Carrie Bailey Allen's Blog, page 7

Vincent and The Invisible Machine

Vincent was born in a city called Tobleronia. It was not an exciting place, but wedged in between the rocky blue hills, the people managed to live industrious lives thanks to their well organized system of government.

Rules made life simple and they comforted the people. Vincent, however, had been born with an unfortunate shock of unacceptably lavender hair and he was small for his age. But, he always walked between the blue lines drawn along the Tobleronian sidewalks just as he was supposed t...

5 Things That Actually Annoy This Usually Relaxed Writer

Every once in a while I feel the urge to purge certain thoughts about life and, you know, usually this
involves things I think about specific groups of people. And I go to the Internet, because it's a guaranteed audience. Not all the time. Often I give updates on my writing or travel, but some times a truly sincere thought has to come out.

So, here are five things that annoy me:

5. People who neg - I knew they did it. I just didn't know that there was a word for it. You're dating someone a...

Three Covers, One Book.

I read someone's blog somewhere sometime ago about how authors should never under any circumstances create their own covers. I feel that is true for most people. But, not me.

I'm a much better artist than I am a writer and I know it. So, I charged ahead and did a quick little draft:

Draft OneMixed reactions. No one complained about the color scheme, so I was pretty happy, but some people wanted more depth to the picture. More detail. Others felt that they just didn't know what the story was abo...

Three Covers, One Book: HELP?

I read someone's blog somewhere sometime ago about how authors should never under any circumstances create their own covers. I feel that is true for most people. But, not me.

I'm a much better artist than I am a writer and I know it. So, I charged ahead and did a quick little draft:

Draft OneMixed reactions. No one complained about the color scheme, so I was pretty happy, but some people wanted more depth to the picture. More detail. Others felt that they just didn't know what the story was abo...

An Open Letter to Male Writers on the Subject of Using Computers

I am a writer. And I am a woman. There are other writers. Some are male and I meet them online. Normally, this doesn't go well. The average time between chatting about writing to discovering that they are a disrespectful pervert is about one month. 
It does impress me that anyone would waste so much time befriending someone like me when the outcome is so predictable, but since it keeps happening, I am providing this open letter to assist and aid all the male writers I have met or may meet...

Bad Relationships Make Good Fiction

For me, a good relationship is when I can tell someone what I think and I feel confident that the person also tells me what they think. Simple. I say the same thing to other people as I do to you, you do the same and we stay friends... honest friends.


Bad relationships require some deceit. And most of the time, it's because they are trying to reposition themselves higher than the other person. What does that mean? Money. Social influence. Things that give us happiness, pleasure, security and s...

7 Lies That Almost Ruined My Writing

Advice for other writers - the topic most writers write about most.
Writers circa 1972
For a few years, I hardly wrote. Instead, I tweeted a lot and followed every link and read every article about authors. I read the masters. I read those aspiring to write, the published, the bitter, the positive, the experienced, the people pretending to be successful who weren't... I even read Perry Block's blog.

We all use language, right? We open our mouths and make words. Simple. And most of us learn to fo...

Happy Birthday #AMWRITING

Although I've spent more time #amnotwriting and #amediting and #amdrinkingcoffee, it was #amwriting that was always there. I also hung out with #amtweeting and #amnotediting at times.

And when I could tweet the #amwriting hashtag to the world of writers that often visited, it was something that made me proud. I was not #amprocrastinating any more. At one time I got over excited and would share links to my blog or my work. And it seemed fair, everyone else was doing it. But, then, I realized th...

Ode to a Dirty Old Sock

Crumpled on the bedroom floor
Crusty, yellow and threadbare
Dropped, forgotten, once a pair
Worn twice, three times, but maybe more
There you sat as the days passed
Where the laundry pile had amassed
The basket you have never seen
Not since the last time you were clean
Now all the shirts laugh at you
And all the pant giggle as they do
Only the underwear seems to know
The terror wrought when he buys porno

Many times you've smelled defeat
Or abandoned at the end of the sheet
He lets his nails overgrow
Until...

In New Zealand When the World Ends -- WIP Blog Hop

A month ago, I got a message from Andy Livingstone that he had been signed on with HarperVoyager for a three novel ebook series beginning with Hero Born - available in Sept 2014.
When you're online pal of newly minted writers, good news is especially welcome when it comes from such an endearing source as Andy who contributed a skilfully crafted poem for the Handbook of the Writer Secret Society. I read it over and over. For me, it made the book. 
Like Andy, I have been writing for around f...