Friday Ephemera, 3/15/12 Edition

 Friday Ephemera  6 Responses »
Mar 162012
 

 

Writing

 

Blogging

 

Publishing

 

Miscellaneous And Awesome

An axe to the face? HELL YEAH BRING IT ON.

 

Short Friday Ephemera, 2/10/2012 Edition

 Friday Ephemera  5 Responses »
Feb 102012
 

 

 

*Sorry about the short update. Ended up spending a lot of time at the kitty hospital today. My cat is home now though with a cone over his head and a catheter. He’s back to the vet hospital tomorrow but they have high hopes he’ll make a speedy recovery. You can read more about our kitty trials and tribulations earlier this week.

The Return of Friday Ephemera!

 Friday Ephemera  9 Responses »
Jan 272012
 

I was off to save the world and I totally beat up this camera guy villain.

Writing

Books

Blogging

All That Other Stuff

  • Mary Robinette Kowel has launched a great idea: The Month of Letter Writing (like, real letters. With stamps. And mailboxes nailed to the front of your house.) If you were around last Valentine’s Day, you can already guess the announcement I’m going to make on Monday, so you can see how excited I am about February being the Month of Letter Writing.

Happy Halloween!

 Friday Ephemera, Things Worth Sharing  6 Responses »
Oct 312011
 

 

My favorite holiday of the year is just about over and it doesn’t seem like I took nearly enough advantage of it. Cybils has eaten up most of my spare time and our weather has been so weird – very cold at night and near 80 degrees during the day. The leaves don’t even know what to make of it so half of them up and died over night and the other half are like “wait, aren’t we supposed to be changing color now?” Weird.

I’ve gotten through something like 45 books for Cybils so far, 8 of which I didn’t finish, 5 of which I intend to go back and finish when it’s all over.

Tomorrow begins NaNoWriMo, my second favorite time of the year, and I’m head over heels for it. While I am not officially participating (not starting anything new and not pushing myself like whoa because Cybils comes first) I have already marked my calendar for several write-ins in my home town. (Have you signed up yet? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR)

Tomorrow also kicks off my November NaNoWriMo posts. Like last year, the posts are short, inspirational, and if you don’t have time to comment, don’t worry about it. These posts are for you, not for me, so enjoy them and write  your heart out. We’ll touch base again in December.

I do have an Insecure Writer’s Support Group post scheduled for Wednesday though.

Feel free to email me during the month of November if you’d like to chat, and while I might be somewhat missing from the blogosphere, I will do my best to keep making the rounds and paying special attention to the NaNoers listed on the linky below.

With no further ado, here are some links I wanted to leave you with last week, a link to the MonsterFest 2011 participants which you should totally go check out, and viola! Let the spookiness begin!

————————————————————————————————————-

Get Your Hands On This!!!!

My secret sister Margo Lerwill has released another short story called KEEP and I’m just crazy about the cover. It totally gives me shivers.

Summary: It awakens. It cannot remember what it is. It cannot recall how long it has slept. Yet it knows a trespasser has breached the defenses of this frozen keep, the most ancient structure known to a land held prisoner by winter, buried in ever-snow. The creature and its impish minions are ready for the hero, be he a warrior prince, a fabled mage, or a priest determined to cleanse the evil of the keep from this beleaguered land. The true question is whether the guardian is prepared to defend itself from someone who is less than he appears.

Keep is available at:

Amazon

Amazon UK

Smashwords

Barnes & Noble

 

 

NaNoWriMo Posts

My very favorite TL Conway is hosting a blogparty called Write What You NaNo starring some of my other very favorite bloggers. These posts are all about NaNoWriMo. You can read my post on November 3rd.

Week One
Oct 24: TL Conway  – Here
Oct 25: Alicia Summers  – Here
Oct 26: Adrianne Russell  -  Here
Oct 27: Sarah Ahiers  -  Here
Oct 28: Claudie A.   -  Here

Week Two
Oct 31: TL Conway
Nov 1: Margo Berendsen
Nov 2: Steph Sinkhorn
Nov 3: Sommer Leigh
Nov 4: Alex J. Cavanaugh*

Halloween

  • Take Back Halloween! A costume guide for women with imagination.
  • Nova Ren Suma, AMAZING AUTHOR OF AMAZING BOOK IMAGINARY GIRLS, has a fantastic series of posts called “What Scares You?” and lots of awesome people participated. Check it out!
  • One of the best Halloween dinnerscapes I’ve ever seen. From the imagination of The Happy Heathen.

Things Worth Knowing

MonsterFest 2011

Get the whole list here. Did you have a favorite? A monster you didn’t know existed? Thank you EVERYONE who participated. I’m still getting through all the posts myself, but I will get through them all, I promise. Next year I plan to do this again but with a little more coordination and UMPH on my part.

 

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Sign up on the linky so that I (and others) can come cheer you on throughout the month!

Friday Ephemera, 10/7/11 Edition

 Friday Ephemera  6 Responses »
Oct 072011
 

BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m looking for guest posters for December. Some dates are still open - check this post for more info. Everyone is welcome! First come first serve. I’ve crossed out the dates already taken and turned the ones open to red.

Missed any of this week’s MonsterFest posts?

Here there they are one more time! Please stop by and comment – these posts are wonderful and clearly lovingly written. I love when people gush about mythology!

