You didn't win NaNo this year?

I DIDN'T WIN NANO!
This blog is for those that did not win NaNo.


I always cover this question, What is NaNo? Go here.

I DIDN'T WIN


So you didn't win. It's not the end of the world. It's not even really that bad. There are a few questions we should ask.  We'll go over some things that might help you figure out why you didn't win, and try and evaluate what you can do better next time, if you want there to be a next time.





Why didn't you win? 

There are many things that go wrong, and we'll cover a few. First, some people always get sick during Nano, something will happen that just totally stops them from having anytime to write. Family comes to visit, the phone won't stop ringing, or maybe you just got a new puppy or a baby. These are things that happen and life goes on. 

Nano is just not for me!  

Maybe you don't work well under pressure. You ended up sitting looking at a blank screen and you didn't have plot lines bounding into your mind.  We all don't work alike, so don't feel bad if you are not a Nanonite.  Some of us work at a slower pace, some of us don't work under pressure, and some of us just like to take our time and write at our own pace.
I tried I really did! 

To those of you that really tried and you just couldn't make it, I say, try again next year. Have a Nano dry run another month and war against yourself or some other writing companions.  Study how those that win do win. Join a Word War group, there are many things you can do to improve your chances of winning.




What did I do wrong? 

I added this topic because to be honest I think any writer can write 50k or more in a given month. It
just takes a lot of determination and time with your rear in a chair. I don't have kids I have dogs, so it may take getting a baby sitter, or writing while the kids are at school, but it's only 1666.7 a day. It can be done. I myself  and many of our Nano Members have written over 12 thousand words in one 24 hour period. It can be done, people may not do it every day but the goal of 1667 a day is very attainable.

Why do I care about Nano?

To me it's a great learning experience with cool freebies as an incentive. I have learned many things from Nano and here are a few.  You don't have to edit when you write, you can write that scene and it will work, even if it seems crazy at the time. You can write 12k in a 24 hour period. You can write 50k in a month or more. You don't even have to outline to get a good story, you can just grab a character and put him on the street and once he's starts walking something will happen. I have gained so many great friends from this contest. Nano got me started in 2009 on the road to self publishing. It introduced me to Createspace and KDP. It has taught me that Word Wars are important to getting those deadlines met. I'm sure others would say many other things too that Nano has taught them.


Win or Lose 

It does not matter if you win or lose, it is all about learning, finding new friends, and trying to push yourself to those out there limits.  Each year those of us that battle with the Nano Beast, we learn something new, we gain new friends, and we learn that we can do things we never thought possible if we put our mind to it!!




Images from Samantha Fury
Jack and Max very willing models!!

Thanks for Reading Feel free to comment!!!

Fear Not Blog Hop Samantha Fury

THIS BLOG HOP HAS ENDED!!!

You Can Read The Post about Fear but the hop is over. 

Thanks

WELCOME!  We're so glad you could drop by our Fear Not Blog Hop. We hope to have more hops in the future so be sure and bookmark, follow, leave a trail of bread, whatever it takes to find your way back!




We have lots of great giveaways and even have a Face book Event HERE, check it out if you like good clean christian novels.

We have our Grand prize giveaway for $95.00 Amazon Gift Card at the main site, be sure and check it out HERE  

I've read that fear is mentioned over more than 500 times in the Bible so it sounds like God was trying to make a point. Even if it was only in the Bible one time that really should have been enough, but we are human, and we do fail, so at times we need a reminder. What better time of the year to remind someone than at Halloween.





 
In my novels I try to show that God is there for us every day, not just on the bad days, but the good days too.  Charlie Anderson, is always finding a new reason that she needs to trust God and not be afraid. She first has to leave home, because of her dads anger. I'm sure she was afraid to strike out on her own. Then she ends up being beaten by her sisters boyfriend, and I know she was afraid then.

Everywhere she turns she finds a new situation that causes her to doubt and be afraid, but every time she stands on her faith. She stands on what she has learned from the word of God to keep her strong, and that's what we have to do too. When we feel afraid or weak we need to go to the word. When we are afraid we need to quote the Bible.

Isaiah 41:10  So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Join in on my Giveaway below and check out our grand prize giveaway also. 



Each day there will be prizes at our Facebook Event, so check in daily to see what goodies we are handing out.  There will be books, books and more books, and maybe even a Pre-made Book Cover for those Authors in the audience.

