For those of you who are writers, or considering writing, I cordially present: my year in scribbling. For the rest of you, this will probably be deadly dull, and I advise finding a more interesting website, post haste. January Fresh back from a fab Big Sur Workshop with ABLit. Inspired. Instructed. I eradicate thousands of words from WIP thanks to great advice from Jenn Rofe and Mary Kole. I am introduced to several of my bad author-ly habits, and I send them packing. Yay! I realize I don’t know where my WIP should begin. *Is annoyed* I join kindleboards and lurk watch the Writer’s Cafe with interest. February WIP is looking thin and fit thanks to December/January weight loss program. I still fear I haven’t found the correct beginning for my story, but I go with one I think might work. Now a Read more…

Wishing you a very, very happy season of holidays, whichever you celebrate. For my fam, it’s Christmas, although you might hear the occasional Hanukkah greeting, depending on who is around and how closely the two holidays fall any given year. I wanted to send a little something out to say thanks for following me this year, so today, December 25, you can download a copy of Rippler from Amazon absolutely gratis! Er, free. Sir Walter’s been hanging out in my head again. (Yes, he also knows and can speak in Latin.) The special will end sometime around midnight Pacific Time, so head over while the getting is good! With wishes for “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to mankind,” Cidney

It’s my pleasure to bring the lovely Fisher Amelie on deck today, as part of her Bad Aces Blog Tour for her new title, CALLUM AND HARPER.  Author Bio: Fisher Amelie resides in the South with her kick ace husband slash soul mate. She earned her first ‘mama’ patch in 2009. She also lives with her Wiem, ‘Jonah,’ and her Beta, ‘Whale.’ All these living creatures keep the belly of her life full, sometimes to the point of gluttony, but she doesn’t mind all that much because life isn’t worth living if it isn’t entertaining, right? Fisher grew up writing. She secretly hid notebooks and notebooks of dribble in a large Tupperware storage container in her closet as a kid. She didn’t put two and two together until after college when it suddenly dawned on her: “Hey, I like writing.” She’s Read more…

WINNERS ANNOUNCED: Congratulations to Ally Arendt, Krystal Larson, and Kelly Fox, who will each get to choose from the three books below! And for the BIG winner of all the Indie Carnival giveaways: Vanessa Eric! Woohoo! There are some really fine books being independently published these days, and I’m making a list so I can load a few up on my kindle for Christmas. (Yes, DH, that was a massive hint!) Here are some that caught my eye: Fateful by Cheri Schmidt features a heroine leaving small town life in Colorado to study art in London. Study art in London? Count me in! Danielle, the heroine, is hoping to find Mr. Darcy. (Um, yes, please, I’ll have some of that, too.) Her hero, Ethan, is wonderful by day, but by night he’s, well, a vampire. I haven’t read any vamp Read more…

When I first starting rolling the idea for this post around in my mind, I thought I’d be talking about writing from the point of view of plot, story arc, character development and so on. Which kind of made me want to hit the snooze alarm. Maybe another day I’ll feel inspired to write on those things. Today? Not so much. Instead, I thought I’d serve up a slice of what writing is like using figurative language. Let me list the ingredients, and I think you’ll see where I’m going with this. And be sure to let me know how your pie turns out if you try the recipe! Fiction Pie 1 part constructive criticism (initially, seems to make tart, but will improve flavor over time) 1 part rejection 1 part rewriting (to taste) 1 part compare-self-to-others (note: this makes Read more…

The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don’t have to write a preachy book to do that. You just have to make it a fun book with characters they care about, and they will become better people as a result. –Louis Sachar Does reading make you a better person? Honestly, I don’t know. But what Sachar writes about readers empathizing with characters strikes me as very deeply true. As a kid, I read for many reasons. Early on, I read for fun and for the sheer delight of words side by side on a page. As I grew older, I read so I could learn about kids who lived far away from me, in space or time. These reasons continued Read more…

  A few fun things to read (click to visit the blog of these fine authors!) 1. Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween, Book 1 in the Teen Halloween Series 2. Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series 3. Heather Self 4. T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series 5. Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga 6. Darby Karchut, author of GRIFFIN RISING 7. Lexus Luke 8. PJ Hoover, Author of SOLSTICE, Blogging at ROOTS IN MYTH 9. Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy 10. Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog 11. K. C. Blake, author of Vampires Rule and Crushed 12. Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series 13. Courtney Cole, author of The Bloodstone Saga 14. Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Read more…

EMO-ME I’m almost certain I’m going to regret this, but I found some high school writing from freshman year that was just too . . .  amazing . . . to keep to myself. You may go ahead and assume that the first person narrator is, in fact, me. And the boy? My freshman crush, of course, re-named “Gonzo” because I was, in fact, gonzo for the guy. And now, without further ado, I present, “Snow Day.” Snow Day I’m skiing at Badger by myself – ski bus brought me up.① I’m alone since all my friends went inside because of the snow. I’m standing in a rather short line when, all the sudden, Gonzo whizzes by and says “Hello” in his way.② So, Gonzo and I go up on the lift together. It gets cold and I notice that Read more…

What’s new this week Refracted Light is hosting a giveaway for artist and author Selina Fenech’s illustrated novel, Memory’s Wake. Winner will receive a paperback copy. Open Internationally to wherever The Book Depository ships. Giveaway ends 11/10. Click here to enter!I’m a Reader, Not a Writer posts and interview and giveaway of Cheri Schmidt’s novel Fateful! The Reckoning by M. Leighton, the second and final book in the Fahllen series, just released on Amazon and Barnes & Noble on Monday, October 31st. Have you gotten your copy? Visit http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/10/reckoning.html for excerpts and the latest on her new release! Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween by Laura A. H. Elliott are now available for the Nook too! To celebrate, Winnemucca includes an excerpt of Cheri Lasota’s novel Artemis Rising in its Kindle & Nook versions. Happy November!

I’ve received lots of email lately this week from people who hope to write someday. Based on the two titles I’m about to recommend, I have some advice for everyone who’s written me this month about wanting to write someday. Here it is: do like these authors did and write the story that only you can write. Brilliant advice, huh? I estimate I’m the two-million-seven-hundred-thousand-sixty-fourth person to give this advice. (Give or take a few.) So you’ve probably heard it before. But it’s good advice. I read two great examples this week from writers who do just this: Maggie Stiefvater and Laura Elliot. I started reading Maggie the summer Shiver came out. I liked her writing, and I’ve been buying her books ever since. I want to recommend The Scorpio Races as an example of where a writer does what only Read more…