R.R. Campbell's Blog, page 22

Registration Now Open for 30th Annual Writers’ Institute!

[image error]

Ready, set, register!

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Continuing Studies in Writing’s 30th Annual Writers’ Institute has now opened registration for its April 2019 conference.

What’s the Writers’ Institute?

The Writers’ Institute is the Midwest’s premiere writing conference. Every year, it brings in hundreds of attendees from across the country and all corners of the industry, including published and pre-published authors, editors, agents, and other publishing professionals.

Over the course of four days, attendees have the opportunity to attend dozens of sessions on the craft of writing, as well as book marketing, publicity, and other creativity-inducing endeavors. As an Institute attendee, you’ll also have the chance to meet and network with others who share your passion for storytelling. There are also opportunities throughout the conference to schedule time to pitch your work to literary agents!

When is the Institute?

April 4 – 7th, 2019

Where is it?

The Madison Concourse Hotel in Madison, Wisconsin.

Why should I register?
[image error]Matt Forbeck (right) and I (left) pose for a photo during a book signing event at the 2018 Writers’ Institute.

Writing is often a solitary venture, but it doesn’t have to be. Some of my longest-standing friendships in the world of writing have come out of this conference, which has kept me coming back year after year.

Aside from that and everything mentioned above in the What’s the Writers’ Institute? section, the Institute is an extraordinary once-a-year opportunity to learn from others while sharing your own perspectives as a writer.

Not only that, but at this year’s event I’ll be leading four sessions, the details of which can be found at the links below.

“I don’t know what to do with my hands” – Touching Up Scenes for Characterization, Theme, and Backstory
“Yes, and—” Improvisation and the Page
Podcasts as Portals: Platform, Publicity, and Passive Learning
The Dreaded Sag: Facelift Your Scenes with the Five Core Components of Scene Structure

I’m not, of course, the only person speaking at the conference. This year’s installment will also feature other wonderful speakers like those listed below, including some who have appeared on the r. r. campbell writescast!

Other Speakers to Look Forward To

Jennie Nash
Jane Friedman
Barbara M. Britton –  Writescast Network Guest
Nick Chiarkas
Christine DeSmet
Ann Garvin
Kristin Oakley – Writescast Network Guest
Angela Rydell
Sarah Sadie – Writescast Network Guest
Laurie Scheer – Writescast Network Guest
Tim Storm – Writescast Network Guest

For the complete list of speakers and session leaders at this year’s event, be sure to visit this page.

How do I register?

You can register online at this address. And don’t forget to take advantage of the Special Offers listed about halfway down the page!

Questions about the conference? Contact Laurie Scheer or Laura Kahl at laurie [dot] scheer [at] wisc.edu and laura [dot] kahl [at] wisc.edu, respectively.

Have questions about the sessions I’m leading or interested in having me speak at your event? Reach out to me here through my contact page.

Thanks for reading! I hope to see you at this year’s Institute.

Write on and write well.

Success! An AFIA Book Launch Party Recap

I’m so grateful for everyone who came out to show their support during yesterday’s book launch party for Accounting for It All! I had a wonderful time hosting this event and am looking forward to holding more signings and book launch parties for my other forthcoming releases.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the party. Thanks to Blaize Communications for taking these, and thanks to the Atomic Koi for providing the venue.

The book poster and related swag: bookmarks, stickers, and other fun!
Signing books!
Signing *more* books!
Friends old and new made it out to join the fun.

 

Attendees had a chance to watch the soon-to-be-released trailer for my upcoming sci-fi debut, EMPATHY: IMMINENT DAWN.
What would a book launch party be without support from family?

Thanks again to everyone who was able to make it. I’m excited to do it all again for my sci-fi debut in a few months.

The Edits Are In!

This week I received my editor’s notes for EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn, which has given me an opportunity to immerse myself in this particular installment of the story for the first time in months. Since the arrival of my editor’s input, I’ve been hard at work to implement her suggested changes, as well as a number of other details I need to stitch in to create greater connectivity between book one and its sequels.

