Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "blog-tour"
Little Nani Revisited - Blog Tour
You may remember my interview with author Cinta García de la Rosa, after I read her wonderful children's book, The Funny Adventures of Little Nani.
I am thrilled to be taking part in the blog tour for the re-launch of this book. Now I'm going to hand over to Cinta, so she can tell you more about it!
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Thank you for visiting this wonderful blog today so you can know a bit more about Little Nani, her stories, her world, and her author. OK, her author is not as interesting as Little Nani, but what can we do? They go hand in hand, so please bear with her.
Why are we here today? Because Little Nani is suffering a series of changes. “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani” was published for the first time last September 2012, both in print and in ebook form, on Amazon and Createspace. However, along the months, I started feeling less enthusiastic about my book, thinking that the cover was dull and boring, and also thinking that the stories could be improved, maybe going through some extra editing and proofing. So that’s what I did, and now I am much happier about the result and I trust that I will start getting many more sales. Why? Because I will make the books available not only on Amazon and Createspace, but also on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Feed-A-Read.
There will be also many different options to buy the books. Do you want to buy the whole set of stories? You can do it. Do you want to buy just some stories, the ones you think you would like? You can do it too, since I will publish the stories individually on Smashwords. So you see, different options to match different customers, different readers.
Once all this is settled and the books are republished on all those retailers, I will start to do the same process with the second book in the Little Nani series, which will be available next Fall.
Follow the whole blog tour since I will be announcing all the news in the different blogs!
BLURB
Little Nani is a little girl who likes helping people. However, when she helps people the results can be a bit unexpected. Why is that? Little Nani is a witch! Or at least she wants to be a witch. With her magic wand, she will try to cast different spells to help her friends, but she won't be successful all the time.
Follow Little Nani in her funny adventures and meet her extraordinary friends. Funny ostriches, horses that love reading, super-fast turtles, grumpy zombies... Little Nani has lots of friends! You can also draw your own characters!
Little Nani is willing to become a good witch. Will she manage to do it? Who knows? Read the stories and discover what happens next!
Why my book is different?
“I have written a children’s book and I have published it.” You say that and people would tell you, “Oh yeah, congratulations! But there are millions of children’s books out there.” Yes, that’s true. There are indeed a lot of fantastic books for children available everywhere. That’s why we need to try to make our books be as much original as they can be. You must make your book outstand over the others. You have to write a unique book.
But how do you do that? Writing a memorable story? It can be done but there are lots of amazing stories that every child remembers quite well. Adding stickers? That has been done so many times that children don’t get excited about them anymore. Oh, that’s right! Writing a character that children will never forget! Oh wait... That has been already done too.
So, one day, while talking to a friend, I knew what I could do. That friend suggested providing some space for children to draw. And I thought that it was a great suggestion. I started thinking that sometimes, when we were little, we would have loved to be able to draw or scribble in the books we used to read. So I am giving my readers the chance to do that. Apart from the amazing illustrations drawn by Almudena Romero, I am including some empty boxes with prompts for them to write different scenes from the stories. In that way, the child feels more involved with the book than if they just read it.
My book is different, yes. Just because the reader can both read and draw in my book. Sounds funny, right? Why don’t you check it out?
GIVEAWAY!
Don’t forget to leave a comment, so you can enter the giveaway for the opportunity to win a signed copy of “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani”. If you leave comments in several blogs during the tour, you will get an entry for each comment. So don’t hesitate to comment!
Cinta Garcia de la Rosa is a Spanish writer who has loved the written word since he discovered she was able to read books at age 5. Since then, she has become a bookworm and reads around 100 books every year. She also writes, every day, compulsively, even in the middle of the night. You cannot control when inspiration hits you, can you? She writes in English because she is convinced that in a previous life she was British, so writing in English feels more natural to her than writing in her native language. Yes, she is crazy like that. Cinta Garcia is the author of “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani”, a collection of short stories for children, and “A Foreigner in London”, a short story published on Smashwords. She is a member of Independent Authors International (iAi).
LINKS TO THE BOOKS.
Createspace
Amazon (US)
Amazon (UK)
Smashwords
MEDIA LINKS:
Goodreads: Cinta García de la Rosa
Amazon Author Page
Smashwords Author
Website
Blogs:
I Can't Stop Reading
Authors You Want To Read
Tumblr
About.me
Authorsdb
Askdavid.com
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Thanks, Cinta!
