NaNo - when now????

I was so cool about NaNoWriMo this year. Planned way ahead. Figured I'd do a sequel to my children's mystery novel DOG SHOW DETECTIVE. Plotted it out, have character sketches and a few little plot twists all mapped out. Now I've changed my mind.

After much feedback from beta-readers, both writers and kids in the targeted age group, I've decided DOG SHOW DETECTIVE is not as completed as I first thought. I need to juice up the start and add something more to the main character to push us into caring about her. Knowing this may change other aspects of the story, I'm not sure I should be jumping into the sequel.

The big question is what project do I focus on for NaNo. I could do another kids' horror story like MY ZOMBIE DOG, or I could go with a Science-fiction YA piece, or a teen spy-thriller. No rush there's still two and half days before I need to begin writing. No hurry.

How are your NaNoWriMo plans coming?

Read More

Writing Secrets

I've been keeping secrets. Nothing too exciting, but the cover up and sneakiness has gotten me thinking about characters. I love having secrets in stories, either the main character is covering up a secret or they learn the truth about a long-kept secret. Sometimes I'm forced to wonder why they go to so much trouble. They can't swim? Big deal, why would that be a secret? I'm terrified of hairy spiders and am happy for everyone to know. I have abandoned a classroom of children in my frantic fleeing when a huntsmen has made his evil entrance - more than once. Even the big boys over 6ft tall know they can not intimidate me, but will squeal like a squeaky toy if a spider is anywhere near.

But there are some things I've hidden.

At school all the teachers know I'm moving to Brisbane at the end of this semester and won't be back next  year, but I find I just can not tell the kids yet. They keep quizzing me about classes next year and I've been very evasive, on the edge of lying, because I don't want to hurt their feelings. I'll miss the Yass kids.

There's another secret.

I'm scared of zombies.

Terrified.

I know, I wrote a teen story called MY ZOMBIE DOG, and yes, it has lots of zombies. But I'd never sat through an actually zombie horror flick because they give me the jeebies. I LOVE horror films, my favourite being HALLOWEEN (the original). I'm not squeamish and I find the slasher flicks funny. But there is something just WRONG about those glazed over eyes and the slow shuffling. 

I have so many ideas in my head for more zombie tales that I want to overcome this prejudice against the un-dead, so, in my quest to better understand zombies (sometimes called the living-impaired), I've started watching THE WALKING DEAD. Many brain-nomning fans will remember this as a pretty well known comic book series. Now we get to watch it on tv. I got so scared I kept running out of the room and all night long I dreamt of worm-filled zombies.

I have a couple of suspension of disbelief issues with this show - when shot in the head the zombies bleed. Many of them have been dead a long time and are rotting - where's the blood coming from??? And there is a scene where the cop comes across a home where the occupants committed suicide rather than become infected - on the wall above their bodies in blood is the message 'God Forgive Us'. Um, ok, maybe... but this would mean the guy shot his wife and then before completing the double suicide pact, dipped his hand in his wife's head and used her blood to write the message before shooting himself - probably having to re-dip several times. Surely a permanent marker would have been better???

So what is your character hiding? And most importantly - WHY is it a secret? Or is someone keeping a secret from them? Is it BELIEVABLE?

In MY ZOMBIE DOG, Zane's mother keeps a secret from Zane. She didn't get his dog from the pound. She didn't want him to know she got the dog for free... from a voodoo witch doctor.

Read More

Apples and Zombies

This week has been huge.

The Apple populated world suffered the loss of an inspiration and innovator, Steve Jobs. It has been an amazing experience seeing people respond to this incident in such a big way. Interesting to see a corporate leader admired and worshiped as much as a mega-movie star. I'm starting to think it would be disrespectful for me NOT to buy an iPad now.

But on a more cheerful note, October 8th was World Zombie Day. Queensland Emergency Services tested out their QLD Alert website with tweets and updates on preparing for a zombie apocalypse. 

It was lots of fun, you can see the conversation in Twitter by searching the hashtag #zombietest - even QLD Rail got involved so you'd know which escape route to take once it was already too late and the city was overcome by zombies.

I've been on school holidays and spent most of that time working on our house (getting it all pretty to sell, then I can pick out my next house in Brisbane, hopefully outside of the zombie-zoned areas).

Edits on MY ZOMBIE DOG are coming along, with the protagonist jumping from 11yrs to 14yrs old. I need to get more of a move on with that and send the revised MS back to the publisher for consideration. But school goes back tomorrow and I MUST finish marking about 80 newspaper articles written by Yr10 students. Ugh, I hate marking - anyone want to do it for me?????

I will not be distracted, I will not be... I wonder if I can find a cute little sign saying 'Beware of the zombie dog' online?

Read More

Unrequited Love

Amazon broke my heart.

I was so excited about the new release Kindles, even though my latest Kindle is only 6mths old I was keen to jump in with a new e-ink touch screen Kindle. 

Then I read the small print.

US only.

Kindle Fire then?

US only.

It seems the only new Kindle they will ship internationally is the cruddy cheap model that has no touch, no keyboard and no robot to read the ebooks to me! I had grand plans of a Kindle Fire giveaway with the release of my first ebook (still a whiles off) but now I feel like I'm sitting by the phone making up excuses for why that guy didn't call. The truth? Maybe Amazon are just not that into me.

I could retaliate by switching to the iPad as half my family have, but I don't want to act too rashly - maybe I could just move to the States?

Or, I realise, I could just keep reading on my current Kindle that I was more than happy with a week ago (Nah, that's just crazy talk).

Read More

Exciting Times for e-books!

I woke today to some exciting posts in Google + - Amazon have announced their new Kindle!

