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Wednesday, March 9th 2011

8:00 AM (326 days, 13h, 29min ago)

A New Day Dawning (Possibly?)

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So I was recently messing around with my website and I discovered that my current blog here at Bravejournal throws pop-ups.    My browser suppresses them automatically, so I never realized they were there.

despise pop-up windows.  The ads are bad enough, but at least those are tolerable (although I noticed they have one now that talks–-I hate that too!)  The pop-ups, though, were enough to finally send me searching for a new blog.

I have hesitated on that for a long time.  I hate they idea of leaving all the old content behind, and I worried that I would not be able to set it up to my liking.  But in my frustration at the pop-up windows, I decided I could always keep a link to the old blog.  The useful posts that are in there could always be reposted, as well.

So here we are.  I’ve set up a WordPress blog, I’ve configured it to something I like.  

http://writersandra.wordpress.com/

Now it’s up to you, the readers–which blog would you rather visit?  Should I move all new content to this WordPress blog?  Or am I overestimating the irritation of the Bravejournal?

You can let me know your opinion in the comments of either blog, or through email at sandra@sandra-miller.com, or I have set up a new poll on my website at http://pgtc.com/~slmiller/polls.htm

Thanks for visiting, and I can’t wait to talk about writing again!

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Tuesday, March 8th 2011

9:52 AM (327 days, 11h, 37min ago)

First Winner!

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We have our first winner!  She has selected a copy of Concerto for her prize, and I hope she is enjoying it!

There are still two more prizes up for grabs.  Just email me at sandra@sandra-miller.com with "Read an eBook Week" in the subject line to win!  Be sure to put the name of the eBook you would like for your prize in the body of your email.  You can choose Concerto, The Crystal Cave, or The Enemy in the Mirror.

Have fun!
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Monday, March 7th 2011

9:00 PM (328 days, 0h, 29min ago)

Happy Read an eBook Week!

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We're celebrating with a Kindle book giveaway! 

The first three people to email me with "Read an eBook Week" in the subject of their email will win Kindle copies of their choice of one of my books!

(The Fine Print: I need your name & email address to gift you your eBook.  The timestamp on the email messages I receive will be used to determine the winners.  If you will include the title of the book you'd like to receive, should you win, in the body of your email, it will save us time later.  You may choose from: Concerto, The Crystal Cave
, and The Enemy in the Mirror In the event these rules change, the updated rules will be posted on my website homepage.  I will post here when the winners have been selected.)

Just drop me an email at sandra@sandra-miller.com to enter to win your Kindle eBook.

Good Luck!
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Friday, March 4th 2011

7:47 PM (331 days, 1h, 43min ago)

Moving Forward Again

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
I have to tell you, in case you were wondering, that I don't really recommend writing the way Concerto was written.  Not that I think I'm likely to be in that situation again anytime soon.

Writing that book was like riding a rocketsled--one crazy fast rush from beginning to end.  Literally hours a day, non-stop, anytime I had a pen in my hand words were coming out.  For weeks.  Months.  It was crazy cool, actually.  A pretty major rush.  If I could write everything like that, I'd do six books a year.

The trouble wasn't in the writing of the book, which, although it pretty much ruined my hand for awhile because it was done longhand, didn't have any other negative effects.  Except that I'm pretty sure everyone around me got tired of me writing every possible moment.

The trouble came afterward, after the writing was done and the revising was done, the editing and spelling and grammar reviews done.  The manuscript was finished, the book put to bed.  I figured I would spend a bit of time each day getting the book to print, and then on my marketing efforts.  The rest of the time, I would just keep right on writing, only I would write on Redeemer of the Realm this time.

That part didn't really work out so well.  I had all kinds of reasons why I wasn't able to string three words together at a time.  First, there was the shift in story style.  Concerto is a modern, fast-paced, first-person thriller.  Redeemer is a third-person fantasy, the second in a series.  The worlds and the writing styles are totally different.  I figured I just needed some time to adjust.

Then there were the actual writing methods.  Redeemer's manuscript so far had been entirely composed on a computer.  Concerto, for some reason, I felt like I had to write longhand.  After so much time moving a pen across a page, I figured I was having some trouble getting back into the swing of making words fly with a keyboard instead.