Our goal is to have content edits completed by December 3rd, so I’m really hustling to meet that deadline before we proceed into the copyediting and proofreading stages prior to the book’s release on January 28th, 2019.

It’s all happening. We’re now only 57 days to release…

Thanks for reading. If you’d like these posts or updates about EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn delivered to your inbox, you can subscribe to my newsletter.

Thank You from AFIA and R. R. Campbell

It may be the case that only one person writes most novels, but it takes a community to launch and support them; Accounting for It All was no exception. That’s why I’d like to take a moment today to thank as many of those people without whose involvement, insight, and input this book would have never been the same.

I’d like to start with the folks of NineStar Press, especially Rae and BJ, for working through tight timelines to keep to our originally scheduled release date. Thanks to them and cover designer Natasha Snow, with whom they work to create their fantastic covers, Accounting for It All‘s included.

This book also would have never reached its final form were it not for fellow authors M.A. Hinkle and Stefanie Simpson, who read and provided feedback on an early version of Robin’s story. I’d like to thank Jim as well for being part of the conversation that got me thinking about writing this book in the first place; without him, Robin surely would have never existed. Thanks to Autumn Faraday, too, whose suggested “she has the looks, but now it looks like the cooks the books” tagline was eerily perfect for this book.

My wife, Lacey, was and continues to be of extraordinary support, so thanks to her for her role in helping me approach my writing with a clearer head and warmer heart every day.

I also had a fantastic time talking Accounting for It All with Brianna and Rey of the Work in Progress Podcast, Baz and Vance of the WROTE Podcast, and the guests who’ve joined me on the Writescast Network for conversations that inevitably drifted in AFIA‘s direction. There are far too many of them to name, but a special tip of the cap is owed to my Novel Approaches co-host Sione Aeschliman, who’s interviewed me a number of times about the work that went into this novel.

It’s also meant a great deal to me to have the engagement of readers, both those already known to me and those whom I’ve yet to meet, especially on Goodreads and through other social media. For anyone and everyone who’s gone out of their way to write a review, request a bookplate sticker, or simply share in mine or their own excitement over this book: thank you.

There are also dozens of writers from the Twitterverse with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to celebrate and commiserate along my pathway to publication, and I thank you, all of you, for your support. I can only hope I can be there for you in the same ways you have been for me.

Surely many other people could be added to this by name, but for fear of recording, in alphabetical order, the complete list of everyone I’ve ever met, I’ll leave it there for now. 2018 has been an incredible year in my corner of the writing world, and 2019 is looking like it might, somehow, be even more magical.

So thanks to you, dear reader, for being here with me at this stage in my journey. I hope you’re looking forward to walking the rest of the way with me as much as I am with you.

Read on, read well, and happy Thanksgiving.

-r. r.

Happy Book Birthday to Accounting for It All!

It’s a book! It’s with great pride that I welcome my very first book baby, Accounting for It All, into the world. At 321 pages long and weighing in at 12.8 ounces (according to Amazon, anyway), I couldn’t be more pleased to share Robin’s story with you.

Baby metaphors aside, all of this means one thing: Accounting for It All is now officially available worldwide.

So how can you get your hands on a copy? The links below are a great place to start.

Amazon | NineStar Press* | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

If you’d rather get a copy in person from your local bookstore, you can ask if they have it available! If they don’t, they can order one (or ten) copies for you. They might ask for the book’s ISBN to help them locate it, so I’ll leave the print ISBN here for you (and them!): 978-1949909388.

How else can you show your support?

Leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads will go a long way into helping Accounting for It All reach other readers’ hands. Even if your review is a simple “Loved it!” with a five-star rating, that’s more than enough.

