I finished the first draft of Fracture! I missed my self-imposed deadline by a week, but considering how long it took me to get back in my writing groove, I’m okay with that. The first draft ended up being 8000 words longer than I expected, so there’s the extra week! In all I’m happy with …
Melanie Hooyenga
In the Home Stretch!
As most of you know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and while I’m not competing officially, I’ve quietly sucked the enthusiasm and ambition from my fellow writers to push through to the end of my wip, Fracture. That’s right — I’m THIS CLOSE to finishing the sequel to Flicker! NaNo competitors are supposed …
Walk the Plank, Matey!
I’ve been pirated. On Friday my friend June informed me that Flicker had been illegally posted to mobilism.org, “the single largest user-powered database of apps, games, movies and books for mobile device users of all platforms!” She received a Google alert that several of HER books were on the site, and because she’s so smart …
Giveaway at PeopleReads!
Starting today, you can enter to win one of two signed copies of Flicker, or three ebook versions, at PeopleReads.com! The contest runs through Saturday so if you still haven’t bought a copy, now’s your chance to get it. (I realize ALL of my regular readers have read it —— RIGHT?! —— but you can …
The Great Pumpkin Analogy
This post originally aired in October 2011. I thought it was worth resharing. While perusing the pumpkin “patch” (shelves) at my grocery store last weekend, this one struck me as the roundest, cleanest, most pumpkiny pumpkin of the bunch. In fact, I was so pleased with nature’s work that I considered leaving it alone and …
It’s Not a Toomah
One of the benefits of working for a large-ish company is we have lots of perks that I never had when working at ad agencies. A couple weeks ago the Spectrum Health Betty Ford Breast Cancer Bus paid us a visit so I bit the bullet and scheduled my first mammogram. Wheee! Can you feel …
FLICKER Available at the Dollar Store!
Not really, but while I’m plugging away at the sequel to FLICKER (I’m 1/6th of the way done! Woohoo!) I thought I’d celebrate by offering FLICKER for 99¢! I wanted to do it for free but you have to join Kindle Select, which means I can’t sell it anyplace other than Amazon. I’m all about …
Getting Over the Wall
Getting started is the easy part. You have an idea, you jump in with both feet, and then…. and then… you hit a wall. This is me at our local mud run last weekend. My husband and I ran it last year and I immediately wanted to build an obstacle course in the backyard. We …
Children’s, YA, & MG Blog Hop!
It’s blog hop time! For the uninitiated, a blog hop is when a group of writers (or otherwise connected bloggers) answer the same series of questions then tag both the people who tagged them as well additional people. You know, to keep you hopping from blog to blog. My good friend June “Bug” Kramin asked …
I Am Not Bryan Adams…
…and yet I almost wrote his lyrics in a conversation between my MC and her father. OOPS. I bust my butt to avoid cliches, doing my best to think outside the box and write realistic dialogue, but every now and then a commonly-used phrase slips past my defenses and finds its way into my manuscript. …