Rachel R. Smith's Blog, page 5

Happy Holidays!

I[image error]t’s that time again! The year is winding down and the holidays are kicking into full gear! If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen my most recent post about the manga series Kitchen Princess by Natsumi Ando. I chose to post about this series now because the title really does describe what my free time is going to be like for the foreseeable future. Don’t worry, I’m still busy working on Dragon’s Bane too! Eat, sleep, write, bake. That’s me this week. Next week that will change to eat, sleep, eat, write, eat.

Free E-book Day!

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Just a quick update to share that from now until midnight PST tonight (12/14/16), the e-book version of Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror (Records of the Ohanzee Book 1) will be available for free exclusively through Amazon! Click here to get your copy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XGYO2C4

Wordsmithing with A.Word.A.Day

I’ve mentioned here before that I have a fondness for words. I love finding new ones, learning their etymologies, and sneaking unique ones into my books. I suspect its a trait that many authors (and non-authors) share. Some of you may recall a previous post I made about my “pet” word tenebrous. My poor pet is so unique even the spell check dictionary on my computer wasn’t familiar with it initially.

Which brings me to the purpose of today’s post. I wanted to share one of my favorite websites for leaning new words–one I have followed for more than a decade. No, it’s not dictionary.com (although that is my browser’s homepage ^_-). The site is A.Word.A.Day, which offers a new word every day and includes a pronunciation guide,  definition, etymology, usage, and a quote of the day. Each week the featured words are chosen based on a theme–for example, this week’s theme is “illustrated words.”

Although none one them can compare to my dear tenebrous, here are a few of my favorite words that were featured this year:

pulchritude – Featured as a word that sounds ugly but isn’t, pulchritude is a synonym for beauty.
defenestration – Did you know there’s actual a term for the act of throwing someone or something out a window? Now you do.
obambulate – Featured as part of the theme “words that appear to be coined after someone–but aren’t,” obambulate is an archaic term meaning to walk around or wander.
torpor – This word both means and sounds exactly like how I feel when waking up on a cold, rainy winter day. If you haven’t figured it out based on context, torpor is a state of lethargy, apathy, and inactivity.
apricity – And this word is what will revive me from my torpor–“the warmth of the sun in winter.” I have a feeling it will require all of my willpower to keep this one from making an appearance in Dragon’s Bane, particularly because I will be longing for it the most right before the book’s release date.

Any Little Women fans out there?

Today’s Google doodle is in honor of (what would have been) Louisa May Alcott’s 184th birthday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s been a productive day (a few productive days actually, hence the photo from Saturday). I’m on a roll writing, and there’s only 2ish days left until Thanksgiving, so in lieu of my weekly post, I’ll be busy writing some more. I hope, dear readers, that you’ll forgive me! ^_-

I expect I’ll be partaking in copious amounts of Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Coffee over the next few days to fuel both my writing and food preparations. My family usually opts for a non-traditional celebration by getting together for a big meal at our favorite Chinese restaurant and then follows up with snacking and desserts back at home until going out to join the shopping madness around 1am (we night owls go late to get the deals while avoiding the rush!).  I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend–regardless of how you celebrate!

Free E-book Download Today! 11/16

 

The ebook version of Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror (Records of the Ohanzee Book 1) is available for free today (11/16/16) on Amazon until midnight PST. You can get your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XGYO2C4 or through your local Amazon site worldwide.

Also–a special note to say “thank you” to those early birds who have already gotten copies today! The response to the promotion so far has been fantastic–by 10 am, the book had already hit #1 in one category, #15 in another, and #1,589 overall. What a lovely surprise first thing in the morning!❤

Thank you!

NaNoWriMo!

Is this an election year or something? I feel I’ve seen a couple posts about it recently. Does anyone know who’s running? I’m kidding, of course. You’d have to be living pretty far below ground to avoid the steady feed of politics this past year. This blog, however, is a politics-free zone! I just couldn’t resist having a little fun since today happens to be election day.