But time passed, well more than it should take to adjust to such simple differences, and I still wasn't able to get words on a page in any meaningful quantity.  People around me asked if I was writing anything new.  I had the story there, I knew what needed to happen, and I just couldn't make it happen.  That had never happened before.  It was like the gears, after turning smoothly at top speed for months, suddenly froze up and refused to move again.

This particular problem had never happened to me before.  If I had trouble writing something in the past, it usually just meant I didn't have a good enough grasp on what I was trying to write.  Hadn't done my homework.

This, though--this was new, and pretty disconcerting.  What if I never managed to write again?  I couldn't handle that thought.  But I wasn't sure what to do about it either.

So I spent some time reading through some of my Holly Lisle materials (How To Think Sideways and How To Revise Your Novel are two of the best writing resources ever, anywhere)  Reading about writing somehow made me feel better, made me feel more like writing myself.  

And then, a couple nights ago, while I was just laying in bed waiting to fall asleep, I had a really cool idea.  An idea that solved a plot problem I'd had in this story for a long time.  An idea I couldn't wait to start writing.

So I did.  And then today, I had another awesome, game-changing idea for the story.  And so far, I'm still writing.

I haven't update the word count meter yet.  I'm excited to see the progress when I do.  But I'm moving forward again, and right now, that feels like a big victory.
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Thursday, February 24th 2011

6:33 PM (339 days, 2h, 57min ago)

Big News!

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
As some of you are probably already aware, the first round of competition in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is over.  Results were posted today.

There were 10000 total entries, in 2 categories.  From each category, the top 1000 were selected to continue on to the next round.

In the general fiction category, one of those selected was my novel Concerto!

One of the skills necessary to advance in the ABNA competition is pitch-writing, which is a completely different animal from novel-writing.  It's different enough, and challenging enough, that I think it would make a good blog or website article topic one of these days.  When it comes time to prepare for the ABNA, we all want a refresher 

You can see the list of general fiction entries advancing here:

ABNA Round 1 Selections

Yay!  Here's to Round 2!  Good luck to all of us!
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Friday, November 5th 2010

1:15 PM (450 days, 9h, 14min ago)

If It's on the Internet, It's Free?

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
By now, you've probably heard about the uproar.  Several writer's lists I'm on are in a furor about it, and it's even made it to NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/11/05/131091599/the-day-the-internet-threw-a-righteous-hissyfit-about-copyright-and-pie

It's a serious issue, though.  Here we have no less than a professional magazine editor, telling us that the entire internet is public domain.  If it's on the internet, you can just copy it off and use it where ever you want, for whatever purpose you want, with out any sort of permission from the author.  On the internet, copyright no longer applies.

What??

Clearly she is wrong.  Yet, I fear that attitude is more prevalent than we realize.  So here it is, for the record:

The internet is just another method of distribution at the disposal of the copyright owner.  If you are not the copyright owner, you cannot copy or distribute it, even if you found it on the internet.

Cases like this are the reason so many people have disclaimers on the website enjoining you not to copy or distribute their pages & articles.  There's even some language like that on my site.  I've heard from people who printed off copies and took them to their writer's groups to pass around, with my website address at the bottom.  Does that bother me?  Not at all!  That's why the information is there, to help, to educate.

The reason the language is there is that so nobody feels they are permitted to go lift content from my site and place it in their magazine, webzine, blog, or book.  Plagiarism is plagiarism, whatever your source.

So there's my take on it.  Fortunately, this kind of thing does not happen as frequently as you would think.  If you've got content on the internet you are worried about, though, try using a search engine to search for your name and the title of your article, or your name and the first line of your content.  Then try searching the first line of your content, or other random lines, with quotes around them.  Because not all people who are copying your content will be kind enough to put your byline on it.

What do you do if you find your content somewhere else, somewhere you did not give permission to use it?  First, contact the site owner and explain your complaint.  Many times they will be reasonable and remove the offending content.

If that fails, contact their ISP with your copyright infringement complaint.  ISP's hate copyright infringement, and will often take down a site completely rather than have infringing content.

Odds are you won't ever encounter this.  But if you do, these steps may help.

And in the meantime, keep writing!
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Tuesday, November 2nd 2010

11:54 AM (453 days, 10h, 35min ago)

Ending Is Everything

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
Here's the thing: Endings.  Endings are the thing.  Endings are Every Thing.

