Mindy Hardwick's Blog, page 41

Pens for Paws Auction

There is a really great auction happening this week called Pens for Paws. The auction is an online auction with writers and others from the publishing community to raise funds for Fat Kitty City, a no-kill, cage-free cat (and dog!) sanctuary in El Dorado Hills, California.

Here is a peak at some of the items up for auction.

Signed copy of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, with a doodle especially for Pens for Paws
Picture book and query critique by Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency
Query, synopsis, and first chapter (up to 15 pages) critique from Pam van Hylckema Vlieg of Foreword Literary
Query and first 10 pages critique from Sara D’Emic of Talcott Notch Literary
Critique of 50 pages by Natalie Lakosil of Bradford Literary Agency
5 chances at a query critique by Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary
Signed copies of the 1st three books in the Elemental Series by Brigid Kemmerer (yes, that includes an ARC of Spirit!)
Signed copy of The Fire Horse Girl by Kay Honeyman
Books by Kelley York, plus a 20-page critique
Query plus first chapter critique by Sarah LaPolla of Curtis Brown Ltd
2 (!) signed copies each of Jeff Somers’s Trickster and Sean Ferrell’s Man in the Empty Suit

Each day, a couple auction items post on the Pens for Paws blog . Each item has about a twenty-four to forty-eight hour window where you can leave a bid in the comment section of the blog. Lots of great critiques from agents are up for auction! I’ve got my eye on one with Sarah LaPolla for my work in progress, Kids in Orange: A Collection of Voices from Juvenile Detention Poetry Workhsop.The auction runs from March 12-16. You can also sign up to follow @pensforpaws on Twitter to find out when an item is posting.

Character Secrets

This week in the Creative Writing Club, the kids and I were talking about secrets. In order to help us learn a bit about our character”s secrets, we used the following journal prompts.

1. What’s in your character’s closet?

2. What’s in your character’s pocket?

3. What’s in your character’s nightstand?

4. What is under your character’s bed?

5. Does your character have a secret hiding place? Where?

6. Who does your character hide from?

7. Does your character have a best friend? Do they tell everything to that best friend? What do they keep hidden?

If you want to read more about character secrets, Darcy Pattison wrote a great blog post about character secrets here.

And here’s a little secret to share about revision….Darcy Pattison has a great book which is very helpful for revision entitled: Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise.

I used the book when working on my novel, WEAVING MAGIC, and found her techniques to be very helpful!

Do your characters have secrets?

Markets Seeking Submissions for YA and Children’s

There are a couple markets seeking submission in some of the genres of YA and Children’s writing.  These were all listed in the April edition of Children’s Writer. This is a great newsletter and is now delivered to your email once a month. If you are a subscriber, you can also reference all the back issues in PDF format on their website.

Soho Teen–Seeking Mystery YA

853 Broadway, New York, NY 10003. www.sohopress.com/soho-teen

    Soho Teen is a new imprint of Soho Press, publishing a dozen mysteries a year.  Open to submissions from unagented and agented authors.

Editorial Director Daniel Ehrenhaft writes in the submission guidelines that nearly all YA bestsellers involve a mystery of some kind, and a journey of discovery. He says, “Soho Teen offers an unapologetic take on that thrill, putting mystery at the front and center of all our titles. In our list, you’ll find the paranormal and dystopian. You’ll also find hilarity, heartbreak, tragedy, euphoria, reflection, jealousy, love, loss and gain: the entire spectrum of the teen experience. You’ll meet characters you trust at first glance and others who make your blood boil.” All characters must be 14 to 17, and actively involved in a mystery.

Submit an introductory letter, the first 50 manuscript pages, and a 2- to 3-page synopsis to Rachel Kowal at rkowal@sohopress.com. Responds in 2 months.

Month9Books–Seeking Speculative Fiction for Teens and Tweens

www.month9books.com

    This publisher of “speculative fiction for teens and tweens” publishes middle-grade (8 to 12), YA (13 to 18), and “new adult” (18 to 23). Month9Books expects to add chapter books (6 to 9) on its 2014-15 list. The small press is open to new writers, and established writers.

