fun :o)

Wasn't that fun? A whole bunch MORE places where you can find me on the web. Just what you always wanted B-) I know, I know, I'm too kind.

But seriously, I had a tremendously productive (three-day) weekend. How was YOUR weekend?

Contests, Contests Galore!

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED.

And they're all right here on this blog! Whee! :D

1) Character Chats

The post from week before last got me thinking: a couple of people mentioned to me that they're unfamiliar with the idea of character chats. Really, they're a blast! And a few weeks ago, Michelle had a contest on her blog for someone to participate in a character chat. So I thought - this is the week of contests! Why not?!

So.

Rules: Anyone may enter. To enter, leave a comment on this post introducing a character you'd like interviewed. You have approx 100 words to convince me to choose your character over everyone else's, so be creative! Let your character's voice and personality shine through! :) To clarify: you may write this in any style you like, in any tense/person/POV, so long as I can get a sense of your character from it.

Prize: I'll interview the winning character and post the interview on the blog. It'll be fun! :)

Closing Date: Monday May 4.

2) Book Reviews

As you know, the 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs is coming out really soon. Now, naturally, I'd like people to buy this book ;) but I also really want to give away a couple of copies for FREE! Yay! Free book! :)

So I was thinking, people usually give away copies before the book comes out as 'Advanced Reader Copies' (ARCs) so that other people can review them. I'm not sure what I can do about ARCs, but in the sentiment of this...

Rules: Submit to me a 100-200 word review of my ebook. No, you can't read it first. Yes, you still have to review it %-) (hint: you can take a look at the topics covered here) The best/most inventive/most creative/most exciting/interesting/pretty review will win a copy of my ebook - and I may award runner up prizes on a discretionary basis.

You can either post your review in the comments section, or you can email it to me :)

Prize: My ebook! Huzzah!

Closing Date: Monday May 4.

3) The Ultimate - Free Books

This contest is NOT LIVE yet. I'll do another post next week as soon as it is.

When my ebook is released, the first ten people to buy a copy and email me a copy of their receipt will go in the draw to win a brand new copy of For The Love Of A Dog, one of the books I drew on in writing my ebook. This is a really, really awesome book about emotion in dogs - but it's about so much more than that. It's about emotions in people, too, and emotions in general, and the connections and communication between us and the people - and animals - we love. Honestly, if everyone who had to deal with dogs read this book, the number of dog-related injuries would dramatically decrease. This is a really, really great book.

Rules: Buy a copy of my ebook once it's released, and email me your receipt. If you're one of the first ten, you'll be entered into the draw (you'll receive confirmation that your email has been received, and I let people know when the cut off has been reached).

Prize: For The Love Of A Dog, by Patricia McConnell, posted out to you wherever you are, completely for F-R-E-E!! :D


So there you have it. Three contests in one day. Yippee! So - are you going to enter? :)

PS - Wow. This has been a really smiley post.

PPS - If you enter in the comments below, please make it clear WHICH CONTEST you're entering. Thanks :) (Oh look, another smile! :D)

PPS - Don't forget to go vote for which mistake you want me to read out in Friday's post! :)

Sincerest Apologies

Summing up the querying process is taking a lot longer than I'd anticipated, especially what with having been away all weekend at a dog show (we did okay, though not brilliantly ;)), and with having spent the last two days working with my uni partner on our presentation that will be worth 50% of our grade.

So yeah. Not a lot of time to deal with my thoughts on the queries.

HOWEVER. The post is in progress, and I can solemnly swear that I'll have it up for you sometime tomorrow :) It's actually a lot of fun, dissecting these letters, and I'm learning a lot. I think. I hope. o.O

In other news, I have an unoffical release date for my ebook, the 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs! And it's close! Hoorah! To celebrate, later in the week I'll be sharing the introduction to the book with you via podcast (You all get to hear me speak! Quick, run while you still can!), and next week I'll be unveiling an awesome competition where you could be in the running to win not one, not two, but THREE FREE BOOKS! :) Very shiny indeed.

So, have a good evening/morning/day/night (depending on where you are, of course), and I'll be back tomorrow with lots of bleeding, dissected queries ;) Fun fun!