As you can tell by the title, the real purpose of this post is to talk about NaNoWriMo. ^_- If you’re not familiar with NaNoWriMo, here’s a brief primer. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It takes place every November, and is open for any and all authors and aspiring authors to take part. The goal is for each person to write 50,000 words towards their novel from Nov 1-30. Reaching that word count goal means you “win” NaNoWriMo. If you want to learn more, visit the site here: http://nanowrimo.org/

Reflection: Dragon’s Bane (Book 4)

When I first learned of the event last year, I was taking a break between writing Harbinger of the Phoenix and Thorn of the White Rose. This year, however, I’m right in the middle of writing Reflection: Dragon’s Bane. Even though I’m a full-time writer, I know I won’t make the 50,000 word goal. I’ve found that I work best by cycling through three phases for each chapter before moving on to the next: detailed outlining, writing, and then editing/revising. It takes more time during the writing phase to work this way–and it’s definitely not conducive to achieving 50,000 words in a single month–but it significantly reduces the amount of time I spend on final revisions after the manuscript is complete. It’s just what works for me.

Still, despite knowing that I’m not going to “win” (I’ve set a personal goal of 30,000 words), I think NaNo is a great way to connect with other writers and it serves as great motivation to write a little faster!  If you’d like to be writing buddies, you can find me under author name RachelRSmith. I’ve posted a brief excerpt from Dragon’s Bane Chapter 1 in my novel information, too. (It’s from the unproofed first draft, so please overlook any typos and grammatical errors!)

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? I’d love to hear a little about your project, your goals, and your progress in the comments! ^_^

Happy Halloween from my Favorite Does-Tricks-For-Treater!

Happy Halloween! In honor of the day, I’m digging up one of my favorite old posts to share. It’s too early in the day to have photos of this year’s costume, but I’ll have it up on Instagram tonight!

It’s Halloween. You should either be trick-or-treating or handing out candy. But since you’re clearly not doing either one, please enjoy some pictures of my favorite does-tricks-for-treater!

Treat! Angel Sumo

Treat! Lobster Sumo

Treat! Pumpkin Sumo

Treat! Shark Sumo

Trick! It’s way too early for this costume!

Treat! Football Sumo

Treat! Prince Sumo

Trick! Too early for this costume too…

Treat! Shark Sumo version 2



Halloween 2015

Halloween Reads (It’s not too late!)

There’s four days left until Halloween–and an entire weekend of reading time! For the last three weeks, I’ve been posting a series of Halloween reads via my Instagram account, so I thought this would be an appropriate time to share a compilation post of some of my favorites here. If you’re looking for some spooky stories to enjoy over the weekend, perhaps you would find some of these interesting!

I’m not going to repost all of them here, so if you want to see the full set of recommendations, be sure to pop over to Instagram. I’ve also got a few more spooky books up my sleeve, so here’s a sneak peak of the remaining Halloween reads books!

The Architect of Song by A.G. Howard
xxxHolic by CLAMP
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie

What spooky reads have you enjoyed so far this season? Any recommendations for me to add to my TBR?

 

Free Book Promo Today (Aka, don’t argue with the data)

 

First of all, I’m excited to announce that the ebook version of Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror (Records of the Ohanzee Book 1) is available for free today and tomorrow (10/18 and 10/19 until midnight PDT) through Amazon. If you’ve been wanting to try out the series, click here to go to Amazon and get your copy!

Some of my readers may recall I made the decision a few months back to change over from running free book promotions to $0.99 promotions. So why am I switching back? As my fellow authors can attest, the purpose of running a book promotion is not to make money on the sales generated (you’re doing well to break even on the cost of advertising). The purpose is to increase the visibility of your book so that you can reach even more readers. My hope was that $0.99 promos would be more effective in improving the book’s sales ranking–since free sales do not count toward paid sales rankings on Amazon.

Well, the results of this experiment over recent months proved that theory to be incorrect. As it turns out, the difference in volume of downloads between a free promo and a $0.99 promo vary by orders of magnitude, severely decreasing the amount of visibility gained as a result.

My years spent working in science taught me many things, and one of the foremost ones was to never, ever argue with the data. You can argue interpretation, you can question the method, but when you’ve done your experiment right you have to accept the results as they are–not as you wish they would be. And so, I have decided stick with what works and go back to running free promos. Seems like a win-win all around. ^_-