Subgenres include science fiction, action-adventure fantasy, epic fantasy, high fantasy, urban fantasy, horror, paranormal, superhero, utopian and dystopian, apocalyptic, alternate history, steampunk, cyberpunk, and techno-thrillers.

Month9Books accepts pitches from unagented writers through its Facebook page, and accepts agented submissions directly. Middle-grade books, 30-000 to 60,000 words. YA and New Adult, 60,000 to 90,000 words. Also interested in early readers, and in chapter books, to 15,000 words. If your pitch is accepted, query with your submission, describing your story, and indicating word count and subgenre. Protagonists should be age-appropriate. Teen novels should have some element of romance. No verse novels, no gratuitous sex or violence, and no derogatory material related to culture, race, or religion. Submissions should be formatted in 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced. See website for more details.

Publishes both print and ebooks, with a variety of royalty rates.

FunStitch Studio–Seeking Craft and Sewing books for Kids

C&T Publishing, 1651 Challenge Dr., Concord CA 94520. www.ctpub.com

For 30 years, C&T Publishing has published books on quiltmaking, sewing, needle arts, and mixed media such as scrapbooking and beading. It is now debuting an imprint for 8- to 14-year-old kids, FunStitch Studio. The first titles have March through June release dates and include We Love to Sew, Forest Fairy Crafts, and Fabric, Paper, Thread.

FunStitch will offer six titles annually, each introducing kids to the skills of handmade crafts, and encouraging them to “stitch your art out.” Books will be bright, inspiring, fun, and instructional for young sewers, quilters, and embroiderers.

C&T Publishing is open to proposals, which should be emailed to roxanec@ctpub.com. The proposal should include a cover letter, a completed book proposal questionnaire (available at www.ctpub.com/client/client_pages/submissions.cfm), a complete table of contents, writing samples, and photographs or sketches of all the proposed projects to be included. No simultaneous submissions. Responds in three months.

In Disguise: Undercover with Real Women Spies Giveaway

 March is National Women’s History Month and to celebrate, I am very excited to host, author Pamela Greenwood on the blog.

 Pamela Greenwood grew up in Montana with a book in one hand and a watering hose spraying her dad’s garden in the other. She was curious about the natural world around her, and the things the adults said, or left unsaid. When she first started writing for children, her work was fiction, short stories and what her editor called short chapter books for young readers. Pamela and her coauthor began collaborating on nonfiction picture books on things like bridges, tunnels, airplanes, and robots for very young readers. Then, they stumbled on a book about women spies, and knew they had to write about them.

 Pamela is talking about her new non-fiction book for kids, IN DISGUISE: UNDERCOVER WITH REAL WOMEN SPIES.

 

 

IN DISGUISE: UNDERCOVER WITH REAL WOMEN SPIES is available at:

Indie Bound

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

 Now I’m sure some of you are saying, but wait! The author’s name on that cover is not Pamela Greenwood! Ah! You’re right! And she will share more in the interview!

But, before we get to the interview….Pamela is giving away ONE copy of her new book, IN DISGUISE: UNDERCOVER WITH REAL WOMEN SPIES!

All you have to do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment below and tell us a spy story. This could be a time you “spied” on someone –sibling rivalry is good for this! A person you knew who was a spy or whatever you want us to know about spies!

The book giveaway of IN DISGUISE: UNDERCOVER WITH REAL WOMEN SPIES will run for a week. We will announce the winner on March 9.

