L.M. Nelson's Blog, page 33

Author Confessions Round 16

My least favorite character is Gabriella’s mother. She’s overly critical, un[image error]supportive, and speaks to her daughter with contempt. Every time Gabby’s around, she goes out of her way to say something derisive, often bringing Gabby to tears. Even though Gabriella is now an adult, her mother tries to control her life. During their graduation dinner, she causes a huge scene, which leads Nathan to finally speak his mind, something he’d been wanting to do for years.

She’s not a very nice person. Luckily, she’s only a side character, but her presence is vital to understand Gabriella’s personality and relationship with the Hansons.

Author Confessions Round 15

[image error]With this particular work in progress, I went on location to research a setting I needed for one of my chapters. My main male character grew up in upstate New York. I had never been to New York before, but since my husband and I were planning a vacation and wanted to head that direction anyway, we stopped by the town my MC grew up in so I could check it out. Luckily, my husband is from New York and was able to give me a tour of the area, which was nice. I was able to get a hands-on experience. I took a lot of notes and pictures and walked around to get the full sense of the atmosphere. When I returned home, writing that scene was easier to do because I had a feel for the small town and was able to put my personal reflections into it. If given the opportunity to take another writing ‘field trip’, I will definitely do it. The experience was well worth the time and investment.

FREE Promotion is Right Under Your Nose

Books: Publishing, Reading, Writing

READERS will also find this interesting (and they can *see below how they may help), but …

This post is mainly for all you angst-ridden authors out there who moan and groan about how little promotion and publicity you receive for the books you publish. Yes, it’s true, there are definitely fewer outlets reviewing books or interviewing authors. So what are we supposed to do to get the word out and attract new readers to our work?

I have a cunning plan!

When I ePublished my first novel, I received “some” attention (i.e. Not a lot …) for my efforts, but I carried on regardless and continued to promote other authors, as well as my own books, through my business Alberta Books Canada. Then I moved back to the Caribbean and become much more involved in the online writing community, especially with regards to indie authors around the world who…

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Author Confessions Round 14

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Christopher Snow from Dean Koontz’s Fear Nothing and Seize the Night. He suffers from a disease in which ultraviolet light is deadly. Therefore, he lives the life of a night owl. Christopher has a great personality. He’s kind, curious, and has cool friends, namely his dog Orson, his girlfriend Sasha, and his best friend Bobby, all of whom are surfers. Christopher is a down to earth guy who has overcome many obstacles in his life. He faces life-threatening problems throughout the series, but through it all he stands tall and remains humble. I thoroughly enjoyed the Christopher Snow books and have read them several times. I wish Dean Koontz would write another book with those characters. If he happens to be reading this (Ha ha ha, yeah, right), I hope he catches the hint.

Author Confessions Round 13

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How long have I been writing?

Forever.

I don’t remember I time in my life when I wasn’t writing. As a child, I loved creating stories and making up characters. I wrote short stories, kept a journal full of song lyrics I liked, and wrote daily diary entries to reflect on my thoughts and feelings from the day.  When my family would go on vacation or day trips, I brought a journal with me and kept track of the activities we did and the cool things I saw. It was rare to see me without a pencil or some other writing utensil in my hand.

In Junior High, my love for writing branched out beyond short stories and personal reflection. I was introduced to the research paper and began a love affair with poetry. I received awards for some of the papers I wrote and explored the various elements of poetry writing.

My freshman year of high school, I had several poems published in my high school’s literary magazine. I even earned a college scholarship for a poem I wrote that was later published in a national poetry collection. During this time, I began playing around with writing full-blown fiction stories. I started off just jotting down ideas in notebooks, most of which I don’t even have anymore. By the time I graduated, I had several notebooks full of ideas and stories I had created.

I started the Scrubs series in college, as a hobby more than anything. Back then I wrote only for myself and didn’t want anyone else to read my writing, so the entire story was kept locked away from anyone else’s eyes. Over the years, I added to it, changed it, and deleted unnecessary scenes and characters. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I mustered up the nerve to let a dear friend of mine read the entire series. She, and several others, finally convinced me to publish it.

Since that time, I continue to write in other genres, occasionally write poetry, and have written guests posts on a few blogs. As a teacher, writing is a part of my life, with lesson plans, rubrics, project ideas, and teaching my students all about the writing process, hoping to inspire a few of them along the way.

Author Confessions Round 12

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Three words huh? Ok. Let me use my protagonist’s exact words for this.  Jealous, vindictive, she-bitch. I’m pretty sure he included the word psycho in there somewhere too.  

Author Confessions Round 11

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I so wish I had written The Outsiders. That book is ingenious. The fact that the entire story was written as a school project from PonyBoy’s point of view blows my mind. I LOVE the characters, and even though the kids are ‘thugs’, I find myself rooting for them. Maybe the teacher in me wants the underdog to succeed, or maybe the emotional connection I have with the characters pulls at my heart. I don’t know what it is, but I fell in love with that book the first time I read it in 7th grade.  I’ve read it several times since, recently in fact. It’s one of  the books on my favorites list.

Author Confessions Round 10

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What do I like best about my writing?  Hmmm. I never really thought about this before. I think the thing I like best is that I use a unique voice.  I don’t try to imitate anyone else’s writing and don’t strive to be like other authors. I use my own style, writing my story my way.

I also like the characters I create. As I’ve said before, I’m all about character, so I take the time to develop each one in depth to the point where they become real to me. All of my characters are unique and have very distinct personalities. Character development is something I feel pretty confident about, and I would consider it a strength as far a writing  is concerned.

10 Ways to Get More Followers (3 min read)

Do you want to increase your followers? Here’s a great article with tips on how to do that.

Millionaire's Digest

Getting followers to subscribe or follow your blog can sometimes be a little challenging. But by doing just the smallest things can make the biggest impact. Here’s 10 of them:

1. Return favors. Follow people that comment or favorite your posts, especially when they take the time to read articles you’ve written and share a comment with you. It’s one of the keys I use to determine whether someone is a real follower or just trying to get more by using others. 

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Creating Your Own Frankenstein

“It’s alive! Alive!” These are the famous words from a classic science fiction movie and an 80’s movie theme song. Though it meant the creation of both a terrifying monster and a geek’s wet dream, the word we’re looking for here is “creation”. Creating characters within a story is a detailed process for writers. You […]

via Building characters in a story is like creating your own Frankenstein — Mark Piggott | Author of the “Forever Avalon” Series