The Tor catalog
Check out Tor’s 2009 fall catalog. Lots of great titles coming up including one of particular interest.
Check out Tor’s 2009 fall catalog. Lots of great titles coming up including one of particular interest.
Thursday, September 30, 2010.
All day writer’s conference at UVU in Orem, UT.
Folks, this looks like it’s going to be an excellent seminar. Larry Gun-Crazy Correia will be there as well as Brandon Mull, Jeff Savage, Traci Hunter Abrahamson, Rob Wells, and a whole bunch of other great authors. You can see who will be doing what and where right here: Book Academy Agenda 2010 PDF. More details on the Calendar.
You can find registration information on the Book Academy site.
Interview with The Man Monday nightDungeon Crawlers Radio interviews The Man Monday, March 8th at 10:30 PM MTN. You can listen live or to the archive they’ll post to their site. All brought to you by UtahFM. Malak and Revan are great guys. I had a blast with them.
New page on writing facts & figures in the On Writing section.
CURSE OF A DARK GOD is moving along. You should see the progress bar move along quite a bit this week.
This is a cheap day-long writers conference and looks like it’s going to be another great one. I’ve highlighted what I’ll be doing in red. I’ll be making adjustments to the HOW TO WRITE A STORY THAT ROCKS presentation for things learned at LTUE.
Here’s their website. That night I’ll probably be attending the Whitney Awards Gala which is also being held down in Happy Valley, Utah.
DATE: Saturday April 24 2010
8-9 a.m. Registration
9-9:10 Welcome (Plenary)
KEYNOTES
9:10-9:40 Keynote #1 Ginger Churchill, “What I Wish I had Known as a Beginning Writer”
9:40-10:10 Keynote #2 Ally Condie, “My Journey to National Publication”
10:10-10:40 John D. Brown, “Aiming for National Publication”
INTRODUCTIONS of editors and authors
10:40-11:05 EDITORS: Derk Koldewyn, Granite NAME
AUTHORS: Caleb Warnock, Linda Jefferies, Shannon Guymon
11:05-11:20 15-minute break
11:20-noon BREAKOUT ONE
Upstairs room “Crafting the Novel” with Shannon Guymon, John D. Brown
Downstairs One “Finding and Working With an Agent” with Ginger Churchill, Ally Condie, Caleb Warnock
Downstairs Two “Taking Your Questions about Publishing” with Deseret Book and Granite Publishing
noon-1 LUNCH “Mix and Mingle with Authors and Editors”
1-1:40 BREAKOUT TWO
Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “What Deseret Book is looking for now”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to Write and Publish Picture Books”
Upstairs room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 1: First Principles & Story Concept”
Office room Caleb Warnock “10 Things Every Writer Should Know about Copyright”
Downstairs One Granite Publishing “What Granite is looking for now”
Downstairs Two Ally Condie “Writing Young Adult Fiction”
1:40-1:50 Ten-minute break
1:50-2:30 BREAKOUT THREE
Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 2: Character”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Genres of Children’s Books, from Board Books to YA Novels”
Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “National Publication with Shadow Mountain”
Office room Caleb Warnock “How to Write the Query Letter”
Downstairs One Granite Publishing “Publishing Options with Granite”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “How to Write Romance”
2:30-2:40 Ten-minute break
2:40-3:20 BREAKOUT FOUR
Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 3: Plot”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to be a Writer and a Mother Too”
Conference One Linda Jefferies “Writing Poetry”
Office room Caleb Warnock “Write a Synopsis? I’d Rather Gouge My Eyes Out!”
Downstairs One Ally Condie “Succeeding as an LDS author”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Writing Nonfiction”
3:20-3:30 Ten-minute break
3:30-4:10 BREAKOUT FIVE
Upstairs Room John Brown, “Writing Scenes: The Basic Units of a Novel”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Querying Agents and Publishers”
Conference One Linda Jefferies “Publishing Poetry”
Office room Caleb Warnock “Okay, You Were Rejected – Why, and What to Do Now”
Downstairs One “How to form a critique group that works”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Succeeding as an LDS Author”
4:10-4:20 PRIZE GIVEAWAYS, GOODBYE
REVISED (MAY CHANGE)
Carrie Hinkel-Gill at Moonlight, Lace and Mayhem has been interviewing me. It’s been thought-provoking and fun and is presented in four weekly installments. Check it out: http://mlmfantasy.blogspot.com/
Sometimes the writing flows. And sometimes you get to the chapter you’ve sketched and realize you’re stuck until you get the sheep off the road.
You had no idea they were going to be there, but there they are, bringing you to a halt.
For me, this means I have got to do a lot more thinking to make the scene work realistically. Or work at all.
That was chapter 13.
It stopped me dead in my tracks. Some folks say to write on, get the first draft done, but that isn’t how my brain works.
Besides, I tried that strategy with my first draft of Curse. I ignored the little Spideysense warnings I had about a fundamental situation and wrote on. I ended up with a big old honking manuscript that had to be rewritten from almost the beginning because everything from about 1/3rd the way through had taken the wrong trajectory. So instead of taking 10 hours to figure it out and fix it, I spent 300-400 rewriting.
That’s called stupid writing.
So for the last ten writing sessions I was researching and thinking and researching. And when I finally had a sketch based on how things actually work, I went back into flow and wrote the chapter without much trouble at all.
Huzzah.
Chapter 14 looks like it will be quick and easy. Some sneaking, some fighting, and a big discovery of a plot turn.
Folks, I just finished the first draft of my working outline for AWFUL INTENT. I’m stoked. Lots of research and lots fun and sometimes maddening work to get to this point. Here’s the current version of the summary, which will change.
Southeastern Utah. 30,000 square miles of red-rock desert and wilderness. One of the least populated places in the United States. The perfect place to hide just about anything.
Frank Shaw is just passing through. He was once an elite soldier, trained to see what others want to hide. Then he made some terrible mistakes and fell from grace. Except the old skills never went away: they were only heightened during his time behind bars. Which is why Frank notices the fearful woman in the McDonalds and the killer watching her.
Frank could move on. He’s got a life to put together and a sandwich to buy. But some things are more important than a Big Mac. Frank follows the man who follows the woman, and that one decision leads Frank to a ranch that isn’t a ranch and into a plot of awful proportions.
When Frank and the strong female Sheriff from the small town a number of miles away discover the truth, they try to get back and call for help, but the rancher is on to them and sends a private army out to hunt them down in the wilderness. Frank and the Sheriff will need to use all their combined skills to survive. Because time is running out, and thousands of lives are at stake.
My agent got back to me on BAD PENNY. I will be focusing on some tweaks over the next two or three weeks. Then we need to get that moving forward.
Finally, I know some of you are wondering about the DARK GOD series. And why wouldn’t you be with my earlier post? Things haven’t been finalized. Soon, Grasshopper. Soon.
Raveler is now up on Audible! The other two books are getting excellent reviews so far for both the story and performance by Alex Wyndham. So happy to have these up in audio. Many readers have been asking for audio versions for years.