Remember, you can enter to win a signed copy of the book by leaving a comment below! Good luck!
Delusion and Dreams - Blog Tour!
I've arranged a blog tour to promote my latest book, Delusion and Dreams.
The tour will run from 31st May to 21st June, and there will be a Rafflecopter giveaway. You could win a signed copy of the book. There are also runner up prizes of an e-book version of Delusion and Dreams and e-books from Darcia Helle, J. Michael Radcliffe, Wendy Laharnar, and Helle Gade!
Here's a list of the dates for the tour as well as details as to what you can expect on each stop. I'll be updating this blog with links to each stop on the tour.
I hope to see you all there!
31st May: First stop, Darcia Helle's blog! My guest post there is all about why some of the stories in “Delusion and Dreams” are told from different characters’ viewpoints: http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/2013/0...
1st June: Interview on J. Michael Radcliffe's blog. Michael was one of my beta-readers, so he asked me lots of questions about "Delusion and Dreams": http://michaelradcliffe.wordpress.com...
2nd June: I'll be stopping at Seumas Gallacher's blog. There'll be an excerpt from one of the stories from "Delusion and Dreams": http://seumasgallacher.com/2013/06/02...
3rd June: There will be a New Release Spotlight for the book on the BestsellerBound Recommends blog! http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...
4th June: I'll be at Savannah Rayne's blog, telling you all about the book trailer for "Delusion and Dreams": http://savannahrayne.blogspot.co.uk/2...
5th June: I'll be at The Secret Writer's blog, where my guest post will feature a few sentences about each of the stories included in my new collection: http://thesecretwriterblog.blogspot.c...
6th June: I'll be K.B. Walker's blog, telling you how I chose the cover for the book: http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...
7th June: I'll be at Pinky Pollock's blog with another interview: pinkypollock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/m...
8th June: I'm featured on Kathleen Valentine's blog, with a behind the scenes look at how I put the collection of stories together: http://www.kathleenvalentineblog.com/...
9th June: One of my short stories from a previous collection will be featured on Ben Ditmars's blog: niceoldspice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/d...
10th June: My guest post on Helle Gade's blog will be all about what writing is like for me: http://hellegade.wordpress.com/2013/0...
11th June: I'll be at Bitsy Bling Books with a post about the BestsellerBound Short Story Anthologies: http://bitsybling.blogspot.co.uk/2013...
12th June: I'm at Jaime McDougall's blog with another excerpt from "Delusion and Dreams": http://inkyblots.com/guest-author-mar...
13th June: I'm at author Merita King's blog talking about my novels: http://meritaking.com/2013/06/12/delu...
14th June: I'll be featured on Jenny Hilborne's blog. My guest post there is about why I like short stories:
http://jfhilborne.wordpress.com/2013/...
15th June: I'll be on Wendy Laharnar's blog, talking about the recurring theme of 'dreams' in my books. Or should that be 'recurring dreams'? LOL: http://wendylaharnar.blogspot.com.au/...
16th June: I'll be on Claire Voet's blog recommending some of my favourite short stories by independent authors: http://clairevoetauthor.blogspot.com....
17th June: I'll be at Orchard Book Club's blog with a guest post about the importance of reviews: http://orchardbookclub.wordpress.com/...
18th June: Back here at the Goodreads blog, with a short piece about how each of the stories came to be in the collection: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
19th June: I'll be at author Geoffrey D. West's blog, with a guest post about my other short story collections: http://geoffreywestdotcom.wordpress.c...
20th June: I will be at Angela Turpin's blog where I will be telling you what I'm working on now... http://angelalamturpin.com/?p=970
21st June: The final stop in the tour. I'll be at Mark Rice's blog with another excerpt from Delusion and Dreams: http://metallicdreams.wordpress.com/2...
I think this tour is going to be a lot of fun. If you bookmark this blog post you can come back daily and find links to each of the stops on the tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway for your chance to win a signed paperback of Delusion and Dreams, as well as some fabulous e-books by some of my favourite authors.
Here's a link to the Rafflecopter Giveaway, which will go live when the tour begins: a Rafflecopter giveaway
Delusion and Dreams blog tour! The story behind the stories...
