Variant Giveaway to Celebrate Writing Season

As you might have noticed, it’s November—my most favorite month of the year.

Goodbye farming, and hello writing season! I celebrated by attending an awesome writers retreat by Park City, with twenty other writers including Lisa Mangum, Kirk Shaw, Annette Lyon, Danyelle Ferguson, Ali Cross, C.K. Bryant, and many others from Authors Incognito that I'm grateful to call friends.  

Imagine 4 days in a condo/cabin by Park City, Utah, where everyone has a quiet nook of their own to plug in and write. There were enough of us there that we only had to help with one meal for the whole time. Can you imagine? Meals done, quiet time, no kids, almost no calls, and house full of people who shared your same passion for writing. After months of busting my rear on the farm, it was exactly what I needed. We also had prizes for word count sprints, early birds and night owls.

If you ever have the chance to go to a retreat, do it. You deserve it.

To celebrate writing season, I’m giving away 2 copies of Variant by Robinson Wells, a hot new YA dystopian that has been heralded as having the best YA twist since Enders Game. Also, Publishers Weekly has named Variant as one of the best books of 2011. That’s some high praise, my friends.

You can read the synopsis and some of its great reviews on goodreads here.

There are a couple of other great reasons why I chose to give Variant away. Bottom line: it’s an excellent book from a deserving author. If you’ve ever thought of buying it, today is a good day.

TO ENTER the Variant giveaway:

Follow my blog and leave a comment with your email like myemail AT wherever DOT com so spammers don’t find you.

If you would like to tweet or Facebook about the Book Bomb or this post, then you win good Karma and my appreciation for passing it on. J

I'll draw a winner on November 20th!

So, to all you crazy nanowrimoers out there, good luck! (and don’t forget to occasionally do boring things like eat, sleep, speak to your family, and bathe.) To everyone else, may you have a very excellent writing season. I know I will.

Reflecting on NaNoWriMo

November is over, a time for reflection on gratitude—and this crazy idea to write 50,000 words in one month.

As of November 30th, my word count on my YA dystopian novel, Colorless, stood at 54,588 words. I should have a good version ready for readers by spring. I could have done more that week, but opted to do the whole Thanksgiving/snowday/family thing instead.

Now is the time for thankful hearts, exercise machines, and reflections on the lessons learned during NaNoWriMo.

Even something as solitary as writing is more fun with friends—be it in person or online.

Some jewels of wisdom I gleaned by following @FakeNNWMTips on twitter:

“Characters with verbal tics add to word count and have more personality! ‘Two…two birds with, you know, a stone.’ See? #nanowrimo”

“Keep at it! You’re only making a penny per word less than Charles Dickens! #nanowrimo”

I learned that while I can write fast—up to 6,000 words in one day—I do better work and avoid burnout if I plug along and write about 1,000 words a day.

I can’t promise that I’ll do NaNo again next year, but I do know that I have more to work with now than I ever have this early in the winter/writing season.

And to all those valiant Nanoers still emerging bleary-eyed from the trenches. Take a shower, my friends, it’s over. Find those critters--AKA, your kids--give ‘em a squeeze, and skip off for a winter buried in edits. Such are the joys of writers.

Did any of you learn something new about yourself this last month?

Colorless- A Peek at the Story

Dear Awesome Readers,

This is an update from the trenches of NaNoWriMo. So far things are going really well and I'm wondering why I never had the courage to try to write 50,000 words in one month before.

I've learned a few things about myself.
#1 When I shut off my inner editor and just let my fingers fly, I can write over 1300 words in 30 minutes. (Who knew? Quality of those words: spelling = horrible, grammar = frightening, ideas = pretty darn good. )

#2 I can average over 2,000 words a day, every day. The biggest day so far was at an awesome writer's retreat I went to in Park City Utah with the coolness that is Authors Incognito. I wrote 12,000 words in two days. Was I the fastest? Not by a long shot. One amazing gal, Heather Justesen , threw down 27,000 words in the same time period. (Holy crap, she's fast!) I'll blog about the retreat later.

#3 I am in my happy place when I'm sitting at my computer, totally engrossed in the story unfolding beneath my fingers. I used to think of myself as a really slow writer, but now I think any limitations on speed were only put there by me. I have written over 30,000 words in only 12 days. I never dreamed that was possible for me.

#4 My dog makes a really nice foot warmer. When my 3yrold becomes too bothersome, which is every day, my dog signals the end of playtime by sneaking under my tiny desk and laying on my feet so I'll keep the little pest away from her. It's winter. I don't mind typing with a heater on my feet--unless she has gas and then I do mind, very much.

Would you like a sneak peek at my first chapter of COLORLESS?  I've pasted it into one of those cloud things on the left side of my blog.I think it's kind of pretty. If you don't see it, try this link.
 
Happy writing everyone! Have you ever taken on a challenge and surprised yourself with your success?

Taking the Plunge: NaNoWriMo

Hello cyber buddies!


I’ve decided to finally take the plunge and do NaNoWriMo. What is it, you ask? It’s an insane challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. November. That’s right. ONE MONTH! I’ve heard about it for years in forums, but I’ve never had the desire to try…until now.

I have a myriad of good, perfectly valid reasons why I don’t have time to do it. Just add 5 kids to the farm and you’ve got an idea of how much I have on my plate. However, I also am a writer.

It finally dawned on me that even if I tried and only got 40k words in one month, then that’s still an awesome achievement. If we make it, we win. If we don’t reach our goal, we still win because we made the effort and wrote every day for the whole month. Is there a downside to this?

If any of you would like to join me in my quest for 50K, my username is mrs.farmgirl. I think I’ll spend every spare moment from now till November outlining.

Happy writing everyone, and I hope to see you there!

Are any of you doing NaNoWriMo with me?