Pamela, can you tell us a little bit about your new book, IN DISGUISE: UNDERCOVER WITH REAL WOMEN SPIES

The book is for tween girls, and tells the stories of thirty headstrong and daring women who spied for their country’s freedom. Some were just girls of 18 or 20, others quite old. They span the centuries from the 1600s through today. Okay, we haven’t outed anyone working in the field right now, but have spotlighted Valerie Plame, who was outed in a newspaper article in 2003. Two other current-day women who spied are retired now. (One of them, Jonna Mendez, is the wife of Tony Mendez, the CIA officer who rescued the hostages in Iran in the movie “Argo.”) The spies came from various nationalities and backgrounds: Mexico, Colombia, Europe, China, India, Slovakia, as well as the United States and Canada. They came from all walks of life. You might be surprised to find Josephine Baker, Julia Child, Hedy Lamarr, and Harriet Tubman there, too.

You use a pen name, Ryan Ann Hunter, and write with a co-author, Elizabeth G. Macalaster.  Can you share with us a little bit about how this process works?  How do you divide up the work? How often do you communicate? How did you decide to form a writing partnership?

When Elizabeth and I work on a picture book, we write every word together, brainstorming, finding the right first sentence and last sentence, sometimes writing whole paragraphs together. Now we write over the phone, because we have to hear the voice. But we met when we both lived in New Jersey, and we’d pause between sentences at Café Beethoven in Chatham to take bites of their wonderful pastries. Eventually, we pass the manuscript back and forth via email, taking turns as editors, but still phoning to read passages out loud.

In Disguise! was a different story. We divided up the women, talked about how we’d structure each story, then went off on our own till we got to the stage of taking turns as editors. We’d still do a lot of reading out loud. We think we channel Ryan Ann Hunter’s voice—which is part me, part her, but something separate from and more than both of us!

 We communicate sometimes daily when we’re actively developing a project. But even when we’re taking a break from writing together, we have to catch up on each other’s life and projects –if we don’t talk in a month, say, one morning there comes a phone call. At this point, Elizabeth lives in Vermont, and I’m in Washington State.

 

In Disguise! Undercover with Real Women Spies is a non-fiction book. How did you research each story? How did you decide what to include and what not to include?

 We read everything we could get our hands on. I spent hours at the Suzzallo and Allen Libraries on the UW campus, since I couldn’t check out books from there. I worked with one of my local librarians to find material from other libraries around the world. We studied biographies, journals and letters when we could get our hands on them, websites, and texts about the wars the women served in. We learned about the culture and the customs of the various countries. We poured over maps. We emailed two of the living spies directly. And Elizabeth interviewed one of the spies from WWII, Maria Gulovich, in person. They lived near each other in the Los Angeles area at that point. Elizabeth says it was one of the highlights of her writing career.

 Figuring out what to include was hard, because we had a limited word count. Since we were targeting tweens, we wanted to be sure and share information about what each woman was like as a young girl, what growing up in her time was like. We found many tomboys, many highly educated girls, some very wealthy, some very poor. None of them were content to be conventional, to do what society expected.

 For the most part, we left out the details of their schooling, their marriages, their children, their ongoing careers. Though we wanted to give a sense of what life was like for them, after their spy missions were over.

 Oh, and we mostly left out the women who spied for “the other side.” We did include Mata Hari, Mary Surratt (who was hanged for her participation in Lincoln’s assassination), and Belle Boyd (who spied for the Confederate cause but later married a Union officer and settled into life in the new reunited America).

 

 What was the most interesting thing you learned about women spies?

 That they were ordinary women in so many ways. But that they did think outside the box, and think fast on their feet, and that they all were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Some of them did, and I get chills thinking about it even as I type the words.

 

What was the most challenging part of writing this book?

 Getting it right. Legends grew up around some of their adventures. And some embellished their own stories in the aftermath. Because spies work undercover, much is still unknown. We compared version after version, and we looked to the opinions of scholars. There is one woman, Emily Geiger from the American Revolution, whom a few people still believe never existed. I worked on her story, and was freaked out when I came across that reference. I had gotten to know, and admire, her! After sorting through all the opinions, I decided to join the DAR and others who believe in her existence. Hey, I have been doing genealogy searches on my great grandmother, and cannot find her in any census before 1900. I cannot find any historic documents that prove she existed before that, but I am pretty sure she didn’t drop into Great Falls, Montana, on a space ship.

