Query Contest

To celebrate her move to Nancy Coffey Literary, Suzie Townsend is doing an awesome query contest. Submit your query to her between 9-10 am EDT tomorrow and she'll respond with complete honesty. Totally scary, but so awesome at the same time.

Plus, in the comments she said that if you query her for the contest and she rejects you, you can resubmit your revised query later as a regular query. And if you've queried her before and been rejected, you can still submit to the contest. So cool, right?

You can check out all the details, here. Don't wait. The entry window is really small. Good luck to all of you who enter! :)

Pinterest is Awesomely Evil and a Kindle Giveaway

First of all, Pinterest will be my undoing. Seriously, what was I thinking joining this site? Having said that, have you joined Pinterest yet? Why not?! It's so awesome! I can almost convince myself it's productive procrastination. ;)

Second, have you heard about the official launch of K.M. Weiland's book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success? 

She's giving away a Kindle and over $100 worth of craft books, plus a bunch of other prizes to celebrate!  

I know I'm a pantser and you're probably wondering why I'm promoting this, but through her videos featuring the first chapter of her book, Weiland has convinced me to give outlining an honest try. Maybe if I can master it, my next book won't take me a million years to finish. ;)

Want more info about the book? Here are links to the videos that reeled me in:

Should You Outline Your Novel? - Book Trailer for Outlining Your Novel, Pt. 1 of 3  

Misconceptions About Outlining - Book Trailer for Outlining Your Novel, Pt. 2 of 3  

Benefits of Outlining - Book Trailer for Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, Pt. 3 of 3 

And a link to the giveaway: Win a Kindle and over $100 in writing craft books! 

In addition to the book, K.M. Weiland's blog is awesome. You know that short list of blogs you check every single day regardless of how much time you actually have to blog? If you're a writer, her blog should be on that list.

Win a SIGNED Copy of CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS by Cassandra Clare!

Tere Kirkland of the The Lesser Key of Tere is giving away a SIGNED copy of CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS, the latest book in The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare!

Contest ends July 12th. Hurry over now so you have time to get your extra entries! :)

Want to Win a $25 Amazon Gift Card?

Of course you do. But before we get to that, a HUGE, but late congratulations are in order for my friend and crit buddy, Rebecca Knight. Her awesome fantasy, LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS, is now available in the Kindle store!!

To celebrate, she's holding a contest with some pretty awesome prizes. She's giving away books (of course), chocolate, and a $25 Amazon gift card! There are lots of fun ways to get extra entries, but time is running out, so be sure to check it out. Contest ends 6/31.



Aaaaand...

Word Tip Wednesday is returning tomorrow!! So be sure to check back. :)

Very Cool Writing Contest!!

Rachel over at Blackbird in my Window is having a writing contest! Submit the first three pages of your manuscript for a chance to win the book of your choice. Plus, everyone who submits will receive feedback on their pages. How awesome is that? Be sure to check it out!

Liar Society Giveaway!

The ever awesome Tere Kirkland is giving away a SIGNED copy of Liar Society by Lisa & Laura Roecker. I've been dying to read this one, so do me a favor and pretend like you never saw this blog post. ;) Okay, fine. I know you want it too. Go ahead and enter. It won't affect our friendship. Much. ;)

Giveaway ends April 30th. More giveaway news coming tomorrow. Be sure to check back. :)

Awesome Followers Giveaway Winner!!

I put all the names and entries into an Excel spreadsheet and assigned numbers according to the number entries. Then I ran the numbers through Random.org and the winning number was:

And that number was assigned to

Rebecca Knight!!!

Congrats, Becca! Shoot me an email with your mailing address and I'll get you your goodies. :)

Thanks to everyone who entered! Happy Wednesday!

Awesome Followers Giveaway--Last Day to Enter!!

Today is the last day to enter my AWESOME FOLLOWERS GIVEAWAY! Be sure to check it out! :)

Win these pens plus a big stack of books!

Time's running out!!

Only one week left in my AWESOME FOLLOWERS GIVEAWAY! Be sure to check it out! :)

Win these pens plus a big stack of books!



Awesome Followers Giveaway!!!

I've been a bit of a slacker lately when it comes to blogging, but still you all stop by and comment and I think you're all just awesome so I thought a giveaway was in order to show you all how much I appreciate you! :)

So what am I giving away? Well, do you remember these?

One lucky winner will get these fabulous glowy pens plus these awesome books!



