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.

My Successful Pitch

Hello awesome cyber-buddies! I'm thrilled to report that I got a request for a partial this weekend for COYOTE DREAMS! Yay! Would you like to hear my pitch? This is how it went...


After she smiled and shook my hand, she said, "so tell me about your story."
My pitch:

It's a coming of age story about sixteen-year-old Jenna who lives on the Sho-Ban reservation near Pocatello, Idaho. After her father has a near fatal accident, she has to run the family farm alone. But the dog that caused the accident is still harassing and killing her animals. This is no ordinary dog, but the fabled Coyote spirit.

Two neighbor boys, a farm boy and an Indian, offer to help, but their interest develops into something more than friendship. Jenna finds their attention both exciting and unsettling at the same time.

As the problems on the farm and the Coyote's attacks increase, she learns that accepting help is not weakness or failure. But when the Coyote goes after her little brother, she has to overcome her fears to save both their lives.

Coyote Dreams is 74,000 words and is similar to HATTIE BIG SKY, but with native mysticism and modern day characters.

Do you have any questions about my story?
 
The first thing she said was, "wow, that's a really good pitch. It sounded like the back of a book." Then she asked some questions and it ended with a partial request.
 
The reason why I'm posting this is because everywhere I turn people are saying shorter! Shorter! make it a one liner! Last year I did what they said and hacked at my poor query until it was something like this:
 
"After Jenna's father has a near-fatal accident, she must run the farm alone, but the dog which caused the accident is around and killing her animals. But this is not ordinary dog, it's the fabled Coyote."
 
The editor said, "so it's a horror then?" 
 
Um, no. Not even close.
 
I was so worried about getting it short, I'd lost the feel of what my story was about. This year I trusted my gut, listened to Elana Johnson on how to write an awesome query, and then followed the advice at Pitch University. And this time, I feel that regardless of what comes of this, I gave her a true look at what my story was really about.

***Update! I learned that your one liner/elevator pitch doesn't have to sum up the story, it can be a simple comparison to give the reader a feel for your story. For instance, my one liner for COYOTE DREAMS could be, "It's a contemporary coming of age story with Toni Hillerman aspects." Tada! Now you know it has some Native feel aspects but you also know it is a coming of age. I love learning new things!
 
Would you like to hear one more cool moment from this weekend? My boot camp instructor, Sheralyn Pratt said, "your writing is like the Mississippi; it's smooth and deep. It flows and takes you on this journey."
 
I'm going to write that one down in my journal. I'm still thankful that she said that about my story.

Good News is Coming!

Darlings,

I received some pretty cool news today. A short story of mine will be published in a magazine! I'll spill the details Monday so be sure to check back.

Quote for the day:

"It is better to shoot for the stars and fall short, than to aim for the manure pile and hit."

 

Exactly.

Believe in yourself and keep working toward your dreams. You are worth it.

Come, young grasshopper, let's be Ninjas!

Editing? You are not alone. My friend, Ali Cross, has declared this month to be Ninja Novel Revising Month.

Many of us bust our butts during NaNoWriMo and enjoy the friendly competition and encouragement…but then what?

First off, congratulate yourself for having written something because "You can't edit a blank page." — Jodi Picoult

I can hear the whining already, I hate editing, wa wa wa. No. Stop it. Editing is the refiner’s fire where you sift impurities and plain old crap out of your writing.

I struggled with editing until my good friend, Renee Miller took the time to go through my first novel with me. A light bulb went off in my brain and I realized that while editing is hard, and sometimes painful, it’s doable and even—dare I say it—fun!

If you don’t know how to edit, spend a few days and research. Highlight all the ly’s, that’s, and just’s in your WIP and stand back as the screen explodes with a case of the unnecessary-word-pox. Watch for was, were, could and all those other sneaky passives.

Most of the time you can find a more active way of saying what needs said. And all that pretty prose, you favorite bits that are beautiful but add nothing to the plot? Put them straight in the crosshairs of your delete button and pull the trigger. Like Stephen King says, sometimes you have to “kill your darlings” to make the book worth reading.

My goal is to finish COLORLESS by the end of March and have it ready for readers.

What’s your goal? Want to be a Ninja too? You can. Check out these other Ninjas.

My Spring Writing Goals

As many of you know, I have been working on a YA novel with the working title Coyote Dreams since last year. The exciting news is that I am in the final stages of editing and should have the finished manuscript ready for one last read through at the end of March. I have been editing a chapter a day and need to keep up that pace to meet my goal. By the end of April, I'll have the synopsis and query letter done and sent out to prospective agents and publishers. The reason for the end of March goal is because I need to finish it before farming starts and I will be attending my first writing conference in Provo on April 23rd (2010 LDS Writer's Conference Anyone want to go with me? Check out their badge in the bottom left of the screen- scroll down). I want to be able to say; yes, I have a finished manuscript, and here's the synopsis--not, yeah, I've been working on this story for a really long time and it's still not done.  See? That just doesn't sound near as good.

What's it about, you ask? It is a story about a farm family, living on the ShoBan reservation that must overcome tragedy and danger that comes to them in the form of a malicious white dog, the Ghost. 16 year old Jenna  struggles to run the farm without her parents and has to face her fears in order to keep her little brother safe.

I have learned so much about writing and how to make the story really come alive since I started. What's more, I have awesome writing friends who have been willing to help me along the way so I can grow as a writer.

On any given day this spring if you wonder what I'm up to, you can make a safe guess that it's writing and editing that takes all my time not spent with my kids or housecleaning.

New Writing Goals for the New Year

Last year I finished the first draft of my YA novel, Ghost Hunted, started on my next, Firebug, and got 2 of my short stories (Letting Go and The Foundation) published in the ebook Menage-a-20. Not a bad start to my writing career, but this year I plan to finish both manuscripts, start my third and send out query letters.

"Consistency is the key to productivity." I can't recall who said that, but I know it to be true. So if you would like to know what I'll doing on any given day this year, you can rest assured that in addition to my required tasks of mothering my children, and working on the farm (either accounting or slaving away outside), I will make the time to write.

May you find the heart to follow your dreams in this new year as well.