At least when you are writing.  Or reading.

Ending is not the cherry on top.  Ending is so integral to your plot, you can't separate them.  At least, not if you want to write anything anybody wants to read.

The Ending is what you've been selling the whole time you planned, plotted, backstoried, character developed, and wrote your Great American Novel.  A good ending won't save a wretched story.  But a bad ending will unfailingly kill a good story.  The ending is why the reader just invested their valuable time reading your story, and if it stinks, then they've wasted that time.  Your ending has to be good, or your story is doomed. 

So what do I mean by a Good Ending?  Does every story have to end with Happily Ever After?

No.  Of course not.  Good does not necessarily mean happy.  But it should be satisfying.  It should resolve the conflict, and tie up the main storyline and any secondary storylines you had.  The ending should grow organically out of the plot and the action of the story, not come screaming out of left field at the reader, who can find no other justification for it than the whim of the author.

Want to find out more about Endings?  Check out the new article on my website at

Endings
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Saturday, October 23rd 2010

11:18 AM (463 days, 11h, 11min ago)

Another price drop!

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
I've managed to get another price drop in on the paperback edition of Concerto.  Now, from an original price of $16.00, to $12.00, to the latest low price of $10.75, Concerto is now...

$7.50!

I'm pretty pleased with myself.  I had to finagle some settings to get things that low--that's got to be some sort of record for a print-on-demand, almost 300 page, perfect bound paperback.  

It's a subject I've been thinking about quite a bit lately, these POD trade-size paperbacks VS mass market paperbacks.  Next time I sit down for a few minutes, I want to talk a little bit about that.
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Friday, October 15th 2010

12:13 PM (471 days, 10h, 17min ago)

My Early Birthday Present

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
You have to see the present my sister made me for my birthday.  You've seen the Scrabble tile necklace pendants, right?  This is something like that, only thicker and book shaped.  And she even made it a wrap-around cover, so it has a spine and looks just like a little tiny copy of Concerto!

It's a proof copy of the cover, which is why there is no bar code.  If anybody says anything about it, I'll hit them 

How's that for awesome??
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Wednesday, October 13th 2010

7:13 PM (473 days, 3h, 17min ago)

New Lower Prices

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
I would like to advise anybody looking at a service like CreateSpace or Lulu to really pay attention to your formatting--every detail from font choice, to size, to margins & gutters can affect your end price.  

I notice this most at CreateSpace, simply because I tend to use Lulu more for hardback editions.  With any POD book, the cover is a set price that you can't lower.  With a hardback, that set price is necessarily higher.  After you pay that base rate, adding or subtracting pages doesn't make as much difference as you might think to the final price.

If you are using Lulu, be double sure to check out their new discount manager.  It is awesome.

After some tweaking of files, playing with formats and discount managers, I am pleased to be able to offer lower prices on physical copies of every book I have in print.  Take a look at the differences...

--The Crystal Cave           was $8.00   now $6.50
--Enemy in the Mirror      was $7.50   now $6.50
--Two Novellas (hardback)was $19.99 now $18.90
--Concerto (paperback)    was $16.00  now $10.75
--Concerto (hardback)      was $34.00 now $23.80

I don't know how those cuts look from where you're standing, but from here they look pretty good!  POD books will never be able to compete on price with mass-market paperbacks because of the differences in the way they are produced.  But for the extra money, you're getting a much nicer finished product.  And any reduction in price helps level the playing field.
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Tuesday, October 12th 2010

5:56 PM (474 days, 4h, 33min ago)

Looking for a good read?

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm


Enter to win one of 2 copies of Concerto at Goodreads!


Goodreads Book Giveaway

Concerto (Paperback) by Sandra  Miller

Concerto

by Sandra Miller

Giveaway ends October 31, 2010.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win
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Monday, October 11th 2010

6:11 PM (475 days, 4h, 18min ago)

Quick Note

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
Just a quick note today--for those of you who have been considering The Crystal Cave or The Enemy in the Mirror, I just found out that both of them have been included in Amazon's 4 for 3 promotion, going on now.  This is an excellent opportunity to stock up!  They are both free shipping eligible, too.

