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Posted in Friday Ramblings, Uncategorized

Friday Ramblings From An Author-Short Week

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Happy Friday everyone.  This week’s seemed strange and I don’t mean in a bad way but with a holiday on Tuesday it feels like it was cut in half and made it seem extra busy for me…not sure why.

Summer’s well underway but not my summer reading. The only thing I’m reading right now is a book I’m reviewing. I’ve yet to get to the first book on my list which is a Sue Grafton book…yes it’s almost the end of the Kinsey Milhone stories. For those of you who don’t know it was these books that inspired me to try my hand at writing my own female PI story. Yes, way, way back when women PI stories weren’t a dime a dozen. The books also gave me the confidence to write in the first person…so many editors told me to change my story to third person. And guess what? I’m glad I never did.

Speaking of mysteries, in the last few weeks I’ve been doing what I suppose you’d call some soul searching and I’ve decided I need to get back to writing mysteries. I have three I’ve started but never finished and next month I’ve told myself that’s going to change. By the end of the year those three unfinished projects will be checked off my to do list. There, I’ve shared that with you so hold me accountable. If you haven’t heard me mention my mystery WIP during a Ramblings from August onward then leave a comment or drop me a line.

Have a fun week and happy writing to all.

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Monday Writing Prompt-Letter Writing

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This week’s prompt is about letter writing.  You’ve probably heard about people who decide to write a letter to their younger self and that’s what your character decides to do.

At what age is ‘their younger self’ and what do they discover about themselves and the past during the process.

I think this one will be really fun and should be a great exercise on character development too.

Happy writing.

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Friday Ramblings From An Author-Two Books Down and One to Go

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It’s been a hot week…and it’s getting hotter, and it’s also been a busy week.

I got rights back to two stories that had appeared in anthologies five years ago. I usually like to give them a rewrite and polish them up some more. Some I like to give a total make-over. It’s amazing how as a writer you look at something you wrote five years ago and think, did I really write like this once? Hence the need for a rewrite but one of these old stories was still okay with me. The other just needs switching it from an historical to contemporary so it fits in with a new series I created for some of these back titles. So far I’ve managed to release one and working on the other, here’s the cover-

Vanessa Devereaux

 

I’m pleased to say I even got a non-fiction book uploaded to Amazon today. It’s a short one about organizing and decluttering, something I did lots of last year and finally found things that work so thought I’d share them with the world.

Here’s the cover of that one-

a sparkof hope

 

Both covers were created by myself which brings me to another piece of news…I sold my first piece of art. Not sure if you can call it selling a piece of art but a customer chose my lilac plant sketch to be placed on their coasters. I don’t think I can call myself writer and artist just yet. Making that first sale felt a lot like seeing my first story in print and it’s motivated me to do more.

Have a good week and happy writing to all.

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Friday Ramblings From An Author-Do You Want to Be A Book Reviewer?

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Friday greetings.

Have any of you thought about becoming a book reviewer?

The reason I ask is because the nice folks at Long and Short Reviews are currently looking for more reviewers.  I’ve been reviewing for them for eight years and for both authors and readers it’s a win-win situation. While you won’t get paid, you’ll get free e-books to read…even print ones when you’ve been a reliable reviewer for a while. You’ll be part of a nice community that corresponds through a Yahoo Group, and best of all, if you’re author you get to learn more about the craft of writing. (So as not to go off on a tangent here I’ll be posting more about that some other time). If you’re interested, here’s a link to more information and if you contact them tell them Susan P sent you.

http://www.longandshortreviews.com/become-a-reviewer/

 

I’m pleased to say I finally got my reworked story finished and published. I released it yesterday and here’s the cover…another one I created myself-

Big Sky Lawmen

 

Now I’m back to working on my other three WIPs and gearing up to get rights back to another book next month. It will be the first book in my Perfect Pairing series but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it or what direction I’ll take. One thing I do know is, it’s going to have a major overhaul.

 

I’m also working on some non-fiction work and putting together a couple more classes for online platforms. More news about these in a future Ramblings.

 

Have a good week and happy writing to all.

 

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Friday Ramblings From An Author-Teaching On a New Venue

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Happy Friday to everyone. It’s crazy to think it’s already the 20th of the month.

I got lots done this week including uploading some of my writing workshops to a new platform over at Teachable. My school is called The Writer’s Workshop. I’ll be adding more classes there soon. Next week I’ll be working on some new classes for Skillshare.

I’m always eager to know what sort of writing classes everyone would like to see. Any writing related topic you’d be interested in?

The whole teaching thing has filled most of my days so I haven’t spend as much time as usual on writing but I’m still working on my WIPS and yes, even got some work done on the mystery I started during NaNoWriMo.

If you’re a self publisher you might have seen the new paperback beta testing that’s  happening at Amazon. You can now publish any book that you publish in Kindle as a paperback and not have to go to Createspace to do so. Anyone tried it yet? And if so did you prefer Createspace or the new format? I published my How to Write a Romance Novel on Createspace before I knew about this beta testing. I might try it for a few other books to see how it works out and which format I like best. Stay tuned…

Have a fun week and happy writing to all.

 

 

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Monday Writing Prompts-Blue Monday

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Did you know that today is rumored to be the most depressing day of the year? Maybe it’s the after Christmas let down or the dark nights, whatever it is, it’s a great idea for a story. So for the prompt I’m giving you the title of Blue Monday. What happens and how does your character or characters deal with feeling blue or maybe they plan something to shake off those blues.

Have fun and happy writing.

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NaNoWriMo-Days 28, 29 and 30

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My apologies for not posting tips for the last couple of days but I got busy formatting books and trying to add more words to my NaNoWriMo story. It’s the final day of the challenge and while I haven’t finished the story, I have written 50,000 words plus this month which leads me into the final tip.

Don’t worry, don’t panic if you’re not at the 50,000 word mark by midnight today. Don’t worry if like me those 50,000 words aren’t for the same story. As my late father always used to tell me when I had a test coming up at school, don’t ever feel you have to get a perfect score but just do your best.

If you’ve taken the challenge, even just penned the first lines of a story written and taken that first step to becoming an author, you’ve done your best.

Learn from this experience and let it guide you the rest of the year and each time you sit down to write.

 

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NaNoWriMo-Days 19 and 20

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I got too busy with writing to post a tip yesterday but made a note to do it today.

As well as writing my NaNoWriMo story, I’m working on two other stories which brings me to today’s tip. If you ever get stuck while you’re writing, one thing that’s always worked for me is switching to another story and either working on that or then switching back to the first one. You’d be surprised how changing stories can kick the muse into gear. I like to think of it as the writer’s lifesaver.