FAQ: Search Term Bingo
Posted: August 28, 2013 Filed under: On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy | Tags: adverbs, Isla's Inheritance, poetry, search terms, words to be wary of 6 CommentsI was just browsing the various search terms people have used to find my blog. I suspect many of them went away without knowing the answers they were seeking, so here is a post that attempts to remedy that for at least some of them.
isla vs cassandra
In a battle between myself and the main character of Isla’s Inheritance, she would win. As well as having Powerz (TM), she’s also seventeen and spry. I am not seventeen. Nor am I spry.
will kiya hope of the phraoh be available on amazon uk
I checked with the author and it already is. Here ya go!
“Love Bomb”
cassandra’s lazy style
How kind of you to notice. My hair is brought to you by bobby pins and a pony tail. My clothes are courtesy of “whatever jeans I can find that fit my epic shortness”, and “the internet for cool geek t-shirts”. Currently I’m wearing a Minecraf t-shirt courtesy of Threadless (see right).
girl smoking sexy
I’m unclear due to the lack of grammar, but if you’re asking me if I think girls smoking is sexy, the answer is no. Eau de ashtray is not for me.
If you’re looking for a picture of a girl smoking something sexy, or the abstract notion of “sexy” itself, I can’t help you … but I doubt it’s hygenic. Just saying.
summer heacock twitter
grammar joke
“The past, the present and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.”
That’s my favourite. What’s yours?
when writing dialogue is there a comma after said when an adverb is used?
No. But may I urge you to reconsider using the adverb?
poem about a me and my dog with adverbs
Here you go:
I quickly walk my dog
He swiftly jumps a log
Hurriedly fetching a stick
I carelessly gave the flick
It’s covered in his spit
He doesn’t give a–
Ok, and that’s my daily allocation of adverbs consumed. I’ll have to finish it another time.
i follow the rules
Me too. Mostly.
words to edit out of a novel heard
That’s a pretty good suggestion to add to my list of words to be wary of, actually. Why say,
“I heard an eagle shriek.”
when you can say:
“The eagle shrieked.”
Good job, you!
play your cards right hashtag
May I suggest #PlayYourCardsRight?
grow out your hair
I tried but it didn’t work. Really, I tried for about ten years! I just had it cut back to shoulder length and it’s much healthier and more managable. Thanks for the advice, though.
fantasy book with isla as a character
Mine comes out in the (northern) fall of 2014. 😉
Excerpt from ‘Possession’ by J. Elizabeth Hill, and a giveaway
Posted: August 26, 2013 Filed under: On Books | Tags: blog hop, book launch, contests 1 CommentYou may recall that, a month ago, I was part of the cover reveal for Possession (Book 2 of the Mirrors of Bershan) by J. Elizabeth Hill. Today I’m very excited to have an excerpt from the book, which is due for release on 10 September. I’ve read the first book in the series and enjoyed it, so I’m definitely curious to see what happens next!
Hill is doing a giveaway as part of her blog tour: you can win a signed paperback copy of both Bound and Possesssion. There will be three winners. See below for details.
Blurb
“I never meant any of this, least of all for you to pay the price of my pride.”
After binding themselves to each other through their magic, Faylanna Derrion and Tavis journey back to her ancestral home, Iondis, intent on restoring the estate to its former beauty. From the moment they arrive, they find the secret horrors of the place aren’t exhausted yet.
Faylanna finds an old journal of her father’s, one that shakes her understanding of her own past. Worse, Faylanna and Tavis are both nearly killed when attacked by one of the men set to guard the Ninth Mirror of Bershan, still residing at Iondis. In the aftermath, he disappears with the newly-found journal. Sure there is more to this event than they know, Faylanna and Tavis return to the capital, Rianza, for help.
More secrets await them there, ones kept for years by people Tavis never suspected. When the truth is revealed, it alters his present and future completely. Can he rise to the challenges this new fate presents him with or will the change be more than he can handle?
The truths each learn about themselves and those they thought they knew will test Faylanna and Tavis’ love for each other. Will they be able to endure the pain and chaos they face, or will it tear them apart?
