Ellyn Oaksmith's Blog, page 8
April 2, 2015
See Girl Write. See Girl Flog Her New Book. (And Kindness Challenge.)
Okay so calling myself a girl is pretty funny because I have teenagers who make me feel about 150 when they crawl downstairs with their dewy skin and lithe figures complaining about how horrid they look. But gimme a break, I have a new book that’s getting a lot of cool buzz. Writers I market and group blog with are even jumping up and down with excitement on this one. Apparently no one told…
March 28, 2015
Has Writing 50 Acts of Kindness Changed Me? Yes, Profoundly.
This past week, in the middle of facing down the deadline that didn’t seem like such a big deal — final edits, fix some comments from an editor, wham bam, good-bye, I found myself in the middle of a family crisis. Also, since I’d made the amateur mistake of mixing verb tenses (sometimes in the same sentence *blush*) it was a much more detailed and painstaking vetting.
What happened was a…
March 26, 2015
Kindness is Contagious. More #50ActsofKindness
Okay. so I...
Kindness is Contagious. More #50ActsofKindness
Okay. so I don’t have time to write a full blog post because I am spreading the word on…
March 18, 2015
#50ActsofKindness -- The Challenge
When I was writing this book (available April 27 and pre-sale soon. Here’s a SNEAK PEEK) I thought a lot about being kind to other people and started my own Fifty Acts of Kindness. Here’s MY TENTH ACT OF KINDNESS. #50ActsofKindness sort of took off and I saw people tweeting about it. Now I’m ramping up again and started an Instagram Challenge. (It’s on Facebooktoo.) I challenged 10 people to do…
March 17, 2015
Go Ahead, Judge this Book Cover
Go Ahead, Judge this Book Cover
Okay, so imagine you have worked with other publishers and they change your title (which has a deleterious effect on sales) and then they bam, present you with a cover (which is still pretty nice) and then you work with a lovely lady named Gemma Halliday who is an author herself and genious marketer and self publisher who has opened up a boutique publishing house with 30 odd writers (and I do…
March 9, 2015
Confessions of a Book Slut
My ship was once caught in a sudden freeze, stranded in the solid Arctic Sea. I was forced to eat leather and even my beloved dog waiting desperately for the spring thaw. Then there was the time the village elders forced me to wear a crimson A for loving a man who was not my own. Another time I sailed with Captain Cook for two years, until he was torn to pieced before my eyes in the Sandwich…
March 7, 2015
Confessions of a Book Hussy
My ship was once caught in a sudden freeze, stranded in the solid Arctic Sea. I was forced to eat leather and even my beloved dog waiting desperately for the spring thaw. Then there was the time the village elders forced me to wear a crimson A for loving a man who was not my own. Another time I sailed with Captain Cook for two years, until he was torn to pieced before my eyes in the Sandwich…
February 12, 2015
First Chapter of Chasing Nirvana
First Chapter of Chasing Nirvana
In celebration of passing the 200 page mark of writing my work-in-progress, a young adult novel called Chasing Nirvana, I’m posting the first chapter. Some of the formatting isn’t transferring and for that I apologize. I’d appreciate any comments or thoughts.
Chasing Nirvana is about a young gay girl in Aberdeen, Washington in 1993 who is nominated for prom queen as a mean joke. The only way she…
February 2, 2015
The Easiest Part of Writing – That Aha Moment
Although I come from a screenwriting background and spent decades writing, re-writing and pitching screenplays, my writing instructor at The American Film Institute was very big on the “You learn writing by writing” and listening to tough critiques by your fellow writers, not by reading books on writing. Many years after AFI I learned that I was somewhat (in)famous for my critiques, once telling…
January 27, 2015
How to Write a Great Sex Scene
How to Write a Great Sex Scene
This blog post also appears on THE GIRLFRIEND’S BOOK CLUB blog
Erotic
1: of, devoted to, or tending to arouse sexual love or desire
2: strongly marked or affected by sexual desire
— erotic noun
As I write this a huge snow storm is hitting the Northeastern seaboard, dumping up to three feet of snow. What better time to burrow under the covers and read a great sex scene? That’s right people, in the…
