M.C. Frank's Blog, page 421
October 11, 2017
bookspectre:
mcfrankauthor:
Be proud of what you’ve...
Be proud of what you’ve accomplished.
I know, if no one else is, I am.
These are gorgeous.
D i s l i k e s g a m e
I was tagged by the lovely @lisa-writing thank you!
What’s a dislike you discovered through reading or writing? Something that had surprised you, that maybe you hadn’t thought about. Reblog and tag if you want to.
The one thing I absolutely can’t stand is when an author is transparent. What do I mean by that? It’s when I can tell that they were writing something smugly, and I don’t feel it. I’d much prefer if they were subtle and respectful. When they’re laughing at their characters’ own jokes, but I, the reader, am not. When they think oh, I’ve named my character after a Greek goddress, how clever, how original, and it’s so not fitting. When they mention their symbolism in every other page, while thinking, wow, this is so cool, but no one will pick it up, I’m so smart.. (yes, I can tell, any reader can.)
Unintelligent, unimaginative and arrogant writing is SO transparent.
Just… no.
Learn your craft, and give me something worth spending my time on, you know? If I wanted to spend time inside an average mind that bores me, I’d go talk to people in real life. But I don’t. So why would I want to read your words?
Tagging the top of my notes @mirror-of-too-many-books @writingdella @miss-diamonds @cassyunicorn @melthebookworm @christophermcgeownwriting
and anyone who wants to do this!
How to Stay Productive When it's Actually Time to Write - Bella Rose Pope
When you carve out time to write, you want to make sure you actually get some writing done - especially if you have a busy life.
Here are some of my tips for getting shit done come writing time!
My WIP - Bad and Very Bad Guys
There are a lot of characters in Irongate - as I’ve been writing I’ve
been developing the town more and more. Here is a list of the characters
who appear, however briefly, in my current WIP, with a quick
description… in fact I’ll have to split it into three parts; good guys,
bad guys, and others. So here some of the not very friendly folks:
Titania - Queen of the forest, or so she says. She’s at times playful, other times proud and arrogant. She has a very low opinion of humans, regarding them as a species who have served their time and now need to give it all up to her and her children.
Alvin Stag - Founder and CEO of Stag Corp, a research and devlopment firm. Likes to laugh, but tends to ramble when he talks. Kind of resembles an evil Santa. Also very paranoid - he rarely leaves his offices.
Ella - One of Titania’s closest servants. Sadistic and revels in the power and capacity for violence the Queen has granted her.
Lilian - The other hand of Titania. Far less cruel than Ella, but no less fanatically devoted to her Queen. Lilian just has more of a sense of honor. Both her and Ella were at one time orphans who ran way, only to be found and rescued by Titania in the forest.
Sam Pope - Chief of Security at Stag Corp, and often entrusted by his boss with certain tasks outside of work. Has scars on his face from where he was once bitten by a dog.
Candace Mullin - Just a bully really. Aggressive, loud, and very nasty, and doesn’t seem to have matured at all since she was fourteen. Despite this she always has a couple of hangers on around her, perhaps just hoping to avoid becoming a target of hers.
Books + candy
.
What’s your reward for reaching your...
Books + candy
.
What’s your reward for reaching your goals? My rewards are usually books and/or office supplies. I’m almost done with one of the hardest things I needed to do this month (this year, really), the editing of a story, and I need to reward myself with SUPER AMAZING BOOKS
mercy-n-grace:
My heart beating, my soul breathingI found my...
My heart beating, my soul breathing
I found my life when I laid it down
Upward falling, spirit soaring
I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground
Touch the Sky - Hillsong United
Win Signed Copies of No Vain Loss
Exciting announcement, everyone!I’m giving away a few signed paperback copies of No Vain Loss, my science fiction novel about a world where Christmas doesn’t exists and kissing is forbidden.
Synopsis:
A soldier is summoned to the North Pole, days before the year changes, told to fix the great Clock for a celebration. He has no idea what to do.
A girl, hunted for the crime of being born, almost dies out on the ice. She is rescued by the last polar bear left alive.
A library waits for them both, a library built over a span of a hundred years, forgotten in the basement of an ice shack.
The world hasn’t known hunger or sickness in hundreds of years. It has also forgotten love and beauty.
This is the One World.
The year is 2524.
Inspired by the short stories of Ray Bradbury, this futuristic young adult novel in three parts is set in a world where Christmas -among other things- is obsolete and a Clock is what keeps the fragile balance of peace.