 

What advice would you give a young writer?

 Read a lot. Enjoy writing but don’t ignore the most important part of the process: revising, or as some people  call it, re-visioning. Sometimes you don’t know what the really important part of the story is—what you really meant to say—until you write “the end” of the first or second draft. My coauthor and I figure a minimum of 10 drafts to really make our writing sing.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

 Our book has spy-related activities for readers to try. One grew out of our difficulty in finding true information about some of the spies, but it’s really appropriate for Women’s History Month. Lots of women’s stories are lost because they don’t think what they’ve done is important enough to record. We invite readers to interview the adult women in their own lives. There are all kinds of adventures—great and small. And all kinds of courageous actions. The activity ends with this thought: “Who knows? You may find an unsung hero in your own family. You are sure to find girls and women who have done amazing things.”

Thanks so much, Pamela!

 Be sure to leave your name in the comment below for a chance to win a copy of IN DISGUISE: UNDERCOVER WITH REAL WOMEN SPIES.  

Giveaway winner will be announced March 8! Good luck!

 

 

March Author Events

I’ve got a couple fun author events coming up in March. And…. I will have PRINT copies of STAINED GLASS SUMMER to sign at all the events!  You can find me at:

Literacy and Reading Night. March 1, 5:00-7:30 p.m. Sumner High School, Sumner, WA.

This is a great night hosted by a couple seniors at Sumner High School. There will be a handful of YA authors signing books and talking on a panel.

Edmonds Writing Group Author Talk. March 4. 11:00 a.m.-Noon. Edmonds Library. Edmonds, WA.

I’ll be doing a talk at the Edmonds Writing Group about publishing with royalty paying, digital first publishers. If you can’t attend, here is the handout:  Digital First Publishers A Path to Publication

EPIC Ebook Awards Banquet–Stained Glass Summer. March 16. 8:00 p.m. Red Lion Hotel. Vancouver, WA.

Stained Glass Summer is a finalist in the EPIC ebook awards. On March 16, I’ll be attending the awards banquet. I hoped to sell books at the book fair, but it looks like that won’t be possible this time.

Tutor Association Author Talk. March 29. 11:00 a.m-1:00 p.m. Everett, WA.

If you are a tutor in Snohomish County, or would like to be a tutor, the Tutor Association is a great resource! I’ll be giving an informal talk about writing for children with a Q and A.

Also, the parent of a young writer sent me this picture. It was taken at the Everett Waterfront Book Signing last August. I love pictures with young writer fans!

Kids Creative Writing Club Ideas

I’ve been facilitating an after-school creative writing club for students in grades 3rd-5th grades. This is a fun age to work with because they have so many creative ideas! However, one of the challenges of working with this club is the wide span of ability levels. There are kids who are writing four page, typed stories and there are kids who are struggling to write a paragraph. In their school day, the kids work on computers, but in creative writing club, the kids do not have access to computers. I hoped to be able to do more sharing of their work with each other as I’ve done with middle school kids, but the club only meets for an hour a week and it’s right after school. This doesn’t seem to be an ideal time for the young writers to listen to each other too well.

So, what to do with this creative writing club?

Lists!

The first week of the club, I handed out lined journals. The kids were excited to receive the journals and our first assignment was to make a list of the things, people, and places they loved.

Right away, I saw how well the lists worked. It didn’t matter if the kids could write paragraphs or entire stories, everyone could make a list. And lists could be adapted to meet a variety of needs.

Each week in the club, we’ve been making lists. Here are some of the lists:

1. Create a list of loves for your character. Include people, places, and things on the list.

2. Create a list of your main character’s physical appearance.

3. Create a list of your main character’s past history–include things such as fights they’ve had with siblings, friends, and enemies as well as times in their life which were happy and times which were sad.