The Crystal Cave

The Enemy in the Mirror

Also, if you have never checked out Goodreads, I highly recommend it.  Very interesting site, lots of content.
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Saturday, October 9th 2010

9:49 AM (477 days, 12h, 41min ago)

Hot off the presses!

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
It's here!  In hardback, paperback, Kindle, and Smashwords (which includes PDF and many other formats):

Concerto

What if...

...you could work with the greatest violinist 
in history?

...the greatest violinist in history was also 
the chief suspect in his wife's murder?

...a violent stalker terrorized you just outside 
the reach of the law?

What if...

...the only person who could stop the stalker 

...solve the murder

...and save your life...


...was you?

Join Chrispen Marnett on the journey of a lifetime as she unravels the layers of the past...

...love...
...lies...
...music...
...murder...

...to discover the truth about the Newton Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and its international celebrity concertmaster, Alexis Brooks.

Check it out today!

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Wednesday, October 6th 2010

4:21 PM (480 days, 6h, 8min ago)

Switching Gears

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
You may have noticed the Concerto rewrite I just finished was a mystery/suspense novel.

Redeemer, that I am currently writing--or trying to get back in to--is an epic fantasy.

So switching gears here is a little weird.  I've found that in this sort of fix, reading back over your previous work is a huge help.  I started from the beginning of Redeemer this morning (the manuscript thus far is just over 80K words, so it's novel length already!) and I'm discovering just how good this book was when I last worked on it.

It's good in multiple ways, really--it catches you up on the world you've created, and the action you've shown so far.  And it reminds you just how good the story was, why you loved it in the first place, and why you want to--NEED to--finish it.

I don't read my own work very often.  But I'm wondering now, if maybe I should!  
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Tuesday, October 5th 2010

4:22 PM (481 days, 6h, 8min ago)

Back to the Grindstone

  • Mood:
  • Music: Mozart Violin Concerto #3 in G
  • Currently Writing: Redeemer of the Realm
I think I'm finally done fussing with the Concerto manuscript.  Fixed, formatted, ready to go in hardback, paperback, and Kindle.  I even have the covers designed, and I think they look pretty awesome  Now I'm just waiting on my proofs to sign off on the whole thing.

So I'm back to writing new words for Redeemer.  It's a little bit of a let-down after the Concerto rewrite--that was crazy fast.  I already knew everything there was to know about that story, since it was a rewrite.  With Redeemer, I'm still discovering things as I go, still working out how to get where we're headed.  It's just as fun, in a different sort of way.

So I'm getting used to a bit slower pace again.  I've also gone back to typing the first draft in directly.  Don't ask me why--it doesn't make a bit of sense.  I couldn't seem to type Concerto, and had to write the entire manuscript longhand.  With Redeemer, I always type in instead.  I think it's halfway to insane, myself.  

But the counter for Redeemer has started moving again.  And hey, as long as the words are coming, I'll take it.  
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Thursday, September 30th 2010

11:08 AM (486 days, 11h, 21min ago)

Touchdown!

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Concerto: The Revision
I hit the finish mark on the Concerto Rewrite yesterday!

This morning I have been cleaning up the manuscript, and adding a few things that had occurred to me while I was still writing the end, that needed to be worked in towards the beginning.  

I've just finished printing out a clean copy I can use for editing, which should be minor on this one.

With any luck, I'll have the new, infinitely more awesome Concerto ready for you next month!
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Wednesday, September 29th 2010

12:52 PM (487 days, 9h, 38min ago)

Ergonomic Pens

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Concerto: The Revision
If you've been here awhile, you've heard about my problems with carpal tunnel syndrome.  More recently, I've been grappling with arthritis in my hands--between the two conditions it seems like everything I do makes something hurt!

So I've spent some time lately looking at ways to write that won't make me hurt.  After trying every ergonomic writing device known to man (or at least to me!) I formed some opinions on what things work for me, and why. 

And then it occurred to me that I just might not be the only one out there dealing with this issue, and scratching my head at the variety of ergonomic pens out there.  So if this is you, and you haven't been to my website lately, check out Ergonomic Writing Tools

Have you seen a pen that isn't on the list?  Let me know, and I will do my best to get hold of one and give it a test drive!
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Tuesday, September 28th 2010

8:00 AM (488 days, 14h, 30min ago)

The Importance of Routine

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Concerto: The Revision
It's true; routines are important.  It's easy to overlook them, especially when life is busy and hectic, as it always is these days.  Establishing a writing routine seems unimportant on the face of it, one of those things that would be nice if we had time.

