Are U READY FOR THE NEXT ADVENTURE

When you finish the first draft of that exciting, titillating, suspenseful journey of finishing that baby of a manuscript you create as a writer or you feel a sense of loss. Why? Well the mystery is solved, the villain is vanquished and all is … over. I actually slow the process when I’m nearing finishing, because I truly believe it’s my way of keeping my characters with me. Do other writers feel the same? Absolutely!

PUT THAT OLDEST BOOK BABY AWAY TO GET SEASONED
After I finish a first draft, I put it away for a month. What do I do during that time? Well, I start something new. I create a new adventure to live out within my head and put on paper for my wonderful readers to enjoy.

This gives me time to focus on something else while my former work is aging and I can look at it with a fresh and renewed eye. Most of all, I can read it again to see if I still like the concept enough to rework it into the butterfly it will become.

THE NEW ADVENTURE
This year NANOWRIMO is the perfect tool for me to use to get back on schedule with writing the sequel to THE PACK (read more about that book by clicking here).

Every time I start on a new idea I get giddy and trust me, I have about 15 of them tucked away in a little folder on my desktop. It’s like packing my stuff and going on a new trip where I’m about to hobnob with exciting people – or even BECOME an exciting person :-D

JUGGLING MORE THAN ONE PROJECT
Well doing this aging thing and starting a new project thing means that at some point, I’m juggling two writing projects at the same time. How do I do this – uh, it’s definitely chaotic, but keeps a fresh prospective on my work.

I stick to a writing schedule of writing for 2 hours a day. One hour in the morning and one at night strictly for the new work in progress.

I print out chapters of my previous work that has to be edited and rip into it while I am on my lunch break at my day job (you know the one where my secret identity as a writer is still unrevealed), at the kids games, riding in the car or going to the doctors office. Once a week, usually Saturday mornings before the young people in my home awaken, I make corrections to the previous work that has to get edited. I do this four times before I send it out to the first set of beta readers (test readers) where it usually takes me 1-2 months to get back feedback.

ALWAYS START A NEW ADVENTURE
As a writer, always continue to write. It’s one of the best ways to get published and market your backlist of novels, short stories or any other written work you’ve created. And if you have trouble getting motivated – hop in on Nanowrimo and add me as a write buddy (lmpreston).

MOVIES TO GET YOUR SCARE ON WITH

I spent my pre-halloween getting my scare on with some scary flicks! Nothing else gives that quick adrenaline kick like a good scare. So here are some to watch these to get a real scare kick this weekend.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
This is the foriegn, orginal version of LET ME IN that comes out in US theatres soon. Let me tell you, foriegn films don't hold back on seducing you into a sick, sadistically alluring relationship between a 12yr old boy who's bullied and seeking a friend...but befriends a deadly, yet loveable vampire. And they pull it off without gore, but with a wickedness that US movies just don't seem to have. This is one of my favorite Vamp tales, even though I had to read subtitles.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
Spooky noises, anticipated horror, suspense that drives your heart to race until you figure out when it will all end? That's this heart racing movie. Check it out if you dare to be scared by a spirit that likes to torment the poor peeps in the house.

DAWN OF THE DEAD

Let me tell you my deep dark secret...I HATE ZOMBIES...they scare the crap out of me. Every since the first time I snuck into the living room and watch NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with my mother at just 10yrs old (unbeknowest to her) I was scared to death and had tons of nightmares. But...but...couldn't stop myself from seeing the orignal DAWN OF THE DEAD and loving the scare I got from zombies munching on living people. This remade version is even better than the first. This will definately be a fun horrified ride.

The AMITYVILLE HORROR


This one still scares the heck out of me. A house that's...that's haunted and starts to tear your family apart til everyone thinks you are crazy. This movie also has a ton of suspense. It's the grand-daddy of haunted house movies. A great scary blast from the past.

Myself and I by Earl Sewell

Hello all! Please welcome teen guest reviewer Nyia! See what she has to say about MYSELF and I by EARL SEWELL.

SYNOPSIS:

Lately, Keysha feels like a magnet for trouble—especially boy trouble. Her last love interest turned out to be a major fraud, and her ex, Wesley, refuses to accept that they're finished. Swearing off relationships and concentrating on herself seems like her smartest move.

Then Keysha meets her new neighbor Jerry, who has every girl in town vying for a summer fling. Working as lifeguards together, Keysha realizes that Jerry has more to offer than a great car and a sexy smile, and the harder she tries to ignore him, the more interested he becomes. But is it Keysha that attracts him or the chase itself? And when the biggest party of the year gets dangerously out of line, and Wesley's jealous new girl pins the blame on Keysha, she'll learn exactly who she can trust. Only problem is, it might be too late to save herself….

TEEN BOOK REVIEW by Nyia.

I enjoyed this book and can sum it up to drama, drama, drama. Every girl I know have a crush on some guy that they can't have and Keysha feels the same way. I didn't read the other books yet, but this one made me want to check them out. The guy she likes seems a bit, I don't know, unrealistic because I don't know many teenage boys with all that stuff. But for the story sake, I liked the way he seemed better than the other choices of boys around. It also bothered me that a book with an African American girl has her getting in trouble with the law, I got mad with that one, but liked the character so much I read on. I give the book a 3 out of 5. I wasn't bored and liked the character and the message the author put in the story for young girls.

