Loni Townsend's Blog, page 32

Versatile Blogging?

Sarah at Are You Kidding Me?! nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award.

Sarah cracks me up. Her tidbits involving her family never cease to entertain me, and I find her stories extremely relateable. You should check her out, especially if you have kids.

The rules of the VBA (which still stands for Visual Basic for Applications in my mind) are as follows:

Thank the person who gave you this award. Thank you, Sarah!
Include a link to their blog. Please visit her here.
Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. See Below.
Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award — you might include a link to this site. I would think this would go with the last step as a given, but oh well.
Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself. Here we go!

Seven things…
you probably didn’t know about me.

1. I earned the nick name Azul while working in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, because I had blue hair.

2. I spent a summer working in a Christian Children’s Camp in Novosibirsk, Russia. The campground we stayed at was actually condemned, but that didn’t seem to bother the children.

3. Despite my character’s love of coffee, I hardly touch the stuff. I have, however, drunk a Red Bull nearly every day for the past 13 years. (I’m also among the populace that thinks saying “have drunk” sounds weird, even though it’s grammatically correct.)

4. When I was 15, I spent 5 weeks with my jaw wired shut. My favorite liquefied food was soft flour tacos, with sour cream.

5. I enjoy painting squirt guns and turning them into steam punk ray guns.

6. When I was a senior in high school, I planned on moving to New York to pursue theater. Then I looked at the statistics, analyzed my personality, and decided computer programming was more my style.

7. My arachno-hatred stems from when I had a hobo spider crawling around in my hair.

15 Nominations

Merriam-Webster says versatile means “able to do many things.” Taking that into account, I nominate the following people. Acceptance is completely optional.

Aldrea Alien

Melissa Maygrove

SD Neeve

Le&ndra Wallace

JeriWB

Southpaw

Kirsten at A Scenic Route

Cattitude and Gratitude

Alex J. Cavanaugh – He’s probably been nominated before, because he’s the king of the interwebs. But just in case he hasn’t, I’m throwing it out there.

Liz Blocker

Elizabeth Seckman

River Fairchild

Christine Rains

Lexa Cain

WriterlySam

I was going to nominate Crystal Collier, but it looks like she’s already received a nomination.

Again, acceptance is completely optional. I just think all of you are awesome (yes, I used the word awesome, Liz), and wanted to let you all know.

Did you learn anything new? Have you met these other bloggers? Have you been entertained by Sarah?

The post Versatile Blogging? appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Feature Photo Friday

Last week, I featured my pond. Today’s feature photo shows the hands that built it.

On the 24th, we will celebrate our 8 year wedding anniversary. Even after that time, he still makes sparks fly.

I used my camera for this one. The shutter speed was fast enough to catch the sparks without making them completely blurry. I’m hoping to get a better shot, maybe at a different angle.

I like puns. Do you like puns? What other puns could we play off of this picture?

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IWSG – Celebrating Creativity

Today is the first Wednesday of the month. That means, it’s time for Insecure Writer’s Support Group!

You can find the sign up here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

Last month, I talked about my worry that no one would read my book. It’s one of those insecurities that’s taken up permanent residence in the back of my mind.

While hopping through April’s A to Z challenge, I met Sarah, or SD Neeve. She is a fun woman who entertains me with her creativity, and never ceases to amaze.

She’s gone and made a magazine, and imagine my honor when she asked if she could feature Thanmir War! I was bouncing around the room. How could I be insecure when people I admire like my writing?

IWACA’s summer issue is available! Sarah’s put together a gorgeous collection of articles. Check it out here and take a peek inside.

Sarah’s magazine really boosted my confidence and helped me with my insecurities.

Who helps pull you out of your insecurities? Anything recent help boost your spirits?

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Feature Photo Friday

If you haven’t guessed from previous posts, my husband is one of the greatest guys out there. He’s creative, funny, hard-working, and smart. Sure, he’s not without what some people might call flaws, but really, when you’re that great, who notices?

One of the projects he’s been working on since we bought the house in 2007 is a pond. It’s almost done (still needs a giant dragon to sit over the waterfall’s intake well).

Today’s featured photo was taken from beneath the tree on the backside of the pond, next to the strawberries.

Do you have any non-writing projects keeping you busy?

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The Greener Grass

It’s been a rough time at the Town’s End. I’d planned on doing a nice little write up about my WIPs, but—as plans often do—they fell through. Heck, I even missed Featured Photo Friday.

My daughter picked up a cold at either daycare or preschool over a week and a half ago, and brought it home to infect the rest of the family. She rebounded with a day or two, and returned to being an active 3-year-old.