Written in three parts, this is the breathtaking story of how two unlikely people change the world, and each other, one book at a time.
In No Vain Loss, the world is on the brink of the greatest war humanity has ever known. Lives will be lost. New truths will be revealed.
Recommended for fans of:
Hot soldiers (see Kdrama, Descendants of the Sun, and so on)
My True Love Gave to Me anthology, Christmas feels and aesthetic
Ray Bradbury-inspired scifi worldbuilding
YA dystopian/postapocalyptic novels
These Broken Stars series
Book boyfriends
A touch of existential issues Huxley-style
Star Wars-style action
Intense romance
Hidden libraries
Fight for survival
Forbidden kisses
Bromance
BearsReaders say:
Fast, Futuristic, Creative. -Yesha, Books Teacup and Reviews
My new obsession and yours too! No Ordinary Star reads like a love letter to humanity. -S. E. Anderson, author of Starstruck
This book is magic. -Alex Rowe, @captain.valour
I fell head-over-heels in love! -Drew C.
Oh, how I’ve already fallen in love with our two main characters, tin solider and match girl. -Rebecca RavenCurrent rating on goodreads 4.8 stars
Pages 230
Release date: 5 Dec 2017
Does it sound like something you’d like to read?
G I V E A W A Y
Preorder the kindle for .99 here: http://amzn.to/2gNO7zi and send me a screencap of your recept/confirmation (email here)
You will be automatically entered to win one of 5 signed paperback copies!Good luck!
Robin Hood WIP diaries (5) - the rescue (teaser)
Hello, friends, I recently surpassed 25K words on my Robin Hood WIP (halfway there for my monthly goal of 50K yaaay). To celebrate, I want to share a little snippet from a scene that I’ve dubbed “the rescue” in my outline. It’s one of the earliest scenes in the book, and one of my favorites. Enjoy!
T H E R E S C U E
The applause lasted FOR less than a full minute. As soon as it died down, the Sheriff motioned to his deputy, Sir Guy of Gisborne, a large, muscular soldier with a thin, withered face that was too old for his five and thirty years. Unceremoniously, Sir Guy took a step forward and lifted a blue flag. Fixing the hangman with his gaze, he dropped it.
It all happened so fast, Robin had barely time to react.
John wrenched free with a war cry, and flung himself into the crowd’s writhing body. Robin started pushing and shoving people out of his way, careless as to who would see him. He ran towards John, towards the children, towards the noose. But still, he was too late. There was no vantage point where he could stand and take aim, and everywhere he looked, there were people’s heads and hats in the way, between the children and his bow.
The hangman lifted the rod and pushed the stools out of the way. Shrieks filled the night sky, as the hanging children started dangling, their little feet kicking thin air. Robin couldn’t look away. He practically climbed over a thick man’s back in his rush to get to them, but he was still too bloody far away.
“Nooo!” John’s voice tore through the night like a wounded animal’s.
Robin thought he’d be sick, right there, on the town square cobblestones.
And then.
The zing of an arrow.
In all his nineteen years, Robin hadn’t heard a more blessed sound.
His eyes snapped to the source of the sound, just in time to see an arrow fly, straight and true, right through the crowd, headed for the rope. The archer must have chosen a vantage point to shoot it from, for it came downwards, as if it was shot from a higher place –one that Robin should have found by now, but hadn’t. The arrow sliced the hanging rope in two, freeing John’s little girl, who hit the chopping block’s ground like a sack of apples. Before anyone had time to blink, another arrow sliced the air, going straight for the second noose, setting the boy free as he was starting to struggle and choke.
Robin’s eyes gleamed in approval at the unseen archer’s impeccable aim.
He couldn’t see who it was had sent the arrows flying so quickly in succession to each other, for immediately the archer must have been seized. There would be no opportunity to shoot any more. He, Robin, along with the rest of the crowd, craned his neck, but it was obvious the archer was well-hidden above them, amid the branches of a tree or even on the castle buttresses, impossible as that seemed, and so it was impossible to see him.
Before one moment had passed, pandemonium broke loose. The Sherriff’s guards scrambled to detain the children, who were quickly on their feet and struggling with all their strength to free themselves from their binds, and the crowds were screaming in fear and panic. If there was even a perfect time to step in, unnoticed, it was now; Robin had had enough of this masquerade.
“Stay back,” he ordered his men in a low voice, pulling the hood lower over his face. He stood about a head taller than most of the men in the crowd, but right now, amid all the confusion and darkness, he wasn’t worried anyone would notice him. Maybe they would even manage to escape the Sheriff’s greedy claws, for at the first zing of the unknown archer’s arrow, he’d fled inside his castle, followed by his trusted deputy and personal guards. “Bows and swords at the ready, I’ll need you.”
