Courtney Wendleton's Blog, page 6
March 3, 2018
#BookReview: Would it Be Okay to Love You? (Would It Be Okay to Love You? #1) by Amy Tasukada
5 out of 5 Stars
The first in a long line of m/m books in a long time to focus more on the romance side than just sex all the time.
March 2, 2018
#BookReview: Vamphyri! (Necroscope bk 2) by Brian Lumley
4 out of 5 Stars
A little dry in the beginning, but picked up towards the middle. Once Yulian comes into play everything got really fun!
March 1, 2018
Word Tracking
Long time no read, sorry I’ve been pretty busy. Have been writing and reading, so that’s a plus. Thought I would share how I track everything word wise.
I am a tracker, I like to have a visual of my progress and love excel. I know there are others out there so naturally, I hunted the internet for different templates, but none really felt right for me. I would tweak the templates for a better fit, but still not right for me.
It took a while to figure out how I wanted everything to work, but finally came up with my daily spreadsheet.
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Just the basics: Code name of the project and how much I wrote in that for the day. Totals for overall and how much I have written per project in that one month. At the bottom I decide on a goal, keep an overall running total and then how much more I need to go. January was obviously a bit of a slow month as I only barely reached my goal.
Then, I wasn’t just satisfied with the daily numbers. I wanted to expand and see both monthly and yearly. It was a pain to figure out how to get the totals to show up on a different spreadsheet, but had a hay day when I got it where I wanted them.
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It’s simple and similar to the daily. Track the projects and number of projects I’ve worked on in the year (better understood for later) and pull the totals for the month from the daily page. It ends in totals for both monthly and project wise throughout the year. If they are blacked out as three of them are for January, that means I didn’t work on those projects at all that month.
The yearly page is my favorite because I have pulled the yearly totals used another formula for words per page and created charts to better visualize my work. This helps motivate me to work on different projects because I can see where I am putting most of my concentration and which books seem to be falling by the wayside.
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February 27, 2018
Genres of Literature – Short Stories
Mandy Eve-Barnett's Official Blog
The definition of a short story is a piece of prose fiction that can be read in one sitting. Short stories originally emerged from traditional oral storytelling in the 17th century. In terms of word count they are usually under 7,500 words, however this word count can vary. Due to the diversity of short story content it is not easy to characterize them, they may differ between genres, countries, eras, and commentators. They feature a small cast of characters and focus on a self-contained incident using plot, resonance, literary techniques or other dynamic components but not in as much depth as a novel.
Short stories are considered, by many, as an apprenticeship form preceding more lengthy works, however they are a crafted form in their own right. Short story writers usually publish their narratives within a collection as part of an artistic or personal expression form.
This concentrated form of…
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February 25, 2018
How to Advertise Your Book on a Budget
As a writer, you want readers to find your stories, but you may not have a lot of money to put towards that goal. After all, writing is often a hobby or part-time job, and it doesn’t make any income until the books sell…but the books can’t sell until people know they’re out there. So how do you get readers to know about your book without spending a lot of money?
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February 20, 2018
#ASI: Mandy Eve-Barnett
Hi, Mandy, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself and your background? I am originally from England but moved to Canada ten years ago. This is the third continent; I have lived on, as I was born in South Africa. The sharp contrasts in culture, weather, landscape and experience have left traces in my soul that I draw upon for my writing. My lifelong interest in the natural world and fairy folklore, influence my writing style and some of the subjects I cover. Although, I have been creative my whole life, delving into paint, clay, textiles, and everything in between, it was not until I moved to Canada that I ‘found’ writing. It seems bizarre that I never tried writing as a creative outlet before, but I am now making up for lost time. My first book was published in 2011 and to date, I have four others published with two more launching in 2018!
Discuss your newest book. My novel, The Twesome Loop, starts its journey in the late 1990’s English countryside, where several characters make seemingly unrelated choices to travel to Italy. Melissa is fleeing a loveless marriage, Gerald wants to find his soul mate, Brett is motivated by greed and Nancy’s insatiable lust drives her. They are drawn not only by the beauty and life of Italy, but by an unexplained inner longing. Each is unaware that a pact made generations before, links their souls to each other and the beautiful villa they will stay in. A parallel story takes the reader to 1874, where a young woman’s happiness is sacrificed for her father’s ambition. Unable to resist she suffers at her older husbands hands until his brother offers a way to escape.
