Feb blogfests and comps I heart

Hey there writer friends!

This is just a quick post to let you know about some fun and exciting blogfests and comps I've come across and am participating, and I thought you might like to know about them too! (I've come across these from a few different sources, but one I've just discovered is Sharon's blog The Blue Word. She does a monthly post on blogfests and comps in the writing realm.)

There's the Valentines Blog Event being hosted by Brodie at Eleusinian Mysteries and Lisa from Read Me Bookmark Me Love Me. It's a month long event with all sorts of fun games and AMAZING book prizes. Seriously. Check them out.

Operation Awesome is hosting their monthly Mystery Agent contest. I don't think I'm going to enter this one because I'm not quite ready, but hey, there's always next month!

The I'm Hearing Voices blogfest, hosted by Angela at Live to Write and Cassie at Reading, Writing and Loving It, is a great character study done in three parts. A very good way to get to know your characters a little better (especially the elusive ones that don't like to talk to you) and there are also some great prizes on offer.

And of course there's the Get Fired Up blogfest, which I've already talked about here. Don't forget, if you're a new blogger in need of a little guidance, I (and all the others who have signed up for this blogfest) are always happy to help.

Have you found any awesome comps or blogfests this month? I'd love to hear about them. Will you be participating in any of these?

Blogfests and competitions

The lovely Sarah Ketley at The Precocious Scribe is hosting a blog hop competition, and she's been kind enough to put me on the list (thanks Sarah!). If you head on over, all you have to do is put your blog on the linky to be in to win an Amazon voucher, and if you follow some of the people on the list then you can win even more prizes. Go check it out!

I also came across this blogfest (via Sarah's blog hop), called the Power of Tension, which is being hosted by Rachel Morgan and Cally Jackson. You can win prizes, and you can get feedback on 300 words of tension filled scene.

And last, I just came across this query contest to get an MS critiqued by agent Rosanne Wells via Query Tracker. I think there's only 5 hours left to submit (the time zones confuse me) but if you get there fast you might get in.

Has anyone else come across any cool blogfests or competitions lately? I'd love to hear about them.

And the winner is...

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Birthday Love Blogfest! It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed visiting everyone's blogs and checking out their questions, and I had so many helpful comments on my query (I have a lot of work to do!)

To select the winner & runners up everyone was assigned one or more numbers (depending on the number of entries they had) and then I used Random.org to pick each person.

Without further ado...

The three runners up are:

Trisha at WORDS+STUFF
Gale at Scrivengale
Sarah at The Precocious Scribe

And the winner is

...

Bess! at It's the world, dear


Congrats everyone! Please email me your preferences for your prizes. (For a reminder of what those are, please click here).

And I hope all the other participants still got a lot out of the blogfest with the feedback they received.

Please let me know if you have any comments or feedback on the blogfest. I'd love to hear from you.

Entries into the Share the Birthday Love Compfest

There is still time to sign up, if you would like to participate. Please sign up here.

Please post here your entries into the compfest. As a reminder, they are:

• Follow this blog.
• On the weekend of 11-13th of March visit the blogs of the people participating, and comment/offer your help/critique on a minimum of three of them. Each additional comment/offer of help/critique gets you an extra entry into the competition.
• Get one extra entry for tweeting about the compfest.
• Get one extra entry for blogging about the compfest.

Please try to comment only once so I don't get confused (I'm easily confused).

Let me know if you have any questions, and have fun!

Allow me to have a minor public freak-out... and an award

Some of you may know I recently decided to drastically change the course of my career. I resigned my job at a bank in New Zealand and applied for publishing and editing courses in Melbourne, Australia. I was lucky enough to get into the Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing at RMIT University in Melbourne, which I am very happy about.

Today is the first day of my course. Right now I feel like it's the first day of school and I'm feeling VERY nervous. I'm starting to second guess myself and wondering if I'm going to be good enough. The course is, after all, aimed at people already in the publishing industry and I have no relevant experience (other than a summer working in a book shop - which I loved).

Couple that with the fact that I went to eleven different schools, and I feel like somewhere along the way I missed a very important lesson on grammar (what the hell is a dangling modifier, anyway?) and you get a minor freak-out.

EEEP!

Ok... deep breath. I will be calm. I can teach myself grammar. I've learnt by myself before. Must control tummy swirling.

Aaand... moving along.

A few awesome bloggers have sent the stylish blogger award my way. Be sure to check out the blogs of Vicki Tremper, Shelley Batt, Alison Miller, and Cleveland Dietz.

I have recently done a vlog for this award, telling seven things about myself. I'll add a few more:

1. I'm not familiar with the specifics of grammar, although I think I instinctively get it right some of the time (but not all).
2. I have bad circulation. My feet and hands always seem to be cold.
3. Even though I feel the cold badly, one of my favourite things to do is skiing on Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand. It's also one of my favourite places in the world.
4. I talk to my cat. She's silly.

And I'm passing the award on to these other totally awesome bloggers:

Bess Weatherby

Chantele Sedgwick

Christine Bryant

Meredith

Be sure to check them out!