Four heads bowed in agreement, and with a bound, he was off.
He leaped easily from spot to spot, evading people, until he found himself near the hangman’s block. He kept the children’s small forms in his eye line as he was moving, never taking his eyes off them for a minute, careful not to lose sight of them, and grit his teeth when he saw the massive back of a soldier lifting them both, one in each arm, and preparing to get away with them.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath, and started running.
…
Once more, he was too late. The man bore the two children as easily as if they weighed no more than two sacks of flour, and ducked among the crowd, the gleam of his mail disappearing in the darkness that enveloped him as soon as he stepped off the block. All was lost.
But, just as Robin was on the cusp of following blindly, most probably right into the Castle’s stronghold, someone else appeared in front of the tall guard.
Right in front of him a slight form which looked like it belonged to a child, slid through the crowds, almost invisible. He seemed to drop from above, as though he’d been perched on top of a tree overhead. But Robin noticed, inspite of being shoved and pushed by running countrymen and women from all sides, as his senses were sharpened by fear and fury. The boy’s dark form ran for the hanging block, and suddenly Robin realized that if, by some strange miracle, the boy had been the one shooting the arrows, it made perfect sense for him to drop from the skies like a sort of malnourished avenging angel.
Robin watched in amazement as the youth gave a leap with his spindly legs, landing right on top of the hangman’s block, and with one fell swoop, grabbed one of the children’s feet. The soldier who was carrying the child stopped in his tracks. He turned around, his face a mask of malice, and Robin’s expression turned to one of horror.
He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, once.
Within seconds, he was flagged by two men on each side, Tuck and Will. John was already walking up to the block, Alice on his heels.
“To the boy!” Robin commanded. Will and Tuck ran.
© 2017, M.C. Frank
more coming soon!
Read the rest of the Robin Hood dWIP diaries at my blog.
Duuuuude! I need more!
October 10, 2017
Signed copies of No Vain Loss - giveaway
giveaway still going on for everyone who preorders No Vain Loss:
amzn.to/2gNO7zi
Email me proof of your preorder and you’re immediately entered to win one of 5 signed copies!
O f f i c i a l G I V E A W A Y i n f o
Preorder the kindle for .99 here: http://amzn.to/2gNO7zi and send M.C. Frank a screencap of your receipt/confirmation.
You will be automatically entered to win one of 5 signed paperback copies!
Synopsis:
A soldier is summoned to the North Pole, days before the year changes, told to fix the great Clock for a celebration. He has no idea what to do.
A girl, hunted for the crime of being born, almost dies out on the ice. She is rescued by the last polar bear left alive.
A library waits for them both, a library built over a span of a hundred years, forgotten in the basement of an ice shack.
The world hasn’t known hunger or sickness in hundreds of years. It has also forgotten love and beauty.
This is the One World.
The year is 2524.
Inspired by the short stories of Ray Bradbury, this futuristic young adult novel in three parts is set in a world where Christmas -among other things- is obsolete and a Clock is what keeps the fragile balance of peace.
Written in three parts, this is the breathtaking story of how two unlikely people change the world, and each other, one book at a time.
In No Vain Loss, the world is on the brink of the greatest war humanity has ever known. Lives will be lost. New truths will be revealed.
Recommended for fans of:
· Hot soldiers (see Kdrama, Descendants of the Sun, and so on)
· My True Love Gave to Me anthology, Christmas feels and aesthetic
· Ray Bradbury-inspired scifi worldbuilding
· YA dystopian/postapocalyptic novels
· These Broken Stars series
· Book boyfriends
· A touch of existential issues Huxley-style
· Star Wars-style action
· Intense romance
· Hidden libraries
· Fight for survival
· Forbidden kisses
· Bromance
· Bears
Readers say:
Fast, Futuristic, Creative. -Yesha, Books Teacup and Reviews
My new obsession and yours too! No Ordinary Star reads like a love letter to humanity. -S. E. Anderson, author of Starstruck
This book is magic. -Alex Rowe, @captain.valour
I fell head-over-heels in love! -Drew C.
Oh, how I’ve already fallen in love with our two main characters, tin solider and match girl. -Rebecca Raven
Current rating on goodreads 4.8 stars
Pages 230
Release date: 5 Dec 2017
Please reblog, if you want to spread the word to your lovely followers.
G o o d l u c k !