For today's stop on the blog tour for my new release Delusion and Dreams, I've brought you back here to my blog so I can tell you a bit more about how the collection came to be. I've added a reminder about the tour-wide giveaway, at the end.
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A while back, I found some short stories I had written, saved on my computer. I had initially written them as entries for short story competitions, but then forgotten about them. Most were written in the early to mid noughties. I was thinking of putting them together as a collection and publishing them.
Then, I found some more old stories on a floppy disk (which I must have written in the late ’90s). Of course, I didn’t have a floppy disk drive, so I purchased one from Amazon in the hope that the format would still be compatible with modern computers. I managed to salvage two or three of the old stories from the floppy disk, but some were unreadable, so they’ll have to wait until I’m more technologically able to find a way to read them.
So anyway, I now had quite a few stories that could be collected together for a book.
Not all of those stories made it into the selection for Delusion and Dreams, and I wrote some new stories for the collection. So here’s how each story found its way into the new collection:
Delusion and Dreams - Part I - This story was one I’d written a few years ago, and I found the handwritten version among some papers in a drawer when tidying up one day. I really liked it when I read it, so typed it up.
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow - This is a new story, written this year. Originally, someone sent me a message on Goodreads saying they were looking for comedy stories for a new anthology. I’ve never written a comedy, as such, before. Although many of my stories and novels contain some humour, I’d never written a story intending it to be a comedy. So, this story was a challenge I set myself. It turned out to have quite a bit of serious stuff mixed in with the comedy element. It also turned out to be too long to submit to the comedy anthology, at almost 5000 words, so I put it in Delusion and Dreams instead.
Happy New Year - This is probably the darkest story in the collection, crime fiction, and is a new one that I wrote specifically for the collection.
Friends and Neighbours - This is one of the old stories I found on my computer. I edited it a bit, but it’s basically in its original form. It had been originally written for a short story competition, in the mid noughties, I think.
Delusion and Dreams - Part II - This continuation of the story was written specifically for this collection. When I read the original short story, Delusion and Dreams, I was inspired to write more. The characters in this story all have such interesting backgrounds, so I thought it would be nice to explore those in more detail.
Getting Away With It - This is one of the oldest stories in the collection, found on a floppy disk. I edited it slightly, but it’s more or less the same story. It was originally written for a short story competition.
Friends and Neighbours - Revisited - This is a new story, written for this collection. It was inspired by the older story, Friends and Neighbours. I wanted to show the story from the point of view of Jill’s neighbours. It’s a dark story, more in keeping with the direction my writing is going.
Seeing is Believing - This is another of the old floppy disk stories. Again written in the late nineties for a competition (I used to enter a lot of short story competitions years ago, and found it was a great way to keep my imagination and creativity active). I edited the story slightly for this collection, but again, it is still the same story as the one I found on the disk.
Delusion and Dreams - Part III - another new story, written as a continuation of the series.
Merry-go-round - This was an old story found on my computer. Again slightly edited for this collection.
Courage - This story was originally written as the “yellow” story for my short story collection Pieces of a Rainbow. But I wasn’t happy with the story in the form that it was in when I originally wrote it back in 2009, so I didn’t include it in that collection. When I found it again on my computer, I thought it would be a good story with a bit of editing. So that’s what I did. I edited it and it’s now one of the stories in this collection.
Delusion and Dreams - Part IV - The final part of the story. Written this year, for this collection.
I hope you'll enjoy the stories.
Here's a reminder of all the stops on the tour, and the links so you can catch up!
31st May: Darcia Helle's blog: http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/2013/0...
1st June: Interview on J. Michael Radcliffe's blog.: http://michaelradcliffe.wordpress.com...
2nd June: Seumas Gallacher's blog: http://seumasgallacher.com/2013/06/02...
3rd June: BestsellerBound Recommends blog! http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...
4th June: Savannah Rayne's blog: http://savannahrayne.blogspot.co.uk/2...
5th June: The Secret Writer's blog: http://thesecretwriterblog.blogspot.c...
6th June: K.B. Walker's blog: http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...
7th June: Pinky Pollock's blog: http://pinkypollock.blogspot.co.uk/20...
8th June: Kathleen Valentine's blog: http://www.kathleenvalentineblog.com/...
9th June: Ben Ditmars's blog: http://niceoldspice.blogspot.co.uk/20...
10th June: Helle Gade's blog: http://hellegade.wordpress.com/2013/0...