The story came about because I have been fascinated with reincarnation for decades and it was a way to incorporate it into a narrative. I also love England and Italy and enjoyed featuring both places. Sounds amazing!
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Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? When I came to Canada I promised myself a creative outlet. My children were older and did not need constant attention so I wanted to find something for me, not just for my creativity but also to meet new people in our new country. During our first library trip, a regular Saturday occurrence, I browsed the many leaflets displayed for local clubs and picked up a handful. As we left I saw a notice board promoting a writing group the following Tuesday. I sorted out the leaflet read the information and decided to attend. The first meeting was nerve racking – new people, new place, and new craft. I listened and stayed quiet for a couple of meetings then braved reading a brief story. The surprise ending had everyone gasp and that’s the moment I was hooked.
What are your current projects? Oh wow! This is going to be a list.
YA novella, Creature Hunt on Planet Toaria – publishing spring 2018 – chapter header illustrations to decide upon & complete.
Adult speculative fiction, Life in Slake Patch – final editing & revisions -publishing fall 2018
Adult western romance, Willow Tree Tears – final editing & revisions 2019
Adult suspense/thriller, The Giving Thief – final editing & revisions 2019
Sequel to adult romance novella, The Rython Kingdom – writing narrative 2019
Finding a steam-punk anthology for my short story, The Toymaker
Freelance work – ghost writing a business book
A lot to look forward to in the next year. Good luck. 
February 13, 2018
10 Ways to Instill the Love of Reading in Your Child
From the time my children were toddlers, every other week or more we’d go to the library and max out our cards. I’d carry a large mesh bag in and load it up with a huge stack of board books and picture books (and later chapter books and early readers and so on). We’d read four every night before bed (not always on weekends), taking turns, page by page, on who got to read once they’d graduated to that level. The three of us absolutely loved this special time together (sometimes with Dad instead of with Mom) and rarely skipped it. Today, they are A students in upper elementary and high school. While I certainly can’t take all of the credit for their grades, (not even close!) I have to believe that some of their ability to excel in school, as well as their love of learning, has to do…
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February 11, 2018
Using Mythology to Improve Your Writing
by Doug Lewars
Mythology is a goldmine for authors–particularly those who write fantasy–although some of the plots within the myths can be adapted to other genres as well. Myths are a feature of every culture and they’re generally used to explain natural phenomena or the establishment of cultural norms. They are deemed to be of sufficient importance that courses on the subject are offered at the university level.
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February 10, 2018
How Every Writer Has Their Own Method
How many of you remember the dreaded research papers you had to write in high school? Raise your hand. Better off, don’t raise your hand. That’s too reminiscent of being back in school. But anyway, I’ll tell you this: if I never have to write another research paper in my life, I won’t complain.
What I hated the most about the process was how formal and rigid it was. When I was in school, the Internet was still pretty new, so we, the unfortunate victims, spent hours in libraries using dusty reference books that served better as paper weights and taking notes from pages with tiny print. We had to write on 3×5 notecards in pencil. We needed to come up with an outline, and this was to be done the proper way with the numbers, letters, Roman numerals, and I don’t even know what. The rough draft was written…
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February 2, 2018
How to Avoid Being too Wordy in Your Writing: Clause and Effect
by Richard Risemberg
Do you love subordinate clauses? I know I do. And how about assonance and alliteration, rhythm and rhyme? Let’s face it: they can be as tasty as chocolate.
But would you make an entire meal of just…chocolate? (Okay, whoever said “yes” please leave the room now!)
Consider this a meeting of Overwriters Anonymous. My name is Rick, and I used to write overelaborate sentences. Clever and musical they were; there was just too much of them. Frankly, my dependence on brilliant phrasing destroyed my relationship with my early novels, and we haven’t seen each other in decades. The words just got in the way of the meaning after a while, exhilarating though they could be.
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