Wednesday 26 November 2014
Tuesday 25 November 2014
Monday 24 November 2014
What's the definition of a blithering idiot?...
... Well if you look it up in the dictionary you should find a picture of me right alongside the description.
It's come to my attention that I've been sending out the wrong book to reviewers/bloggers. *headdesk* I have no idea how it happened, but all my file names are wrong. *headdesk-HEADDESK*
If I recently sent you a book and it wasn't the one you were expecting, I apologize. Please feel free to mock me without mercy when/if you review. I deserve it for being such an utter dolt. Thank you.
It's come to my attention that I've been sending out the wrong book to reviewers/bloggers. *headdesk* I have no idea how it happened, but all my file names are wrong. *headdesk-HEADDESK*
If I recently sent you a book and it wasn't the one you were expecting, I apologize. Please feel free to mock me without mercy when/if you review. I deserve it for being such an utter dolt. Thank you.
Friday 21 November 2014
Move over Elsa and Anna......
... 'cause in this house the 'Frozen' phase is officially over! *pulls shirt over head and runs about house cheering wildly*
My kids absolutely LOVED 'Maleficent'. She's completely won them over... and me! Ever since the film first came out, I'd been debating whether to let my little people watch it or not, but I shouldn't have worried. Turns out, old Maleficent is much less scary than, say, the first 'Harry Potter' film.
Such a wonderful twist on an old tale. It really made my kiddiwinks think about good and bad in a whole new way, which isn't a bad thing.
Now all I have to do is let Santa know we will be requiring Maleficent merchandise, specifically dolls, and an outfit for my little girl to wear to her classmates' birthday parties.
Ah! I can picture it now. Ten Elsa's, ten Anna's, a couple of Ninja turtles, and one newly-reformed Mistress of all Eeeeeevillll! :) I can hardly wait!
My kids absolutely LOVED 'Maleficent'. She's completely won them over... and me! Ever since the film first came out, I'd been debating whether to let my little people watch it or not, but I shouldn't have worried. Turns out, old Maleficent is much less scary than, say, the first 'Harry Potter' film.
Such a wonderful twist on an old tale. It really made my kiddiwinks think about good and bad in a whole new way, which isn't a bad thing.
Now all I have to do is let Santa know we will be requiring Maleficent merchandise, specifically dolls, and an outfit for my little girl to wear to her classmates' birthday parties.
Ah! I can picture it now. Ten Elsa's, ten Anna's, a couple of Ninja turtles, and one newly-reformed Mistress of all Eeeeeevillll! :) I can hardly wait!
Wednesday 19 November 2014
I have an important question for you...
Me? I'd be taking that red pill and heading off to Middle-earth to hang with the Rohirrim and the Rangers.
Which pill would you take, and why?
Tuesday 18 November 2014
What did you think?
Hey lovelies. Can I ask a HUGE favor?
If you've read either (or both!) of my books, and if you haven't already done so, would you please leave a review on Amazon (particularly Amazon.uk) or Goodreads (or both! :) )? Pretty please? *puppy eyes*
Don't worry, you don't have to blow any smoke. Just tell it like it is. I'm not one of those authors who gets her knickers in a knot and hunts people down over a negative review. To each their own. That's my philosophy.
The truth is, reviews matter, every single one of them. From the War & Peace epics to the one sentence "Loved/Hated it." Each review has the power to influence someone into taking a chance (or not!) on a self-pubbed author. Believe me, we need all the pimpage we can get!
Thanks, my lovelies. <3 You're the best! Okay, I'm crawling back into bed with my tissues and Lemsip. My wee boy is so better since he gave all his snotty germs to me. Have a great day! :)
If you've read either (or both!) of my books, and if you haven't already done so, would you please leave a review on Amazon (particularly Amazon.uk) or Goodreads (or both! :) )? Pretty please? *puppy eyes*
Don't worry, you don't have to blow any smoke. Just tell it like it is. I'm not one of those authors who gets her knickers in a knot and hunts people down over a negative review. To each their own. That's my philosophy.
The truth is, reviews matter, every single one of them. From the War & Peace epics to the one sentence "Loved/Hated it." Each review has the power to influence someone into taking a chance (or not!) on a self-pubbed author. Believe me, we need all the pimpage we can get!
Thanks, my lovelies. <3 You're the best! Okay, I'm crawling back into bed with my tissues and Lemsip. My wee boy is so better since he gave all his snotty germs to me. Have a great day! :)
Monday 17 November 2014
At last...
I'm so excited. :D "Wolfsbane" is now available in paperback form. Yay! (On Amazon UK, at least. Hopefully Amazon.com will soon catch up.)