11th June: Bitsy Bling Books: http://bitsybling.blogspot.co.uk/2013...
12th June: Jaime McDougall's blog: http://inkyblots.com/guest-author-mar...
13th June: Merita King's blog: http://meritaking.com/2013/06/12/delu...
14th June: Jenny Hilborne's blog:
http://jfhilborne.wordpress.com/2013/...
15th June: Wendy Laharnar's blog: http://wendylaharnar.blogspot.com.au/...
16th June: Claire Voet's blog: http://clairevoetauthor.blogspot.com....
17th June: Orchard Book Club's blog: http://orchardbookclub.wordpress.com/...
There are a few more stops to go:
19th June: I'll be at author Geoffrey D. West's blog, with a guest post about my other short story collections: http://geoffreywestdotcom.wordpress.c...
20th June: I will be at Angela Turpin's blog where I will be telling you what I'm working on now... http://angelalamturpin.com/?p=970
21st June: The final stop in the tour. I'll be at Mark Rice's blog with another excerpt from Delusion and Dreams: http://metallicdreams.wordpress.com/2...
Don't forget to enter the giveaway. You could win a signed paperback copy of Delusion and Dreams as well as runner-up prizes of Kindle/e-book copies of great books by some of my favourite authors! The details and entry form are at the following link a Rafflecopter giveaway
Good luck!
Blog tour is underway for "3"
This week, my new book 3 is being featured on lots of blogs.
"3" is a collection of three short stories. They are quite dark. Here's one of the latest reviews that made me smile:
"3. It's a bad number for lovers, but a goodly number for short stories about lovers and the rites and wrongs thereto. Especially such stories as contained in Maria Savva's latest collection by that same title. Hitchcock in a new direction, Maria blends Twilight Zone anomalies with romance to create a truly unique reading experience. I read it start to finish in a single, page-turning, Kindle-clicking session, and I'm already eagerly awaiting her next fictions. Brava, Savva!" Karen Robiscoe
There have already been a few posts about "3" in this blog tour. I've listed them below.
(I'll be updating the list during the week with all of the blog posts. If you're on Pinterest, you can follow my Board there, where I will be adding all the posts: http://www.pinterest.com/mariasavva/b...)
Terry Tyler's UK Arts Directory Blog: http://ukartsdirectory.com/terry-tyle...
Julie Elizabeth Powell's blog: http://www.freewebs.com/julizpow/blog...
Samantha J Wright's blog: http://samanthajwright.com/guest-auth...
Humor Outcasts (Donna Cavanagh): http://humoroutcasts.com/2013/blog-to...
Angela Thomas's blog (includes a review): http://aethomas2005.wordpress.com/201...
The Secret Writer: http://thesecretwriterblog.blogspot.c...
Martin Cosby's blog (Includes an interview): http://strangerdesigns.blogspot.co.uk...
Darcia Helle's blog: http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/2013/0...
Helle Gade's blog: http://hellegade.wordpress.com/2013/0...
Stacy Juba's blog: http://stacyjuba.com/blog/2013/09/16/...
Jason McIntyre's blog: http://www.thefarthestreaches.com/201...
Geoffrey West's blog (also includes details of the talented Terry Tyler's new release 'What it Takes': http://geoffreywestdotcom.wordpress.c...
Sandra Yuen Mackay's blog: http://symackay.blogspot.ca/2013/09/m...
Lucy Pireel's blog: http://lucypireel.wordpress.com/2013/...
J. Michael Radcliffe's blog: http://michaelradcliffe.wordpress.com...
Merita King's blog: http://meritaking.com/2013/09/16/new-...
Simon Hay's blog: http://blog.simonhay.com.au/2013/09/w...
Marta Moran Bishop's blog (includes review): http://www.martamoranbishop.com/5/pos...
Orchard Book Club (includes review): http://orchardbookclub.wordpress.com/...
Karen Robiscoe's blog (includes review): http://charronschatter.com/2013/09/17...
Cinta García de la Rosa's blog: http://authorsyouwanttoread.wordpress...
Aobibliophile's blog:
http://networkedblogs.com/Pa66I
Cindy Schuerr's blog: http://theheartofwriting.blogspot.co....
Alberta Ross's blog: http://albertaross.wordpress.com/2013...
Laxmi Hariharan's blog: http://immortalprotozoan.blogspot.co....