Only, as I always seem to be repeating, if we really want to do something, we make the time.  For me, during this rewrite that has settled into a routine: I do my type-in in the morning, before work, while the kids get ready for school.  I usually do about two scenes, depending on their length.  Then at lunch I start writing new material.  My new material is always far enough ahead of what I'm typing that some time has passed; when I do type-in I can also do a first round of brush-up editing.

The importance of a routine is that by keeping a routine, you are building a habit.  And the good thing about a habit, at least in this case, is that you miss it when you don't do it.  So once it's habit, you don't "forget" to do your morning type-in.  You don't casually decide to use your writing time for anything else, because upsetting your habits is uncomfortable--just ask anyone who has tried to break one   It becomes easier for you to defend your writing time, because you have more motivation to do it.

And more writing time = more writing done, which is a good thing.
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Friday, September 24th 2010

10:20 AM (492 days, 12h, 10min ago)

Light at the End of the Tunnel

  • Mood:
  • Music: Jascha Heifetz: Greatest Hits
  • Currently Writing: Concerto: The Revision
There is--there really is a light there, and it's getting close.  I think we are maybe within 10-12 scenes of the end of this book.  The word count targets on my progress bar, you can probably tell, are just guesses.  I really don't know what the finished manuscript will weight in at, but whatever it is, it's going to be good.

I'm close enough to the end that I'm already starting to wonder what I'm going to do without this story to work on.

Work on the next one, of course.    But there's always something sad about the end, the farewell to these people, these places, you have spent some number of weeks, months, even years of your life with.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Not time to say farewell just yet--we have a couple more scenes and then we start the rocket-sled ride to hell that is the end of this particular book.  It is time to have my game-face on, not time to mope.

So, back to work.  
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Monday, September 13th 2010

5:29 PM (503 days, 5h, 1min ago)

Music & Writing

  • Mood:
  • Currently Writing: Concerto: The Revision
I remember, years ago, reading a quote from Louis L'Amour, my favorite writer all through high school.  

''I could sit in the middle of Sunset Boulevard and write with my typewriter on my knees.  Temperamental I am not."

At the time, in high school, I agreed wholeheartedly.  Surroundings--comfort, noise, distractions--what did they matter?  I could focus entirely on my typewriter, my pen, or later, my computer, and it really didn't matter what went on around me.  Back then, I wrote with all kinds of music playing; it just didn't bother me.

Enter marriage, kids, the internet, and aging--in my late twenties I found if I wanted to write, surroundings suddenly mattered.  TV and music, both had to be off for me to be productive.  My brain became too easily distracted, and if I tried to write one thing while hearing another, what actually tended to come out was a mangled-up mish-mash of the two.

So now, my regular routine is writing in silence, with a fan to cover up the noise of the rest of the house.  Until the other night, when I had to write a difficult scene, and I was having a hard time of it.  It was a scene where something bad happens to my main character, at the hands of someone who is supposed to be a friend.  It had to be compelling, I had to get in that scene.  And I didn't want to.

And that's when I discovered the value of writing with music, again, as though I had never realized it before.  My iPod, which was shuffling through a classical playlist, hit a movie soundtrack (why are they in my classical playlist?  Don't ask    )  I don't even remember specifically which soundtrack it was, it may have been Lord of the Rings, or it may have been Spiderman (LOVE Danny Elfman's work), but either way it was a dark dramatic track where scary things were clearly happening onscreen.

And I found I could write my scene.  I was pushed to write my scene, and the tempo of the escalating music pushed me to write even faster, with more urgency.  My scene fed off the music.

So--moral of the story, I've rediscovered a tool I had discarded years ago.  I can decide the mood of the scene I'm working on, put on some non-distracting music that matches, and everything goes easier.

Non-distracting is the key.  I tend to work with classical music for just that reason; but there are certain pieces I know to keep off the playlist, even so.  The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, for instance--I can't hear it without getting instantly sucked in and forgetting whatever I was working on.

So figure out what kind of music helps to influence your mood without distracting you completely, and see if it helps you write.  It sure helped me!
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