Megan Trennett's Blog, page 9

Six Sentence Sunday – Oct. 7

I’ve been slack in posting period. I’d like to blame this on fighting off the start of a cold (while growing a human), but I’m very share it’s got something to do with my procrastinating tendencies. However, I’ve remembered to do Six Sentence Sunday. Go check out the other authors too! You never know if you’ll find a sample of something you want to read more of.

Anywho, for my post I’ve taken a recommendation from Frank Fisher to add some dialogue between my characters (Thanks Frank!) So I’m continuing my segment from last weeks piece from Unscripted Transformations.

A quick little synopsis: First day off Fall in the land of Eddie and Isla. It’s also the first day in which Isla must act out a kissing scene (that Eddie wrote) with her co-star. Just before this brief peek into their conversation, Eddie was teasing Isla by saying the only reason she looks exceptionally nice is because she wants to impress her co-star.

“I’m sure.” Eddie rolls his eyes and starts the car as Tom climbs into the back seat from my side. “You just wanted to look stunning for your kiss fest today.”

“Jealous?” I mock him as Tom buckles up and leans forward, trying to join the conversation.

“Disgustingly,” Eddie sounds half serious, but he’s too busy focusing on the traffic coming from behind to give any facial reactions. 

And there it is! Another week gone by. Hopefully I’ll be posting more. But nothing tomorrow as it’s Turkey Day (Thanksgiving) in my neck of the woods.

Six Sentence Sunday – Sept 30

Hey! I remembered Six Sentence Sunday again! Barely, but that’s alright. To find out more about what this is all about, click here to read up on it and see the other writers who share their work each week.

Had I been thinking last Sunday, I would have shared a snippet from Unscripted Transformations. Why? because I have a chapter which is named on my computer “The best first day of fall ever.” And seeing as how the first day of fall was last week it would have been a good mix. Sadly I wasn’t thinking. So this week that’s what I’m sharing. Here we go:

Just as I start shivering, Eddie’s car appears in the distance. It’s like a beacon, I know it anywhere. He doesn’t look at me when he pulls up, though he seems to know right where to stop, aligning the passenger side door perfectly to my position on the sidewalk. He’s chatting on his Bluetooth as I climb in, and it sounds all business, so I don’t say anything.

He has on a black fleece sweater, and dark washed jeans. He seems rather casual from having just come from a meeting with his agent, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him dress down for rehearsals. I like it.

That’s it. Until next time.

Six Sentence Sunday

This is my first Six Sentence Sunday. I’ve seen a lot of awesome authors doing this, and have wanted to for a while. I think my big draw back into doing it was the sign up. I’m pretty forgetful, so I keep forgetting to do it. Then Sunday rolls around and all I think is “crap, I should have done that.” Well, I’ve become smart, remembered to sign up and set up a reminder to actually do the post. You should check out the authors’ posts and what this whole thing is about by clicking here.

But before you leave, check out my post. Today I’m featuring a sample from Heart Pulled to Pieces. Just an FYI: Andi, my main character, has gone through hell and back with her sudden divorce and her starting over in a new town. She’s just getting on her feet, and that includes her first (sort of) date. It’s what happened afterward that takes her by surprise.

It was disorienting enough to wake up to a strange alarm clock, even more so when you feel a little more tired than you should, and you realize you aren’t even in your own bed. The blankets were different, and I knew that the green plaid comforter would not be mine. Then I heard him groan as he rolled to smack the alarm clock, and my disorientation went away at the speed of light, all replaced with the memories of the night before. I had been out with Rob. I slept with Rob. I stayed the night at Robs, slept in his bed.

So there you go, my first Six Sentence Sunday.

Why isn’t it November yet? A NaNoWriMo post

This happened to me last year too: A month and a half before NaNoWriMo begins and I get the urge to write a new story. The idea is there and it’s clear. I like it, I see this being a fun story to write. And it was from the seed I originally planted in the back of my mind to sprout in time for NaNo. I blame my forced bed rest during August for it’s early bloom. When you can’t really do much but sit and watch TV, read books, and maybe attempt some editing when not entirely drained, your mind has a lot of time to rest and still absorb. The only problem is now I have over a month to wait and hope that this idea doesn’t wither (It happens to me more than I care to admit.)

What does one do when waiting for November with a fresh story in your head? Take copious notes, for one. Hack apart another story for another. Hope that I can do both for long enough that I don’t jump the gun and start writing like I did last year. At least then I had two ideas and I jumped on the one that nagged to be written the most.

