Denae Christine's Blog, page 4

Balancing writing and reading

First, I apologize because my reader self took over for a while. I wrote less and read more for a month (ironically, it was NaNoWriMo month). I was productive and read about 15 books (good for my challenge), but my writing lagged. Why? Why do we do this? Am I not serious enough about writing? Was I just starving myself for reading material?

I’m not sure. It happens in my walk with Christ, sometimes, where one aspect will take over and the others fade. Sometimes I’ll be so into a new Bible stu...

Being a reader vs being a writer

First, I apologize because my reader self took over for a while. I wrote less and read more for a month (ironically, it was NaNoWriMo month). I was productive and read about 15 books (good for my challenge), but my writing lagged. Why? Why do we do this? Am I not serious enough about writing? Was I just starving myself for reading material?

I’m not sure. It happens in my walk with Christ, sometimes, where one aspect will take over and the others fade. Sometimes I’ll be so into a new Bible stu...

New Back, same story

Shiny new back cover for Royal Deception!

Book 1 has a back, now. An interesting one, that is (plain black sort of counts, right?). The current plan is to get backs for all the books, eventually. I like it. It’s taken a little convincing, but I just needed to see it in physical form, I think. It’s a little off center (I’ll fix that tonight), but it looks pretty cool. Less plain.

I could choose to do a cover that wraps around from the front to the back, all one picture, but the spine wid...

Paid Promotions

Royal Deception went out in two email blasts yesterday, the Fussy Librarianand ReadCheaply. Between the two, 50,000 people had the chance to see my book cover and blurb. I won’t say yet whether the promotion was worth the money it cost, but I expect it is. I’ll never know how many people downloaded the sample of my book or added it to their too-read list. Perhaps the next time I try a promotion, the people who half considered it this time will buy the book next time. In this regard, the benef...

Runaway Deception

is up for pre-order! I submitted cover and files to kdp Amazon the first day they allowed me to (and still keep a publish date of Feb 1st). Part of me feels super prepared. Parts of me feel overly nervous because book 2 isn’t as ready as book 1 was at this point, but I am setting aside more writing time than I was a year ago. So, here goes.

Oh, and check out the lovely cover art!

I spent an entire week fine-tuning the blurb (and sleeping off a cold, but still). That seems like a lot of writi...

Writing Update

Spent all afternoon on one chapter. Then, at the end of it, I couldn’t get myself to write the fight scene. So, I didn’t. Usually, I enjoy the action scenes, reading and writing them, but I didn’t want to write this one. I wanted to write the discussions and arguments on either side of the fighting, and I wanted to write the characters-acting-suspicious bits and the this-is-how-they-got-in-this-mess bits, but I didn’t want to write the fight itself. Why? Frankly, it wasn’t important. The good...

Book sales and promotions

Goodreads Book Giveaway Royal Deception by Denae Christine

Giveaway ends October 05, 2015.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

My book signing last week seemed to go pretty well. The wonderful ladies at Crystal Books and Gifts let me set up the talk outside their store during the farmers’ market. I met lots of nice people and convinced a few to walk away with a book they didn’t know they wanted. Most of the authors at this weekly event hide in the back of the boo...

Peter Pan by JM Barrie

How do you brainstorm?

Yesterday I brainstormed with my roommate and a rug and a box of tissues. I had to explain to her what my characters were doing and how they were escaping from a slaver, and I specifically wanted to know if it was too complicated. While she disagreed with me why the scene was wrong, talking through the scene with her helped me fix it. This got me wondering, how do others brainstorm, and how do I usually brainstorm?

I’ve heard that Kevin J Anderson takes walks and talks into a recording device...

What School Teaches You

Many people are starting to think core subjects aren’t worth beans after grade school. Maybe middle school. I’ve heard (and read) plenty of opinions that say college isn’t worth thousands of dollars just for a piece of paper. Many say schooling is irrelevant once you reach the real world.

I beg to differ. (And I’m not even going to go into all the accidental skills you learn like time management and collaboration.)

Here are someunseen benefits of learning these core subjects. I don’t claim to...