I am a huge Kindle lover, I have hundreds of titles on my beloved Kindle and I take it everywhere with me. I've even gotten used to the robot voice for listening to books on the writing craft while driving (I prefer the woman robot to the man robot).

Our house is a little torn with our devices. Hubby and Matilda (10) love their iPads and read on those, whereas Emily (13) and I are Kindle all the way. I love the e-ink reader for reading long passages without straining my eyes, plus the tablet won't read to me. So if I love e-ink, why am I excited about Amazon producing a tablet device that is smaller and less sexy than the already iPad (which I already don't want).

At first I wasn't at all impressed. I couldn't understand why Amazon would produce a device in an already overcrowded market when they are already winners with their Kindles and the fact that the non-Kindle devices still host the Kindle app (so even if it's not their device they sell books through it). While out shopping I looked at some iPads and figured if Kindles were going this way then I might as well buy the real thing. I didn't. I realised if I had an iPad I would hardly ever get any reading done because of the lure of Facebook and internet and, and, and. Never mind trying to get my manuscripts written.

But.

Then I saw the big news today - lots of Kindles!

There will be the Kindle Fire selling US$199, an e-ink touch screen kindle from US$99 (that's the one I want) and an introductory Kindle at only US$79. At these prices Kindles will become more accessible to the public and will probably fill quite a few kids' stockings this Christmas.

Add this exciting news to the fact that Kindles are now available from Woolies, BigW, Dick Smith (and probably more places) in Australia - I believe ebooks are about to experience a whole new BOOM! 

Authors who are prepared to handle their writing as a professional business and produce QUALITY ebooks have a real opportunity opening up to them. Exciting times. I have shivers - how about you?

Here's a great article by Andrew Wilson, on why ebooks are the way for authors to control their future:

How you can make a million writing your own e-book

Read More

YouTube and Writers

YouTube - not just for dancing cats

Do you YouTube?

One of the social networking suggestions Aleesah Darlison made during her 'Promote Your Book' workshop recently was to set up a YouTube page.

Sure, I had a YouTube account, who doesn't, but a page? This had never occurred to me. If I have one talent above all others, it's following instructions. I set about creating a YouTube page under my username charmaineclancy. I know I need to add some more exciting clips, because the most recent recommendation from YouTube for me was a clip called 'Schnauzer napping'... can't wait to see that one.

On Aleesah's page she keeps book trailers, interviews, interesting clips about native animals that feature in her books and more. This is a great resource to use for writers workshops, school visits, book launches and building up your platform. If you don't have a YouTube account it's easy. Go to the site and create an account - I recommend using your author name and if that's taken, add the word author in front. For example, if charmaineclancy wasn't available I'd use authorcharmaineclancy.

Once you've joined and signed in, you'll see some arrows by your name in the top right hand corner. That releases a drop box menu. Click on Channel and set up your channel (this is the page for you to share your clips). In Settings you can change the colour, add your author pic and bio. Videos is where you upload your own clips. I'm yet to do that, hey, maybe one day soon I'll even vlog. In the meantime if you'd like to see a vlog about the craft of writing, visit The Creative Penn's YouTube page.

Want to share YouTube clips on Blogger?

1. Find a clip you want to share, underneath is a button titled 'Share' - click it.
2. This brings up a link for sharing, but now click on 'Embed'. Here is the code you need to embed the clip into your blog. Copy the code.
3. You can change the size if you need to (if you have a narrow blog column), I always just go with the smaller size listed (560x315).
4. Now Blogger does not like code when you are in 'Compose', so I usually choose to go to HTML and insert the code. But there is another way.

Alternative - Probably easier:

1. In Blogger, when composing your blog, click on the button for 'insert a video'.
2. Choose 'From YouTube'.
3. In the search box you need to type in the title of the clip - the one I've chosen was called "Interview with Aleesah Darlison".
4. Choose the correct clip from the list of possibilities. Ta-da!

If you have a YouTube Channel set up already, share your link in the comments :)

Read More

Telling A Story Masterclass

Me totally invading Brian Falkner's personal space

I'm still recovering from inspiration overload I received at the recent CYA Conference. The day kicked off for me with a writing masterclass hosted by author Brian Falkner.

This master class ran for a few hours and was absolutely jammed packed with tips and advice on writing. I have about ten notebook pages filled. Here's just a tiny taste of what we enjoyed:

Muse
If you turn up every day at the same time, ready to work, and start writing without inspiration - then eventually your muse will turn up too.

Characters
As an exercise we were asked to share one observation about the person sitting next to us. Then we were asked to share one thing about ourselves. What was noticed was that we tend to make superficial descriptions of others, like the colour of their hair, or if they wore glasses, and we offer more personality descriptions of ourselves. So don't just decide your character is 5ft tall, short brown hair and freckles, instead tell us that they pick up any shiny objects they find on the ground, just like a magpie. This was summed up as shallow vs deep characterisation.

Conflict
Conflict must come from the story and not be placed simply for more conflict. Obstacles must seem impossible to overcome. When faced with a dilemma, give your character two choices - each with their own dire consequences, or, make them think up a third option. Also, danger must always be immediate, not something coming slowly. Characters are avoiding an oncoming train, not a possible problem that may happen some time next year.

Scenes
If you have trouble writing a full scene that includes a variety of writing techniques, try the following method:

1. Start by writing the narration. Explain what happens in this scene, where your character moves and what he does.
2. Go back through your paragraphs and insert description. Give the reader a sense of place and images for characters.
3. Now go back through what you have and add dialogue and actions.

We also talked about narration, description, writing tips, point of views, dramatic irony, overlapping suspense lines and much, much more.

Brian Falkner has a great range of novels, and I've chosen to begin by reading Brainjack:

Check out the book trailer!

Read More