Cover and Contest!

My newest novel, NEVER THAT FAR, is published and released TODAY by Shadow Mountain.  a huge thank you to Jennifer De Chiara and Steve Fraser who represented me for this deal. And a big thank you to the amazing Lisa Mangum, my editor at Shadow Mountain.

A normal person could post a pic. I cannot. But, dagnabit, I will by end of today. So until then, imagine a pretty cover

 

 

HERE

 

 

Now! Here’s the contest! If you go to FB, you can add your goals under this post there.

I’m getting ready for a sing off! And I’m challenging Trent Reedy. And Claudia Mills, too! Yes! Where? At WIFYR this June!

We’re getting the ball rolling a little early with Getting Ready for WIFYR Writing Contest where you might win a book or two. My newest novel NEVER THAT FAR is one of the prizes. So is Trent Reedy’s book DIVIDED WE FALL.

Here’s how it works:

Say what your writing goal is for April AND May (I’ll reveal my goals tomorrow). And the most amazing Stephanie Moore will keep track of things for us.

You get to put your name in our virtual drawing if you sign up to play, if you complete your writing weekly goals, meet your goal, and every check-in on our Friday FB post. Invite all your friends! Got friends on Twitter? Instagram? Invite them, too!

The writing goals can be whatever you want them to be: 50 words a day, 5000 words a day or anything in between. They can be editing goals, if you like. Anything to help you get ready for our week-long writing conference this June.

The winner will be randomly drawn and notified on June 1, 2018.
Then we’ll pop the prize in the mail (US residents only), signed to you.
Woot woot!

But that’s not all.

Trent and I will have a sing off at WIFYR. Or we’ll sing a duet. Or something.
And Claudia Mills? That will be a flannel shirt wear-off contest .

Oh my gosh, this just keeps on giving.

So join us for our Getting Ready for WIFYR Writing Contest.

(You DO NOT have to attend WIFYR to play. But if you want to register, go here: http://www.wifyr.com. There are a few spaces open, but many of the classes are almost closed.)

Day of Accountability

Last night, before sleep, I had a terrible premonition.

Then in the middle of the night I screamed so loudly (from a bad dream) I awoke Caitlynne.

The screaming in my sleep has been happening a lot. I’m not sure why. Before, I used to have a terrifying recurring something (dream? I’m not sure) that I was worried would continue after my divorce. That’s all I’m going to say.

 

Except–I awoke this morning with the beginning of my 100 word story.

And I know the end, too.

 

How are you doing with your plots?

Have you been playing? Preparing for NaNoWritMo? You should have 7 plots now. One for each day (not including the weekend).

I wrote down 16 plot ideas and have been fleshing them out as I have time.

My final goal is to have 20 completed, plump, story ideas by the time October 31 rolls round.

 

I have a post by Debbie Nance but can’t get it because Yahoo! is down. I will post ASAIC.

 

Three Things Thursday

I keep forgetting about posting on today because I have to teach. But I am up early for me today and here I am!

First, thank you Lynne for the very delicious caramels. They worked beautifully for my party last night. Lynne is an amazing writer and an amazing woman and I feel lucky to know her.  Her heart is as big as Provo. Also, guess what? She water colors and is quite good.

Our Upcoming March Madness Marathon: Preparing for March 18-31

1. Make a goal for your writing. This goal is very personal. It can be as many words, or as few words, as you like. You can decide to rewrite a book completely. You can start with a new idea and write the first half of a novel or the whole thing or whatever. HINT: This is a marathon. We are pushing ourselves. So don’t use this organized time to play around but, instead, really work hard. You know what hard is for you. Go for it.

a. My goal for me: decide between next two books–dark YA or fun, light YA.

b. Write a very rough and dirty 100 pages or 25,000 words.

1A. Make a secret goal. If you are like me and always set your goal too high (like 1000 goals for the New Year), make another goal that is more private. My secret goal is to finish the book. This won’t happen, I know, because I am a very slow typist and I usually need two whining weeks when I get to the middle of the book. But still, I like to think I could do this. Ann Dee CAN do this. I have seen her write a book in a  day. Or something close to that.

2. Start planning what you want to write NOW. This does not have to be a word-for-word detailed, synopsis (unless you want it to be). I don’t ever write that way. HINT: So when I started the Motor Home, One-legged Rooster book, Steve sent the first few chapters to see if Paula Wisemen was interested in what I was doing. She asked for a few more pages and a few more and a few more. Then she asked for a synopsis. It did me some good to think ahead and wonder what might happen to my character. There are just ideas in that synopsis of mine, things I can change if I want to. Nothing is set in stone. But, like this motor home driving toward Las Vegas from Florida, I now have a bit of a direction.

2A. Give yourself a list of fifty things that could happen in the novel. You won’t use them all. And that’s okay. But think of those ideas like a highway and set up a few markers along the way of things that might happen.

PS Knowing the climax, or having a feel for what the climax might be, is important.

3. Decide now how much you will accomplish each day next week. Tuesday-Thursdays are my harder days. Do I get up earlier? Eat through dinner? Write during class?  Stephen King, my favoritest role model, has a certain number of words he writes every day and he doesn’t get up until he’s done. I mean, he doesn’t get up and quit writing until he’s done. He may get up and like, use the potty or something. HINT: Writing to a goal gives you something to work toward for that day.REWARD: Last night checked on the place we will do our readings (from our new books) and have lunch or dinner. I’ll reserve this restaurant. We’ll eat (in a private room), hand out prizes, read and laugh our guts out. Cost will be whatever you have for lunch. It will be a fun 2.5 hours. Tentative date: April 8, 2013. Sorry that this part squished up into the other. I can’t make it be a separate paragraph. I blame WordPress.

Kyra: A Contest With A Grand Prize and CORRECTION March Mar-a-thon Details on Monday the First Day of March

Below you will find several book quotes. Some good. Some ridiculous. My mom (Carol) says she will critique five pages of a WIP written for kids (she’ll let you know the rules if you win) for the first person who gets all the quotes connected to the right books. Hint: a few of these are written for adults. And some are really easy. If you know any other terrific quotes from books, please post. (Answers to come.)

“The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than me he might be, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.”

“I hated sports. I hated sports, and I hated people who played them, and I hated people who watched them, and I hated people who didn’t hate people who watched or played them.”

“ ‘If only, if only,” the woodpecker sighs,
“The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
Crying to the moo-oo-oon,
If only, If only.’ ”

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

“A new sickness invaded Jerry, the sickness of knowing what he had become, another animal, another beast, another violent person in a violent world, inflicting damage, not disturbing the universe but damaging it.”

“I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won’t tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn’t change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn’t really change the fact that you have what you have.”

“Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.”

“I’ll find me a house
with a piano
and doctors to help
my mother
and no old man . . .”

“The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.”

“Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud…”

” ‘Get busy living or get busy dying.’ ”

“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.”

“It almost rained Saturday.
The clouds hung low over the farm.
The air felt thick.
It smelled like rain.”

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections-sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent-that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.”

“Remember, we’re madly in love, so it’s all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it.”

“You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of the same compost heap. We’re all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”