I didn’t pay too much mind to the cough, since my son has been coughing his entire life. But when he came down with a fever that didn’t go away after three days, I took him to the doctor. The fever stemmed from a double ear infection, but the doc was more concerned about the raspy sandpaper-like quality to his breathing.

After an antibiotic shot for the ear infection, three nebulizer treatments, and a chest x-ray, we were granted leave to go home. The boy teetered on the edge of hospitalization, according to the doc. They don’t want to call it asthma yet, but he’s got a new best friend in Albuterol, a vacation with Amoxicillin and Prednisone, and the occasional visit from Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen.

Life is tough when you’re 8-months-old.

Though the girl escaped the major symptoms of this viral infection she’d brought home, she couldn’t evade one of life’s oldest forces.

Gravity.

Trampolines are fun, and with the net surrounding it, I thought she’d avoid the usual jumping-related injuries. Well, she landed wrong with her arm underneath her on the jumping mat, and dissolved into tears. After icing it, prodding for breaks, and wiggling fingers, we couldn’t see anything wrong with it. We asked where it hurt. It wasn’t the shoulder, or the elbow, or the wrist. Just the middle of the forearm. *sigh*

She winced and teared up every time the emergency room doctors tried examining her arm, but the x-ray thankfully didn’t show a break.

I’ve taken over 20 hours of sick time in the past two weeks, and most of that hasn’t been for me.

There’s a saying that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I’ve never seen it that way, and that hasn’t changed. Yes, my son may have asthma, but at least he’s breathing. Teachers consider my daughter developmentally delayed because of her speech, but she’s attentive and figures things out quick. I might not be a best-selling author, but hey, I finished writing the book.

My grass is pretty darn green.

Have you hit any bumps in life? Does it seem like other people have greener grass than you?

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How I Found the Write Path

Carrie Butler is celebrating her blogiversary! She’s hosting a blogfest called How I Found the Write Path. See who is participating, and sign up yourself.

The Prompt: Please write a letter/note to yourself when you first started writing toward publication.

Since I often talk to myself (in third person even), this was easy. Below is the advice I’d give, if I could send a letter back through time.

╰☆╮ ╰☆╮ ╰☆╮ ╰☆╮ ╰☆╮ ╰☆╮

Dear Loni,

Hi, it’s me, your future self. No, this isn’t some scam trying to get your money. Go on, I’ll wait while you check the headers and track the IP.

You done? Okay, fine, so you’re still skeptical. I’ll prove it.

You know that masterpiece you’ve had stewing in your mind since you were 15? Yeah, Thanmir War. Guess what! It’s going to completely change. First-draft beta readers will hate your main characters, not to mention all your info-dumping confuses them. You’ll spend hours reworking both.

Before you start tossing out all your work, let me tell you two valuable words that will save your caboose—ones I had to discover on my own.

Critique Partners.

Remember those words. Find them online. Actively seek them out in your community. These people will change your life.

No, that’s not me being melodramatic (kinda sounds that way, though, doesn’t it?). I know what your life is like right now. Limited connections with absolutely no idea where to start. It’s just you and that story you’ve been terrified to show to anyone, afraid they’ll judge you.

Get over it. They’ll judge your writing before they judge you.

Critique partners will help hone your skill, point out flaws you never noticed, and suggest rewording that gives a whole new perspective on word delivery. Not only will these people turn you into a better writer, they’ll become your friends.

Okay, maybe I am being mushy now.

Well, my dear past self, another thing critique partners teach you is brevity. Yes, you, Miss Long-Winded, can learn to write something quick and snappy.

With that, I leave you to your writing.

Sincerely,

Loni Townsend

Author of the Niniers Series

╰☆╮ ╰☆╮ ╰☆╮ ╰☆╮ ╰☆╮ ╰☆╮

Are you participating? What advice would you give?

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Featured Photo Friday

I’ve been holding onto this one for a while. I know many of you will like it. It was an opportune shot on a stormy afternoon at a church just up the block from me. I’d taken it around the same time as the wet chain featured photo. It has a drama filter applied, and because these two are fairly similar in color schemes, I wanted to space them out.

I was pretty pleased with this, mostly because of the composition. I’d never heard of the “Rule of Thirds” before this year, so I gobble up whatever information I can in my perpetual quest for self-improvement.

