My talented friend Erica’s debut novel TEACH ME TO FORGET comes out NEXT WEEK, but I already got my hands on a copy. Well two, which is good news for you because I’m giving one away! You have between today and next Friday, December 9 to enter.
Melanie Hooyenga
When Stars Align (for a writer)
My current wip (work in progress) is a rewrite of a women’s fiction novel that I wrote in 2008 while living in Mexico. At the time it’d been ten years since I’d lived in Michigan, and while I wasn’t planning to stay in Mexico, I also wasn’t planning to return to Michigan. So I set …
Top Ten Ways I Procrastinated During the First Week of Nano
November 1st was the first day of NaNo (read my last post if you’re not familiar) and while I’m on track with my word count (average of 1667 per day!) that doesn’t mean it’s been smooth sailing. There’s been fall cleaning (like spring cleaning but the opposite—you know what I’m talking about), a minor thing called the World Series where my second favorite team FINALLY WON, and the warmest November we’ve had in a long time, which required me to be outside as much as I can. But those don’t make my top ten list. Are you ready? Here we go!
OhNaNoMyWriMo
It’s that time of year! The leaves are turning, pumpkins are being carved, and writers across the internet are gearing up for National Novel Writing Month.
Winner, Winner!
Thank you to everyone who participated in the #Flicker4Fire contest! It was fun to see my book in the hands of fans!
Without further ado, I’d like to announce the winner of the Kindle Fire….
Fire! (…and 2 book events)
You still have a few days to enter to win a Kindle Fire from yours truly! No purchase is necessary — all you have to do is post a picture of the cover of Flicker (it can be a picture from online OR the print or digital book) near some trees and tag it with the hashtag #Flicker4Fire.
Win a Kindle Fire!
I’m giving away a Kindle Fire to one lucky winner, and all you have to do is post a picture of the cover of FLICKER, the first book in my YA trilogy, The Flicker Effect. Contest ends October 16, 2016 at midnight.
Deconstructing a Cookie
How completely overhauling a novel is like changing an oatmeal-raisin cookie to chocolate chip.
How Editing is Like Painting a Merry-Go-Round
About a month ago I decided to refinish the merry-go-round in our backyard. (Yes, it came with the house and is the kind you find on playgrounds. We also have a bouncy duck, a digger thing, and we had a 4-person teeter-totter before a drunk driver destroyed it last February.) It’d been on my long-term …
Reading While Writing
The first few years that I was writing, I was convinced that if I read novels while actively writing my own, the styles of those already-published novels would somehow leak into my writing, making it unauthentic. I saved reading as a reward for completing drafts and would binge for several weeks, gobbling up the stories I’d …