Excerpt (from Chapter 3)
“I thought I’d say goodbye before you go. I’m sorry that I won’t be able to come with you, as I suspect you may need all the support you can get. Sadly, there’s no way I can get away this time. I’m still paying for our last trip, in a way,” he said ruefully.
“It’s something to do with Voslin, isn’t it?” Faylanna asked and Keari nodded. “I thought it must be. I don’t remember seeing him much when I first arrived here, but now it’s like he’s shadowing your every move.”
He hesitated. “Yes, well, I didn’t tell him I was going last time, and he was rather irritated with me about that. I didn’t tell anyone, to be honest, but he’s charged with my safety. As he’s since pointed out, that means he should go where I go. I also wonder if my father might have said something to him about ensuring I stay close to home.”
“I’m sorry I’ve caused you such trouble.”
He shook his head. “My own doing. I knew there would be a price for running off like that. But I didn’t come here to go over that old business. Faylanna, I want you to write to me with anything you might need in order to repair the damage to your estates. I can think of a few things I would suggest, but it’s your home, your land, and therefore your decision to make. The fields shouldn’t be any trouble, but the manor will be another matter entirely. I know it’s been in your family a long time, but I’m not sure you can really repair or clean it enough. In your place, I’d probably burn it to the ground and then rebuild, but you’re probably attached to it. I can understand if that’s not something you want to.”
“I haven’t decided, yet. But I’ll keep your offer in mind. Thank you, Keari.”
He nodded, then looked up in the direction of the door. He glanced back at Faylanna, then turned to look over his shoulder out the window. His distraction was so unusual that she thought it must mean something. Given how comfortable they’d been with each other since her discovery of who he really was, she could only think of one cause. “I hope that I didn’t embarrass you in the carriage coming back from the palace. If I did, I’m sorry.”
He looked back at her, surprised. “What are you talking about?”
“When I said you were like family. I just– I’ve hardly seen you since then, and now you seem uncomfortable, and it occurred to me that might be why. If it is, please forget I said anything.” The last sentence came out in a mumble as she stared down at her hands.
His own slender fingers drew her up to look at his now serious, contrite face. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. You didn’t embarrass me in the slightest. I’m delighted you feel that way. I was surprised by it, but happily so. If I neglected to tell you that, I plead distraction. I’ve had a great deal on my mind lately, and too many things demanding my attention. It’s almost like everything is conspiring to come at me at once. Now that you’ve got me thinking about it though, I did want to ask what brought that on.”
She flushed. “It was something Tavis said to me once, the day before we arrived at Iondis, before… I said I didn’t have any family left other than my father, and he said that it wasn’t true, that you cared like family. I’ve thought about it a lot since, and I wanted to tell you that I feel the same.”
He smiled more broadly than she had seen in the past few weeks. “Every time I think I have enough reasons to be glad you met that young man, he gives me another. I’ll have to find some way to thank him one of these days.” The prince stood up. “I’ll leave you to your preparations now, but please, don’t hesitate to write if you need anything at all.”
Possession book launch
To enter, click HERE!
About the author
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Julie Elizabeth Hill exported herself to Vancouver, British Columbia after many years of staring longingly at the map following every snowfall. For as long as she can remember, she’s been making up stories, but it wasn’t until high school that someone suggested writing them down. Since then, she’s been hopelessly in love with story crafting, often forgetting about everything else in the process. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook or her blog. You can also add Possession on GoodReads.
The first book in the Mirrors of Bershan trilogy, Bound, is available from:
Cover reveal and excerpt: ‘Immagica’ by K.A. Last
Posted: August 23, 2013 Filed under: On Books | Tags: book covers, contests, self-publishing 1 CommentThis is one of the most gorgeous cover reveals I’ve ever been a part of. And it’s for a book by an indie author — which just goes to show the difference a professional presentation makes! Seriously, you’ll love it.
First, here are the deets:
Title: Immagica
Author: K. A. Last
Genre: YA Fantasy/Adventure
Expected Date of Publication: November 2013
Word Count: Around 66,000
Cover Illustration: Lawrence Mann
Cover Designer: KILA Designs
Immagica…
Where anything is possible, but not always controllable.
Enter at your own risk.
The night before her fifteenth birthday, Rosaline Clayton receives an amulet from her deranged father. He tells her she must find the book, and begs her to save him. Rosaline is used to her father not making any sense, and she dismisses their conversation as another of his crazy rants.