Uglies

Pretties

Specials

by Scott Westerfeld

A SIGNED copy of

Tricks

by Ellen Hopkins

Matched

by Ally Condie

Across the Universe

by Beth Revis

Going Bovine

by Libba Bray

and

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by Carrie Ryan

To enter you must be a follower. Leave me a comment for +1 entry. For additional entries:

• +1 new follower
• +3 current follower
• +5 blog about the giveaway
• +2 tweet it @abbyannis (This can be repeated once a day for additional points. Just make sure you tell me about it so you get all your points.)
• +2 Facebook it (Once a day on this one too. Make sure you tell me each time.)
• +2 sidebar it
• +1 for totalling it for me :)

Be sure to leave me links if you blog, tweet, Facebook or put it on your sidebar. Open in the US only. Sorry to all my international friends! Contest ends Friday, April 15th at midnight PST.

And I think that's it! If we get enough entries, I'll add another prize. We'll see how it goes. :)

Contact Button Winner!!

And the winner of a custom contact button is...



Congratulations, Angela Scott!!

Send me an email by clicking on my contact button in the left sidebar and we'll get started. :)

More giveaway news coming soon....

Mishmash Monday: Contact Button and a Contest!!

Changing up the schedule this week. Since I have my blog chain post on Wednesday, I won't be doing my regular WTW post. So today I thought I'd do kind of a combo post. Writing and techie stuff--two of my favorite things. Aren't you excited? ;) I'll try to keep it short.

And I guess, technically, this isn't directly related to writing, but if you're looking to get published someday, it's something to think about.

After this post from Meredith Barnes, assistant to the sharkly--and possible mind reader--Janet Reid, I realized that since I changed my layout, I no longer had a contact button on my blog. Sure, you can get to my email through my Blogger profile, but according to Meredith,

"IT SHOULD BE PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED ON YOUR WEBSITE!!!!!"

Now, I don't expect to be contacted anytime soon (or ever) but it couldn't hurt. And if my email is accessible, you all can email me about WTW stuff if you have questions or features you want covered. Or whatever you want to email me about. :)

These directions are for Blogger, since that's what I'm familiar with.

Adding a contact button is pretty simple. First, upload the image you want to use to the image hosting site of your choice--Photobucket.com, Flickr.com, etc.--and copy the direct link code for the image.

Under the Design tab then Page Elements in Blogger, click on Add a Gadget and select HTML/JavaScript. Copy and paste this code into the box.

<a href=mailto:youremail@youremail.com>
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4LhWVsfv2Uw8GgASuHIWK6ohdwWNApfrrtOWIvcSu7cEyyW_IspfsmDlfrHJz1SgYFN_psSyNrM4JraI2mjhFuPOrjBDoIENcFNUACkNae0Fl-dPqLcf9VluIN3kQ6hyGU0OCXaz9YRc/s1600/contact-me-2.png"/></a>

Make sure you update the links to show your email address and your image. Also, you have the option to add a title to the gadget, if you want, but it's not necessary. Then, just click SAVE, move the gadget to where you want it in your layout, and you're done. Easy, right?

The code above is for this image, which I'm happy to share. :)

But, since you guys are so awesome, I'm having a little contest.

The prize: A custom made button for your blog!

I can tailor it to match your blog, use an image or font of your choice, or whatever you want. I am limited by my Photoshop, since I don't have a full program (PS Elements 7--I want CS5 so bad), and everything I know is self-taught from years of fiddling with the program, but if you're the winner, I'll do my best to give you exactly what you want.

To enter, you must be a follower:

• +1 Leave a comment on this post
• +2 Current follower
• +1 New follower
• +5 Blog about it
• +2 Tweet @abbyannis Win a custom-made contact button for your blog! http://bit.ly/dOo9wd
• +2 Facebook
• +2 Sidebar
• +1 for adding it all up for me :)

Open internationally. Contest ends Saturday, March 12th at midnight PST. Winner will be announced Monday, March 14th, at which time I will also be announcing the HUGE CONTEST (books, books, books) I've been planning for a while. Be sure to check back for that.

So, what do you all think? Is having an easily accessible email important?

Ch-ch-ch-changes.... And a Winner!

I've been wanting to change the blog for a while (it's been over a a year since I changed things), but until this past Saturday I hadn't been able to find a template I liked enough. I used to change it every couple of months when I was making my own scrapbooky type backgrounds, but those were flat and boring. I like the more websitey feel that a template provides. Now if I just had the knowledge and tools to do web design.... ;)

I'm not positive I love this one yet, and I still really like the old template, so if I change everything back in a week, well, you'll know why. :)

And now for the important stuff. The winner...

of Homework Helpers: Essays & Term Papers by Michelle McLean...

(chosen by the very scientific method of pulling a slip of paper out of a bowl)

is...

Corinne O'Flynn!!

Congrats, Corinne! Email me your mailing info: abbyannisblog (at) earthlink (dot) net :)

And my MUG Monday post will be a MUG Tuesday post this week since I spent all my spare time this weekend playing with my layout instead of writing a blog post.

