Elly Zupko's Blog, page 7
December 1, 2011
Read an Excerpt from TWMD
1) Read the excerpt - the prologue and first chapter are available: http://www.scribd.com/doc/71588968/The-War-Master-s-Daughter-promotional-excerpt2) If you like the excerpt, share the link with your network on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog. Then become a fan on Facebook so you can hear right away when the book is available...
November 4, 2011
Q&A
Q: Elly, why no updates in so long??A: The autumn is quite a very busy time at my day job, which happens to be a mentally taxing one, full of much reading, writing, and editing. It's a tough thing to read, write, and edit all day, then come home and do same but in an entirely different mode. I've been zapped, and progress on...
September 11, 2011
The Pumple Cake Experiment
My friends a party this weekend. Not just any party, but a grand bacchanalia of food. It was the annual "This is Why You're Fat" party, a celebration of all things, buttered, battered, deep-fried, married with bacon.
This was my first year attending, and being the competitive person I am, I wanted to make a play for one of the prizes: "Best Meat Treat" or "Best Sweet Treat." This led me to the Pumple Cake (or "pake"). I can't take credit for inventing it, but I will take credit for my own...
July 23, 2011
Recursive Self-Homogenization
I frankly don't know who Shawn Coyne is, other than he's pissed me off. I hope he isn't terribly powerful with connections that could forever keep me unsuccessful. (I have a feeling I can take care of that myself, thankyouverymuch.) But I think he's doing a disservice to literature and I need to same something about it.
I came across an old interview with him where he was talking with Amy Brozio-Andrews of AbsoluteWrite about his publishing company, Rugged Land. He explains this so-called dirt...
July 18, 2011
Titular Angst
I finally had a cover layout that I loved. I even showed a few people. I was totally ready to post it on my website, get postcards printed, and start the full court marketing press.
And then I changed it.
The reason? I changed my title. I am more than a bit torn up about it. This is the biggest "darling" I've murdered, after years of attachment. I love the word "Secernere"--the way it sounds like a secret. What it means and the mystery it reflects. I think it's a great title in the tradition o...
July 17, 2011
The Revisions Matrix: My Approach to One-Pass Novel Revising
I wrote earlier about how my excellent beta gave me terrific groundwork for a plan to revise my novel. I have a good framework there. I have all the characters there, and the plot works, without—as I'd feared—any gaping holes. What I'm doing now is, as the late great Blake Snyder puts it, "pulling the arrow back."
(Side note: I've been reading Save the Cat! and finding a lot of it very applicable to novel writing. I highly encourage writers to check out Black Snyder's website. There's also ...
July 16, 2011
The Tocking Clock
I am sorely behind schedule.
I'm sore about it because I'm bumping up against these milestones I've set for myself in order to meet my goal of publication in December, and also because if I can't find the time now to do the work, why do I think it's going to get any better later?
I'm realizing that, once you remove the find an agent/find a publisher piece of the equation, an indie pubber's timeline is not that different from a traditional publisher. There is a tremendous amount of work...
July 10, 2011
Beta Testing: When's the Right Time to Bring in Outside Readers?
The most current draft of Secernere has been re-written three times, then line edited twice, and I've read the entire thing out loud to myself. But I know it's not quite done yet. I can feel it. I also know I am too close to the manuscript at this point to see the flaws a fresh reader will catch immediately. That's why I enlisted beta readers—and why you should too. But it's essential to bring them in at the right point in the process.
My first betas were ill-chosen. Do not ask your...