Also if you're a Reader feel free to join our Christian Indie Authors Readers Group Here 

Be sure and enter one of my Giveaways below. I have one for Authors and one for Readers. Check them out. 

Author giveaway rules is you must be willing to accept a pre-made e-book cover from the list of covers here on this page.  Authors must have at least one published work behind their name or be ready to publish their first work within the next three months. Take a look at the covers before you enter to see if there is a cover you'd like to see your name on.  I also hope to have an extra drawing on the Event page sometime this week. See the covers here.

Images By 
Magdalena Kucova
Javier Brosch 
Samantha Fury 
Mary Campagna Findley 

 
READERS GIVEAWAY a Rafflecopter giveaway


Author's Giveaway 
If you're going to do the Blog post for Fury Cover Design to gain those points you can find the html at the bottom of the page. Here is the link
                                    Post link to blog for Entry on Fury Cover Design Facebook page
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

NaNoWriMo 2016: What is NaNo?

I know we're starting a little early but I want all those new writers to learn about NaNo.

NaNoWriMo: The Contest

Coming this November will be one of the most exciting contests I've ever entered. I'll be fighting against someone that's hard-headed and hard to please. A person that thanks God for the opportunity to write. A person that loves to write, and a person that I know will fight to win when Nano pushes her to new heights and new way's of thinking. I'll be competing with this person every minute and that person is ME.

What is NaNo?

It's a contest where you try to write 50 thousand words in a month.  Yes you heard me right.  It can be done, thousands of people do it every year.  True, every word of it might not be worth keeping, but it teaches you to get out on that limb and write.  Never heard of Nano go here.




Win Prizes and Pride through NaNoWriMo

I've entered and won this contest in November many times. Each time in November, I have won a prize. Five years in a row, I won a free book for participating and winning the contest. Now, of course, there is no way for the good NaNoWriMo folks to know if you are cheating or not, but they hope that you won't.  They also offer discounts on various kinds of writing software. We'll all just have to sign up to see what great goodies they are offering this year.




Words, Words, Words
It's not easy to write 50,000 words in a month, but it can be done. For me now it comes down to a contest against my last year's record. I try to get in one really good day with about 11,000 words, so if I have a bad day, I don't get so far behind. Last year I hit 11 and change in a 24 hour period. I was stoked.

I don't think I had ever written that many words in one day. I also don't know if I will ever beat that record or not, but you can bet that I will do my best when November comes around.

Outline?
For those of you that have done Nano before you know that the only thing you can do towards getting ready for the contest writing wise, is to work on that outline.  You can plan and think and outline, but you can not write one word not even that first line to this great new novel until midnight of November the first. I don't have my outline started yet.  I'll once again be working on my Street Justice Series during this month so I'll need to do a little reading on the last novel and see where I left off.

Really 50,000 words in a month 

Writing 50,000 words in a months opened my mind to a new way of writing. It helped me learn to focus on the creation of the story, and to put editing to the back burner. It helped me to see that I can write under pressure. It taught me that some of my best work comes when I'm working and writing under a timeline. When I won and finished over 50,000 words in less than 30 days it gave me a boost, and give me a great feeling of accomplishment.

Please don't let the idea of failing stop you from trying to win Nano. Don't keep yourself from the lessons that are waiting there to be learned. It's fun, it's exciting, and at times it can be a little frustrating. I can't stress enough what a learning experience this is, so come on join in on the fun, and see if you can write 50k or more in a month.

Winning! 
Winning is fun that is for sure, but even if you don't win, you can learn so much from being in this contest.  You can meet some great people, learn that you can write a lot of words in one month, but most of all you learn to write write write.

I learned that I can write things that were not in my outline, that sometimes if do put myself out on that writing limb that the story line I created while out there will last and it is good.  I suggest that every writer tries Nano at least once.

Still looking for more to read on Nano check my older nano post from previous years, some of the information will be repetitive some not.

Nano Nano

50,000 words in a month?

Gearing up for Nano

Nano 2009

Dave King's Blog on Nano

Images thanks to 

Annette Shaff 

Javier Brosch

Edward Fielding

Ramona D'Viola

T.A. Byrne
Samantha Fury Images

Amazon Giveaway Interview with Cindy Ray Hale

Amazon Giveaway Interview with Cindy Ray Hale

Welcome Author Friends and Readers, today we're going to be interviewing Cindy Ray Hale and talking about Covers!