Rosaline and her younger brother, Elliot, find the old, leather-bound book tucked away in their Nana’s attic, and it sucks them into its pages. They land in a magical world where anything is possible, but when Rosaline and Elliot are separated, the only thing Rosaline wants is to find her brother and go home.
The creatures of Immagica have other ideas. Rosaline befriends a black unicorn, two fairies, and a girl named Brynn, who are under threat from a menacing dragon. Rosaline discovers she is bound to Immagica in ways she doesn’t understand, and the fate of this magical world rests entirely on her shoulders.
Add Immagica on Goodreads today!
Giveaway:
To celebrate the cover reveal, K.A. Last is giving away an Amazon gift card. To enter, click:
Excerpt:
The book flew open and a gust of wind whipped my curls around my face. The pages riffled back and forth before coming to a halt, open at the first page. This was getting a little weird. I was about to slam the book shut when words began to appear of their own volition, right before our eyes.
“Um, Elliot. Can you see that? Or am I as crazy as Dad?”
“I can see it,” he whispered.
Immagica, the place where anything is possible, but not always controllable.
Enter at your own risk.
“What a load of crap,” I said, picking the book up. The new line of text flickered gold and pulsed, on then off, then on again, like a flashing, neon sign. I gingerly picked up the corner of the page and peeked under it to the next, but it was blank.
“How do we enter?” Elliot asked, leaning into me and staring at the book.
“Why do you keep asking me all these questions? You’re here, you know as much as I do.”
“You’re older, and always acting so much smarter than me,” Elliot said. I poked my tongue out. “That’s real mature.” He rolled his eyes.
“Oh, so you’re Mr Maturity now you’re a teenager.”
“Sometimes I’m more mature than you!”
While we argued, we were oblivious to what was happening. The book riffled its pages again, and another gust of wind hit our faces. Before we knew what was happening, the golden glow exploded from the book and sucked us in. That’s the best way I can describe it. One minute we were in my room, surrounded by my grandmother’s elegant interior decorating, and the next we were enveloped with gold light.
At first I felt Elliot beside me, but then he was gone. The light was warm, like a soft, fuzzy blanket. Then the ground hit me in the face. It was hard and rough. The force of my landing knocked the wind out of me, and I tumbled over myself before coming to a halt on my back. Above me was an azure sky dotted with fluffy, marshmallow clouds. I turned my head and spotted the book lying closed on the ground a few metres away. I tried to move to retrieve it, but it took a few moments before I could roll onto my side and get to my knees.
When I finally managed to stand, I took in my surroundings with wide eyes. The sky may have been blue, but the ground was dirty charcoal. Lumps of gravel mixed with sand and dead grass. It stretched on, and on, nothing but barren wasteland no matter which way I turned. The only break in the landscape was where the horizon met the sky.
A lump of fear rose in my throat. Where was Elliot?
I didn’t know where I was, and I was completely alone.
K. A. Last was born in Subiaco, Western Australia, and moved to Sydney with her parents and older brother when she was eight. Artistic and creative by nature, she studied Graphic Design and graduated with an Advanced Diploma. After marrying her high school sweetheart, she concentrated on her career before settling into family life. Blessed with a vivid imagination, she began writing to let off creative steam, and fell in love with it. She now resides in a peaceful, leafy suburb north of Sydney with her husband, their two children, and a rabbit named Twitch.
You can find her at her website, or on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads or on Amazon.
Blog memes – Thursday’s Children and #MondayBlogs
Posted: August 22, 2013 Filed under: On social media, On Twitter | Tags: Thursdays Children, Twitter 20 CommentsThis is my last Thursday’s Children post. Not because I have decided to take my bat and ball and go home (no bat, and also — no home!), but because the organisers, Rhiann and Kristina, have decided that after organising it for a full year it’s time they moved on to a new project. I respect that, although I will miss the meme, which is about sharing the things that inspire you.
The meme has been a great thing to get me blogging. Since I joined in April I’ve posted Thursday’s Children blog posts at least once a fortnight — depending on other blogging and real life commitments. And it’s also drawn some extra traffic to my blog that I otherwise might not have had, because each Thursday’s Children blog post is registered at a central list and the participants often drop in on other blogs to say hi and see what’s inspiring them.