What do you do if you have an early NaNoWriMo idea begging to be written.

You can learn what we said we’d discuss for the low, low price of…

Take a look at the screen shot below:

It seems pretty self explanatory right? It tells you the three things you expect to get from this webinar which seems very useful. It’s free, but when you hit the registration it does say that it’s only an hour, so you know they can’t go into too much detail. But I signed up thinking that ‘Hey, a little extra knowledge can’t hurt.’

May I say I feel dooped.

I tuned into the webinar with a notebook handy and my mind attentive. But really, I didn’t learn anything. Why? Because they pretty much told you what you already know you need (when they weren’t going on about how awesome they were). They talked about platform building, but only to the point that they reiterated how much you need a platform. They said you needed to market yourself. Another “duh”, but still no actual new (or even old for that matter) tips on what you can do. Truth be told, I don’t even think that they touched on Author growth. Maybe I tuned out by then, I don’t know.

Then came the end where these ladies announced they had a special offer. Yep, get everything this webinar said would be discussed (as in the actual teaching) for the low, low price of $1500. That’s HALF PRICE off the regular retail. Yep, let’s round up all the aspiring authors, Indie or otherwise, with the promise of knowledge and make them desperate by telling these tales of how no agent will take you without a platform, a fan base, a whatever, and then tell them they have the golden ticket for a discounted price.

Frankly, I laughed. Yes, I get that these guys need to make money. I totally, 100% get that. But do something like advertise an eBook, teach a small segment from it and say “there’s a lot more useful info if you buy these”. Which, by the way, is actually what part of this package was, eBooks on how to do this. Maybe the things they wanted to sell you would actually provide some knowledge, but it felt more like an infomercial. They did spend a half an hour out of the hour long webinar talking about themselves so I guess it was a set up to let us know how qualified they are.

I for one thought it was a waste of time. Maybe you listened to it and got something out of it. If you did I’d love to know what it was. Because the only thing I got from it was that these people don’t believe in the underdog, the slow growing Indie, or those who just love to write and want to share it with the world. Why? Because, according to them:

“If you don’t sell a 1000 copies in your first year {self published} you have failed.” Yep, tainted, failure, someone no one wants.

Whatever, thanks for the support and your oh so wonderful tips. I’ll make sure to order you probably also super informative and supportive material. Not.

And I write books with romance?

I have an anecdote to start my post with. I was getting off the subway, my purpose for this trip to meet my husband after he was done work. I’m slow, mostly due to my carrying a tiny human, and my doctors orders to slow the eff down because of earlier complications. As I’m getting to the steps a guy calls out. I see him coming towards me so I’m obviously the steps “madame” he’s calling to. He has something in his hand and my first thought is crap, what did I drop? He then hand me a rose, tells me to have a good day, and takes off-presumably to the next unsuspecting woman as he had a couple more in his hand.

My first thought is wow, that’s kinda creepy. Then I realized that most women, married or not, might have thought this a wonderfully sweet gesture. If I distance much self from the act, look at it as if I was another person, I may have found it amazingly romantic. A flash of romantic comedy runs across my mind and I see a girl maybe trying to find him again. Maybe the gets his contact anyway. Instead, the reality is my best friend wonders why I didn’t hold on to the red bud. I know, I’m a broken woman.

Or am I?

Women who read this, what would you have done?

Food for thought (and fall)

Alright, I know that this is a blog about writing and observations made while doing so, with the occasional reading or music post thrown in. But I have to share this with you because they’re just so darn good.

Fall is my favorite season for many reasons, but pumpkin flavors are one of the things I get excited about. In fact, they’re a family favorite in my home. So when I find a good recipe I have to share it. And yesterday I found two.

In all fairness, my sister found the first one. It’s a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Drink Syrup. This is supposed to taste like the kind Starbucks uses in their drinks and let me tell you it’s pretty darn close. I’m drinking it right now in a homemade “latte”. Mine didn’t really thicken as much as I think it should have, but I’m not complaining.

The other recipe is for a Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin. It’s another Starbucks knockoff that is, again, pretty darn close. This person has sugar crumble on hers. I do not for two reasons: 1) I was already tired, the muffins took a while to make, and it’s not like they wouldn’t turn out if I didn’t do it. 2) There’s already a lot of sugar in these beasts, plus that in the syrup, so I thought it would be smarter to skip it. My favorite part about these things is that the cream cheese didn’t melt inside. I’ve attempted a version of these last year and was met with that problem. This time, not so much.

