A Blog Link and Editing is Fun?

Greeting From Under the Willow, 

Beginning next Tuesday, June 5th, I’ll be having guest interviews each Tuesday. July 3rd will be the exception due to the July 4th holiday. Be sure to pop over and read the interviews and meet the authors. 

In the meantime, I wanted to share with everyone Sharon Ledwith’s blog from this morning. It contained some valuable editing insight from her editor. You can read the interview HERE.

I decided to start with the first piece of information about the word “as.” It’s one of those words we should try to use as little as possible. Okay, I thought. I’ll use word find to see how often I use it and if I am guilty of overuse. I typed in the word and over 2,000 instances popped up. It seemed impossible that I used the word that often. What I found out was my word program not only found the word “as” but every word containing those two letters. A little clicking on different options finally led me to be able to select the option where only the exact word was highlighted. That dropped the number below 500. It was suggested in the blog piece that we should lose at least half of the words. 250 words. That seemed doable. At least they are highlighted and I don’t have to search for them. Editing is such fun, but it is wonderful that editors and successful writers share their tips with us. Each tip makes us better writers. Don’t forget to check out Sharon’s blog for more tips. Can anyone guess what I’ll be doing this weekend? J

Keep writing and blessings,

Marianne

Upcoming Author Interviews and Musings On Book Sales

Greetings From Under the Willow,

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. It is hot here and I am enjoying reading and writing. It’s a perfect weekend for it.  No one wanted to have a barbeque which suits me fine. I hate eating outside when it is too hot to breathe. Typing away with the A/C humming is much better.

I first want to thank Carey from E-Book Covers By Carey for the nice new eerie cover for “Gypsy Spirits.” I love it. If you need a well-made cover at a reasonable price here is the link to her site. E-Book Covers By Carey

Second, in June I’m going to devote the month to author interviews. I have four lined up for all the Tuesdays in June. I may pop in for a quick post, but since I am up to my neck in the second draft to the “Gypsy Spirits” sequel “Annamarie and Magdalena” I’m going to let my author friends take over the blog for a month or longer if there are more authors who wish to be interviewed. If you’d like to be interviewed, please let me know.

Third, I would like to thank everyone who reposted and retweeted my book posts. I have also joined KDP Select through Amazon and am having mild success. I didn’t expect to sell a million right off, but I am doing better than I expected. I also dropped the price to $0.99 for May, but it is doing well and I may leave it at that price. Many people have conflicting opinions about the $0.99 price, but I have read quite a few good books I grabbed for $0.99 and didn’t think they were “cheap reads” not worth my time. In my opinion, $0.99 is a good price for first novels or those who want people to grab their book and get reviews. I look around the store when I shop and find it hard to buy anything for $0.99 that will give me as much pleasure as one of the books I have read. Certainly not for the length of time I get from the books. These are my thoughts on the subject.

Take care and keep writing every day. I’m still trying to write a decent piece of 50 word micro-fiction. Maybe over the weekend? Stay posted. 

  

Blessings,

Marianne

Characters and Trying Something New

Greetings From Under the Willow Tree!

Welcome. I have been giving thought to many posts and artices I have read concerning tightening your writing and character development. Several suggestged writing 50 or 100 word pieces of micro fiction as a way to see how you can tell a story in a minimal amount of words. Not possible I thought until I sat down and worked on it and came up with the following 100 word piece of fiction:

The radio broadcast the report, “Serial rapist/killer strikes again.”

She rushed to her apartment. Unlocking the deadbolt she stepped in and locked it behind her. Turning on the light--all was well.

Walking into the bedroom, she flipped the light switch. An arm grabbed her from behind. A second of panic turned to anger. She remembered Master Cho’s lessons.

A quick twist, sound of breaking bone, the intruder was on the floor with the heel of her shoe on his neck. “Don’t move, you’ll die instantly.”

She glanced down. Her fiancé? The killer? Her foot pressed down with full force.

Okay, it is possible to write 100 words (I'm going to try 50-will let you know how that goes.)