And Thursday’s Children inspired me. Talk about the snake eating its own tail … in a nice way, obviously.
#MondayBlogs
If you’re a blogger and also on Twitter, there’s another meme you should be aware of: #MondayBlogs.
This was created by social media guru Rachel Thompson as a way for people to share their blog posts once a week, and to find and retweet others. It is, unsurprisingly, held every Monday — although given the various timezones around the world, Monday goes for way more than 24 hours.
Here are a few tips for participating in #MondayBlogs.
* Write a blog post that others will want to read.
* Tweet about it on Monday. Make sure you include the #MondayBlogs hashtag, and that your tweet actually reveals something about the post.
* If you also include the account name @MondayBlogs, they will retweet your post as well. (DON’T include the account name as the very first thing in the tweet, because that prevents your followers who don’t also follow @MondayBlogs from seeing it. Include a character — even a “.” will do — before the “@”.)
* You can find other blogs to read and retweet by either checking the hashtag contents or the @MondayBlog tweets. I prefer the latter because each tweet only appears once instead of dozens of times as it is retweeted.
* Try and retweet at least a few other people’s blog posts. (I try not to retweet too many links at once, which means I spread it out. And I always read the blog post first, to make sure I’m not inadvertently sharing something offensive — which is why I only manage to share a few each week.)
If you want to learn more, I recommend this post by Rachel Thompson.
Anway, to close, I’ll leave you with the children’s poem that inspired Thursday’s Children in the first place:
Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
Click here to see this week’s other Thursday’s Children blog posts.
A big moment for me…
Posted: August 21, 2013 Filed under: On me, On writing | Tags: aussie-owned, Interview, university, writing 3 CommentsMany years ago, I did professional writing at university. I landed there because in year twelve I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, and a very lazy career adviser said, “Well, what classes do you enjoy?” and I said, “Um, English?”
I also enjoyed computing, so if the career adviser had asked a slightly different question or if I’d mentioned the other class first I might be a highly paid IT nerd right now. I’d still be writing, regardless, but maybe not quite as well. (Much love to any IT nerds reading this. My boyfriend is one; I mean no disrespect.)
As it was, I got a degree that was broadly applicable to every job I had — I draft a mean minute — but only became specifically applicable in the last five years when I landed my precious editing job, and started writing again.
The head of the course — let’s call her Janey — was a huge fan of literary, feminist fiction. Genre fiction fans like me didn’t get a lot of credit from her, and the male genre fiction fans in the class got even less. She also believed in what she probably would’ve called tough love, but what I secretly believed was her way of trying to scare us all into not bothering to write so that she had a better shot at getting her own Great Australian Novel published.
I remember one lecture where Janey was talking about the Australian publishing industry. She told us there were maybe half a dozen Australian fiction writers who could make a living off their work, that they all wrote literary or mainstream commercial fiction (ie they were Bryce Courtenay), and that we should all give up any hope of ever being successful enough to pay a mortgage.
Especially us genre fiction writers.
I have no words
(Note: Her advice is both good and very crappy. Kids, don’t give up your day job to write unless you are independently wealthy or you’re already earning enough from your existing royalties to pay the bills and save for your superannuation. But don’t believe it’s not possible to achieve the latter with a lot of hard work and persistence, either.)
Anyway, a few years later I discovered Kate Forsyth.
Kate is a Sydney writer. She writes speculative fiction. She is very good at her job, and she makes a living from it. When I read her high fantasy series The Witches of Eileanan, I loved the story — but who Kate was and what she was doing was, simply put, a revelation.
And yesterday I got to interview her over at Aussie Owned and Read.
Take that, Janey.
New year’s resolution update: partial success
Posted: August 20, 2013 Filed under: On me | Tags: new year's resolutions 2 CommentsThere are four months (plus change) left in the year, and I decided it was time to review how I was going on my new year’s resolutions:
1. By the end of the year, I will have either found an agent or publisher, or will look at indie publishing routes for Isla’s Inheritance and its sequel.