This is my sharing for the day. Maybe these wonderful fall treats will get you motivated for some writing, plotting, reading, what have you. Maybe even serve as a scary reminder that NaNoWriMo is not that far away (for those who do it.) Now me, I’m going to go back to eating muffins, sipping coffee, and editing.

Fake reviews are dumb.

There’s a lot of articles going around these days about paid reviews.Those that have a ton of moola to shell out can buy their way to multiple 5 star reviews and seeming awesomeness. I guess it’s not that surprising that this kind of silliness goes on. I mean, there are people who gather the masses (friends and family) and get them to rave and review the novel recently put forth in hopes that it will earn them more sales, so why not pay someone to do it? While I want my friends and family that have read the book to rate it, I want them to be honest. If they thought is sucked, they should tell me (though some people like to hint at this in other ways. I still get the message though). And if I had the kind of money these people want for writing reviews I’d be throwing it into advertising, or maybe getting the books turned into paper backs and placed on the book shelves of my favorite bookstore chain.

But then I found another article last night that made me shake me head. This time it had nothing to do with the Indie community (yay!), but a traditional author. He went gave himself ridiculously raving reviews, high ratings, and then for good measure he went and bashed his competition. He made them sound crappy, and referenced his books are far superior. Apparently he got caught by signing his real name on a message board, but it’s still sad that this kind of thing goes on.

I guess I’m saying all this because as someone with very few (if any) reviews for the books I have out it never once crossed my mind to actually pay for more. I ask people who’ve read the store to please, for the love of all things good, leave a review for it on goodreads, amazon, where ever. It hardly ever happens, but I’m not about to bribe them into doing so.  And if you really want to punish the people who are doing this thing that is so despicable, don’t buy their book. Or even worse, if you did buy it, don’t review it.

A soundtrack for your book

I love  music. I listen to it whenever I write to help set the mood for scenes, to push me forward, and inspire. I keep playlists of songs for each novel I write, a definitive one that holds the songs that actually did mean something to me or the story once the first draft is done. Sometimes I’ll modify it during editing, but that doesn’t happen too often. And of course, when the book is released, I become a total dork and share it on the book’s page here on my site. Why? Because I get curious as to what songs inspired a writer, and I don’t think I’m the only one. Other authors do this, it’s kinda neat, but this is a whole new level of music sharing:

This is a whole new way of sharing music with the world. And she gets credit for selecting it, which is kinda cool in a weird makes-you-think-she-composed-it way. But hey, how many authors out there can say ‘My book’s got a soundtrack?’ Seriously, not even Stephanie Meyer (whose books inspired this series) got a soundtrack to her creation until after the movies came out. And not only that, but not all of her song choices were put into the movie/album.

Will my books ever reach the mass success of ”The Shades”? No, but I’ll keep making playlists because I want to. I still hope other authors will continue to share the occasional tune, and if any of you ever become big enough to select songs for an album, I’ll probably want to buy it. Not this one though. This I’ll leave for the die-hards to push to the top of the charts (you know it will happen.)

A soundtrack for yours book

I love  music. I listen to it whenever I write to help set the mood for scenes, to push me forward, and inspire. I keep playlists of songs for each novel I write, a definitive one that holds the songs that actually did mean something to me or the story once the first draft is done. Sometimes I’ll modify it during editing, but that doesn’t happen too often. And of course, when the book is released, I become a total dork and share it on the book’s page here on my site. Why? Because I get curious as to what songs inspired a writer, and I don’t think I’m the only one. Other authors do this, it’s kinda neat, but this is a whole new level of music sharing:

This is a whole new way of sharing music with the world. And she gets credit for selecting it, which is kinda cool in a weird makes-you-think-she-composed-it way. But hey, how many authors out there can say ‘My book’s got a soundtrack?’ Seriously, not even Stephanie Meyer (whose books inspired this series) got a soundtrack to her creation until after the movies came out. And not only that, but not all of her song choices were put into the movie/album.

Will my books ever reach the mass success of ”The Shades”? No, but I’ll keep making playlists because I want to. I still hope other authors will continue to share the occasional tune, and if any of you ever become big enough to select songs for an album, I’ll probably want to buy it. Not this one though. This I’ll leave for the die-hards to push to the top of the charts (you know it will happen.)