The Sentence Redux

Alack, again it is Friday, and I am not posting a movie for you to watch. Shall you ever forgive me?

I think, given today's discussion, you might.

Some time ago, I wrote a post on the fabulously useful concept known as The Sentence. Go, read said post if you have not already. (If you are lazy and refuse to click on said link, here is a reminder: The Sentence consists of a protagonist with a compelling need, set against an antagonist with a compelling need, in an interesting place, doing interesting things, with a twist).

The Sentence, wielded correctly, is a mighty and powerful tool. If you do not believe me, read this article. Yes, it is for screenwriters, but last time I checked novelists write query letters too, and Sentences, aka loglines, make a powerful start to a query.

There. Now that you have read it and Been Convinced, let us proceed.

So. Sentence. Important, yes? So, it is important that we work on it, and hone it, and make it shiny. Thus, I have decided that we shall work on it together! Yes, that's right, we shall!

Next Friday, I shall once again deprive you of a movie, and we shall have a lovely destroy-each-other's-Sentences day. I shall offer up one of my own, and if you would also like to offer a sentence so that my sentence does not have to stand glum and lonely in the post, that would be Very Good. Please post your Sentences in the comments of this post, and next Friday, I'll work through them all in the post, and See What Can Be Done.

Hoorah!

Think Sideways Movie #1 - A Thousand Words For Wings

So, as I've said before, the month of January is as insanely hectic as December was, what with the various writing, work, and extra curricular commitments. Gweh o.O

For the next few weeks, therefore, I'm going to share with you the videos from the Think Sideways course. Yes, don't worry, I have full permission to do this :) And it will give you a better idea of what the course is like. Be warned - the videos, naturally, do not cover the detail of the course. They are the introductions to each month, and as such are introductory in nature. I like them, though, and hopefully you will be able to get something out of them.

Today, Month One: Thinking: Ideas - And A Thousand Words For Wings.



Feel free to discuss the movie in the comments - what do you think? :)

Lacemaking

Just quickly before we get to the meat of the post, I have a new sister-site to this one wherein I'll be putting together extras for the novels I'm working on: character photos, maps, blurbs, and the like. The link is on the homepost above - you'll need to either email me or leave a comment with your email address to ask for an invitation.



So, because of the lovely Wall of Life that's slammed into me over the beginning of this week, I'm not convinced this post applies anymore.

Well, actually, that's not true. The sentiment still applies. I'm just lacking the motivation to weave further ;)

What am I talking about?

Jesscapades, actually. You see, the way I write best is to write act one on the fly, by the seat of my pants, with naught but a vague impression of what the ending will be. And then, inevitably, I hit a wall, and must stop to outline.

Interestingly, that wall appears to be not so inevitable. With Jesscapades, I haven't hit it. Well, I've hit a wall of sorts, but that's more health-and-energy related than reaching a point in the novel where I need to start plotting.

And, oddly enough, Jesscapades is at least as complex as TBAEO, and much more so than The Project. At last count, there were about 12 'plot threads'.

Plot threads. The term got me thinking, and all of a sudden I had this image in my head of me, my hands, holding all these threads together, completely unsure of how they were going to play out, but content with the knowledge that I was holding them - was still in control. The muse does the weaving, I do the watching. It's a fascinating and creative process, and it reminds me of lacemaking.

Have you ever seen anyone make lace? If you haven't, there's a cool picture of the process here. And that's pretty much what I feel like with Jesscapades: at a glance, it looks like a tangled mess, with threads going everywhere, splaying out in all directions. But if I look carefully, I can see something pretty in all that I've done - some semblance of a pattern coming to life, tying the wayward threads into each other and creating a story.

Do you ever have moments like that, where you just get this sense that the story will turn out all right, even if you don't know exactly where it's going? Do you ever feel like that with life?

Addendum to Think Sideways

Just as an addition to the previous post, if you are considering trying the Think Sideways course, and want more info, Holly has opened one of the student discussion forums (read-only) so that non-members can see what we're getting up to :o) And if you want more general information, you can check out the curriculum and the FAQs , plus a really interesting survey on how much it costs to write a novel, and why learning to generate ideas and plan projects on a deadline is a critical career writer's skill.