Requesting Accounting for It All at your local library will also get it on additional shelves and in front of more readers. It’ll also give you an opportunity to interact with your friendly local librarian! What’s not to love about that?

Or, if you’re in a book club, suggesting Accounting for It All as your book club’s next read would surely make for an engaging conversation. In fact, I’ve got an entire page dedicated to book clubs and possible discussion questions right here. Check it out!

Don’t forget to get your book signed!

Can’t make it to the Accounting for It All book launch party on Saturday, December 1st? No problem. I’ve now launched a sign-by-mail program to get signed copies of the book to interested readers!

For more details, check out the page dedicated to the sign-by-mail program here.

Questions? Let me know.

I’m always available through my contact page if you have questions about Accounting for It All, my writing in general, or other future releases.

Again, thank you so much for being part of this journey. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

*NineStar Press offers only the eBook version of Accounting for It All through their site.

Let’s Party like it’s 2018 with a Digital Launch Party for Accounting for It All!

Accounting for It All‘s book birthday is tomorrow! To celebrate, join me on Twitter at @iamrrcampbell and #AccountingForItAll on Monday, November 19th for a day filled with Accounting for It All facts, fanfare, and other fun.

We’ll officially kick off the celebration at 8 a.m. ET with a “one like, one fact” thread, where for every like the designated tweet receives, I’ll share another fact about Accounting for It All or the research that went into it.

Throughout the rest of the day, I’ll also tweet links to AFIA sneak peeks, never-before-seen Accounting for It All art by Maggie Derrick, and other AFIA-related content.

Can’t make it to the digital launch party? Perhaps the in-person book launch on Saturday, December 1st will work better for you.

If attending that event doesn’t fit your schedule either, never fear: I’ll still sign your paperback copy of Accounting for It All through my sign-by-mail program, which you can learn more about at this address.

Thanks as always for your readership and support. Read on and read well.

ICYMI: Paperback Preorders of Accounting for It All are Now Available!

This post originally appeared on AccountingForItAll.com.

For more, visit that site at this link.

It’s all happening, folks. Though eBook preorders went up on the NineStar Press site a couple weeks ago, at the time there was no way to order a print copy of Accounting for It All in advance of its publication date.

That’s all changed now.

The paperback version of Accounting for It All is now available for preorder through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Why wait? Nab your paperback copy now and be among the first to know how the novel’s porn-star-turned-accountant protagonist gets out from beneath the IRS investigation of the money laundering scheme she had no idea she was part of.

Then, once you’ve grabbed your copy, add the book to your want-to-read pile on Goodreads. After that, let me know your copy’s on order by tweeting about it with hashtag #AccountingForItAll on Twitter.

Thanks for visiting the site, and thanks for making your preorder today!

Have you seen? I’m Doing an eBook Giveaway of My Debut Novel!

This content originally appeared on accountingforitall.com on Monday, November 4th, 2018. For possible updates, be sure to visit this post.

Are you an eBook reader who wants to get their hands on a copy of Accounting for It All before its debut on November 19th, 2018? Or are you after one of our sharp, new AFIA bookmarks?

Did I mention they’re double-sided?

Either way, we’ve got you covered.

From now until Tuesday, November 13th at 11: 59 p.m. central time, you can enter to win one of ten fantastic Accounting for It All prizes.

The Prizes

Five copies of the Accounting for it All eBook (available to winners in either .mobi or .epub format).
Five Accounting for It All bookmarks and stickers, along with a letter from the author.*

How to Enter

There’s more than one way to win. In fact, you can earn one giveaway entry for every one of the options below. In other words, you can earn up to five entries by entering via all five platforms.

Newsletter

Sign up for author r. r. campbell’s newsletter at this address to earn one entry. You can unsubscribe at any time.


Twitter

Retweet this tweet (just once) to earn one entry. Additional retweets will not earn additional entries and may be a violation of Twitter contest rules, which could lead to the suspension of your account.


Facebook

Like the author’s Facebook page at this link to earn one entry.


