Lazette Gifford's Blog, page 97
September 18, 2011
Sample Sunday: Summer Storm
Summerfield grew up traveling from one odd place to another while his parents searched for enlightenment.
And yes, he does work for the nation's leading paranormal publication, Wolton World News -- or Woo Woo News as the scoffing locals call it.
That doesn't mean he's prepared for all kinds of weirdness in the last place he expected to find it . . . Omaha, Nebraska.
An unexpected storm and the
And yes, he does work for the nation's leading paranormal publication, Wolton World News -- or Woo Woo News as the scoffing locals call it.
That doesn't mean he's prepared for all kinds of weirdness in the last place he expected to find it . . . Omaha, Nebraska.
An unexpected storm and the
The joy of formatting and tweaking ebooks
A conversation on Twitter-- never the best place for full explanations -- apparently became confusing yesterday while we were discussing the art of formatting ebooks during #kindlechat. Looking back, I can see where at least one person, and likely others, didn't realize we'd made a jump from using 'Word docs to upload' to 'creating html docs to upload.' When I talked about using html in Word
September 16, 2011
Crossing Genre Lines: Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour3
I often hear
things like 'genre is just a tool made up by marketing people.'
Yes, that's
true. That does not make it bad,
though. Imagine going into a store and
wanting a new fantasy novel, only you have to search through every single shelf
of fiction to find one. Or worse,
searching through places like Amazon.com, book-by-book. So let's start by saying that genre
distinctions are a
things like 'genre is just a tool made up by marketing people.'
Yes, that's
true. That does not make it bad,
though. Imagine going into a store and
wanting a new fantasy novel, only you have to search through every single shelf
of fiction to find one. Or worse,
searching through places like Amazon.com, book-by-book. So let's start by saying that genre
distinctions are a
September 13, 2011
Project Report 4: Water/Stone/Light -- The Pantheon and magic
Creating the gods and magic for this setting has taken a lot
of trial and error work, and will likely require fine tuning once I start the
novel. I do not want specific spells,
but I do want ritual objects, each of which has to be transported in a special
blessed container to avoid contamination.
Obviously, in my mind, it is the magic associated with the
gods that is more important
September 11, 2011
Something helpful for writers
Writers must learn to edit. Even if you are going to traditional publishing, rather than being an Indie Author, you need to put the best possible story out there.
There is a nagging knowledge that you will always miss something, but you still have to make that effort.
Spelling corrections, grammar changes, etc. -- those are bad enough. You can go over the work a dozen times and you'll
There is a nagging knowledge that you will always miss something, but you still have to make that effort.
Spelling corrections, grammar changes, etc. -- those are bad enough. You can go over the work a dozen times and you'll
September 3, 2011
The last couple weeks . . . .
It's no wonder my hair is going grey. Stress lately has been a bit higher than
usual. It started on the 22nd when a
neighbor coming home saw someone staring in my window at 1:30 am. I was working on the other side of that
window, so the knowledge someone had been staring in at me . . . right. Not exactly what I wanted to hear. Add to that the fact I had heard something at
the porch
usual. It started on the 22nd when a
neighbor coming home saw someone staring in my window at 1:30 am. I was working on the other side of that
window, so the knowledge someone had been staring in at me . . . right. Not exactly what I wanted to hear. Add to that the fact I had heard something at
the porch
August 29, 2011
Project Report 3 Water/Stone/Light: Places to go
The map is going to change as I expand my idea of the story.
Work on this story is going very well. The little pieces are starting to fall together into larger, more coherent sections. The land itself (as you can see from the map) is taking shape. Things may still change on the map, though. I'm not quite done with it. For instance, all the city names are borrowed from Assyria right now.
Work on this story is going very well. The little pieces are starting to fall together into larger, more coherent sections. The land itself (as you can see from the map) is taking shape. Things may still change on the map, though. I'm not quite done with it. For instance, all the city names are borrowed from Assyria right now.
August 26, 2011
Zette's Take: Read Nonfiction
This isn't school work
You know the saying: Write what you know.
Well the truth is you should write what you can learn, and learn everything that interests you.
I hear things from other writers that sometimes drive me crazy and this is one of the big ones: I don't want to read nonfiction because I'm out of school. I hated study then, so why do it now? It's boring. Why should I bother
You know the saying: Write what you know.
Well the truth is you should write what you can learn, and learn everything that interests you.
I hear things from other writers that sometimes drive me crazy and this is one of the big ones: I don't want to read nonfiction because I'm out of school. I hated study then, so why do it now? It's boring. Why should I bother
August 20, 2011
Are you my reader?
Who are my readers? If you are one of them, I'd like to hear from you!
But maybe you don't know. Let me see if I can answer a few questions. I've been thinking about this for a few days. Discussions about genre, age groups and other writing and reading questions over the last few weeks have made me try to define who I am writing for . . . and this turns out not to be so easy.
I write
But maybe you don't know. Let me see if I can answer a few questions. I've been thinking about this for a few days. Discussions about genre, age groups and other writing and reading questions over the last few weeks have made me try to define who I am writing for . . . and this turns out not to be so easy.
I write
August 15, 2011
Where I got my latest idea: Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour/2
Without thinking about this month's question, I had already posted a bit about my current idea. I'm doing a series of reports on how this particular story grows (or story setting -- I think I see far more than a single piece for this one). You can find it here. You can, in fact, see all the posts for the Water/Stone/Light project by clicking on the label in the right hand column.
Since the
Since the