Happy Monday, everyone! :)

Last Day to Enter

Click here or on the picture below and leave me a comment to enter.

Totally Random Friday: New Stuff and Old Stuff

New Stuff:

I started writing my new story and I think I'm in lurve. :) I'm excited to tackle a male POV, but I'm even more excited to be writing again! It's YA sci-fi (of course), and I even have a title--DESCENT.

Maybe I'll get brave and post a snippet next week. We'll see. :)

Old Stuff:

Have you seen this awesome contest over at the Shooting Stars blog? They're giving away a 1913 copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales! How cool is that? You better hurry, though. Contest ends today at 5 p.m. MST.

And don't forget about this

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

Any new stuff or old stuff you want to share?

Have a great weekend everyone! :)

Winner!!

And the winner of Blue Fire by Janice Hardy is...

lbdiamond!!!

Email me your mailing address and I'll get it out to you.

Thanks, everyone, for entering! I hope you all have a fabulous Tuesday! :)

Hurry! Last Day to Enter!

My giveway of Blue Fire by Janice Hardy ends today at midnight PST. Enter here!

Happy Halloween, everyone! :)

Guest Post: Fabulous Janice Hardy and a Giveaway!!

Exciting stuff today!!

Welcome special guest, Janice Hardy, MG author of THE SHIFTER (my review here) and its recently released sequel, BLUE FIRE! She has a great post for us today, and if you haven't checked out the awesomeness that is her blog, what are you waiting for? Her posts are always informative and entertaining. :) Also, I'm announcing a giveaway at the end, so stick around.

The End is Near

Some writers have troubles with beginnings, or more commonly, middles, but for me, it’s endings. I tend to rush them once I get close, summarizing instead of letting things build to the big bang. I always have to rewrite them, usually several times before I get them right. I’ve given up trying to figure out why I do this, and have just accepted it as part of my process. Maybe one day I’ll solve this riddle, but for now, I just follow the same revision plan each time. Which are really things I ought to do on the first draft, but it never seems to work out that way.

What makes a good ending?

Tastes will vary of course, but generally, readers want to see the problem the book has been exploring all along resolved in a satisfying way. They want to be surprised by something they didn’t see coming, but a surprise that still fits with the story – not something out of the blue they couldn’t have figured out on their own. They want to see the protag grow or change in some way that made everything they went through in the book matter in a personal and meaningful way.

Yeah, but how do you do that?

For me, endings start long before the actual climax, because that’s when you start laying the groundwork for them. You probably have some idea of how you want your story to end. There’s a good chance it’s part of your one-sentence “this is what my book is about” line. Everything in the story has been building to this moment. If it hasn’t? Then that might be why your ending is giving you trouble. Try looking back and asking:

What constitutes a win for your protag?

If you’re not sure, look at your beginning. What major thing happened that set your protag on their journey? What have they been trying to accomplish all along? That’s what you’ll need to resolve in some way in your ending.

What constitutes a win for your reader?

You’ve set up certain expectations throughout the book and your reader is going to want to see those expectations satisfied. What promises did you make? What problems did you dangle? What risks were taken that hinted at greater consequences?

Are you escalating the stakes?

The first draft of The Shifter had this problem. The ending was exciting, but it didn’t raise the stakes any from the major event at the end of the third act. Because of that, the ending was just kinda there. My agent had me revise it, and she gave me some advice that really changed my thinking. She said to go deeper, not wider, with the story, and to tie it in thematically to Nya’s struggle. At first, I didn’t understand what she meant, but then I figured out that it’s easy to add more stuff to make things harder on your protag, but the stakes aren’t really higher. More lives in jeopardy isn’t high stakes because readers don’t know those people. They care about the characters.

Look at what the protag has at stake on a personal level. Look at how that ties into the story from a thematic aspect, so the ending has more poignancy. For The Shifter, it was about being trapped, so feeling trapped factored into the climax. Same with the sequel, Blue Fire, but this time it was all about escape. Those ideas influenced what was done so it tied into the rest of the story.

What inner conflict has your protag been struggling with all along? How can you make that inner conflict butt heads with the outer problem in your climax? How might that inner conflict influence what the protag needs to do to solve the final problem? How might the theme be used to make the ending more powerful, and thus raise the stakes? What can you do to make the risk more personal for your protag?

You were saying something about a surprise?

Endings we can see coming a mile away bore us, but the fact is, we pretty much know the hero is going to win in any book we pick up. There is only so much mystery you can squeeze out of “will she win or not?” The tension and wonder will come from how they do it and what it might cost them. This is why personal stakes are so critical. But we also need to have our protag act in a way that is unexpected, so the way they solve their problem is a surprise.