I hope you enjoy the blog tour, and the stories.
"3" is a collection of three short stories. They are quite dark. Here's one of the latest reviews that made me smile:
"3. It's a bad number for lovers, but a goodly number for short stories about lovers and the rites and wrongs thereto. Especially such stories as contained in Maria Savva's latest collection by that same title. Hitchcock in a new direction, Maria blends Twilight Zone anomalies with romance to create a truly unique reading experience. I read it start to finish in a single, page-turning, Kindle-clicking session, and I'm already eagerly awaiting her next fictions. Brava, Savva!" Karen Robiscoe
There have already been a few posts about "3" in this blog tour. I've listed them below.
(I'll be updating the list during the week with all of the blog posts. If you're on Pinterest, you can follow my Board there, where I will be adding all the posts: http://www.pinterest.com/mariasavva/b...)
Terry Tyler's UK Arts Directory Blog: http://ukartsdirectory.com/terry-tyle...
Julie Elizabeth Powell's blog: http://www.freewebs.com/julizpow/blog...
Samantha J Wright's blog: http://samanthajwright.com/guest-auth...
Humor Outcasts (Donna Cavanagh): http://humoroutcasts.com/2013/blog-to...
Angela Thomas's blog (includes a review): http://aethomas2005.wordpress.com/201...
The Secret Writer: http://thesecretwriterblog.blogspot.c...
Martin Cosby's blog (Includes an interview): http://strangerdesigns.blogspot.co.uk...
Darcia Helle's blog: http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/2013/0...
Helle Gade's blog: http://hellegade.wordpress.com/2013/0...
Stacy Juba's blog: http://stacyjuba.com/blog/2013/09/16/...
Jason McIntyre's blog: http://www.thefarthestreaches.com/201...
Geoffrey West's blog (also includes details of the talented Terry Tyler's new release 'What it Takes': http://geoffreywestdotcom.wordpress.c...
Sandra Yuen Mackay's blog: http://symackay.blogspot.ca/2013/09/m...
Lucy Pireel's blog: http://lucypireel.wordpress.com/2013/...
J. Michael Radcliffe's blog: http://michaelradcliffe.wordpress.com...
Merita King's blog: http://meritaking.com/2013/09/16/new-...
Simon Hay's blog: http://blog.simonhay.com.au/2013/09/w...
Marta Moran Bishop's blog (includes review): http://www.martamoranbishop.com/5/pos...
Orchard Book Club (includes review): http://orchardbookclub.wordpress.com/...
Karen Robiscoe's blog (includes review): http://charronschatter.com/2013/09/17...
Cinta García de la Rosa's blog: http://authorsyouwanttoread.wordpress...
Aobibliophile's blog:
http://networkedblogs.com/Pa66I
Cindy Schuerr's blog: http://theheartofwriting.blogspot.co....
Alberta Ross's blog: http://albertaross.wordpress.com/2013...
Laxmi Hariharan's blog: http://immortalprotozoan.blogspot.co....
I hope you enjoy the blog tour, and the stories.
My Writing Process Blog Tour
I was invited to take part in this blog tour by Susan Buchanan.
You can check out Susan's blog about her writing process here: http://susancbuchanan.blogspot.co.uk/...
The idea of this blog tour is to introduce readers to new authors. I have been asked to answer 4 questions about my writing process and then tag three more authors to take part.
Here are my answers to the questions:
What am I working on?
I'm working on a new collection of short stories in collaboration with another author
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I don't believe in genres
Why do I write what I do?
Because I always have ideas popping into my head for stories that beg to be written
How does my writing process work?
Haphazardly. I usually start off with an idea for a story and work from there, without a plan, which leads to lots of continuity issues that need to be resolved during the editing process.
The first draft for me is always about getting the story down on paper (I tend to write my first drafts with pen and paper rather than on a keyboard). The first drafts are invariably very bad - the grammar is atrocious, spelling questionable, and the storyline usually needs a lot of work.
Then I edit, by adding and taking bits away. Then I read over it a couple of times. The next step is sending it to beta-readers to let me know what they think and tell me if they spot any mistakes.
Then the real fun (that's sarcasm) begins. I read the book over and over replacing words that are repetitive, like 'that', 'she', 'her', 'seem', 'look', etc., and taking out words that are not really needed, like 'very' or 'just'.
