Jennifer Ellis's Blog, page 4
October 31, 2015
The Rules and Art of Paragraphing
Sorry for the long absence when I promised a post on paragraphing “tomorrow”. Tomorrow is flexible, right? It means “as soon as I stop running around with my hair on fire”. My hair is still on fire, but it is now down to a smolder, for a few hours at least.
In preparation for my Bookbub deal on A Pair of Docks in four days and the release of A Grave Tree, Book Three in my Derivatives of Displacement series, I’ve been updating all of the files in the series so that the backmatter reflects t...
October 23, 2015
Writing for a Cause
This is an announcement only post because I’ve just got so much exciting news to share. I will do a post about paragraphing (an exciting but oft overlooked topic in writing) tomorrow!
First, we’re now only 27 days from the launch of Tails of the Apocalypse, an anthology to which I contributed, which if you haven’t guessed, is about animals in an apocalyptic setting. It was super fun to write and it is also for an important cause. You can read more about it below. Second, we are even less than...
September 26, 2015
Writing in a Hot Genre Category
So almost four weeks in, it’s time to report out on the big pen name experiment. But first just a couple of announcements. Book three in my Derivatives of Displacement series, A Grave Tree, is almost done. I finished the second draft yesterday and it will be off to my editor once I finish the third draft on October 15. I also now have a cover courtesy of the fabulous Design for Writers. Look for announcements regarding review copies sometime in late October. If you haven’t read books one or...
September 1, 2015
DIY Cover Design
Okay so not much to announce this week. Things are going well with the super secret pen name. I wanted to try writing in a really popular genre to see how much that would affect sales. I have released a short and it is already selling better than my regular stuff with no platform. I’ll report in on longer-term sales and progress at some point, but suffice to say it’s interesting. And sorry, my third Derivatives of Displacement novel is being a tiny bit delayed by this detour. But it's about 8...
August 22, 2015
Indie DIY Tools that Really Work - Formatting Templates
No big announcements this week. I just finished my short story “The Poetry of Santiago” for an upcoming anthology, Tails of the Apocalypse. Tails will be coming out in November so watch for announcements about it then. I also finished a short that I will be releasing under a secret pen name as it’s… well, a little different than my other stuff. Finally, I am moving along in the third book in my Derivatives of Displacement series, although I took a little time off (as it is pretty intense to w...
Indie DIY Tools that Really Work
No big announcements this week. I just finished my short story “The Poetry of Santiago” for an upcoming anthology, Tails of the Apocalypse. Tails will be coming out in November so watch for announcements about it then. I also finished a short that I will be releasing under a secret pen name as it’s… well, a little different than my other stuff. Finally, I am moving along in the third book in my Derivatives of Displacement series, although I took a little time off (as it is pretty intense to w...
July 29, 2015
Identifying and Avoiding Deus Ex Machina
Just a few announcements this week. I’m closing in on the completion of the first draft of the third book of my Derivatives of Displacement series. Book three should be out early this fall. I’m also running a giveaway as part of a blog tour for Confessions of a Failed Environmentalist. You can enter to win a free ebook or a $10 Amazon gift card until August 20th. Some of you new subscribers have probably already entered, but everyone else should check it out. Scroll down to the bottom of this...
July 11, 2015
My Environmental Failings
Sorry for the long time between posts. I have been blazing through the third novel in my middle-grade time travel series trying to hit my self-imposed deadline of July 15 for a first draft. I’m just past the 70 percent mark and the end is in sight. Well, more accurately, the 85,000 word mark is in sight, which I hope will be the end of the novel, but sometimes it’s hard to tell--story arcs being not quite as predictable or malleable as I would like. As a result, I’ve been a little focused on...
June 20, 2015
Analyzing your Sentence Starts
I went to a course on layered editing this past week given by an esteemed figure in literary fiction here in Canada. Although my writing tends more to genre fiction, I’m always looking to improve the depth of my prose so I thought the course might be fun. The instructor had us move from looking at our work at the micro (word and sentence) level to the more macro (paragraph and scene) level.
While some of the techniques we learned, like removing all (yes, all) of the punctuation from our pieces...
June 11, 2015
Three Books and a Boxed Set
It's an exciting week in indie publishing. Well, exciting for me, and exciting for you readers if you like to read great fiction at great prices and be eligible for a couple of giveaways! No pithy words on craft this week as I'm traveling across the province to a developmental editing course today, and will be sure to do a post about it next week. It looks very literary so I am expecting to have to go deep into my writing. So just a post about some great books for you to check out!
Confessions...
