Sarvenaz Tash's Blog, page 18

WIP Quiz Winners!

Thanks to everyone who played along this week on: What the heck is Sarv's work-in-progress about?

Without further ado, here are the correct answers:

If you guessed that the book is about genies, is based on The Arabian Nights (along with other Persian and Middle Eastern folklore) and has the word kingdom in the tentative title, you would have gotten all three answers correct.

Which nobody did. But five people did get two out of three and they are: Liliana, Aeicha, Bill, Lori and Christina. Via r...

WIP Quiz: The Final Question

And here it is: the very last question in your quest to find out what my work-in-progress manuscript is about!

To recap, you're playing to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card.

The quick and dirty rules: I'm going to ask you three questions about what my WIP is about. Make your best guesses! You have until this Friday at 8 AM EST to answer any or all of them. Whoever gets the most correct will be put in the raffle to win the prize. (In case only one person gets the most correct, tha...

WIP Quiz, Part 2

Here is the second part of my three-part quiz, informally called: What the heck is Sarv's WIP about?

Up for grabs is one $25 gift card to either Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

The quick and dirty rules: I'm going to ask you three questions about what my WIP is about, one every day starting yesterday and ending tomorrow. Make your best guesses! Whoever gets the most correct will be put in the raffle to win the prize. (In case only one person gets the most correct, that person will automatically b...

Guess What My WIP Is About...and Win a $25 Gift Card!

For the past year and a half I've been working on a new book that's been taking up a lot of space iny my head (and my heart -- because that's how writing books work).

Do you wanna know what it's about?

Well...

...I think I'm gonna make you work a little for it (and reward you with a prize)!

On Friday, I'm going to reveal the logline of book 2. But for now, I've decided to make things interesting by running a little giveaway.

The prize is a $25 Barnes and Noble or Amazon gift card (your choice).

T...

Yes and No

The legend* goes like this: John Lennon met Yoko Ono at a gallery that was exhibiting her artwork. One of her pieces was a canvas that was mounted on the ceiling. One tiny word was written on it. To read the word, one had to climb the ladder and then use an attached magnifying glass. John did. The word was 'yes.'

Later on, John said that if the word had been "no," or something negative like he had expected, he would have thought nothing of it. But something about the blatant positivity struck...

It's Gonna Be a Far Out Party, Man!

One of the biggest things going on in my life right now (besides launching my debut book and writing others) is planning my 2013 wedding.

As you may or may not know, I love throwing parties. Specifically theme parties (by way of example: my
I've been using wedding planning as a stress relief for when book stuff is getting to me. This may sound odd, especially when I know...

Let's Play the WIP Game!

Some members of the Apocalypsies introduced me to this fun writers game last year (in between talking to ourselves and having nervous breakdowns over imaginary beings, we writers do occasionally like to play a game or two). It's called the WIP (work-in-progress) game.

Basically someone picks a number at random and then also says top, middle or bottom.

For example, I'll say...page 42, top.

Now everyone go to the manuscript you're working on at the moment, and write down a line that can be found o...

One-Pubbed Wonder: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Journey

So here's the deal: I have completed a manuscript for a second book. I have no idea if it will ever be published. This is something I've been dealing with for about a year now and I figure the time is ripe to share some feelings. It's gonna be that sort of blog post.

But before you run away, you should know it won't all be touchy-feely. It will, however, be honest.

See, sometime after I got my book deal for Mapmaker, but before my book actually came out (a looooong, extended period of almost tw...

Craft Talk: Closing the Door

In Stephen King's fantastic craft book/autobiography On Writing (quite possibly my favorite craft book of all time), the author talks a lot about his writing method. Of course, with anyone who can churn out quality bestsellers like he does, it's fascinating.

But there's one particular phenomenon he talks about that particularly resonated with me. He calls it "closing the door." The basic tenet of it is this: when you're banging out the first draft of a novel, you need to shut the door to other...

It's Kind of a Funny Story...

This February, the fiance and I were taking a road trip to Vermont to look at a possible wedding venue. It was an unseasonably gorgeous weekend for it.

On the drive up, I got a call from an unknown number. The person on the other end was slurring and very hard to understand, but I got the gist that he had the wrong number. I told him so and hung up. Twenty seconds later he called again. Again, I told him he had the wrong number, again we hung up, again he called...

Now, if you know me at all, y...