Finally, I try to find words to replace the more common words... with the use of a thesaurus, just to add a few more unusual words to give the book a bit of substance. I play about with sentences and add and take away words. I delete any sentences that don't really add to the story.
My editing process takes much longer than the actual writing, and involves late nights, coffee, angst, and grumpiness.
Then, when I'm done, I send to a proofreader to check for any typos. Things you can't spot easily for yourself in your own writing are words that can be spelt different like 'their' and 'there'. It's amazing how easy it is for us to use the wrong word even though we know what the right word should be. These sorts of errors are missed in a spell check on the computer. Hence the importance of proofreaders.
The thing about reading over our own work is that we tend to skim read after we've read it over 100 times because we just read what we think we know is there. Simple typo errors are easily missed. A fresh eye is needed to spot errors.
I can also guarantee that even after a thorough edit and proofread there will still be one or two errors that slip through the net.
Who said writing was easy, hey?
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The authors I have tagged for this blog tour:
Next week, my fellow authors Darcia Helle, J. Michael Radcliffe will be revealing their writing process and then later Julie Elizabeth Powell will also take part (she's unwell at the moment, but will post her blog as soon as she can).
If you're on Twitter, you can follow the various blogs in this tour by searching for the hashtag #MyWritingProcess
Here a few details of the upcoming authors on the tour and their blogs:
Darcia Helle
Suspense, random blood spatter and mismatched socks consume Darcia's days. She writes because the characters trespassing through her mind leave her no alternative. Only then are the voices free to haunt someone else's mind.
Join Darcia in her fictional world: http://www.QuietFuryBooks.com
The characters await you.
Link to the blog: http://www.quietfurybooks.com/blog
J. Michael Radcliffe
An avid reader of science fiction and fantasy novels all his life, Michael Radcliffe is the author of the 'Beyond the Veil' series of fantasy novels and short stories. He lives in rural Kentucky with his family and their six cats. His writing partner and muse is a small dragon statuette named Idris, who spends the evenings advising Michael on all things magical, and supervising his writing.
Link to the blog:
http://michaelradcliffe.wordpress.com/
Julie Elizabeth Powell(pen):
Julie says: "Hello everyone. If you haven't guessed by now I have a passion for words and have thirteen books published in a variety of genres...all thanks to Lulu and Kindle, much hard work and sleepless nights. I like to challenge my writing, hence the diversity, but fantasy will always be my favourite because there are no rules, and I never want to stick to other people’s formulas or ideas of what is acceptable.
"My eldest daughter has flown the nest and is married to a man who doesn't mind his mother-in-law though my son is still fluffing his feathers. My middle child is off on a mysterious adventure, the like of which I can only guess...and tried to do so in my first book, Gone. I love to read and am looking for ways to double time so to indulge in the mysterious and wonderful and delicious and strange...my favourite kind of story. Writing is my passion, though I enjoy creating handcrafted cards, jewellery making, scrapbooking and dabbling in encaustic art whenever I can. Oh yes, I used to teach or mark exam papers but now concentrate on writing and enjoying my new life, which materialised, as if by a miracle. Though still dislike all those necessary domestic chores that would, for me, be included in the Rings of Hell! That's it. Thank you to anyone who reads my books...enjoy the flight!
Oh yes, sometimes I think I must be an alien because I see things differently – maybe that’s why I’ve never fitted into the ‘way things should be’."
Link to the blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
You can check out Susan's blog about her writing process here: http://susancbuchanan.blogspot.co.uk/...
The idea of this blog tour is to introduce readers to new authors. I have been asked to answer 4 questions about my writing process and then tag three more authors to take part.
Here are my answers to the questions:
What am I working on?
I'm working on a new collection of short stories in collaboration with another author
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I don't believe in genres
Why do I write what I do?
Because I always have ideas popping into my head for stories that beg to be written
How does my writing process work?
Haphazardly. I usually start off with an idea for a story and work from there, without a plan, which leads to lots of continuity issues that need to be resolved during the editing process.
The first draft for me is always about getting the story down on paper (I tend to write my first drafts with pen and paper rather than on a keyboard). The first drafts are invariably very bad - the grammar is atrocious, spelling questionable, and the storyline usually needs a lot of work.
Then I edit, by adding and taking bits away. Then I read over it a couple of times. The next step is sending it to beta-readers to let me know what they think and tell me if they spot any mistakes.