Check! *dances*
2. I will finish writing another novel. (I’d aim for two but, let’s be honest, I don’t have that much spare time!)
Check! *dances turn into Kermit flails*
3. I will edit my second book and see if I can find some beta readers for it, so it’s ready to go.
Now I’m done drafting Melaina, a full edit of Isla’s Oath is next on my to-do list. I should be done by the end of the year, barring fire or flood. (Please no fire or flood. I’ve had enough disasters for a while!)
4. I will stop being a cagey, secretive writer with people I know personally. I may be a wannabe published author but, with two novels completed, I can probably say I’m a writer, at least. :p
I ticked this one off back in January. Time to stop being so afraid to say what my hobby is. (I was scared of looking pretentious, like one of those people that says they’re a writer but never seems to write. Even though I was writing. I know it doesn’t make sense, but since when does logic enter into anything?)
5. I will get more exercise. I will use the gym at work: it’s free and I really have no excuse.
I was doing well with this until I tore my Achilles tendon. It’s getting better, though, so it’s definitely time to get back on the horse. Treadmill. Thing.
Did you make any new year’s resolutions? How are they going?
Achievement unlocked: novel complete
Posted: August 18, 2013 Filed under: On the Lucid Dreaming duology | Tags: drafting, Lucid Dreaming, writing 14 CommentsI finished my work in progress last night. Which makes me feel like this.
This book (working title: Melaina, which is the main character’s name because I suck at naming things) is 73k words and took me seven months to write.
By comparison, Isla’s Inheritance was about 80k words when I first finished it, and it took twice as long. I cut about 10k words from it in the editing process.
The difference in my writing speed is not that I have more time — I’m still a single parent with a little boy, and I can still only write after he’s gone to bed — but because I’ve learned that FIRST DRAFTS SUCK.
Seriously.
When I was writing Isla’s Inheritance, I obsesssed over the beginning. I knew you really had to land the beginning or your potential writer/agent/editor wouldn’t get any further to discover what your writing was like once you’d found your sea legs. And I knew there was something wrong with the beginning of my book, but I couldn’t fix it.
It wasn’t until I’d done several rounds of edits, received a bunch of agent rejections and had feedback from a pitching contest that I finally amputated the first couple thousand words from the start, and deleted an entire chapter in the first 10k words. It took me that long to gain perspective on it and see what the problem was.
And that’s why it’s not worth wasting a lot of time analysing your book in the drafting stage. You don’t have the perspective.
Also, drafting (despite what anyone tells you) is HARD. It requires dedication, finding the time to sit down when you’ve got washing to do or would rather be reading or sleeping. (Sleeping figures pretty highly for me.) I personally find dialogue easy and a lot of fun to write, but transition scenes? I have to make myself write them, and reward myself with cookies.
I’ve learned to cut myself some slack. Sure, what I come up with (especially during transition scenes) may be clunky and not flow properly. But I don’t let myself get too tied up in trying to fix it as I’m drafting. I will do one read over of what I wrote the previous session, and edit as I go. Then I move on. So far the only additional editing the bulk of Melaina has seen is when I’ve had an idea later on that’s involved a bit of foreshadowing; when I’ve edited that in I’ve often tinkered with the section I added it to.
That’s it.
There are hokey cliches in there (“my heart thundered”, “my pulse raced”). There are ridiculous phrases (for some reason I seem very fond of writing things like “my eyes roamed the room”, despite the anatomical impossibility of such an act). But that’s what editing is for.
It’s clunky but it’s done. The bones are there. You can’t edit nothing, and now I have something to polish.
Booyah!
Inspired by butterflies (and moths, and deviantART)
Posted: August 15, 2013 Filed under: On writing | Tags: Thursdays Children 9 CommentsI thought about writing a Thursday’s Children post about being inspired by Pinterest, but that’s pretty much a gimme. I did use it as a source of inspiration over the weekend, when I was struggling with visualising something, but there was another source I used even more.
Image from Wiki Commons
Have you ever heard of the website deviantART? It’s a place where artists can post their visual (and sometimes written) art for others to admire and, if they’re so inclined, purchase.
Well, I went to dA, and found some AWESOME art. (I even then pinned it to my board–see how those things come together?)