Be sure and hang around to the end and join in on the fun of a giveaway!

Welcome Cindy, and before we get into asking about your covers tell us a little about yourself, please.


Thanks for having me and sure, I live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee with my husband and four children. I’ve been writing since I was a kid scribbling stories in a spiral notebook. When I was seventeen, I wrote a short story called Instant Harmony, which was published in the April 2000 issue of New Era, the official magazine for the youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Destiny is my first novel and is Book One of the Destiny Trilogy. I’ve been querying agents a little bit this summer, but a few weeks ago I decided I wanted more control and a shorter wait to publication, so I will be self-publishing Destiny.


Welcome to the Self Publishing world, I love it here, and I think you will too. Since the topic is covers today can you tell us what made you decide you needed a new cover?

I’ve made several of my own covers on my phone and on picmonkey.com. I even took my own photo shoot with an adorable young teenager I’m close friends with. I wanted to use the pictures of the couple but the photos were taken with my phone and the definition wasn’t high enough. I knew all along I’d eventually have a cover designed by a professional. It was a matter of me deciding to finally self-publish.

Who did your first cover?  That our viewers can now see to the left.

I designed it myself on PicMonkey.com. I highly recommend PicMonkey if you’re looking to design a cover on your own, and you have zero budget because it’s easy to use, you don’t have to download anything or register, and it’s free.

My first cover photo was actually taken by, Virginia Hodges of Virginia Rose Hodges Photography, the same photographer that took the picture on my new cover. She’s a close friend of mine and considers herself Hannah in my book.

Who did this second cover?

Cover It Designs at coveritdesigns.net designed the cover and Virginia Rose Hodges Photography 

Do you think Authors should create their own covers? I do and I have my own line of pre-made covers that are available for purchase here.

It depends. I’ve had friends design their own covers, and for a simple e-book it can work out completely fine. But if they’re taking it to print, I don’t recommend it unless they’ve had a lot of experience. There are so many details to work out with the correct size and formatting. When my cover designer was explaining it all to me, I felt like it was way over my head.

Do you mind saying how much you paid for this cover?

I paid $135

What did you learn that you might think is helpful for our audience in this experience of changing covers?

Two things: Know your audience and what types of covers appeal to them the most. I write contemporary YA so I did a Google search for “The Best Contemporary YA Book Covers” and found a Goodreads page with the best covers all together.

I made a Pinterest board collecting the covers that appealed to me from similar books to mine, and when the cover designer asked me what I liked all I had to do was link that board to her. Shop around before you decide who to go with so you can know the person caters to your audience. Study the covers on their website and look them up on Amazon to see how well it’s sold. One of the designers I almost went with had designed the cover of an Amazon Bestselling Author.

Share with our audience a few places where they can learn more about you and your novels.

Facebook.

Wordpress

Blogger

When will this book be available?

It will be available for purchase November 2013.

What can folks expect out of you from this point on? More novels?

Yes! I have the rough draft of Synchrony (Destiny #2) two-thirds of the way finished. I’m hoping to publish it next Spring, but we’ll see how it goes. I have an outline written for Destiny #3, but it’s still pretty rough. I’ve also thought about writing a prequel from Hannah’s (Destiny’s best friend) point of view and a book that would take place after the Trilogy to show what happens to the guy that doesn’t end up with Destiny.

Thanks for joining us today and be sure and click on the raflicopter link below and join in on the fun of a giveaway for an Amazon Gift Card $25.00

Cindy Ray Hale Author website

Blurb From Destiny

Destiny Clark, a young Mormon girl living in Tennessee, is wildly infatuated with Isaac Robinson, the headmaster’s son at her Baptist high school. When they’re cast together in the school’s production of Les Misérables, Destiny is horrified to find that she has to be publicly humiliated by acting out her true feelings of rejection onstage.

As their rehearsals begin, Destiny realizes the unimaginable: Isaac has developed deep feelings for her despite their religious differences and the fact that he has a girlfriend. But will they be able to find their place amongst the backbiters of their ultra-conservative world?

Weaving around Destiny and Isaac's alternating viewpoints, Destiny is the first book in a series inspired by the characters of Les Misérables and explores heartbreak, self-discovery, intolerance, and love.

Visit Samantha's website for an excerpt of Destiny



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Unstoppable: Official Movie Trailer (Kirk Cameron, 2013)

Cats Tales and Whiskers by Ciella Naden

Maid for Martin California Love Trilogy