Then the real fun (that's sarcasm) begins. I read the book over and over replacing words that are repetitive, like 'that', 'she', 'her', 'seem', 'look', etc., and taking out words that are not really needed, like 'very' or 'just'.
Finally, I try to find words to replace the more common words... with the use of a thesaurus, just to add a few more unusual words to give the book a bit of substance. I play about with sentences and add and take away words. I delete any sentences that don't really add to the story.
My editing process takes much longer than the actual writing, and involves late nights, coffee, angst, and grumpiness.
Then, when I'm done, I send to a proofreader to check for any typos. Things you can't spot easily for yourself in your own writing are words that can be spelt different like 'their' and 'there'. It's amazing how easy it is for us to use the wrong word even though we know what the right word should be. These sorts of errors are missed in a spell check on the computer. Hence the importance of proofreaders.
The thing about reading over our own work is that we tend to skim read after we've read it over 100 times because we just read what we think we know is there. Simple typo errors are easily missed. A fresh eye is needed to spot errors.
I can also guarantee that even after a thorough edit and proofread there will still be one or two errors that slip through the net.
Who said writing was easy, hey?
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The authors I have tagged for this blog tour:
Next week, my fellow authors Darcia Helle, J. Michael Radcliffe will be revealing their writing process and then later Julie Elizabeth Powell will also take part (she's unwell at the moment, but will post her blog as soon as she can).
If you're on Twitter, you can follow the various blogs in this tour by searching for the hashtag #MyWritingProcess
Here a few details of the upcoming authors on the tour and their blogs:
Darcia Helle
Suspense, random blood spatter and mismatched socks consume Darcia's days. She writes because the characters trespassing through her mind leave her no alternative. Only then are the voices free to haunt someone else's mind.
Join Darcia in her fictional world: http://www.QuietFuryBooks.com
The characters await you.
Link to the blog: http://www.quietfurybooks.com/blog
J. Michael Radcliffe
An avid reader of science fiction and fantasy novels all his life, Michael Radcliffe is the author of the 'Beyond the Veil' series of fantasy novels and short stories. He lives in rural Kentucky with his family and their six cats. His writing partner and muse is a small dragon statuette named Idris, who spends the evenings advising Michael on all things magical, and supervising his writing.
Link to the blog:
http://michaelradcliffe.wordpress.com/
Julie Elizabeth Powell(pen):
Julie says: "Hello everyone. If you haven't guessed by now I have a passion for words and have thirteen books published in a variety of genres...all thanks to Lulu and Kindle, much hard work and sleepless nights. I like to challenge my writing, hence the diversity, but fantasy will always be my favourite because there are no rules, and I never want to stick to other people’s formulas or ideas of what is acceptable.
"My eldest daughter has flown the nest and is married to a man who doesn't mind his mother-in-law though my son is still fluffing his feathers. My middle child is off on a mysterious adventure, the like of which I can only guess...and tried to do so in my first book, Gone. I love to read and am looking for ways to double time so to indulge in the mysterious and wonderful and delicious and strange...my favourite kind of story. Writing is my passion, though I enjoy creating handcrafted cards, jewellery making, scrapbooking and dabbling in encaustic art whenever I can. Oh yes, I used to teach or mark exam papers but now concentrate on writing and enjoying my new life, which materialised, as if by a miracle. Though still dislike all those necessary domestic chores that would, for me, be included in the Rings of Hell! That's it. Thank you to anyone who reads my books...enjoy the flight!
Oh yes, sometimes I think I must be an alien because I see things differently – maybe that’s why I’ve never fitted into the ‘way things should be’."
Link to the blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Blog Tour for Far Away In Time
Far Away In Time has been on a blog tour in the past couple of weeks. It's not an official tour as such, but more that I have been lucky enough to find some generous author and blogger friends who agreed to post something on their blogs about the new release.
If you'd like to check out some of the blogs, I've created a board on Pinterest, here: http://www.pinterest.com/mariasavva/f...
Some of them include guest posts and there's an interview on one of them.
You can also see the book trailer on some of the blogs.
If you'd like to check out some of the blogs, I've created a board on Pinterest, here: http://www.pinterest.com/mariasavva/f...
Some of them include guest posts and there's an interview on one of them.
You can also see the book trailer on some of the blogs.