Btw, if you haven't picked up your e-copy of "Wolfie" yet, don't forget that it's currently an Amazon Countdown Deal. Please don't miss out. Grab Vadim and Anselm while they're going cheap! (Well, Anselm's always been fairly cheap, bless his heart, but that's a whole other story!) :D
Btw, if you haven't picked up your e-copy of "Wolfie" yet, don't forget that it's currently an Amazon Countdown Deal. Please don't miss out. Grab Vadim and Anselm while they're going cheap! (Well, Anselm's always been fairly cheap, bless his heart, but that's a whole other story!) :D
Wednesday 12 November 2014
It's official...
... I am utter dingbat! The 'Wolfsbane' promo starts TOMORROW (Thursday) NOT Friday. Doh! I'm blaming my scrambled synapses on my little boy. The poor chick has been off school all this week with a really nasty virus.
At the moment, life for me is one huge used-tissue mountain. No wonder my brain broke. The stench of Olbas oil probably short circuited something. :)
So it's tomorrow, right? Definitely... I think!
At the moment, life for me is one huge used-tissue mountain. No wonder my brain broke. The stench of Olbas oil probably short circuited something. :)
So it's tomorrow, right? Definitely... I think!
Kindle Countdown Deal...
Hey girls and boys. Just a quick post to let you know that Wolfsbane has a countdown deal scheduled to start this Friday (14th). The starting price is just 99 pennies, so if you haven't grabbed your e-copy yet, now's your chance.
Tell your friends. Spread the word! #sharing is love.
Tell your friends. Spread the word! #sharing is love.
Saturday 8 November 2014
Don't drink and write!
Hello, my lovelies!
One week into Nano and it's not looking good. Spewing out 50,000 words in a month is looking more and more like the writerly equivalent of climbing the North Face of the Eiger while wearing flip-flops... in winter.
Yeah. THAT difficult.
As we speak, I've only written 6,000 words. [Excuses: I didn't officially start until Monday, and I've spent this evening at the local walk-in centre (a sort of E.R. for non urgent out-of-hours medical cases) with my little boy who suddenly developed a rash, headache, and a stiff neck. He's okay, thank goodness! Just a harmless viral rash. as it turns out.]
I'm having real problems switching off my inner editor. What I need to do is sling the words onto the page and worry about prettying them up after I hit 'The End', but I just can't seem to "Let it go. Let it goooooo!"
Maybe I need a new tactic. Perhaps I should try "drunk writing" instead?
During my closet-writer years, I would often stumble home drunk from the pub, get out my notebook and pen, and scribble away (in extremely slanting, spidery writing) in the silent watches of the night. Pages and pages of "the most wonderful, perfect prose the world had never seen." (I was eighteen and still thought I knew it all. Turns out, most of what I wrote was utter drivel, but hey-ho!)
The quality of my "closet work" might have been on the iffy side, but there's no denying that my word count was positively vertiginous in those days.
Help me, drunk writing, you're my only hope!
Thing is, I'm not eighteen anymore. Half a beer-shandy these days and I'm asleep for the night. Nope. I need to come up with a better plan.
Answers on a post-it to this address please.
Enjoy the weekend. :)
One week into Nano and it's not looking good. Spewing out 50,000 words in a month is looking more and more like the writerly equivalent of climbing the North Face of the Eiger while wearing flip-flops... in winter.
Yeah. THAT difficult.
As we speak, I've only written 6,000 words. [Excuses: I didn't officially start until Monday, and I've spent this evening at the local walk-in centre (a sort of E.R. for non urgent out-of-hours medical cases) with my little boy who suddenly developed a rash, headache, and a stiff neck. He's okay, thank goodness! Just a harmless viral rash. as it turns out.]
I'm having real problems switching off my inner editor. What I need to do is sling the words onto the page and worry about prettying them up after I hit 'The End', but I just can't seem to "Let it go. Let it goooooo!"
Maybe I need a new tactic. Perhaps I should try "drunk writing" instead?
During my closet-writer years, I would often stumble home drunk from the pub, get out my notebook and pen, and scribble away (in extremely slanting, spidery writing) in the silent watches of the night. Pages and pages of "the most wonderful, perfect prose the world had never seen." (I was eighteen and still thought I knew it all. Turns out, most of what I wrote was utter drivel, but hey-ho!)
The quality of my "closet work" might have been on the iffy side, but there's no denying that my word count was positively vertiginous in those days.
Help me, drunk writing, you're my only hope!