All Things Writing

  • James Scott Bell guests over at Rachelle Gardner’s blog and talks about why he writes pulp fiction. Good post for those thinking about self-publishing some stuff.
  • Annalise Green has a fantastic post on not wearing pants. Errr, outlining. And pantsing. :-)
  • Jessica Spotswood (who has a gorgeous blog, btw) wrote about writing diversity into your book. This can be a tough topic – talk about writing outside your comfort zone.

On Writing…but Not

 

Paper and Pixels

Social Media and Platform Building

News Worth Knowing

  • Everyone has heard Steve Jobs has passed away. It seems kind of impossible – so much of what I know and love was innovated by this man. Amazing how much he managed to do in his life. Amazing.

 

Insecure Writer’s Support Group – Posts Worth Sharing

 

Friday Ephemera, 9/23/11 Edition

 Friday Ephemera  14 Responses »
Sep 232011
 

 

I have been reading Goliath by Scott Westerfeld (BRILLIANT) and outlining all week, so I haven’t been doing a lot of online stuff. This week’s Friday Ephemera is pretty sad.

TELL GREAT STORIES
  • Next week is Banned Book Week and I’m going to be pulling out all the emotional heart strings for this one. I’m going to be attacking the challengers of “dark YA” and also telling you some about me growing up. I’m kind of afraid because it is the most personal I’ve ever been online, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
  • If you haven’t yet signed up for MonsterFest, do now! Go! And tell people about it. I actually have quite a few sign ups. I’m going to post the schedule next week of those who have already signed up. There are some GREAT monsters being covered.

 

Writing
  • YA Highway has a post this week about Ghostwriting. Not the kind with actual ghosts. The kind where you don’t get credit.
  • Author Claudia Gray guested on The Other Side of the Story to talk about first person vs. third person writing.
  • Last week C.A. Marshall wrote 8 Reasons Why I Hate Your Book, which sounds heart wrenching when she puts it that way, but there are some really good reasons for hating a book in this list. #5, coincidences, is one of my BIG BIG HATE LIST ARGH items. I don’t scream, “OH MY GOD THAT WAS A TERRIBLE COINCIDENCE” though. I usually scream, “OH MY GOD THAT WAS SO CONTRIVED I’M KIND OF EMBARRASSED.” I do sort of use all caps in real life when things annoy me.
  • George R.R. Martin on killing off characters.

 

On Writing…but Not

 

Reading

 

Our Weird World
  • i09 reports on a hidden painting between a 19th century masterpiece.
  • Electron Boy passed away last weekend and everyone in the world mourned him. Do you remember Electron Boy? The Make-A-Wish foundation made his wish come true to be a superhero for a day. And oh boy did they make his dreams come true, and the dreams of everyone in the world. I can’t even think about this story without crying my eyes out.

 

Blogfests

Margo Lerwill is hosting the I AM LEGEND blogfest next September 29th. From her blog

On September 29, 2011, stand up to say I AM LEGEND and tell us why. One of the participants will win either a copy of Donald Maass’s The Fire in Fiction or a hardcover edition of George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons, winner’s choice. The winner will be picked at random and announced here on Friday, September 30th, 2011.

Claudie is hosting the Superheroes of Science blogfest all next week! I love her science posts, so I’m pretty excited about this one. Claudie has a new site she’s moving her blog over to, and this is the official kick off blogfest to celebrate. So help her celebrate! From her blog:

The blogfest takes place between Sept 25th and Sept 30th, on my new digs and your respective blogs. You can participate by answering to one of the prompts below (or anything related) and adding your name to Linky below.

There is a secret prize! At the end of the blogfest, I will use my awesome dice to pick the winner from participants.

 

 Deana Barnhart is doing a Killer Characters blogfest later in October, but you can sign up now. And of course there are prizes! From her blog:

Join us in three challenges:
1) Oct 24 post about your favorite literary supporting character
2) Oct 26 post about your favorite literary protagonist
3) Oct 28 post about your favorite literary antagonist
All entires should be 250 words maximum, but you may use all the pictures you’d like.

Friday Ephemera, 9/9/11 Edition

 Friday Ephemera, Topics in Writing  10 Responses »
Sep 092011
 
On Writing
On Writing…but Not
  • Author Courtney Summers reveals the cover for her upcoming zombie book THIS IS NOT A TEST. Not gonna lie, it kind of freaks me out.
  • Daniel Arenson guest posts on Amanda Hawking’s blog  and talks about the top ten toughest creepy creatures.
  • This is a great follow up post to my Dystopian week – EM Bowman writes: Is it Dystopian? A Flowchart for Decoding the Genre. Not as cool as Venn Diagrams, but you know, very nearly.
  • Empty White Pages (Campaigner shout out!) posted Musical Stories: Horror - creepy, creepy, creepy songs, especially the first one that has that pretty music and serial killer lyrics. She has a whole series of posts like these, including YA.
Publishing
Social Networking Gossip
Contests!
  • Author Kody Keplinger (THE DUFF) has a new book out now: Shut Out and she’s running a cool contest over at YA Highway. Check it out!
  • Steph Su is giving away a copy of Hooked by Catherine Greenman
  • The Story Siren has a copy of The Witchlander by Lena Coakley up for grabs :-)
Good for the Soul
  • Authors Nathan Bransford, James Dashner, and J. Scott Savage have a new podcast called Wordplay! It’s quite good. :-)

 

 

Don’t forget to come back on Monday and get the low-down on my next blogfest – MONSTERFEST 2011!