4. Create a list of your bad guy’s physical appearance

5. Create a list of your bad guy’s past history–do the same as for the main character and include things such as fights they’ve had with siblings, friends, and enemies as well as times in their life which were happy or sad.

6. Create a list of your setting–name all the places your story takes place

7. Draw you setting and label places where key events take place. (I handed out large white paper for this activity)

8. Make a list of everything that happens in your story.

9. Make a list of all the doorway moments in your story. Where and when does it begin? What happens when your character goes through a doorway and/or portal in your story? Think about all the doorways your characters go through in the story. (We also drew a doorway for this activity).

10. Make a list of all the questions and things you don’t know about your story. What puzzles you? What haven’t you solved in your story? What things do you need to learn about your story?

The young writers have discovered the lists to be great help to them when they go home to write. I implemented a “green ticket” system and each week, four young writers receive a “green ticket” which instructs them to bring two pages of typed writing to show me the following week. I take home their writing and make comments, then I meet with the young writers individually. This way, I’m getting a chance to see their work on a larger scale and they get a chance to meet with me on on one.

Do you make lists when you write? How do they help you?

Writing Short Romance

On Valentine’s Day, I was on the Books To Go Now Blog talking about writing short story romances. All of my sweet, contemporary romances are 8,000 words which is a format that seems to work well for digital reading.

Here are some of the tips I gave. You can read the whole blog post here.

1.   Don’t Overpopulate Your Story:  A short story should focus on your hero and heroine. It’s okay to have some walk-on minor characters, and those minor characters might have their own story later. For example, in my sweet, contemporary romance, VINTAGE VALENTINE, Cassie and Eric make a brief appearance as neighbors to the Elmheart Hotel. But, Cassie and Eric have their own story in LOVE’S BID, a sweet, contemporary romance in the Sailor Series published with BookstoGoNow.

2.     Start with the Action: In a short story, there is a limited word count. It’s really important to choose the exact right moment when everything changes for two characters and they move toward their happily ever after.  Besides writing romance, I also write middle grade and young adult short stories. Those stories are limited to 500 words, sometimes!  I learned quickly to get to the heart of the story! I like to ask myself the following questions: If this was a novel? What would be the moment of crisis? How can I get to that moment of crisis fast? Very often, a short story is that key climax, moment of crisis in a novel.

3.     World Building is Your Friend: When writing short romances, you’ll want to create a rich, multidimensional world with the possibilities for many spin-off and series stories. If you’re writing about a town, it’s not going to be possible to include every detail about that town in your short story. But, if you do create a town, that will open up possibilities for creating many, many stories about other parts of that town. For example, my stories are set in a town in Western, New York. My first three stories in the Sailor Romance Series were about characters who all participated on a Sailing Club Board. My current series are stories set around an old hotel. If you do create a fictional town, it helps to draw a map of the town and keep it nearby when writing so you have the directions and layout of the town at your fingertips.



Read the rest of the blog post about writing short story romances here.

Celebrating Saint Valentine’s Day Blog Hop Winner

Congratulations to Pepper Penn for winning the glass heart earrings in the Celebrating Saint Valentine Blog Hop!

I will be participating in Lucky in Love Blog Hop on March 15-18, and another great prize is on it’s way!

Indie-Kissing Blog Hop Winner

Congratulations to Shana Norris who is the winner of a signed, print copy of WEAVING MAGIC on the Indie-Kissing Valentine Day Blog Hop!

There is still time to leave a comment on the Celebrating Saint Valentine Blog Hop for a chance to win these fabulous glass heart earrings.

You can find the Celebrating Saint Valentine Blog Hop here. Or click on the button below. That hop ends on the 18th. Good luck!

Indie-Kissing Blogfest and Giveaway

Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m participating in the INDIE-Kissin Blogfest! And I’m giving away one signed PRINT copy of YA romance, WEAVING MAGIC.