So have you had any minor freak-outs lately? Is there anything you're both excited and nervous about? I'd love to hear!

PS. If you haven't checked out the Birthday Love Blogfest yet, have a look. You could win a book and get some helpful advice in the process.

A birthday compfest and a lie revealed

Today I am turning 24, and since it's my birthday I want to share the giving love.

I'm smooshing together a competition and a blogfest (so it will be a compfest?) and I wanted it to be one where not only the winners get something out of it, everybody does.

As I have already discovered, when you need some help with your creative endeavours the writing bloggerverse is more than happy to pitch in.

So here's the deal:

• You can choose to enter either the blogfest or the competition or both.
• If you would like to do the blogging part of the compfest, put your name and whether you are posting as a writer or reader in the form below. Write your post to go up on the 11th of March:
• If you are a writer your post will be about something you need help with on your writing. This could be an excerpt from you story, your first page, your query, information on setting, ANYTHING that you think the writing bloggerverse can assist with. Make it clear what the question is, and if you are wanting a piece critiqued please keep it to max 500 words.
• If you are a reader (or a writer who would prefer not to ask for help on their blog), in the spirit of spreading the birthday love, post about one of your favourite books and why you loved it.
• If you would like to enter the competition part of the compfest:
• Follow this blog.
• On the weekend of 11-13th of March visit the blogs of the people participating, and comment/offer your help/critique on a minimum of three of them. Each additional comment/offer of help/critique gets you an extra entry into the competition.
• Get one extra entry for tweeting about the compfest.
• Get one extra entry for blogging about the compfest.
• A post will go up here on the 11th of March titled "Entries into to the Share the Birthday Love Compfest". Use that post to tell me what you've done to get entries with links to blog posts & comments. Please try to comment only once so I don't get confused (I'm easily confused).
• To keep things simple, and to accomodate people on the other side of the world, the 13th of March will end at 12am EST.

Prizes

(Wooo did you say prizes?)

The winner of the Share the Birthday Love Compfest will be drawn at random from the entries into the competition, and will receive their choice of one of these awesome books:

And the first ten pages of their WIP critiqued by me (if they're a writer and if they want the critique).

Three runners up will receive the first five pages of their WIP critiqued by me, or an interview and profile of their blog here.

I hope you'll join me in sharing the birthday love!

And the lie revealed... I don't laugh like a donkey crossed with a duck. At least I don't think I do. But my boyfriend tells me I do have a nervous giggle which occasionally slips out when I've finished talking.

My favourite things I learnt last week from the writing bloggerverse... aka weekly mashup

I have a list saved to My Favourites in my browser called the Daily Clicks. As the name suggests, every day I go through the daily clicks and see what's new. Most people would use a feed reader to do this, but I prefer to actually go to the blog or web page and see all the pretty shiny things that the creator has put there.

So I thought I'd do a post on my favourite things learnt this week in my exploration of the writing webs.


1.  Janet Reid and Writer Beware both posted on the dangers of competition clauses, and one competition in particular. Long story short, if you are considering entering any sort of writing comp, read the fine print in full. And if you see anything like this:

By submitting an entry, all entrants grant Sponsor the absolute and unconditional right and authority to copy, edit, publish, promote, broadcast, or otherwise use, in whole or in part, their entries, in perpetuity, in any manner without further permission, notice or compensation.

Run. Run away fast and far. And don't part with your hard earned dollars to enter a competition that basically means you've granted the competition holder the right to use your work in any way without notifying or compensating you. Not. Good.


2.   Shallee McArthur came up with the idea to do a What's Your Writing Process Blogfest. In her words:

...blog about ANY part of your writing process-- how you create characters, how you plot your novel, how you organize your rewrites, your whole writing process from start to finish, anything.

The blogfest is scheduled for Tuesday the 18th, which for me is now, but for most of the participants is tomorrow, so I thought I'd compromise by posting tonight.

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up. Share your process so we can learn from you.

Aplogies to the guys,
couldn't help myself.



3.   The discovery of Kristen Lamb's blog. She's a writer and social media guru, and blogs about both. I only came across her blog a couple of days ago (via Twitter) and I've already discovered so much good information. My favourite so far is how to take on the Procrastination Pixie. Excellent advice. I've been practicing using the word 'No' every time my mouse wanders toward the facebook/twitter/gratuitous pictures of Ben Barnes button when writing, and so far with good results.

If you're a blogger she also has this awesome series of posts on getting started and staying in the game. More great advice and worth checking out. And yes I'm trying to take that advice. I will blog more regularly. Promise.


4.   Ok, this one's on a more serious note. I've been meaning to blog about this all week, so now's as good a time as any. Author Saundra Mitchell tackles the topic of illegal ebook downloads in her post '"Free" Books Aren't Free'. A quick quote:

I’ve told you before that I made a $15,000 advance on SHADOWED SUMMER. In two years, I’ve managed to earn back $12,000 of that.