Without going into too many details, my work in progress has a certain insect-y theme. I’d been using moths till now, but decided to mix it up a little with what I thought was an Australian butterfly: the Monarch (aka Wanderer). It turns out the Monarch is from the US and has just wandered its way over here. Like a flying cane toad.
They’re even poisonous, apparently, because of the plant they prefer to eat, the milkweed. Things I didn’t know.
Anyway, some of the images I found on dA by searching for Monarch Butterflies were breathtaking. I’d love to post them here, but copyright, so instead here are a few links. Click them. CLICK THEM NOW!
Monarch by *RozennIlliano
:MonarcH: by *AkiMao
Monarch by ~CloudyNine
Monarch by `Emerald-Depths
Click here to see this week’s other Thursday’s Children blog posts.
Struggling, and zombies
Posted: August 12, 2013 Filed under: On me | Tags: aussie-owned, real-estate, The Zombie Project Leave a commentI’ve been struggling a bit the past couple of weeks. In my defence, I’ve had a lot going on: we (well, I) packed, then moved into my parents’ house, and then my son and I both got the flu. Now I’m house hunting, which involves spending every Saturday driving around, and dodging overly friendly real estate agents who suddenly lack any customer service skills when it actually matters.
Anyway.
This is why I haven’t been blogging much the last week or so. I’ve managed to meet my weekly writing goal, and even to catch up on what I should have written when I was too busy packing to write. But this last week I’ve been back at work and I’ve only met that goal by the skin of my teeth.
Forgive me?
There are a few exciting things coming up though. I’ve got two AWESOME interviews lined up for Aussie Owned and Read in the next four weeks. One is with an Australian speculative fiction icon, and the other with a hot new (relatively speaking) Aussie writer. Stay tuned for details!
I’ve also got an excerpt of a new release, and a gorgeous cover reveal. It will BLOW YOUR MIND!
Plus my contribution to The Zombie Project goes live on Sunday 8 September. Yes, that’s the day after the Australian federal election. (Seems appropriate somehow.)
Don’t know what The Zombie Project is? A bunch of fantastic writers (and also me), brought together by Twitter and a love of braaiiiins, are doing a collaborative short story project. Instead of just being your typical anthology, the stories are all set in the same world. The only rule is that each story must contain an element from the preceding one.
Awesome, right? The stories are being posted at Chynna-Blue Ink — scroll down to the first and then read them in order.
Go on. Why are you still reading this? Shoo!
On themes and dinosaur bones
Posted: August 6, 2013 Filed under: On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy, On writing | Tags: Chuck Wendig, Isla's Inheritance, theme, urban fantasy, writing 2 CommentsI’ve written almost three novels now, but I’ve never consciously developed a story’s theme as I was writing it. I always felt a little guilty about that, because everyone tells me that theme is one of those things that binds a story together. Like grammar, or pacing, or dialogue tags.
My current work in progress is at 69k words (dude) and I’m at the start of the final confrontation scene. I’m having a moment of what I could call writer’s block, except I don’t feel blocked—I feel more like an archaeologist who’s revealed a small part of the skeleton and is dusting away at it with a little brush to reveal HOLY CRAP IT’S A FREAKING DINOSAUR!
The final scene of my book: an artist’s impression (image from Wiki commons)
The reason I wouldn’t call it writer’s block has a couple of elements:
1. I know which characters are involved in the scene, and what the inter-personal dynamics are.
2. I know who is going to win and what the final outcome will be.
What I don’t have yet is the how. How are they going to win? I’ve been pondering this for a couple of days, and it dawned on me that the other thing I know about the scene is that I want them to win not by dint of awesome superpowers (I write urban fantasy, so there are a few of those kicking around) but by virtue of accessing the part of them that is human.
And then I realised tonight, HOLY CRAPBISCUITS! THAT’S MY BOOK’S THEME!
In fact, it’s been a theme of all three of my books—both of Isla’s stories and this latest one (which is about a different character).
My books are about people struggling with what it is to be human and other, and to become an adult, all at the same time. And that’s kind of cool.
Although maybe not for my characters.
As is often the case, Chuck Wendig says it best. (Check out point three: apparently I don’t have to feel bad about not writing it in consciously after all. Phew!)
Now excuse me—I have to go back to dusting these dinosaur bones.
Cassandra Page 