And even if you aren't considering signing up, here's a lovely freebie for you - lesson 11, which discusses in detail how to put together the dreaded query letter, proposals, synopses, and editor outlines. Just click here :) (Yes, this is a legal give-away!)

And don't forget to check out my review of month two below :)

Welcome to my Sidebar: Lisa Shearin

"Welcome to the website of Lisa Shearin, the National Bestselling Author of the fantasy adventure series featuring Raine Benares, a sorceress and seeker of things lost and people missing."

Who: Lisa Shearin is the author of the fabulously successful series featuring MC Raine Benares, a wise-cracking street-smart elf who works as a Seeker - and has a nose for trouble. This series is one of my all-time favourites, for its ease of reading, high entertainment value, fabulous dialogue and absolutely sparkly characters - not to mention the awesome urban fantasy-ness of it all :o)

What: This is Lisa's author website. It's chock full of goodies, from news about her latest books to events such as signings, free chapters to read and of course, her blog.

Where: Here, or here: www.lisashearin.com

Why: Lisa has a great sense of humour, which comes through in both her books and her blog. She shares her experiences openly and candidly, treating us to insights into the life of a Real Live Author :) From the way she balances writing with her day job, to cooking for the family when you're in the grips of a novel, to how she begins writing her book, to some wonderful posts on editing that inspired my own edits on TBAEO, Lisa's blog is a genuine, entertaining look into the life of someone who does what we all dream of - Writes, and gets Paid To Do So :)

When: Usually daily, with 'fun pics' on Saturdays :)

Month One: Think Sideways Review (Plus Some Goodies)

Warning: this post is loooooong.... O:)

I’ve been thinking a lot over the last week about how I wanted to write this – because I have been wanting to write it for the last week, but as you can see, uni has prevented me from posting much of anything :D One thing that I think is rather sad is that whenever anyone follows the words ‘This is really good...’ with the words ‘...and you should buy it!’, their motivations are immediately called into question. So I’m going to get the ‘deal’ bit of this review out of the way now, and then move on to the fun stuff – including a free pdf for you if you read all the way to the end :)

The Deal

Holly Lisle’s Think Sideways course is a brand new course that teaches ways to think sideways, and survive a writing career. The 300-seat first class sold out within three days, and that the second class isn’t going to open until the present one ends – aka, February.

However.

All students are automatically affiliate members, and while the program wasn’t going to open until the second class did (not much point otherwise, really), as it stands 4 people have had to drop out of the course for financial reasons.

So the affiliate program is opening early. Next Monday, Think Sideways will open for registrations through affiliate links only. This is where the deal comes in: should you decide that this sounds like something you want to try, and sign up through my link, I get a 50% commission on what you spend. If you let me know that you bought through my link and show me a copy of your receipt, I’ll send half of that 50% back to you when I get it (paid at the end of each month, I think). In effect, it means you get a 25% refund. That’s the deal. On to the review.

Cost

Hehe, the killer. When I was reading the pre-discussions of this course, I was all like – Squee!! This sounds so AWESOME!! But how much will it COST?? And of course, the price wasn’t released until the course went live, and it went live at 2am my time... Me, get up in the middle of the night to register for a writing course? Would I do a thing like that? O:) Heh, when it comes with the added bonus of not having to disclose the price to my DH until I’d already paid for it, you bet I would ;):D

Anyway, cost. The course is US$47 per month for 6 months. Payments are monthly only, via paypal. You get 4 lessons per month (actually 1 per week, so occasionally you’d get 5 in a month), which equates to something random like $11.50 per lesson. Not bad – but still not small change. What sold it for me was the refund policy: drop out of the course at any time and you’ll get a full refund for any lessons you haven’t yet received for the month. I figured worst case scenario I’d get lesson one and have to drop out, and the experience would have cost $12. Not so bad.