Thing is, I'm not eighteen anymore. Half a beer-shandy these days and I'm asleep for the night. Nope. I need to come up with a better plan.
Answers on a post-it to this address please.
Enjoy the weekend. :)
Wednesday 5 November 2014
Nano News...
Hey all. How's your week behaving so far? :)
Here's my news: I might not be posting as much on FB this month as I've decided to accept the Nanowrimo challenge in order to get a head start on book three.
50,000 words in a month? Is that even doable? Watch this space. :)
The key to having a successful Nano', imo, lies in the ability to ignore your inner editor, disregard all the grammar and punctuation rules you ever learned, and just go for it. Whang those words down on the page as quickly as possible and move on to the next one.
Thing is, I'm constantly battling with my inner editor. I'm the kind of writer who can spend a whole day attempting to make a paragraph look pretty, but now that I can't--not if I hope to finish in time!--the process is almost painful. Still, my daily word count is rising, so I must be getting into the swing of things, albeit SLOWLY!
I just have keep telling myself that I can make it look pretty on the second draft. *sigh*
Wish me luck! :)
Here's my news: I might not be posting as much on FB this month as I've decided to accept the Nanowrimo challenge in order to get a head start on book three.
50,000 words in a month? Is that even doable? Watch this space. :)
The key to having a successful Nano', imo, lies in the ability to ignore your inner editor, disregard all the grammar and punctuation rules you ever learned, and just go for it. Whang those words down on the page as quickly as possible and move on to the next one.
Thing is, I'm constantly battling with my inner editor. I'm the kind of writer who can spend a whole day attempting to make a paragraph look pretty, but now that I can't--not if I hope to finish in time!--the process is almost painful. Still, my daily word count is rising, so I must be getting into the swing of things, albeit SLOWLY!
I just have keep telling myself that I can make it look pretty on the second draft. *sigh*
Wish me luck! :)
Saturday 1 November 2014
Top Tips for Nano...
(Nanowrimo) is upon us once more. Yes, it's that crazy time of year when thousands of people from all over the world attempt to produce 50,000 words during the month of November.
To mark the start of Nano, I thought I'd share a few of my own novel writing tips in the hope that someone, somewhere, might find them useful. :)
Okay. here we go... *drum roll*
N.J.'s Secret Writerly Top Tips.
Lesson one: Dialogue.
Writing natural-sounding dialogue can prove quite a challenge, especially on those days when your characters aren't talking to you!
-In order to get your conversations flowing properly, try wandering around the room--or 'house' if you're really struggling!--while reciting your dialogue out LOUD, alternating between your characters.
-DO ensure that you PRECISELY mimic the speech patterns and tonal inflections of your 'people.'
-DO punctuate your speech with any accompanying gestures--such as the brandishing of a sword in a menacing manner, hair tossing, punch throwing, wild laughter... whatever.
(SUPER SECRET TIP!!! Stay away from the windows!)
For the more seasoned writer, you might want to advance to the next level in achieving free-flowing dialogue: Muttering.
Be warned, "muttering" should NOT be attempted by a novice in a public place. The writer should have fully mastered the art of lip concealment, such as using the hand/ facial tissue to mask the face.
*bell rings* Okay, that's it for today. See you next time.
[And in case you were wondering, YES! I have done/still do all of the above! :) Enjoy the rest of the weekend! :) ]
To mark the start of Nano, I thought I'd share a few of my own novel writing tips in the hope that someone, somewhere, might find them useful. :)
Okay. here we go... *drum roll*
N.J.'s Secret Writerly Top Tips.
Lesson one: Dialogue.
Writing natural-sounding dialogue can prove quite a challenge, especially on those days when your characters aren't talking to you!
-In order to get your conversations flowing properly, try wandering around the room--or 'house' if you're really struggling!--while reciting your dialogue out LOUD, alternating between your characters.
-DO ensure that you PRECISELY mimic the speech patterns and tonal inflections of your 'people.'
-DO punctuate your speech with any accompanying gestures--such as the brandishing of a sword in a menacing manner, hair tossing, punch throwing, wild laughter... whatever.
(SUPER SECRET TIP!!! Stay away from the windows!)
For the more seasoned writer, you might want to advance to the next level in achieving free-flowing dialogue: Muttering.
Be warned, "muttering" should NOT be attempted by a novice in a public place. The writer should have fully mastered the art of lip concealment, such as using the hand/ facial tissue to mask the face.
*bell rings* Okay, that's it for today. See you next time.
[And in case you were wondering, YES! I have done/still do all of the above! :) Enjoy the rest of the weekend! :) ]
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