It’s going out of print in hardcover because demand for it has dwindled to 10 or so copies a month. This means I will never get a royalty check for this book. By all appearances, nobody wants it anymore.

But those appearances are deceiving. According to one download site’s stats, people are downloading SHADOWED SUMMER at a rate of 800 copies a week. When the book first came out, it topped out at 3000+ downloads a week.

If even HALF of those people who downloaded my book that week had bought it, I would have hit the New York Times Bestseller list.

If the 800+ downloads a week of my book were only HALF converted into sales, I would earn out in one more month. But I’m never going to earn out.

I would recommend reading the whole thing. It really.. sucks (for want of a better word) reading stuff like this. I know no one reading this post would download an ebook, because we're all writers, but we can all help to educate. There are plenty of people out there who don't realise the damage they're doing by downloading an ebook, and they could be our friends or family. So let them know. I'm sure they'll be want to spend a few dollars on books in future.


5.   Not really blogging, but favourite Twitter hashtags this week: #YALitChat, #AskAgent and #AmWriting. Great places for advice, encouragement, and finding like-minded people. Twitter is an invaluable resource for writers, so if you're not there, go to it.


And that's that. My list of favourite (and not so favourite in some cases) things learned and heard this week.

What have you learnt this week? What gems have made a difference to your writing day? Or just your day in general?

Finishing feels great

My short story is finished. Yes that's right, you heard me: F I N I S H E D

wOOp!!!

I have to say it's a pretty good feeling. Tomorrow I post it off.

Here's a small exerpt from the short story, Strength & Truth:

The Gap was the title the people of Karvai and Shirin had named the only traversable pass that connected their two nations. To either side monolithic mountains soared into the ether, their peaks lost in the haze of darkness.

Words!

Today I have achieved words, and it has felt great! My short story is coming along (which is good because I only have five days left). I will hopefully have it finished by tomorrow.

Favourite line for the day:

So they know that it is now me they deal with. Well what do they have to say to the woman whose father they have slaughtered and whose armies they now fight?


In other news, I have been thinking about ways in which I can incorporate what I love into what I do. I mean for a living. Being an author would be like a dream come true, but I am a realist (hahahahaha), and have read (extensively, it's one of my favourite ways to procrastinate) many agent and publishing industry advice blogs and articles, and have come across some pretty frightening stats.

From what I can tell, a busy agent receives around 10,000-15,000 queries a year. They take on around five new clients a year. Of those who are lucky enough to be published, maybe 5-15% earn enough from writing to live off their income. Nuff said. This is not to say that I won't try, but only that I will have realistic expectations.

So with this in mind, I ask myself, what can I do that will incorporate my love for books into my future career path? And I think, I could get into publishing.

So much easier said than done. No relevant industry experience (I work in a bank) and no relevant education (I have a degree in finance and economics). But now that the idea is in my head I can't let it go, and I know it's what I want to do. So I've done some research and found this. A diploma in publishing which sounds like an amazing and worthwhile course, and one of the only ways to get into the pubslishing industry in NZ, short of being family friends with the CEO of Penguin. But of course it is not as straight-forward as simply enrolling for the course.

It seems to be quite difficult to get into (2 applicants for each available position, strict entry criterea, etc etc) which is fine. But I don't want to get my hopes up only to find out in December that I am not one of the lucky applicants. Then also I would have to move to Wellington, along with Ollie and our cat. Find a place to live. Find tenants for our house. Get a part time job on top of a Monday to Frida, 9 to 5 course in order to continue to pay the home loan.

Ok do I sound like I'm whinging? Sorry.

I guess what it comes down to is: Do I want to do the course?
Yes

Then we will work it out (Ollie assures me this is true).

Who knew blogging could be so helpful in making big decisions :).

Till next time.
Sari

Deadlines.. the motivation required?

I love writing.
I love my story.
I love (most) of my characters.
So why don't I write?

This is a problem.

Every night I sit down at the computer and think 'right, this is the night I break the word drought.' And then I spend the next few hours successfully procrastinating. This is usually done by visiting every one of the agent or publishing blogs that I follow. And there are a few. And I think 'I'll just read this one last post and then I'll get to the story.' Sadly though, that thought runs through my head several times during the course of the night, and before I know it it's bed time, and I haven't achieved anything.

Well that's not entirely true. I learn a lot. I learn about how to write a successful query letter, how to create better characters, how to find your writing voice, and so on and so on. Some is helpful to me now. Most will hopefully one day be helpful to me when. I. Finish. The. Book.

So...

To writing then. But still, it's been so long since I wrote that I can't remember what came before. So reread, make notes, and then write.

And maybe I need a bit of motivation (well duh). So I came across this. Can I write a short story? I don't know, but I'm going to try. 3000 words, before the 27th of August.

I can do that.

From reading previous years winning entries I think it unlikely I will be shortlisted. Not so much because of the writing, but because there is a recurring theme of life in New Zealand. Literary fiction. I write fantasy. But it's the deadline that counts.

Wish me luck.

Sari