Fun Stuff – what I’ve learned

Ah. The rave section. :o) Honestly, I really do love this course to pieces, so if I end up raving, I’m very sorry *blush* :D

So. Month one. The month of learning to communicate with your Muse, aka your subconscious mind. Some of you, I expect will be familiar with the concept of brained-ness – people tend to be left brained (logical, rational, planned, etc) or right brained (creative, artistic, spontaneous, etc). But writing uses both sides of the brain. You have to think and plan and be logical, otherwise your story will have plot holes a mammoth could run through. But you have to use your right brain, too, to give your story heart and sparkle – to make it shine. And that’s what this first month of lessons has been about: learning to get both parts of your brain to communicate with each other, at will, on demand.

Lesson One begins with four barriers to ‘thinking’ and how to break them – the biggest one, for me, being perfectionism. I’d like to think I’m a recovering perfectionism, but when I’m in the grips of a first draft, and the story is beginning to spiral off track and I hate everything I’ve written and everything I’m going to write... Or when I’m mid-edits for the fifth time on a story and still can’t get it write... Yeah. Perfectionism rears its ugly head. So, this is an introductory lesson, but it also includes techniques for breaking your thinking barriers, and setting yourself up for successful communication – with yourself :D

Lesson Two. I’d like to say this has been my favourite lesson, but the others are cool too :o) It’s certainly awesome, though. This is the lesson that introduces the concept of a Sweet Spot Map, a map created by your unconscious that directs you towards the heart of your writing. You can pull stuff of this map and shove it into any story, in any genre, and still be guaranteed to love it. It’s a great tool for sad-but-occasionally-necessary changes of direction mid-career. For me, it’s just sheer FUN. My Muse adores this map so much that I quite literally never go anywhere without it, and am often pulling it out to add a word here or there. ‘The sound of glass shattering’ was today’s addition to ‘I love’. Yesterday I added ‘which triggers a DNA shift’ to ‘I get shivers from’. (No, I’m not entirely sure what it means :D That’s kinda the point, though). ‘Ocean’ showed up more than ten times, scattered variously between ‘I fear’, ‘I get shivers from’, and ‘I am drawn to’ :o)

Lesson Three is learning to call down lightning :D It’s about getting your muse to generate the good stuff on a deadline. The techniques in this lesson are so fabulous, I’m using them for everything and anything that I need input on from my tricksy subconscious. You set the parameters, and wait. Learning to trust that the muse knows what it’s doing has been hard, but I’m still practicing, and it’s generating more concrete ideas and plot twists and so forth for my current WIPs in a shorter time frame than I’ve ever gotten before :)

Lesson Four. Wow. I still can’t get over just how huge the impact of this lesson was. This is the lesson where you learn how to tell the bad ideas from the good, and the good from the great. In a way, many of you have been affected by this lesson already. Reading this lesson is what prompted me to re-evaluate my WIP list, ensuring that the ones that made the final cut were the ‘great’ ideas, not just the ‘good’. Re-evaluating my WIP list prompted a lot of my friends from Critique Circle to re-evaluate their WIP lists, shaving off the fat, trimming dead wood – weeding their great ideas from their ‘just okay’ ones. And they haven’t even read the lesson. In fact, most of them didn’t even know I had, or why I was evaluating my WIPs. And yet the content of this lesson was still conveyed to them. *shakes head* I’m still amazed :)

So there you have it. One month. Four lessons. The entire way I approach my writing changed. I’m proud of those stories that have made the final cut. I’m itching to write them, and I know I’m going to have a lot of fun doing so. But also, I can see something else that’s important: the final cut aren’t just a random collection of stories. They’re a body of work. A collection. They share similar themes and tones, issues and styles – they share me. I can see someone, in years to come, reading one of these books and going ‘Yep, that was a Laurens book.’ (Hopefully followed up by ‘and it was just as good as the rest of them’, of course :D)

To finish, the free pdf I mentioned J Holly has a newsletter where she answers questions that people email her, and last week someone happened to ask a question that Holly had just answered in a Think Sideways module – so she’s giving the module away for free J It’s Lesson Seven, which I’m not actually up to yet, so it’s new for me too. Reading over it, I like it, and I can see how it ties in to the continuum of the Think Sideways course – but it’s on character development, and some of you will already have a pretty firm handle on that. Mind you, I guess if I were Holly I wouldn’t be giving my best modules away for free either ;) Anyway, here it is :)

Congratulations and *cookies* for making it all the way to the end. You deserve a medal ;):D