C.V. Sutherland's Blog, page 6

Special Announcement: Lung Cancer Awareness!

Hey guys! This is going to be kind of a different post – it has a meaning that’s very near and dear to my heart, because I have been affected by someone lost to lung cancer.

So as I write this, I’m sitting at my computer with a bowl of candy… I hope you all had a great Halloween, because I know I did!

Now onto the real purpose of this post….

Did you know that November is the official Lung Cancer Awareness Month? To help support this cause and raise awareness for it, I am going to donate 50% of all profits from my book over the month to the American Cancer Society, which means that for every copy sold, half of that will go to this amazing cause! I’m so excited about doing this, especially because I feel like lung cancer is one of the more overlooked types of cancer, even though it is very fatal. I want to help this cause and raise awareness for it, and what better way to do it?

You can help me too by buying your own copy of Wildflower Dreams and raising more money! I’ve put a direct link to the Amazon page on the Wildflower Dreams tab, so you can go straight there and order it!

Also, if you want to take it a step further, you can Instagram your copy of the book and use the hashtag #WDLungCancer!!

I really want to make a difference and help people that are fighting lung cancer, and I hope you will all help me achieve that!

 The cancer ribbon color for lung cancer is pearl/clear/white. 

That’s all for today! See you later!

Favorite Writing Quotes!

Hey guys! Today I wanted to share with you a bunch of my favorite quotes about writing by writers, because I don’t know about you, but I get really inspired when I read a good quote to write, especially if I’m stuck with a bad case of writer’s block.

So here we go!

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. – Anton Chekhov

Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences. – Terry Pratchett

Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it. – Don Roff

If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. – Toni Morrison

You can make anything by writing. – C.S. Lewis

If you’re aspiring to be an author then you just have to write, write, write. Don’t get bogged down by what other people think, or what you think they think. Keep your focus on the writing, and what you love about it. Oh, and read, read, read. And if you’re wondering, “Am I writer?” Yes. You ARE a writer if you write. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. – Mindy Raf

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit. – Richard Bach

That’s all! I hope you enjoyed this and liked some of these quotes, too, and I will talk to you again later! Bye!

Wildflower Dreams F.A.Q!!

So, since today is the launch day of my debut book, Wildflower Dreams, I thought I’d do a little F.A.Q just to answer some of your questions in case you do decide to get the book. This is a really exciting day for me, and I am happy to be doing something like this for you guys that might be wondering what is behind this book, so here we go!

Q: How did you get the inspiration for this book?

A: It’s kind of a funny story, actually. I was on one of my favorite writing websites, and I had started a little “business” where I would make covers for people’s online books at their request for no charge. (This was before I was published – I was just bored, okay?) and no one was really ordering, so I decided to make another account and order from myself just to give myself something to do. I ended up making up a story called Wildflower Dreams. The plot was pretty much the same, but with a few tweaks and changes, and I think we all know what happened after that. I fell in love with the story, worked really really really hard on it, and after about a year of writing, revising, editing, and self-publishing, it’s finally here!

Q: Aspen and Sawyer are pretty unusual names. How did you come up with them for your characters?

A: At first, I had names like Emma and Luke, I think. But those just didn’t seem to fit their personalities, and besides, you can read a thousand books with the names Emma and Luke in them. I found Aspen after searching for nature names, since Aspen’s personality is pretty much identical to nature – always changing. In one chapter she’ll be happy and calm, and in the next she will be moody and stormy. It pretty much describes everything Aspen is.

Sawyer, I don’t even remember where that came from, to be honest. I’m a big user of the Internet when it comes to character names, because I’m pretty horrible at thinking them up on my own, so I think I just searched up uncommon, retro boys names, to be honest, and that’s pretty much where that came from, I think. Haha!

Q: One of the keywords for your book is realistic fiction. Is everything that happens in your book able to occur in real life?

A: Actually, it is. Most people wouldn’t think of it like that, since Aspen’s brain condition is practically unheard of, but it is a real thing, believe it or not. I think the plot I had before was where Aspen and Sawyer switched memories, or something like that, but then on the radi I heard a report about a man with the same condition, and a light just switched on in my head. I think that one thing shaped the entire story.

Q: What made you decide to self-publish your book and expose it to the world?

A; Oh, gosh. There were a lot of reasons. I think the most significant one is the feeling that these days, people are just putting out work to get money and fame, and not because they actually care about their work or want to put good things out for the world. The thing that probably motivated me the most was the thought that even if not that many people see it and read it, at least the few that do will know my true love for the book, and I really just hope that the people who read it enjoy it.

Q: Do you think that people will criticize it because you’re so young?

A: Definitely, I think that’s the thing I’m most scared about. People think that if you’re 11 (like me) or 12 or 13 or 14 or something, that you can’t possibly be good or talented or passionate about something, but that’s totally not true! If you’re really certain about what you love and you’ve got the guts to share it with others, I don’t think that criticizing those people is fair, especially because, since we are so young, we aren’t really used to criticism and judgement, especially cruel types. I’m a very strong advocate for doing what you want to do!

Q: Wildflower Dreams is a very strange and different title. Why did you choose it and how do you think it will affect the response to it?

A: I only fear that people won’t take the book seriously because of the title. The book has a fair amount of swearing (it is from the point of view of two high school seniors) and it also has to deal with death, a brief drug and underage drinking scene, and although it’s only hinted at and not actually said, it also discusses about how Sawyer’s father is abusive.

But, at the same time, I really do think that it makes a lot of sense – it is explained in the epilogue and a little bit in the beginning – and it’s just kind of a beautiful phrase, don’t you think?

So that wraps up my F.A.Q! I hope you enjoyed this. You can purchase the book on Amazon and also on the CreateSpace E-Store for $7

See you later!