And speaking of self-improvement…What would interest all of you to read about? I usually post on Wednesdays with a photo on Friday, but after A to Z, my brain is mush. I don’t often talk about my WIPs, because I am terribly unfocused and tend to work on more than one writing venture at a time (the side bar doesn’t even do it justice). I’ve heard this isn’t possible for some people. Would it interest any of you to read about my WIPs?

Oh! And I submitted a feature request for Google+ to be able to add a clickable, better located link to the profile page. I think this might help the next time A to Z rolls around (since I saw many people complaining about not being able to find the commenter’s blog when they left the comment via their Google profile). If you think this would be helpful, please vote for my feature request here. (Edit: I guess my link doesn’t work. >_

What do you think the photo? What would you be interested in reading about from me?

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Woulda Shoulda Coulda – Guest Post by Melissa Maygrove

Melissa Maygrove amazes me. She’s a terrific writer, well-prepared, and so much better at this whole networking business than me. In fact, I owe her a huge debt, because I wouldn’t be where I am now without her.

I have the honor and privilege to have her guest posting on my blog today. And without any further ado, I hand over today’s post to Melissa—Woulda Shoulda Coulda – Things I would do differently if I had it to do over again.

Learned more about the publishing industry sooner (e.g. genre, book formats, distribution, etc.). I’ve never claimed to be an expert, but when I began the final publishing push, I discovered how little I really knew.

Begun looking for stock images sooner. Holy cow—I trolled those sites for HOURS. If you think finding images for a contemporary is hard, try finding one for a historical. Gah! Her make-up is too heavy, his clothes are too modern, her fingernails are painted purple… and on and on and on and on and on.

In the future I think I’ll pick the cover couple before I write the story and set their imaginary images in my mind.

Worked harder to find beta readers. I ended up with only four CPs/betas for the final draft of Come Back. I really took a chance with that; I was lucky these folks were prime and that they all came through. The feedback I received would not have been as well-rounded if my group had been less dependable.

Worked harder to get early reviews. Reviewers have to be sought out, and they need plenty of time to read your story—sometimes months.

Built an author website sooner. By the time I got around to doing it, I was way busy with everything else. I would like to have had time to put more thought and effort into it before making it public.

This is the downside to a debut—one has to do things in addition to preparing the book, like build a website and open retailer accounts. Whereas, when releasing subsequent books, you just have to polish them, upload them, and market them. The other stuff has already been done.

Took time to learn the craft before putting my work out there. Writers are constantly learning and improving, and not every book we write is going to be a hit. But we don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

Established a social media platform and presence early in the game. I have Carrie Butler to thank for that. She took me under her wing, helped me build my blog, then booted nudged me out of the nest.

Hired out the graphics and the formatting. A professional-looking cover is a must. Nuf said. I may learn to do my own formatting eventually, but there’s no way I could have done that the first time around. I was going cross-eyed and crazy over too many learning curves already.

Got organized early. I made a document entitled Publishing Timeline and noted, by week, all the things I needed to do. (I did this almost 6 months before release day, by the way.) The list contained everything from editing and publishing deadlines to my plans for promotions and marketing.

This was a fluid document, meaning I added things as I went and sometimes moved things around if I decided they should be done earlier or later. Even so, it kept me focused and helped me not to forget to do something important. Once I completed a task, I grayed it out.

I also made documents to keep track of various things—like a list of people I wanted to acknowledge in the front matter and a list of folks I owed free copies to. I kept them in a folder on my laptop and added to them as I went along.

Wrote guest posts, trivia and interview questions, and chose quotes and excerpts ahead of time. Having this stuff ready to go made the final promo prep so much easier. If someone needed a post or a passage, I just pulled it right from my pre-made pile. Bam—done.

(Hint: If you do this early, don’t forget to update the excerpts after the final edit!)

Self-publishing is a LOT of work, but the long-term rewards are worth it.

Native Texan Melissa Maygrove is a wife, mother, nurse, freelance editor, and romance writer. When she’s not busy caring for her tiny nursery patients or shuttling teenagers back and forth to after-school activities, she’s hunched over her laptop, complicating the lives of her imaginary friends and playing matchmaker. Melissa loves books with unpretentious characters and unforgettable romance, and she strives to create those same kinds of stories for her readers.

Website | Blog | Twitter @MelissaMaygrove | Facebook | Google+

Melissa’s debut novel, Come Back, released Monday, May 12th, from Truelove Press.

Sometimes a single choice alters the course of a person’s life forever.

Left behind by everyone she loves…

Rebecca Garvey had the promise of a California future dreams are made of, until the wagon train her family was traveling with left her behind. Now she’s slowly dying in the wilderness, abandoned and stripped of her self-worth. Once the shock of her desertion turns to embittered despair, she doesn’t want to be found. Then a handsome stranger challenges her convictions and changes her mind.