One thing I like to do is look at the moral beliefs of my protag and have her do something she’d never consider doing otherwise. But the trick is, she still has to be true to herself. She can’t just throw out all she believes in. She has to make that choice, hard as it is, for reasons that fit who she is. Maybe it was a line she refused to cross before, or a risk she was never willing to take. Something that might even have been suggested earlier in the novel and rejected. But the stakes are higher now, and not doing it will result in something far worse than doing it. It’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make, even though it’s going to cost her a lot.

How do we get her to that point?

This is where the thrill building comes in. It takes time to heap enough horrible onto your protag so that she’s willing to throw it all away for the win. I like to start around the end of the third act, when your protag has just hit a wall or found a problem that seems insurmountable. She’s trying to solve it, really feels that she’s not going to be able to, but knowing she has no choice but to try.

Pacing is critical here, because speeding things up helps build that breathless on the edge of your seat feeling. Let your characters worry a bit more, think a bit less. Things start going wrong and cascade into more and more trouble. Everything tried fails or makes things worse. Put your protag on that slippery slope, and don’t give her a lot of time to catch her breath. Let her struggle, let things get worse and worse but she still manages to squeak by. Then hit her with the climax, and the start of the end.

Let her lose. Not “lose” lose, but force her into a position where she really has to think outside the box, find something unexpected and crazy that no one will see coming. For this to work, she has to be pushed beyond anything you’ve done to her so far. Feeling like it’s all of nothing, do or die, will put her right where she needs to be. And let you think up over the top, last ditch efforts for her to succeed.

Whatever your ending, remember that it’s only as good as what’s come before it. The entire story builds to this moment, and everything your protag has done will be put to the test in some way to solve this final problem. Look back and find things you can pull forward: stakes you can raise again, failures you can revisit, problems you can exacerbate. The ending is the climax of all of this, so it makes sense that all of this will provide the tools – and fodder – for your protag to save the day. Or not, if that’s the kind of ending you want.

Blue Fire

Part fugitive, part hero, fifteen-year-old Nya is barely staying ahead of the Duke of Baseer’s trackers. Wanted for a crime she didn’t mean to commit, she risks capture to protect every Taker she can find, determined to prevent the Duke from using them in his fiendish experiments. But resolve isn’t enough to protect any of them, and Nya soon realizes that the only way to keep them all out of the Duke’s clutches is to flee Geveg. Unfortunately, the Duke’s best tracker has other ideas.

Nya finds herself trapped in the last place she ever wanted to be, forced to trust the last people she ever thought she could. More is at stake than just the people of Geveg, and the closer she gets to uncovering the Duke’s plan, the more she discovers how critical she is to his victory. To save Geveg, she just might have to save Baseer—if she doesn’t destroy it first.

Janice's Bio

A long-time fantasy reader, Janice Hardy always wondered about the darker side of healing. For her fantasy trilogy THE HEALING WARS, she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices. Her books include THE SHIFTER, and BLUE FIRE from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins.  She lives in Georgia with her husband, three cats and one very nervous freshwater eel.

And now... The Giveaway!!

Enter to win a copy of BLUE FIRE! Just leave a comment on this post (1+), following is not required but it'll get you extra points (2+). Extra points for tweeting (1+), facebooking (1+), blogging (5+), and sidebar link (1+). Please leave me links with your comment. Ends Oct 31st, midnight PST.

So, what about all of you? What do you think is important in a great ending? What do you struggle with?

Win a Crit From an Agent

Elle Strauss is having an awesome first line contest with a chance to win a 25-page crit from literary agent Natalie Fischer. Runner up will win a 15-page crit. I'm not sure when it closes, but it'll be soon. Be sure to check it out! :)

This contest is now closed.

Contests! Contests! Contests!

Check out Roni and Julie's Totally Epic Summer Giveaway for a chance to win one of these incredible prizes:

•Hannah Moskowitz's Break
•Lisa Desrocher's Personal Demons (ARC)
•A query or first five pages critique from Fine Print Lit's intern, Gemma Cooper
•A query or first five pages critique from Janet Reid's assistant, Meredith Barnes
•A query or first five pages critique from agent Suzie Townsend
•A query or first five pages critique from editor Brendan Deneen

You have until August 8th to enter.

Sara McClung over at Babbling Flow has extended her ARC giveaway to August 11th and she's opened it up internationally, so anyone can enter. She's giving away these ARC's:

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
Firelight by Sophie Jordan
Halo by Alexandra Adornetto
Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
Personal Demons by Lisa Desrochers
The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
Torment by Lauren Kate

And Shannon Whitney Messenger is giving away an ARC of Torment by Lauren Kate! Contest ends Saturday, August 14th.

Good luck! :)