Goodreads

Add  Accounting for It All  to your “Want to Read” pile on Goodreads to earn one entry.


Instagram

Follow the author on Instagram and like this post to earn one entry.

Whether you choose to enter once, twice, or up to five times, the choice is yours! You can pick and choose the platforms through which you enter based on your preferences.

Selection of Winners

Winners will be selected based on the platform through which they entered. In other words, one eBook winner and one bookmark winner each will be selected from the Newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Instagram pools, respectively. a At 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 14th, winners will be selected at random from these pots using a random number generator.

The first winner selected from each pot will win one of five copies of the Accounting for It All eBook in their choosing of .mobi or .epub format. The second winner selected from each pot will win the bookmark, sticker, and letter prizes.*

Announcement of Winners / Eligibility

Winners will be announced on accountingforitall.com on Thursday, November 15th. Only entrants with mailing addresses within the United States are eligible for the bookmark, sticker, and letter prizes. There are no regional requirements for the eBook prizes.

Limit one prize per person.

Questions?

Email me through my contact page.

*The bookmark, sticker, and letter prizes are available only to entrants with mailing addresses within the United States.

It’s Here: an Audio Preview of Accounting for It All

You asked for more Accounting for It All after the release of the book’s first chapter, and now you’ve got it.

Below you’ll find an audio preview from chapter twelve, with the text of the same excerpt beneath the audio player. Enjoy!

https://rrcampbellwrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Accounting-for-It-All-Chapter-Twelve-Excerpt-Audio.mp3

 

Squareville, Kansas – August 2003

We’d cut through the cornfield that night—we had to be fourteen or so then—Sarah stepping ahead of me as she yanked me forward by the hand. “It’s through here.”
“We shouldn’t—”
“Says who?”
As she urged me onward, I held my hand in front of my face to ward off the sharpest husks. Nothing stings like a slash across the face from a stalk just trying to mind its own. “Knee high or the Fourth of July,” I called after her. “My mom says we can only run through the field until the Fourth of July or until the stalks are as tall as our—”
“Your mom also says you’re supposed to stay inside after dark.” She paused, panting, out of breath. “That didn’t stop you from sneaking out.”
The mischief bubbled inside me, escaping as a sharp giggle. “You came to my window and stole me away!” I said.
Sarah glanced back, the moonlight falling softly against the milky whiteness of her skin. Her freckles were as strong as they’d ever been that summer, which only got my heart to racing that much faster. “It’ll be worth it, I promise.”
We stumbled into a clearing at the end of the field. Sarah put her hands on her knees, right above the tears in her blue jeans. “See,” she said. “I told you.”
“What?” Then I saw it: a tire swing dangling gently in the breeze, strung up tight from a thick branch of the mighty oak in the clearing. “Did you put this up?”
“Someone did.” She grabbed me again, our fingers intertwined. “Come on.”
My fingers squeezed.
Hers did the same.
She led me to the tire swing, releasing my hand only when she had to.
“Up,” she said.
“Up?”
“Here.” She knelt and hugged me around the legs, just below the hips.
“What are you doing?” I laughed as she got me half over her shoulder, my fists batting playfully against her back. “Put me down. I—”
She plopped me right into the swing’s open mouth, releasing me as quick as she could.
My hands flailed at my sides. “I’ll fall. I’ll—”
But I didn’t fall, no. Her hands had found my shoulders, holding me up, her face mere inches from mine. I could feel my heart pulsing in my neck, could smell the ChapStick she always had on her but never let me borrow.
I wondered what it tasted like.
I leaned in.
She laughed and slipped behind me. “Hold on.”
Then she pushed. Once. Twice. A third time. Higher and higher with each pass I flew, the mischief inside me bubbling up with every touch of her hands on my back.
“What do you see?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“There. In the sky.”
I rocketed forward, my neck craned toward the heavens. “Stars,” I said. “The moon.” And I did. Brilliant, they were, almost blue against the pitch of the canvas above.
I swung back. She caught me. “You ever think about how the light we see is from the past?” She pushed me forward, my stomach tingling again as I flew. I had no idea what she meant, so I kept quiet.
“All those stars,” she said. “It takes years for the light to reach us.” I didn’t know whether it was true, but Sarah’d always been the smart one, so I thought better than to question her. “And we give off light too. All of us. The Earth. Squareville. You and me, even.”
“We do?” I concentrated on the tiniest star I could, squinting at it as it twinkled.
“You ever wonder if someone somewhere will one day see our light?” Sarah said.
Of course I didn’t. Until a minute earlier, I hadn’t known that was a thing. “I hope they do.”
“Me too,” Sarah said.
I swung back toward her, but this time she caught me for real. She eased the swing to a stop and helped me down. Before I even had my footing, she’d slipped behind me and pulled me into an embrace, her arms around my chest.
“I think they’ll see our light.” I could feel her against my back, her heart pumping as hard as mine. “And even if they don’t,” she said, “at least we can see it now.” She spun me around, gripped both of my hands.
I wanted to lean in again, to surrender to the force drawing me to her, but all I could do was stare—stare and study the stars reflected in those shining blue-gray eyes of hers.
She bit her lip. Her eyes, her hands fell from mine a moment later. “Let’s get you home,” she said. “Wouldn’t want to upset your mom.”

