WIPjoy Wrap Up - What I Learned

Day 15: Genre of Art That Best Describes Your WIP

As you all know, I took part in #WIPjoy this month. It is a Twitter event that celebrates your Work In Progress and helps authors to connect and encourage one another.

Aside from the social aspect, the part of the fun of the event is that I find most helpful is that it forces me to look at my story from angles I wouldn't necessarily see otherwise.  The amazing Bethany Jennings @simmeringmind  and S.D. Grimm at

@SDGrimmAuthor 

did a flat out awesome job at coming up with the daily prompts.

Some of my favorite ones included other types of art that best describes your story. So for Veridian's main character, tech hunter, Elara Savoya, I used the future noir graphic arts.

Day 29: Fall, food, festivities, and family.

We were also asked to share our writing playlist which was a lot of fun. If you'd like to check it out, its on Spotify here: Veridian Playlist

But it was the more personal questions that really served to help me solidify my main character in my head. 

There was  a question about what my main character's loved about fall.

Or what childhood dreams she had that will never come true...that was a really hard one!

It made me think about her outside of the story...outside of the high stakes drama. What was she like at home?

Day 23: Elara dreamt of the stars.

She loves her family. They drive each other crazy because they work together in the tech recovery game.

I realized they may fight a lot...but they fight best together.

Graphics and playlists aside, I feel like I learned a lot more about my characters and story through this event. 

Overall I feel pretty excited to head into next month's craziness of NaNoWriMo. 

If you are taking part in the race to 50K add me as a buddy. I'm under Raquel Byrnes on the site.

As a reader, do you like to see more than the books? Do songs, art, and other fun stuff get you excited for the story? 

I'm off to plot for #NaNoWriMo. Wish me luck and see you soon!

To 50K and BEYOND!

If you follow me on social media, you know that I have committed to undertaking the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. That was not a typo... fifty THOUSAND words in thirty DAYS.

I've done this before and it was painful and frustrating and exactly what I needed to kickstart myself into writing the trilogy I had been researching for literally months.

#WIPjoy Day 1 - Visual of your Work in Progress

So here we are again and I have spent a lot of time talking about, researching, plotting, and agonizing over my current book.  Its a work in progress (WIP)  in that I have been working on it...just not writing it. That is something I hope to remedy with #NaNoWriMo this year.

I did an entire month of #WIPjoy which I love because it makes you think about and explain aspects of your characters and novel you may not have delved into otherwise. I find the quarterly Twitter event quite helpful and encourage you to take part in the winter. Its great fun and you meet a lot of other authors which is always a good thing.

I'm working on a scifi mystery. It takes place in the near future where Elara Savoya, a tech hunter is dragged into a high stakes international plot that will put the space race and ultimately man's place among the stars in jeopardy. So yes...I'm raring to go on this one.

One of the intimidating things about #NaNoWriMo is that it takes place during the holiday season. For those who take part in NaNoWriMo and who also live in the United States, that means Thanksgiving. A huge family dinner with tons of prep and cleanup and time spent socializing. Great for the soul...not so great for the word count.

As a fix, Christen E Krumm has proposed a BACKWARDS NaNoWriMo. This involves frontloading your wordcount per day so that as you start to inch towards the holidays, your required words per day to stay on target goes down.  

This method has you go gangbusters while you're still all excited and hyped up on Halloween candy and gives you a break as you head towards Christmas decorating, shopping, partying, etc.  Here's a helpful writing plan from Christen's site.

Backwards NaNoWriMo Plan

I think I'm going to give this a try. Anything to get my first draft done before the new year. I'm hoping to hit a few conferences and I'd love to have a working draft to pitch or talk to editors about. 

What about you? 

Are you thinking of doing #NaNoWriMo this year?  If so...add me on your buddy list (Raquel Byrnes) and I'll do the same. Just leave your user name in the comments.  Happy writing!

#WIPjoy and Playlists

This month is #WIPjoy! Its a Twitter event that happens every season, so four times a year, that brings together authors to share their Work In Progress and encourage one another. I love this event and look forward to it every year. The amazing Bethany A. Jennings @ SimmeringMind and S.D. Grimm @SDGrimmAuthor make WIPjoy both fun and uplifting. 

Veridian Playlist on Spotify

We are currently on Day 5: Tunes for Your WIP.

Whenever I start a new book I also start a playlist. I've always used music to help me not only get in the right mind-set for a give scene, but it really helps me to organize my story in a way that a visual chart doesn't quite touch.

I get a better sense of the pace with music. Too many fast, exciting songs and I realize I need a lull scene to give the reader a moment to catch their breath.  On the flip side, if my song list consists of too many slow pieces, I write in something that picks up the pace.

The playlist for my sci-fi thriller, Veridian, is coming along nicely. Since its a future-noir, I get to have some moody jazz, great old big band pieces, soulful love songs, and awesome space themed soundtracks.

A playlist is never complete until the book is finished, but its certainly fun to see what other authors use for inspiration.

#WIPjoy is such a fun way to connect with authors, see what they're working on, and to get sneak peeks at upcoming books.  I highly recommend checking it out.

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These are the last few days of the All Hallows Read Giveaway

"A perfect blend of suspense, intrigue, and creepiness will draw you into this dark world..." ~ Nights and Weekends Review If you like exploring strange noises in the walls, secret passages, and rumors of ghost. Then join the giveaway for a chance to win a copy of Gothic Mystery, Whispers on Shadow Bay. The GIVEAWAY ends on October 7th.

All Hallows Read Giveaway!

I'm so excited to participate in All Hallows Read this year! Its a completely made-up holiday to celebrate reading and books. The idea is to give someone a scary book this month...Thats it!

Reading free books? Yes, please!

The yearly celebration was started by Neil Gaiman and I think the video of him explaining it is so funny because the people in the background are hilariously trying to create mayhem...

Its not only for individuals to gift someone they love with a truly breathtaking tale. Libraries, books stores, book clubs, and coffee shops all get into the tradition.  For more information check out the All Hallows Read website. They have downloadable posters, recommended reads for all ages, and bookmarks!

Some of my favorite reads are Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, Bride of Pendorric by Victoria Holt, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, and The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe.
To give you more ideas Goodreads has an All Hallows Read List! 

So if you like spooky books and there are people around, you can join in!  Pick up some scary stories to hand out from a library book sale, the thrift shop, or even me!

I am celebrating by giving away 3 Kindle copies of my spooky Gothic mystery, Whispers on Shadow Bay! The GIVEAWAY last from October 1-7th.

All you have to do is enter the giveaway below and the winners will have their books in time to join in on the fun!
Don't forget to check out the #AllHallowsRead hashtag on twitter and Instagram for inspiration on what to read this Halloween.

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Enter for a chance to win one of 3 copies  in time for 

All Hallows Read!

Click To Enter GIVEAWAY