I’m also doing a book signing of WEAVING MAGIC at Uppercase Bookshop in Snohomish, Washington at 3 p.m. today. So, if you’re local to the area, I’d love to meet you!

The INDIE-Kissing Blogfest is all about Kissing! So, let’s talk about kissing in my young adult novel, WEAVING MAGIC..

STORY BLURB: He loves magic. She loves romance. But the biggest illusion is the one Shantel and Christopher perform together.  Sixteen- year- old Christopher fights to stay sober while fifteen-year-old Shantel struggles in the aftermath of her mother’s death and seeks refuge in a fantasy world. But the unacknowledged roots of their problems refuse to stay buried and soon, the two are headed toward a deadly magic trick. Can Shantel and Christopher move beyond magical illusions to find love?

WEAVING MAGIC is available in print and all ebook formats. Find out more here.

Now about that kissing….in WEAVING MAGIC, main character, Shantel struggles with “how far is too far” with Christopher.  She believes him to be more experienced than her and this belief creates part of her inner conflict. The following is the first kiss scene. Christopher has just stopped by to return Shantel’s bracelet which she left in his truck. Shantel’s loom broke and he offers to take a look.

 “Gotcha, Superstar,” Christopher said as he stood up beside me. He wrapped his arms around me the way he’d done in the bakery.

“Umpfh.” Seemed the only word I could manage.

“Shantel,” Christopher murmured.

“Mmmm.” I enjoyed the way my name sounded on his lips.

Slowly, he began to rub small circles on my back before he reached up, and cupped my chin. Lifting my face, Christopher lowered his mouth to mine and time seemed to stop. Softly at first, we moved our lips, and then, hesitantly, I parted my mine just a bit. Christopher’s tongue quickly moved inside my mouth and swirled gently. Christopher pressed his hands against my lower back and drew me closer to him.
Thinking fast about what the romance heroines did, I moved my fingers softly into his hair. The kiss deepened, and Christopher’s hands moved slowly down my sides, and then up under my shirt. I knew I should tell him to stop. We were alone in my bedroom. Dad could come home at any minute. But a part of me didn’t want him to stop. I wanted him to keep going. I wanted to see what happened.

Christopher’s fingers played with the edges of my bra. “Want to take it off?” he murmured.

In a bit of a haze, I stepped away from Christopher. I lowered my hands to the edges of my t-shirt and then froze. What was I doing?  Everything was moving so fast. So fast, I could barely think. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw myself in the mirror. My face was flushed. My shirt was askew, and I looked like I was terrified.

This wasn’t how I was supposed to look. I was supposed to look like I was enjoying it. I looked like a fright show was happening.

I stepped away from Christopher and straightened my shirt. I combed my fingers through my hair and ran my tongue over my lips. But, I couldn’t look at him. I was so confused. I wanted him to keep going. I wanted to see what it would be like to be with him. But it all seemed so out of control. And out of control was scary. When people got out of control, bad things happened. “Maybe later?” I muttered.

“Okay.” Christopher adjusted his shirt. Without looking at me he said, “I should probably get going.”

“Sure,” I mumbled. My stomach cramped. Why did he want to leave now? We could have hung out like Drew and I. We could have talked about physics. But he wanted to leave. Did that mean I just blew my chance with him? Why didn’t I let it go just a bit further? I was sure Christopher thought I was a baby for stopping. I was fifteen. Old enough not to get freaked out by a little kiss in my bedroom. I wanted to rush over to him, throw off my shirt, and tell him I’d made a mistake. Instead, I followed Christopher down the stairs and attempted to breathe.

Okay…it’s time for the giveaway.….leave me a comment below and tell me in one sentence...”Your first kiss…awful, amazing, or somewhere in between.” Be sure to leave me your email address! The winner will be selected randomly on February 18 and will win one SIGNED PRINT copy of WEAVING MAGIC!

And after you leave a comment on this blog be sure to visit the other blogs on the hops. There are prizes on each blog. You can find all the blogs on the hop here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!