That’s all for this snippet from Accounting for It All, but the book itself will be out in only 18 days!

If you can’t wait that long for more, you can preorder the eBook from NineStar Press and receive your digital copy of the book three days early on November 16th. The print copy will be available online from Amazon or other major retailers November 19th.

In the meantime, you can keep your eyes on this blog, my Twitter and Facebook feeds, or subscribe to my newsletter for more.

Thanks to Freesound.org uploaders Karlis-Stigis, duckduckpony, and overtone2 for the use of the swing, rustling, and cricket sound effects respectively. Each sample was modified in some way for the purposes of this production.

On Letting Go

As of Sunday morning, Accounting for It All is… done. Like, done done.

Done as in I’ll never touch the manuscript again.

No, I’m not giving up on a project; on the contrary, my little book baby is (almost) all grown up! As we speak, it’s being formatted for eBook and print, and will, soon enough, be turned into advance reader copies (ARCs).

One might think sending off my final copy of the manuscript was a moment of pure bliss: here it is, my first book child on the eve of publication, primed to land in the hands of readers everywhere.

As it turns out, clicking SEND on that email was actually much more bittersweet than I anticipated. Why?

Aside from general anxiety surrounding somehow undiscovered typos and the eternal possibility of additional opportunities to further sharpen voice and rhythm, I’m also now gripped with an uneasiness anchored in whether the book will be well received—whether the world at large will enjoy it as much as my beta readers seemed to back when it was in its earliest drafts, or whether it will live up to its premise, which always seems to have people engaged.

In other words: for the first time since the idea for the book struck me, its contents are completely out of my hands.

And it’s time to let go.

It’s time to let go of it as something I can coddle, something I can keep close to the chest, something I can shield from those who I might be embarrassed to know read it. Instead it’s time instead to embrace what this book might now go on to become in the eyes of others.

Put another way, it’s time to pack this book a lunch, tie up its shoes, and let the bus take it off to book school where it can hang out with all the other book children, and I promise  I’m totally not going to take a million pictures and give it a million hugs on the morning of its first day of school.*

I can’t predict what will become of my firstborn book baby after it takes its first wobbly steps up onto the bus, but I like to think I raised it right, or at least as well as I was prepared to raise it with what knowledge and experience I had at the time.

So… *sighs, wipes tears, puts on brave face for the kiddo*. The big day is soon—like, November 19th soon. It’s time for this bookdad to let go and let his bookchild shine.

*I totally am, though.