Headed for Texas, chased by the demons of his past…

Seth Emerson knows exactly what he wants. Working to save for a cattle ranch of his own keeps him busy and keeps his pain buried. Rescuing a stubborn woman from the hills of New Mexico Territory isn’t part of his plan—but she’s exactly what he needs.

Making greater sacrifices than either of them could foresee…

Seth and Rebecca set off on a risky journey and a quest for truth, each healing the other’s love-starved soul along the way. Will they give in to their growing attraction? Or will they honor their commitments when Seth returns Rebecca to civilization… and her betrothed?

Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Nook | Kobo

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks Melissa!

That’s a lot of great information. What was your favorite point? What did you learn?

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The Rogue King Blog Tour

The Rogue King by Aldrea Alien is the first in its series. What I love best about Aldrea’s writing is the visceral emotions she conjures with her words. Often while reading, I find a lump lodged in my throat because I feel for her characters. Life isn’t always pretty for them, but it’s their struggles that make them come alive. She’s built a world that’s rich in history and complex with different species, power structures, and practices.

This science fantasy book comes with a content warning, and is advised for audiences 16+.

Here is an excerpt from The Rogue King.

“You used me!” he screamed at the desert. “An innocent—you said it yourself.”

Innocent? Lorric laughed. Not anymore.

Bile rose in his throat. The woman’s screams echoed in his mind. No matter how hard he tried, he hadn’t been able to block the sound of her begging for her life to be spared. Even huddled in the farthest, deepest corner he could reach within his mind, it had found him. “Get out of my head! Leave me alone!”

It’s not that simple, Vengeance. You’ve been given to me. A gift, a peace offering… call it what you will, but you’re still mine.

“Is this what you want from me?” Koral asked. “A total lack of respect for life?”

What I want from you, Vengeance, is your passion. Most Rogues get it from raping and killing. I’ll take whatever stirs you the most. For now. Lorric paused, as if allowing the information to sink in. However, because you’re already both rapist and murderer, stopping will not save your soul. As the angels will tell you, Rogues are the worst of the damned.

He thought the god’s words would anger him, but he felt… nothing. His very being felt hollowed out—an aching numbness. Not even looking at his claws, sticky with blood, could stir a single feeling. He had killed three people and he couldn’t summon any sorrow for their deaths.

But what would a monster, a Rogue, know of such emotions? I am a monster. Koral dug his fingers into the sand. No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t Koral anymore. He couldn’t be ever again. Koral was an innocent young man who had died in that temple. He was—

“Vengeance.” The word felt soothing as it hissed through his teeth. He laughed, the noise sounding hysterical to his ears. “Vengeance!” he screamed at the clouds.

He would live up to the name the god had given him. He would make them pay. Shirain, Weinain, even Lorric. They would all suffer for what they had done to him, for what they had turned him into.

You can try, Lorric hissed. But nothing can kill a god.

The challenge only made him laugh harder. Everything died eventually. Even gods. He would find a way. He was Vengeance.

Outside is dangerous.

Such is the warning Koral has heard for twelve years. Born a product of genetic manipulation, he knows little else of the world beyond the steel walls of his home.

When fate gives him the choice between certain death and the unknown, there’s no question in what he must choose. But he’s about to find out the sands he must brave are full of more than mere monsters.

Providing the desert doesn’t kill him first.

This is a world ruled by instinct, where innocence is drowned in blood. Here, men are offered up to the great Serpent God, Lorric, only to emerge as the most feared killers on the planet: The Rogues.

With the god’s sights set on turning Koral into a legend, he must sacrifice himself to survive and be reborn as…

The Rogue King

Amazon | GoodReads

Born and raised in New Zealand, Aldrea Alien lives on a small farm with her family, including a menagerie of animals. Since discovering a love of writing at the age of twelve, she hasn’t found an ounce of peace from the characters plaguing her mind.

Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Featured Photo Friday

Two years ago, I told my husband, “I want a tree in the back yard.” He quizzed me on what type, and I answered in a series of non-committal grunts. Yes, I know, extremely helpful. But he knows me pretty darn well (and one would hope, considering I married him). I came home to find a bare-limbed stick poking out from the ground.

Finally, this year, it bloomed.

Cherry blossoms are one of my favorites. One day, I hope to go to Japan during the cherry blossom festivals. Until then, I will stand in my back yard and pretend.

What’s on your bucket list? What do you think of this featured photo?

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