Writing Prompt Wednesday!

I'm just kicking off this new segment, and since I am in the throes of NaNoWriMo, I will keep this short! I will also make this month's writing prompts focused on things you can implement into a current draft.

So here is today's prompt:

Today, have a character find a book that shocks him or her. Where is your character when they find this book? Are they at home and they find something their spouse or child has been concealing? Are they at their job and they find something inappropriate to their place of business?

If you use this prompt, I'd love to hear how it works out! I'm going to try to use it in my story somehow today.

Monday Musings

I'm changing the blog a bit. After attending a book festival on the weekend, I had a few brainstorms about my blog and what I want to do with it. So this is my hope...Monday Musings will now replace my Friday Four, and I'll update it whenever I have a variety of stuff to share. I will continue to highly authors who write for teens (mostly) on Teen Author Tuesday. Wednesdays, I'd like to start offering Writing Prompts for writers who need ideas or a little push to get going, and on Fridays, I want to start offering some tips, ideas, and excerpts from my forthcoming book, Fast Fiction, about how to fast draft. As most of you know, I'm super-busy with NaNoWriMo this month, so I can't promise how much of this will get done right away, and the initial posts may be short, but I'm feeling motivated, so hopefully I will be able to start on this soon! Speaking of NaNo, I've had some great progress so far! Last night I broke the 10k mark, so I'm really excited about that.

And for all of you who think no one could possibly write a decent novel in a month...I agree. But I do believe you can write THE BONES of a decent novel in a month. Tune in Fridays and I'll give you some suggestions of how.

I had a great time at Northwest Bookfest on the weekend, presenting to a group of writers about writing Fast Fiction. This Wednesday, if you're from the area, I'll be doing another little talk and write-in at the Sumas Library in Sumas, WA. 

Also, if you haven't noticed, I've completed my list of 12 awesome books read this year in the sidebar. The latest addition is THE VOW by Jessica Martinez. It has a fresh premise, and such smart smart writing that I didn't want to put it down. 

If you're looking for more tips on writing than what I get to here, don't forget about my new website for writers, AuthorStarts.com. I hope you'll check it out!

That's all for now. Must get back to the NaNo project, and, you know...life. May the words be with you!

Friday Four!

1. Don't miss my Halloween giveaway of a creepy anthology! All you have to do to enter is tell me what you or someone you know wore for Halloween.

2. I'm off to present at the Northwest Bookfest in Kirkland, WA this weekend. If you're from the Seattle area and interested in learning how to fast draft fiction, I hope you'll stop by for my workshop.

3. It's November 1st, and I'm sure most of you know what that means...the start of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. My plan is to write a 50,000-word novel this month. I never like to talk too much about my first drafts until they're done, but I can tell you that this is another YA contemporary story, but quite different than anything I've written before. Also, at least at this point, it is told from a dual point of view. I've accomplished my word count for today, so I'm feeling pretty good so far.

I can't seem to find the word count widgets on the NaNo website yet, so I'll just tell you...I'm at around 1800 words so far. Not great words, but they're done. And they can only get better. Right?

4. What am I reading? Not much these days. I've been doing a bit of beta reading, but mostly just swamped with NaNo prep and tying up revisions on other books and getting ready to promote Fast Fiction. Speaking of Fast Fiction, I had a marketing and publicity call with New World Library, and was really pleased with the attention they are giving my book. I'm getting excited to see it out in the world!

Hope you all have a great weekend, and hope to see some of you in Kirkland!

Happy Halloween Haunted #Giveaway!

Last weekend I was at the Surrey International Writers' Conference. By chance (or perhaps careful scheming) I was able to sit beside author Judith Graves at the Book Fair. She is part of an anthology of 12 Haunted Tales, and when I saw it on her table, I said, "Oooh, I want to give one of those away on my blog for Halloween!"

Here's a little bit more about the book:

Haunted houses. Haunted hearts. And a past that refuses to die...

Leap Books summoned best-selling paranormal and dreadfully talented debut authors to conjure up Spirited, a haunting collection of 13 tales guaranteed to keep you up all night.
Get entombed in stories of Egyptian treasures, shudder at tales of malevolent spirits, and become enthralled with the adventures of witch-hunters, ghost seekers, and lost souls. From steampunk to cyberpunk, our collection spans past, present, and future hauntings. One story actually leaps off the page with 3-D augmented reality.

With this celebration of things that go bump in the night, Spirited authors hope to slay the specter of illiteracy that plague our youth. All proceeds from Spirited will be donated to 826 National, a non-profit organization that offers free after-school tutoring, workshops, and in-school programs because "strong writing skills are fundamental to future success." Go ahead. Turn the pages if you dare. We won't tell if you sleep with the lights on. Because after all, there's no rest for the wicked. 

Anthology edited by Kat O'Shea Contributing authors include: Maria V. Snyder, Candace Havens, Shannon Delany, Jill Williamson, Linda Joy Singleton, Heather Kenealy, Judith Graves, Kitty Keswick, Dawn Dalton, Carmen Tudor, John W. Otte, Halli Dee Lilburn, and Mark Finnemore Augmented Reality by Karl Gee

It's super-easy to enter. Just tell me what you're going as for Halloween, or if you're not dressing up, tell me what your kid or best friend or neighbor is going as. Also tell me what country you're from. I can only mail this anthology out within the U.S., but I have some special prizes put aside for international winners, including ebooks, swag, and critiques! This contest is open until the end of the weekend. I'll randomly draw a winner (or two) next week!

