Amanda Cook's Blog, page 9

Writing Update!

It’s August, which means school has begun (for my kids, anyway) and Gen Con is a mere four days away. I admit to not writing much over the summer due to the almost lack of summer. We had only nine weeks. NINE WEEKS of summer camps and swim lessons and play dates with friends. We somehow crammed a family vacation in there, too. It was a busier summer than I had planned, leaving me exhausted and unmotivated to write most days.

My writing group is awesome, however. We met in July, which motivated me to tweak the science fiction novella I’ve been writing since Mother’s Day 2013. After discussing the chapters I shared, my fellow WMDs* suggested I serialize the book, making it available to anyone who might be interested in reading it. There are about six chapters left that need reworking, so once Gen Con is over, I plan on spending my mornings sprawled on the couch (or sipping tea in Panera) finishing it. I’ll send it off to a few beta readers, just to make certain I’ve tarred over any plot holes, and then I’ll post it here, hopefully a chapter at a time. Trust me, it’s a quick read, some of the chapters only a few pages long. If there’s interest, I may publish it as an e-book later, or even create a print version through CreateSpace. Hopefully, the novella will take over my blog for a couple of months as I gear up for National Novel Writing Month in November, which will be spent entirely on the sequel to The Golden Orb. Huzzah!

Speaking of The Golden Orb, a few readers have told me that they’d like to know what happened before Gabby went searching for King Claymore’s magic artifact, like how she became an honorary knight of Ouestfold or how she escaped the clutches of a nasty werewolf outside of Jadetown. While the sci-fi novella is in beta-read mode, I’m hoping to write several short stories detailing Gabby’s adventures throughout the Fae Realms. The ideas have been flowing lately, making me excited to delve back into Ouestfold and the other Fae Realms, some of which are only hinted at in The Golden Orb. Look for those stories as future blog posts or a possible e-book collection–or both.

Before any of that can happen, however, I need to get through this week and Gen Con. As a reminder, I’ll be hanging with my friends from Zombie Orpheus Entertainment/Dead Gentlemen Productions at Booth #114 for about an hour each day of the con. You can find my tentative booth schedule in my last post. If you plan on attending, come by to say hi and pick up a free print copy of The Golden Orb. I’d love to meet you, and I’ll even sign my book for you, if you wish.

Until then, thanks for reading.

A. Cook

*We call ourselves the “Writers with Moxie and Determination”, or “WMDs” for short. We’re cool like that.

Gen Con Bound!

Gen Con Indy is just two weeks away, and I’m beyond excited about this year’s convention! If you don’t know anything about Gen Con, it’s a huge convention/nerdfest centered around all kinds of gaming that happens over four days every summer in Indianapolis. It’s also my favorite time of year, a weekend of playing games and catching up with friends from all over the country. There are literally thousands of events to attend, and the massive exhibit hall showcases board games, role-playing games, fantasy/sci-fi artists and authors, and vendors selling supplies for all your geek needs. If San Diego Comic Con is THE con for comics, then Gen Con Indy is THE con for games … at least in North America.

Gen Con also houses a wonderful Writer’s Symposium, chock full of workshops, seminars, and panels devoted to all things writing, especially in the fantasy, science fiction, and gaming arenas. Do you want to try your hand at writing? Then check out the plethora of seminars on how to do just that. Are you already a writer? There are workshops and seminars for you, too. It’s a magical place and where I go during Gen Con to tighten my writing skills and learn from award-winning published authors. It would be a dream come true to one day sit on one of those panels, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

I’m exceptionally excited about this year’s con because I’m going to be giving away my book there! FOR FREE! My friends from Zombie Orpheus Entertainment/Dead Gentlemen Productions are being gracious enough to allow me to hang at their booth each day and hand out The Golden Orb to unsuspecting passersby … ahem, I mean their fans.

(Full disclosure: my husband and I have been friends with one of the founding members of ZOE/DG for several years–he was my first GM–and we’ve become friends with many of the other members since. We’ve backed several of their film projects, including their most recent feature film, “The Gamers: Hands of Fate”, which we executive produced through their wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. If you’re a gamer or a lover of fantasy, I highly recommend checking out their work. They’re also the creators of the fantasy web series, “JourneyQuest”, which guest starred Fran Kranz last season, of “Dollhouse” and “Cabin in the Woods” fame.)

So if you think you might be making the trip to Indianapolis this year for Gen Con Indy, come by Booth #114, conveniently located between Paizo and Mayfair Games, and grab a copy of my book! I’ve ordered a limited supply to bring with me, because the book’s kind of big and heavy, especially forty of them stacked on top of each other. Also, I intend to be more of an attendee this year, and less of a vendor, which is why I’m not selling it this time. I plan on being at ZOE’s booth about an hour each day of the con to chat and sign the free copies of The Golden Orb I’ll have on hand. Here’s my tentative schedule:

Thursday, August 14, at 10:30 am

Friday, August 15, at 1:00 pm

Saturday, August 16, at 11:00 am

Sunday, August 17, at 2 pm

 As I do at every Gen Con, I plan on cosplaying a couple of those days, so you may find me in costume when you stop by the booth. I’ll let everyone know when I’ll be there and if there’s a change in plans. (This con is crazy busy, and sometimes, events change locations and times.) You can follow me at my Facebook page for A. Cook’s Books or on Twitter at @AmandaCook627 to keep up with the haps. There’ll probably be lots of pictures involved.

If you plan on attending and I don’t see you there, have a fabulous time at Gen Con! And as one of my favorite writers/actors/mild-childhood-crushes, Wil Wheaton, always says: “Play more games!”.

Thanks for reading.

A. Cook

5 Stars for The Golden Orb!

The Golden Orb Cover
Copyright (c) 2014 Devin Night, http://www.immortalnights.com

Reviews for The Golden Orb have been trickling in over at Goodreads with lots of lovely comments about the book! Many thanks to all who have read and rated/reviewed it, so far. I greatly appreciate your support and encouragement.

By the way, if you have any burning questions for me, you’re welcome to ask me on my Goodreads Author Page. Just scroll down to “Ask the Author” and send a question my way. I’ll try to answer them as best I can.

Thanks for reading.

A. Cook

Passing The Torch

“Mom, I want you and Dad to play a story-telling game I made up.”

Thus began a rollicking half hour with my almost 8-year-old son. V is currently into all things LEGO, Minecraft, Mario Bros., or some combination of the three. He’s also very much a player of games. (He gets that honest from his parents.) What I love about him is his ability to make up a game on the spot, usually with a plethora of rules that may not always be remembered–or followed. Especially by him.

Tonight, he pulled out two of his LEGO dice and told my husband and I that we were going to play a game in which we each would become a character. We would take turns telling parts of the story using only twenty words per turn. (I believe the twenty word rule was forgotten almost immediately.) Because it was to be a fantasy/adventure story, there would be monsters, and we would use the dice to fight the monsters. And that’s exactly what we did.

V brandished the first player torch and became a human dwarf (his words, his choice). My husband was next, and he decided upon the atypical character of a dragon. I chose my preferred race and class: Elven mage. We then took turns passing the dice and choosing the fate of our characters. Think Dungeons & Dragons without a dedicated DM (dungeon master). So, not only did we decide where we wanted our characters to go, we also decided what types of monsters we encountered and what type of loot we scored once the monsters were defeated. V did begin our journey in a particular setting: outside a temple in the middle of a very rocky desert. After that, it was all up to our individual imaginations.

By the end of “Chapter One: Going to the Temple and Saving the Village,” we had slain many monsters (while my husband also gained many dragon minions), and we all found a place to rest with our well-gotten treasure. My Elven mage was particularly ecstatic with her crystal ball, dragon scales, and book of enchantment. There was some randomness involved when we used the dice, and, sometimes, we were knocked out or dragged away by monsters. For the most part, though, the adventure went the way it should always go … with victory for the adventurers!

I relate this story, because after V exclaimed, “The end! And, tomorrow, we’ll start Chapter Two!”, I realized that I may have inadvertently passed on my writerly genes to my older son. He has ample opportunities to write at school due to his classroom’s integrated curriculum, and he has become a very good reader in the past year, both of which may be contributing to his sudden love of storytelling. In a way, though, I think my own passion for writing has rubbed off on him, particularly after I published The Golden Orb. He’s told me several times this summer that he wants to “publish” his games, and tonight, he informed us that there are a total of ten chapters in our game, which means nine more fun-filled evenings to play together and tell stories. I think he and I both agreed that we should sit down in the morning and write out our little adventure, so we remember what we did. And if he wants to “publish” our story, I’ll be thrilled to help him.

Because, while his generation is completely one with screens, there still have to be people to tell the stories to put on those screens. That may not be V’s fate. It’s all up to him. My hope, though, is that he never forgets the joy and fun of storytelling.

Thanks for reading.

A. Cook

Goodreads Book Giveaway!

Goodreads Book Giveaway


The Golden Orb
by Amanda Cook

Giveaway ends June 30, 2014.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I’m excited to announce my very first Goodreads Book Giveaway! I’ll be giving away 10 print copies of The Golden Orb through Goodreads.com at the end of June! Enter from June 6 to June 30, 2014, for a chance to win this new contemporary fantasy novel.

I’d also like to say a big thank you to everyone who has already purchased and/or read The Golden Orb. I appreciate all of your support and kind words!

Thanks for reading.

A. Cook

Writing Advice…For Anyone Who Wants To Write

The only spot left on our bookshelf was between J.K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman. Some very good company to be in.

Recently, I was chatting with some friends at a crafting meetup, and the conversation turned to writing–specifically, what kinds of goals a writer should make to be, well, an “accomplished” writer. Or, in the very least, to finish the thing the writer wants to write, because a writer can’t truly be considered a writer, unless s/he writes something and finishes it. Right?

Anyway, the discussion got me thinking about all of the advice I’ve been given or heard while working on my own craft, and I thought it might be helpful (and fun) to share that advice with others. Most of these nuggets have been passed down by successful published authors, and I take stock in their words, because they are, in fact, successful and published. I think my favorite insights on writing come from my favorite author, Neil Gaiman, who has a whole FAQ on advice to authors on his own blog. I’ll paraphrase some of his key ideas, the ones that worked the best for me.

1. Write. This seems obvious, but how many people in this world have said, “I’d love to write a book,” only to have nothing come of that ambition? They get busy with their lives, or they find something else they’d rather be doing, or they get nervous about the actual prospect of writing. I know, because I was one of those people for a long time. Writing’s hard. The idea of staring at a blank page and filling it with words that may be read by other people is a difficult notion to wrap one’s head around. And not only the putting-the-words-on-the page part, but also the putting-the-words-on-the-page-so-they-make-sense-and-are-thrilling-and-create-a-story-that-people-will-want-to-read part. That’s what makes writing hard and intimidating. The letting other people into your head. But if you want to be a writer, you have to write, just like every singer has to open his/her mouth at some point, every dancer has to get his/her butt on the dance floor at some point, every painter has to pull a paintbrush through paint and stick it on a canvas at some point. A writer has to write.

2. Finish what you write. Again, this seems painfully obvious, but in order to be a writer/author, you really need to finish what you started. The best way to do this is to write every day for a set amount of time, even if it’s just for an hour. I read somewhere that if you wrote a page every day for a year, you’d have a novel by the end of December, because that’s 365 pages right there (366 if it’s a leap year). Turn writing into a job, your work. It will definitely begin to feel like work if you’re doing it every day. You’ll start taking it seriously, and hopefully, the people in your life will see that and begin to take your work seriously, too.

3. Put it away for a bit, and go back to it with fresh eyes. Once you’re finished, write something else (or do something else) for a while, then go back to what you wrote before. If it’s been a significant amount of time–even a couple of weeks–your writing will look different to you, like you’re reading it for the first time. Then, you can go into revision mode and pick it apart. Sometimes, that distance will help make you a better writer. Sometimes, you’ll be a better writer, and you’ll come back to that story you wrote and make it better. Writing groups can also help with this. It takes courage to ask for someone else’s perspective, but those other eyes and brains can be very valuable. A writing group (or a group of beta readers) can tell you what works and what doesn’t work, and they can sometimes help you fix the problems in your writing. I found having the support of my writing group made me a better writer–and gave me the confidence to keep writing.

4. Let it go. This one isn’t on Neil’s FAQ, but it is listed on the “Advice to Writers” website as one of his “Eight Good Writing Practices”. This is also one piece of advice that I had a difficult time doing with The Golden Orb. No matter how hard you try, you’re not going to reach perfection. You can fix your writing as much as you can, as much as you want, but at some point, you just have to move on to the next story. I spent a long time on my first self-published book, revising and reworking it and struggling over every comma, but eventually, I just had to put it out there, warts and all. The tweaking is done. It’s time to write something new.

5. Believe in yourself. Keep writing. Another hard piece of advice for me to follow, and I still have days when I feel like a hack making a mess of the English language. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to my first National Novel Writing Month novel. I might not even rework the second one, which was in the middle of a major revision when I decided to put it aside and start over with something new. Both times, I wondered if I really had it in me to keep writing, if it was something I thought was worth my time doing. The next year, I wrote The Golden Orb and finally found a little confidence in my abilities. This is one piece of advice that I’ll have to keep in the back of my mind every time I face a new blank page. Just. Keep. Writing.

There’s more advice than there are stars in the sky, most likely, but I feel these are the top five every writer should know. For a little daily pick-me-up, I started following the “Advice to Writers” Twitter account, which is chock full of helpful nuggets and insights for all kinds of writers given by all kinds of writers. I’ve also received a wealth of knowledge from a podcast called “Writing Excuses”. Brandon Sanderson and three other published authors delve into the art and craft of writing, sometimes speaking with special guests, sometimes discussing their own experiences with getting published, writing their particular genre, and how to write in general. It’s a great podcast, and don’t let their tagline fool you. They start every show with “Fifteen minutes long, because you’re in a hurry, and we’re not that smart,” but they are actually brilliant authors and teachers of their craft.

I hope these little words of encouragement help, especially if you think you might want to become a writer someday. If you are a writer, what advice would you give someone just starting out?

Thanks for reading.

A. Cook

Why I Chose To Self-Publish

In 2009, I decided to try my hand at writing a novel (kind of cliche, I know), using National Novel Writing Month as my guide. A friend of mine had done it the year before, and I thought, why not? It might be fun. So, in thirty days I wrote 50,000 words. And it was fun. Difficult, stressful, but fun nonetheless. I had been a casual writer before that, keeping a blog about my family and taking a creative writing course in college. I even wrote some fanfiction about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was a kid before there was ever such a thing called fanfiction–or even such a thing as the Internet. Gasp! I found I enjoyed writing, but I never thought of doing it seriously. Not until I wrote those first 50,000+ words in 2009.

The next year, I recruited a few friends from my moms group to join me in NaNoWriMo, and again, I finished with over 50,000 words. I liked that story enough that I asked those same friends if they wanted to start a writing group. We’ve been meeting off and on ever since, sharing our work with each other to critique and learning to enjoy our individual writing styles and even new genres we might not normally read. (One of the members of the group currently has a two book deal with a major romance publisher. I never thought I’d get into romance until I read her books. She’s got a real talent.) I work-shopped that year’s story with the group but soon found myself stuck with a plot that involved time travel. I wasn’t a capable enough writer to fill in all the plot holes, so I decided to put it away.

When November of 2011 approached and I was feeling the urge to write again, my husband asked if he could collaborate with me during that year’s NaNoWriMo. I agreed and asked him what he wanted to write about. “Oh, you’re the writer,” he said. “I just thought I’d give you an idea for a setting or something.” He sent me a couple of ideas, and from there, The Golden Orb was born. It took over two and a half years from first draft to published novel with several revisions, meetings with my writing group as well as an editor, and a round of beta-reading in between.

I remember during our first year as a writing group we discussed whether or not we were planning on publishing any of our work and how we were going to do it. Self-publishing was just becoming a thing, and CreateSpace was being advertised all over the NaNoWriMo website with a prize for the “winners” in the form of a discount or free publishing of that year’s NaNo novel. Suddenly, the path to actually making a book didn’t seem so long or difficult anymore. After much thought and discussion and research, I felt that self-publishing was going to be the right fit for me. And I was right.

So, if someone asks me why I decided to self-publish, here are a few of my reasons:

1. I had control of the entire process. From my cover (which was done by an amazing artist friend of mine; I have no design skills whatsoever) to the revision process to when I actually decided to publish, I set my own guidelines and deadlines. I still own the copyright to my work and can decide when I want to stop publishing it, if ever. I also decided (to an extent) who could sell it: CreateSpace, Amazon, the Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble, etc., and in what formats I wanted it to appear. The Golden Orb is already available in print and for Kindle, and I’m waiting for it to be published in the nook store. I never had someone breathing down my neck or telling me what I could and could not keep in my book to make it more “marketable”. It’s my book, and I was able to sell it as is. It may be too niche, but only time will tell. Which kind of ties into the next reason…

2. I didn’t have to wait to be rejected before actually getting published. It’s true that I could have sent out a million queries with samples of my manuscript to agents or publishers, only to be rejected a bajillion different ways, but with today’s amazing technology, I didn’t have to. With just a few hours and several clicks on my laptop (and a day or two of waiting), I had a published book ready to be sold online. I don’t know if it’ll ever find a large audience, but right now, I’m okay with that, because…

3. I’m a mom, first. I have a family to care for everyday. From breakfast to bedtime, I try to be there for my sons as much as I can, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for writing. The past several months, as I slogged toward publishing The Golden Orb, I occasionally told my sons that I was working on my computer. They’re old enough now that they can entertain themselves much of the time, and they’re both in school at some point during the week, which means I’m beginning to have more time to myself. Still, writing is just a hobby for me. I don’t plan on making it a career–at least, not yet. The stress of parenting two young boys is enough without having major deadlines looming over my head everyday. Maybe when the boys are in high school.

4. I’m not getting any younger. Okay, so I’ll be 37 next month, which isn’t that old. But with middle age creeping up on me and a couple of friends dealing with terminal illnesses, I’ve suddenly found myself facing my own mortality. I think the main reason I chose to self-publish was because I wanted to create something I could leave behind. Something tangible that could be enjoyed by the rest of the world, or at least by a few people who might enjoy the same things I do. I guess I just want to tell a story and share that story with others. Maybe it’s egotistical, but I want to know I made a lasting impression on those I leave behind. Of course, my day-to-day interactions with people do the same thing, but I think I’ve found something that I love doing (besides being a wife and a mom). And nothing has made me happier these past few weeks than sharing that love with the people I love the most.

If you’ve self-published or are considering self-publishing, let me know in the comments below your own thoughts on the subject and why you chose to do it.

Thanks for reading.

A. Cook

The Golden Orb–Available Now!

The Golden Orb Cover
Copyright (c) 2014 Devin Night, http://www.immortalnights.com

The Golden Orb is Amanda Cook’s first self-published novel and third National Novel Writing Month win. It took her two and a half years to write the first draft, revise it, have it read by her writing group, revise it again, have it read by her beta readers, revise it again, have it edited by a friend and freelance editor, revise it again, and finally, self-publish it. Amanda is very excited to be able to share her book with the world!

Now available in print at Amanda’s CreateSpace Store , Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.com.

Also available in e-book at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com!

The Interior Map of Ouestfold
Copyright (c) 2014 Devin Night, http://www.immortalnights.com

About The Golden Orb:

25-year-old Gabby’s normal human existence became anything but normal when she took the job as Fae Agent for Top Hat in the Fae Realms–magical lands full of wonder and adventure…and danger. When she agrees to find a missing magic artifact for the king of Ouestfold without Top Hat’s knowledge, her secret mission sends her on a journey of discovery that leads her to more than she’d ever bargained for.

The Golden Orb is a modern fantasy for adults that blends aspects of high fantasy, similar to Tolkien or Robert Jordan, with elements of fairy tales and even mythology. It is both a love letter and an homage to stories and storytellers alike.

Gabby spends her time on the Earthplane hiding behind glamours and the anonymity of her IT job while living a double life as a Fae Agent in the Fae Realms for her employer, Top Hat, a mad Fae who tasks Gabby with finding magical items he can hoard in his mansion. After becoming a hero to the citizens of Ouestfold because of her contributions to their victory in the Great War, Gabby receives an e-mail in which the king asks her to find his missing artifact, the Golden Orb. She runs into a co-worker, Lucas, along the way, and together, they battle an imposter, a mermaid, goblins, and even a vampyre in order to get the Orb safely home. Gabby’s strange family history comes back to haunt her as she tries to work out her feelings for Lucas as well as accept the fate that’s been dealt her. The Golden Orb is a fantasy full of adventure and romance with danger lurking around every corner.

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