Sarah Mäkelä's Blog, page 42

Counting down the days...

Now that the World Cup is over (Yay Spain!), I have less to distract me from the RWA National Conference on the horizon. Yes, I'm definitely starting to feel a little nervous. My pitch is becoming smooth and ready, so when I have my agent appointments, I think I'll feel more comfortable than last year's RT Convention. But it's my first tme going to an RWA Conference. I hear they're more business-like than the party atmosphere that RT has. Yikes! Thoughts of what do I wear instantly come to mi...

The End

Today marks another first draft complete. Another The End achieved. Hooray! I'm thrilled by that, especially since it allows me to focus my attention more on getting my other novel in shape for possible requests at the end of the month's RWA conference. The finished first draft will need quite a bit of work when it faces its turn for editing, but I'm pretty pleased with it.

Now off to relax with hubby and read!

July! Conferences, Agents, and Pitching -- Oh My!

So, as you all probably know, I'm going to Romance Writers of America's National Conference this month. I was fortunate enough to get a couple of agent appointments, which I'm happy about, but that leaves me with the impending feeling that I'll be pitching at the end of the month. Yikes! I'm a fairly quiet person, so just thinking about talking with an agent is enough to make me slightly nervous. I did it last year at Romantic Times Convention, which, besides from one appointment where I got ...

I Promise to Blog More *cue broken record*

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

That picture says it all. This week has been something else. There have been the awesome happy times, the dreadful times, and the just plain stressful ones. I'm doing better now. 

Revised query, check!

I hope everyone had a Happy Father's Day yesterday!

Today I've spent some time revising my query letter, which has done pretty good so far. It took me several hours to do, but I'm more content with it than I have been previously. I had some great writing resources to stare at while in the process of revising it too. There's Query Shark, Jill Corcoran's Formula For A Query Letter, and Guide to Literary Agents' How to Write a Query Letter. If you're looking to write or perfect a query letter, Q...

The Friday 56

The Fourth and Fifth Sentences

"He had actually accomplished the feat he'd been dreaming of for years.  He'd become the Navajo Wolf--in broad daylight." - Shadow Force by Linda Conrad

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.
* Post a link along with your post back to this b...

Entertaining and Informative this from Twitter this week

I've gotten back to using Twitter, and I have once again become emerged in the brilliant information those that I follow give. I'm not going to give all of the things I've found this week since I didn't keep all of the links, but here are a few.  Hopefully they'll entertain or be enlightening you guys as well.

http://www.deadlinedames.com/?p=3897 -- On Characters by Lilith Saintcrow. An awesome blog post that gives a lot of great tips and information for writers wanting to utilize their...

Please welcome... author Lenore Butcher!

Fan Fiction - A Few Thoughts from a Fledgling Author


Recently one of my favourite authors, Diana Gabaldon had a bit of a public lash out against fan fiction. I read her blog and the responses to it very carefully and quite attentively as I was, once upon a time, a fan fiction author. *Shock, gasps of disbelief from the audience.*

I am not going to touch on the legality of fan fiction, intellectual property rights, the many societies devoted to protecting transformative works, or the Fair Use le...

Into the Paranormal: Fylgjur and Valkyrjur in Norse Mythology

So! Last week I discussed Fylgja and delved into my topic of this week a little bit of how Fylgja seem to resemble Valkyries (Valkyrjur). Fylgja are guardian spirits that take shape in either the form of an animal or a woman and watch over a certain person or family. If the person sees their Fylgja, it's a sign that their death is immediate. Interestingly enough, the Fylgja takes on the features of the person it is assigned to protect.

Valkyries are warrior women who brought the souls of their...

Accomplished

Woo! I got a lot accomplished yesterday considering the fact that I threw my back out a couple days ago.  Blah...

In the wee hours, I finished reading Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews from the Kate Daniels series, which was such an awesome book.  It has to be one of the best, if not THE best, that I've read this year. Then I also finished reading Embrace the Night by Karen Chance from her Cassie Palmer series, which was really good, too. Now I'm currently reading Shadow Force by Linda Conrad.  I...