Highlights From #SIWC13

As many of you know, I had the good fortune of attending the Surrey International Writers' Conference this past weekend. If you've never been to a writer's conference (or even if you have), I'm telling you, this is the conference to go to. The workshops are varied and informative, no matter what you write, the opportunity to pitch and get feedback from professionals is superior to any other conference I've heard of, and above all, the friendly camaraderie among writers at all levels and industry professionals is nothing short of incredible.

I wasn't the crazy note-taker that I sometimes am at conferences, but I wanted to pass along a few of my personal highlights:

1. The guy that came up to me in the hallway and told me his kids are my fans.

2. The writers (you know who you are!) who I was able to encourage by sharing some of my personal failures and successes.

3. The three new workshops I was able to book while chatting with teachers and writing groups at the conference.

4. The self-publishing workshops with author Jodi McIsaac and the detailed and highly informative chat I had about self-publishing with author Elena Aitkin. I will be adding some info on this topic to the AuthorStarts website soon!

5. The hands-on training in Presentation Skills with author and presenter Anthony Dalton. I had to get up and do a cold-reading from his book (a book I had never read) while he was pretending he had fainted during a presentation. I had to take over and read until he relieved me. A good challenge!

6. Author Janet Gurtler gave a great talk on cliches in YA, and I came home with a huge list of things that I have done and ideas of how to make them more unique.

7. Great list of things to keep in mind when Writing Heroines, a workshop by Susanna Kearsley. She mentioned how most of these things come naturally to us when writing men, but we have to pay special attention not to skip over them while writing female characters.

8. The awesomely inspiring keynote speeches, especially by Jane Porter and Bruce Hale.

9. The theme! This year's theme was heroes and villains, and here is a little pic of me and a few of my friends:

The weekend was jam-packed with learning and networking and fun, so I could probably go on for pages here, but these are a few things off the top of my head. All I can say is make it a point to be there next year--third weekend in October. You will not regret it!

Tips for WINNING #NaNoWriMo

A lot of people join NaNoWriMo. Not many accomplish the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel in a month, though. I think it's something like 15%. My first novel, LOSING FAITH, was written in 21 days during NaNoWriMo 2007, and I've completed the challenge every year since (and several of those books are going on to be published). I get asked all the time how I do it. Most people who write think it would be impossible to reach such a lofty goal. Plus, my new book, FAST FICTION (which will be out in February) focuses on the topic. So I wanted to offer a few tips of how I have been able to win the Nano challenge year after year.


1. Always write forward. Don't look back at ANY of your story until you reach the end. Your subconscious mind will bring back any details you need to work in as you need them. Each day you sit down to write, scroll to the end of yesterday's writing and start there (or on a new page below there). This helps keep your inner critic at bay so you can come up with lots of new and creative ideas for your story.

2. Write every day. No matter what. Write. Every. Single. Day.

3. Start first thing in the morning. Even if you only have five minutes, try to spit out a hundred words in that five minutes. Then if, by chance, you can't get back to your writing at all that day, at least you have that hundred words under your belt. At least you've kept your mind in your story and kept the momentum of writing it going. (But I'll bet that after writing five minutes, you'll want, and feel capable, to write more that day).

4. There are no bad ideas. A thirty-day challenge is for trying anything and everything. When you have an idea for an obstacle, throw it at your main character and see what happens. I come up with a very loose outline ahead of time, but many times I have strayed from that plan and worked my way back to it later in the story. The result has always given me something new and great for my story (even if it's just a nugget of greatness within a bunch of rubble) but more importantly, it has rejuvenated my enthusiasm for writing and for my story.

5. Set a goal and stay accountable with it. Find at least one person who will hold you accountable throughout the month. Check in with them every day. If you're stuck for someone, ask on Twitter or Facebook. My best accountability writing friends hang out under the hashtag #wipmadness on Twitter and you're welcome to join us.

What are your best writing tips for NaNoWriMo? I'd love to hear them!

Hey, It's Friday!

Wow, life has gotten away on me again. It's been a while since I've blogged, and even longer since I've felt like I had time to blog. Anyway, here's a quick Friday Four to let you know what I've been up to...

1. Just added another Awesome Book to my 12 Awesome Books in the sidebar. This one is THE BOOK OF BROKEN HEARTS by Sarah Ockler. I love everything by her (it must be in the name--I like A LOT of books by Sarahs!) but this one hit me in just the right way at just the right time. A very tender story about a girl and her dad. And a hot boy, of course. Can't forget about him. Anyway, I highly recommend it!

2. If you follow me on Facebook, you may have heard about all my excitement filming a movie last week. A few of the Polynesian dance troupe I work with were hired to be part of a big luau scene for the Nickelodeon movie, A FAIRLY ODD SUMMER. It doesn't come out until next August, but we had a fun, cold, exhausting time filming it (did I mention this was filmed in Vancouver in October in the middle of the night?) Here's our group at 3 a.m. (I'm on the far right, but please, please, don't look too closely!)

3. I'm very excited about several events coming up, and I'll probably do an Events Post soon to highlight all of them, but for now I'll just highlight the next one. Next weekend I'll be at the Surrey International Writers' Conference in Surrey, B.C. I'll be signing copies of all my books (except for Fast Fiction, because it's not out yet, but I do have bookmarks!) during their book fair on Saturday night. More information is at siwc.ca 

4. And here's something I'm really excited about...I've been working for a while on a secret new website. I have to have it ready for next week for the official launch, but I'll just call this a soft launch and let you, my awesome blog readers, know ahead of time. It's called Author Starts, and you can stop by to see a bit more of what it's about. If you have any comments, I would LOVE to hear them--good or bad. I'd love to get it running as smoothly as possible, with as much useful information as possible, before next week.

Happy weekend, everyone! My son is competing in a judo tournament, so I'm a very nervous Mom...