So how is everyone doing on the writer’s challenge? Is everyone keeping up with their word goals? Did anyone analyse a book? I’d love to receive some feedback. If no one is enjoying the challenge, I can go back to interviewing literary agents instead. š What do you guys think?
As far as my goals, I’m doing pretty good. My goal is to write 5,000 words a week, and last week I managed 4,500. What about you guys?
Our challenge this week is to educate yourself. What I want you to do is pick one writing reference book and read it. If it includes exercises, you should do those as well. I’m going to be reading Writing Irresistable Kidlit by Mary Kole (who’s a literary agent). She has a wonderful blog where she has tons of great advice for children’s book writers. I’ve been waiting for this book forever! I can’t wait to read it.
I’m going to include a list of some of my favorite writing references. Feel free to pick one or tell me about one I don’t have listed. I”m a junkie for new writing references!
1.Ā Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer can Afford to IgnoreĀ by Elizabeth Lyon
2. On Writing by Stephen King
3.Ā Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
4. Ā The entire Write Great Fiction Series by Writers Digest, specifically Plot & Structure, Conflict, Action and Suspense, and Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint.
5. Take Joy: A Writer’s Guide to Loving the Craft by Jane Yolen
6. Write Away by Elizabeth George
7. Thunder and Lightening: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft by Natalie Goldberg
8. Page After Page and Chapter After Chapter both by Heather Sellers
9. Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
10. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
11. Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass
12. On Writing Romance by Leigh Michaels
And now to the book giveaway! My awesome critique partner Aimee Duffy and her friend, Michelle Smart, have an awesome, sexy new book out. I’ve pasted the blurb below. Anyone who comments on today’s postĀ (and you can comment up until June 5th)Ā will be entered to win it!
Glass Slippers and Combat Boots
Once upon a time in a land far, far away, the creatures are coming…
In a land run by misogynists, where fair maidens are deemed liable to fall in a dead faint at the sight of blood, Prince Charming is worried ā the creatures that have destroyed their neighboring kingdoms are coming for them. He judges it imperative to get all the females to safety, but first he needs to break the enchantment enslaving his One True Love to her hateful home. Oh, and thereās the small matter of the Ball to get through too.
But when the creatures reach them ahead of their expected time, all plans are foregone. Can Ella break her wicked stepmotherās enchantment? Can she save her handsome Prince and the kingdom before midnight strikes? And can she show his soldiers what it really means to kick a monsterās butt? The clock is tickingā¦
Reunited With Red
Many, many years laterā¦
When Ruby visits her grandmother in the deep, dark forest, she stumbles into a nightmare. Her grandmaās been attacked by a wolf-like creature, and an ancient disease that turned people into monsters is backā¦ and so is the cold-hearted ex she walked out on a year ago.Ā
Now she has to either accept Jeremyās help or face becoming a monster herself. Fighting alongside the man she once loved isnāt easy, especially when she discovers thereās more to Jeremy than the cheating bastard she took him for.Ā
As they fight to survive the disease and save those they love, can they keep from falling for each other all over again?
Michelleās Links:
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WebsiteĀ /Ā TwitterĀ /Ā FacebookĀ /Ā GoodreadsĀ
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Aimeeās Links: