This and That

It's my weekly summary of everything going on and all I can say is that not much has been happening here. There was only one in person sale of Finally Home to the local library as I had given them a copy back in January but somehow it never got to the main branch so the local librarian bought a replacement copy so that it can get catalogued. I also informed her that all my books were available through Baker & Taylor in case they wanted to order more copies of any of the books.

There were no ebook sales at all.

Tuesday was my birthday and I kind of played around all day but did manage to somehow put in 4 hours of work and gained quite a few lines in those 4 hours (I'm paid on production so the more lines I type the more I make). I also had started a 50-day giveaway blitz but only had 3 participants on the first day and none the second or third at all, so I decided to randomly give away things and go back to my regular blogging schedule as I was struggling to come up with 50 days of postings to preschedule.

We had a great speaker, Maggie Toussiant, at our local Sisters in Crime meeting Thursday who talked about pacing, which I posted about here. On the same day, Heidi Thompson from the Writers on the Move group talked about pacing here.

If you would like to be entered to win a copy of Finally Home, stop by my posting from yesterday and leave a comment. If you decide on the ebook copy, I will send you a free kindlegraph, so you are still getting a signed file. Only persons living in the United States are eligible for the print copy (sorry everyone but shipping is rather pricy for outside of the US).

I gave Ms. Faye her nook cover and she suggested I sell them as sets as well - an afghan, a kindle or noo case or a tablet cover (your choice) and a bookworm. So I'll probably drop the afghan price and then do a bundled price for the three matching items. All afghans and covers/sleeves can be found on my website under the gifts tab.

This week coming up will be random repostings from the Writers on the Move blog and the start of a possible series on using pictures to inspire my story Imogene. See you all in the postings - E :)

Writers On The Move: Pacing in Writing

Heidi's post on pacing went up the same time mine about Maggie Toussiant's workshop did, so how about stopping over on the Writers on the Move blog and see what Heidi has to say about pacing.

Writers On The Move: Pacing in Writing: Pacing is important to writing. And no, I don’t mean walking back and forth, trying to figure out ways not to sit down at the computer a...

Pacing and Maggie Toussiant (discontinuation of the 50-day blitz)

Last night was our monthly local Sisters in Crime meeting and our guest was author Maggie Toussiant. She talked about pacing your scenes, chapters and books and how to catch some of those pesky pacing problems. We also had an interactive session where she gave us two characters and we provided a little bit of background information and then we formed several small groups and had to come up with a scene - either a fast paced action, slow paced action or fast paced dialogue or slow paced dialogue. Interesting what happens with the same background information, how each group came up with different scenarios. A fun exercise in pacing.

Anita rode with me to the meeting and as usual I was the talker all the way home. I did a little brainstorming about Imogene's story thinking about the pacing of the story. So far, the three pages I've written are slow paced, narrative, not much action but fitting for where the story starts. I know the prologue will disappear because I've got the scene in my head and unsure if I've put it down on the paper yet as to when the secret comes out. I don't know if I can pull off a slow-paced beginning with a faster-paced majority of the story or not but I'm going to try. One thing that did come from the brainstorming session with Anita is that I believe this story will call for a "postlogue", not so much an epilogue but more of an "author's note" explaining certain elements in the story. Don't worry it won't be long - a couple of paragraphs at the most and will be something to the effect of: This is truly a work of fiction because after my many hours of research and the findings of historical data and other information would not make this story happen in such a way. (I know it needs some work and there will be a little more to it than that but you get the gist of the meaning - Imogene is pure fiction and there are no facts to really base much of the story on other than possible places in a different time from when the story takes place.)

I'm discontinuing my 50-day giveaway blitz as I've had only three comments (six actual but only three answered the question) on the first day and I've tried to go to my social groups and post everywhere to stop by my blog and leave a comment to be entered for whatever the day's giveaway is. Since it seems no one is interested in leaving comments, it isn't worth my time to put out there my time or effort to get readers and followers and folks who will at least just leave a comment in order to try to win whatever I may be giving away on any given day. I'll go back to my posting schedule as before - Mondays and Thursdays with guest bloggers the 4th week of the month and an occasional review of books I've read on my kindle.

The end of this month, Jen Wylie and Darcia Helle as well as Jo Linsdell are my guest bloggers and there will be free ebooks during Jen's and Darcia's days. Jo will be a guest on my blog two more times as part of her 3-month blog tour and a free ebook will be given away on her last appearance. I will probably do some occasional giveaways during the next couple of months. I haven't really decided.

I hope you all will still at least read my blog and see what I have to say. See you all in the postings - E :)