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Half Dead and Fully Broken Review Tour

1/28/2015

Half Dead and Fully Broken, Kevin Craig's fifth novel, a Young Adult Contemporary-Fantasy was released on January 19, 2015 by Curiosity Quills Press. The cover artist is by Eugene Teplitsky. You can order your copy at AMAZON.ca for $5.99 for a Kindle Version and $17.45 for a paperback copy (which is what I ordered).

Find Online: Goodreads | Amazon CA | Amazon US | Amazon UK

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Altar of Reality Review Tour

1/27/2015

Mara Valderran's third novel, Altar of Reality, a Young Adult Dystopian novel, with some Science-Fiction and Romance elements, was released this week, on January 22, 2015 by Curiosity Quills Press. The beautiful cover art was created by Alexandria Thompson at Gothic Fate.

15 Best Books on Writing

1/25/2015

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Sometimes, you find yourself wondering about how to tackle a certain writing issue, and when that happens, I turn to some of the experts for reference material.

A few of these books, tell you exactly how to approach your writing dilemma, whether you are writing Fiction, Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction or Screen Writing. Actually, I have read hundreds of books on how to write, but these select few, I have purchased and placed on my bookshelf in my office. They are in the perfect "EMERGENCY GRAB" location, only an arm's length away from my comfy writing chair. I'm sure you have many other wonderful worthy contenders to add to this reference list, but these are mine in descending order:

My 15 Need-To-Own Books on Writing:

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Another Book Birthday!

1/18/2015

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January 19th ~ Kevin Craig is Having Another Book Birthday Today!

Wow! One of my favourite writer friends and mentors, Kevin Craig, is releasing his 5th novel today, only a few months after his 4th YA (Young Adult) novel release, Burn Baby Burn Baby, which was an awesome read... you can check out my review HERE.

Today, Kevin's newest release, one of his novels he created at the Muskoka Novel Marathon in Huntsville, is called Half Dead & Fully Broken. It is a YA (Young Adult) Contemporary-Fantasy, being published by Curiosity Quills Press. The cover design was created by Cover Artist: Eugene Teplitsky.

I was lucky enough to watch him write this novel during one of these 72-hour writing marathons. I believe it was MNM 2010? He's quite incredible... a machine really. He writes, while surrounded by 39 other writers sitting in one giant room, overlooking a beautiful river in the middle of a hot summer. He writes without much sleep, living off little bits to eat here and there, lots of quick trips for coffee refills, with side visits to The Nutty Chocolatier for anything covered in chocolate (who doesn't) and we write together. Occasionally, we chat, we laugh and we sometimes cry together. It's a major bonding weekend for writers. I highly recommend the experience. It has changed my life in an amazing way... and Kevin's too, just ask him.

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Write to Win

1/12/2015

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Remember Resolution #8?

8.) Write more short stories (not just novels) and submit them to contests. You can’t win if you don’t enter the contest. You need a publication resume. Apparently. This is the perfect way to accomplish that task. ~ Lori Twining

To see all my 10 Writing Resolutions For This Year, go HERE.

Conquering Resolution #8

Grey-Bruce County snowstorm

In order to write more short stories, I decided I needed to learn how to write them properly. If I'm going to enter these short story writing contests, I want to win. I don't want to be throwing my money out the window (yes, most contests have a fee, so hopefully, you have another job, besides being a writer, so you can pay your entry fee).

How do I go about winning a writing contest?

Obviously, I should seek advice from the best: Ruth E. Walker and Dorothea Helms (a.k.a. The Writing Fairy). These two amazing ladies created the "Write To Win Workshop". So, I drove through a heavy Grey-Bruce County snowstorm on Saturday, all the way to Trent University in Oshawa, for a five-hour workshop, that offered many tips and secrets on how to write contest-winning fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

Was it worth my time?

You betcha! I learned quite a few things. Lots of secret things. Things I'm not willing to share with you, because, quite honestly, why should I? Remember, I want to win the contest, so if I told you everything that these two ladies told me, then, I would have too much competition. Can't have that now, can we? Because I want to win.

Although, I will share a few reasons why you should take the workshop too.

Top 10 Reasons To Take the "Write To Win Workshop":

You will find out all the secrets and tips about writing a winning short story.
You will meet new writing friends, which becomes important if you are a writer.
You will learn how it feels to be a judge, receiving a huge pile of submissions and trying to determine what entry should win first or second prize, or whether it is worthy of an award at all.
You will be forced to try something new in your writing, and you may be surprised that you actually like it!
You will understand why your contest submission was thrown in the garbage before anyone read beyond the first line or paragraph.
You will realize that entering contests makes you work to a deadline, and in turn, it makes you write MORE!
You will create an author bio, which will make you look at your accomplishments and decide how to promote yourself to the world. Do you bore people to death with your lengthy resume? Or do you add some personality to it and make people think or make them laugh? Your choice... but the workshop helps you decide.
You will get truthful feedback on your writing. This is a valuable asset for any writer.
You will find INSPIRATION and MOTIVATION to continue to write your short story.
You will find the COURAGE to submit your work to a writing contest.

Not only do I know the secrets to writing a winning story now, but I am now working on a new short story, that never would have been created before taking this course. I'm writing a Western! How weird is that?

Plus, I won one of their many small contests... I won a new book to read! I am now reading Living Underground by Ruth E. Walker. You know how much I love books, so yes, Saturday was a great day for me!

If you are interested in other writing workshops, visit Writescape.