Anya Allyn's Blog, page 5

Paper Dolls release day

Cross fingers, the release of the second book of the Dollhouse series (Paper Dolls) will be happening by the end of this week. My cover designer has very unfortunately had a sudden illness in her family recently, and things are delayed with the cover.

I am insanely nervous about how readers will react to Paper Dolls. I guess a reasonable way of putting together Paper Dolls would have been to ask myself, ‘What did readers like most about the first book?’ and then say, ‘Give ‘em more of the same!’.

But the entire story has been in my head since I began writing Book 1. And the story has to follow what it is. The story is big and complex, spanning hundreds of years.

I’ve loved all your feedback and emails about the first book – keep them coming!

It’s still amazing to me that people are reading and enjoying what is a somewhat difficult genre for YA – mystery and horror combined. So thank you, readers!

For me, a psychological horror is not about the scares so much as it is about a character facing the things that threaten to send them over the edge – and somehow finding a way to either cope with or defeat those things. And the things that happen to characters in Dollhouse would be enough to put anyone on the crazyland train

I’ll post a message here when Paper Dolls is up on Amazon.

(I apologise to Nook and Kobo users that ePub versions are not yet available. Having the Dollhouse trilogy available at places such as Barnes & Noble and Apple are options I’m seriously looking into.)

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Published on December 12, 2012 19:29

Please vote for the Dollhouse cover :)

Win at the indie books cover comp at NovelScribe! (And if you like Dollhouse, please vote :) :) )

http://www.novelscribe.com/awards/?pa...

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Published on November 18, 2012 15:46

YA Paranormal/Horror going free now!

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Published on October 29, 2012 00:50

Halloween Spookaganza Giveaway!

Enter now for the Halloween Spookaganza Giveaway!!

33 Prizes of spooky books!
3 winners!

http://incredibleindieebooks.blogspot...

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Published on October 17, 2012 15:23 • Tags: giveaways, halloween, spooky

Review from Night Owl Reviews

So cool to read a review of Doll House from Night Owl Reviews. I seriously love their site - it's a huge website, and the way they've organised it is fantastic.

The review:

"Dollhouse is an incredible story, unlike anything I have ever read before. It moves very fast, and the characters and their interactions flow seamlessly together, creating a terrifying scene one will be unable to look away from. This is a great novel for anyone who is searching for something out of the ordinary, unique, and vastly interesting. I honestly had a difficult time putting it down."

http://teen.nightowlreviews.com/nor/R...

The worst thing, when writing, is thinking, oh wow, is this just TOO weird? Too frightening? Trying to rein in characters and plots that want to follow their own paths is a strange experience.
The only part of the story where I had any control was the first part, before the characters go beyond the door of the Wheel of Death. And I do wonder if that part dragged at all, because I was controlling it, forcing the characters to take their time and do what I imagined they should be doing.

Ok, back to the treadmill.
Literally.
I bought one so that I had no excuse not to go for a walk every day. Too cold? raining? No excuses now lol.
I have to say that they work. You don't think it's doing much, but then you tackle a walk (out in the real world) that half-killed you before - and now you can do it easily.
I quite often have one of my kids running alongside me on the treadmill while I write - the treadmill is in the office. Except I have to watch and make sure the six year old is not bumping the speed up to ridiculous levels - this thing moves at crazily supersonic speeds at the higher levels!

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Published on May 30, 2012 16:51

Barrington Tops pics

A short post, as I'm about to go bushwalking :)

(Heading up to a lookout here at Pearl Beach)

I put up some photos on my website of the area my book is set in (Barrington Tops).

http://dollhousetrilogy.com/questions...

It's a unique area and really lovely. I'd like to go back there in winter, and stay in a log cabin with snow all around outside :)

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Published on May 26, 2012 17:22

Time to write Doll House 2

With Doll House #1 final and complete as of two days ago, it's time to begin to gather the far flung thoughts for Book #2.

Actually, the thoughts are not all that far flung :) They are mostly everything I couldn't fit into Book #1 (Else it would have become a monster of a book!)

In the process of writing Doll House #1, I wrapped up the main mystery and had to leave some story threads hanging. The story with Henry, Tobias and Jessamine (and Cassie's discovery of that story and what it means for her world) has to be dealt with across three books, because there is no way I could fit all that in one.

I'm really looking forward to writing books #2 & #3 because I can lay bare the underlying story - which is where the real centre of the Doll House books lie.

On another note, a reader close to the location where my book is set has offered to read and review my book. Which is exciting! I admit to being slightly more interested in what she thinks of my descriptions of the area than of the book itself :)
I've personally visited the area only once (and stayed in the cutest log cabins right on the river) but hope I've captured the rugged beauty of the area.

Anni

(Anya Allyn)

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Published on May 24, 2012 17:18

Yeah, call me dysfunctional ....

It was pointed out to me today that I made a typo in Doll House. I had Florida mentioned as being on the 'West Coast' of the USA.

This person was being kind. That's not a typo. That's a huge, glaring mistake.

(Or in the words of Daffy Duck, that's despicable!)

Not that I didn't check my facts first. I'm an obsessive fact-checker. I looked at Florida on a map, just checking it was where I thought it was. Ok, yep, East Coast, down the bottom - a lot like the location where I live in Australia (close to Sydney).

But somehow, my brain did a switch when I went to write it.

I have a major problem with left and right. People who know me well know:

I could never tell time with an analogue clock as a child and still can't.

I can get lost just walking or driving around a corner.

I have to really think when putting shoes on myself or my kids.

When giving directions to someone, I'm likely to point left when I mean right, or vice versa.

Yes, kind of dysfunctional ....
Keeping to the Looney Tunes themes - 'And that's not all folks!'
There's more!

I've read some things that say the above probs can go with another prob. Face and name blindness, which I also have (to a mild degree). For the life of me, I cannot remember a face unless it's either very distinctive or the person's hair/hairstyle is distinctive. I used to think I just wasn't trying hard enough. Recognising faces seemed to come so easily to others. It took me a long, long time to realise that 'trying harder' was never going to do the trick.

Watching a movie that has male actors who all have short hair of the same color is misery. (The Hunger Games movie seemed to have a lot of teenage, white males with short blonde hair and it was hard to separate them out for a while there!)

One reason I love the internet is that people look the same all the time (in their profile photos) and they are always where you expect them to be!

All of us are different in some ways. We all have foibles, idiosyncrasies, dysfunctions.

Like they say, perfection is overrated :)

(My big clanger of a mistake is now fixed I'm glad to say!)

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Published on May 22, 2012 01:08

All the small things

Working on final edits for Doll House - due for release in May. Excited but tired!!!

I keep being reminded of the songs 'All The Small Things' by Blink 182 and 'Little Things' by Good Charlotte. (Both songs I like :-))
Final edits are really a matter of finding all the little things. Every.Single.One.Of.Them. (Until you're cross-eyed!)

Speaking of small things ...

We recently discovered a small pond under a mass of weeds in our front yard (We moved into this house a couple of months back.)
We ripped out the weeds to see a few tadpoles happily swimming.

We've been watching them grow legs and turn into the tiniest little frogs ever.

The other day we saw some foamy stuff on the frog pond and thought some shampoo had somehow found its way in. But closer inspection showed some black dots in the foam. Ohhhh, so these are actually frogs eggs!

Onto the birth of books, and more importantly, the life in my garden.

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Published on April 26, 2012 14:16 • Tags: all-the-small-things, doll-house, editing, frogs, little-things