Get Ready for NANOWRIMO

Nano (National Novel Writing Month) from November 1st-30th. It’s the writing frenzy where you kick out a large number of words to hopefully finish a novel in record time. Many people start the challenge and end up with a sizeable number of pages by the end. Some are inspired to start writing for the first time. Others are inspired to finish something for the first time. Some, like me, find that writing at breakneck speed produces a lower quality of work that doesn’t reflect what is normally produced when writing within your own timing. Truth is, my natural timing is four months from start to finish. I tried to increase my speed and did it without much trouble. It increased by 3 weeks, and for me, that cooking time for a novel fits just right.

Here is a quick list of what to do to be successful in Nanowrimo:
-Prepare!
-Outline
-Write a character bio
-Allow yourself to write through the rough spots - and edit later
-Schedule your write time (even if you have to wake up an hour early to do it)
-Get a write buddy - someone to just talk you through it
-Get Ready, Set, Go

HOW TO WRITE FAST DURING NANO

There are ways to make speed writing more effective. The overall goal, is to produce more in a shorter period of time. If you keep this up, who knows, speed writing may become a habit.

Prepare for it
When you set out to write a novel in a short period of time, outlining is your friend. Take a week to write a detailed outline of the story. It will help to work out most of the kinks before you even sit down to write. Create character profiles of the main characters and review outline before the start of your writing marathon.

Plan it
If you are going to focus on spitting out as many words as possible a day, then plan it. Block out your writing time for the month. Figure out when you are most productive. Is it in the morning, at night or midday? Make a rule – no sleep unless you have kicked out a minimum of a certain amount of words. Make sure you schedule extra time for working out of corners or temporary writer’s blocks. Make your schedule somewhat flexible so that you don’t get burned out and give up.

Write it
With a printout of your outline next to you and a bullet list of your character profile – start the race. Follow your outline. If you want to go rogue, go ahead, write until the roadblock. If you reach a road block – write anything, take some time off to think on it, then re-work your outline and get back to it. Also, if you took out writing time to think, add more blocks of writing time to make up your word count later. Whatever you do – don’t stop writing. Remember, you will always have to edit it.

Don’t look back
Whatever you do, don’t read over what you’ve written until you are finished. That is an easy way to get distracted. Remember, you’ll have to edit the thing many times before your piece of art is perfected. Just write forward, don’t make corrections, don’t read over it, just push forward and write.

FOR NANOWRIMO THIS YEAR ... I'm finishing up my sequel to THE PACK-RETRIBUTION, join me and look for my username lmpreston and be my write buddy. Here's the Nanowrimo website: http://www.nanowrimo.org

SECRETS & KISSES by CELISE DOWNS

Back by popular demand, NYIA, our teen book reviewer is visiting to give her awesome review on SECRETS and KISSES by CELISE DOWNS

THE SYNOPSIS:
SCANDAL ROCKS LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL!

Skylar Knight is making her way through the final week of school. The subject on everyone’s minds is Blair Neuman’s Junior’s Only End of the Year Bash–and The Kissing Game. Skylar knows that her crush, Kedren Price, will be there but she has one little problem: nonexistent pucker power.

In between studying for finals, and getting some much needed tips on kissing, Skylar starts overhearing mysterious conversations about Blair and Kedren. And she begins to wonder if her classmates are friends…or foes.

THE REVIEW by teen book reviewer NYIA:

I usually don't read mysteries, but honestly I didn't know that this book was a mystery until the halfway mark. I really liked that it was more for people who didn't like mysteries, but the fun girly type of book. I loved how the main character didn't know how to kiss and that kinda helped introduce the mystery. Her crush also sounded really cute. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that you could tell that all the clothing and styles were a little out of style by the way the author described it, but besides that the story was just fine. I read it in a few hours just because I liked the main character so much. If I was to rate this story I would give it a 4 out of 5 for the whole style thing.

Check out more of author Celise Downs books @ http://celisedowns.com

Those Villains You Love to Hate

Oh, yeah, I have love to hate many of villains. As a writer though, it’s real hard to stick around in their evil and mangled heads long enough to write them, but when I do… I expose a part of my imagination that sometimes even scares me. Makes me wonder how some of the great authors of horror and the most evilest villains sleep at night.

PICK YOUR TYPE

Evil to the core and on the edge of madness
These villains create reasoning within their mind for their evil deeds. You don’t like these guys because you know they are evil, and when you conjure them up – they ain’t pretty, not one single little bit.

Justifiably Evil Villain
Oh, these villains were victims themselves, but now they are hunters, killers, and sadistically flawed because of their past.

Seductively Evil Villain
I and many women love these. You know, the vampires, the gorgeous guy that oh, just happens to get a sick pleasure out of killing people. The charming, seductive, alluring, charismatic villain that makes you want to love him, but you know its just sooo sooo wrong. Why? Because he or she wants to … kill with know apparent reason. And they use all of that charm, things that we equate to good to do it.

MY FAV VILLIANS
The Vampire Lestat (or any handsome sexy Vamp), Eric in True Blood, Freddie Kruger, Hannibal Lector, Mr. Sinister, Bullseye, and The Joker…come on, share yours. It’s the season for villains.

SO HERE's A BOOK, a blast from my reading past, WITH A VILLIAN YOU'LL LOVE as much as hate



Believe it or not, I read this when I was 15yrs old :-D

Austin Camacho, A Mystery Writer, Speaker Tells It All

Please welcome Austin Camacho! I've been stalking him ever since he spoke at the MWA Writer's Conference this April and chewed on some of his books while I was at it. He's written tons of Mystery, Action series and a book on Author Marketing. Check him out and please comment and say hello!

He's done it all, self-published and is now traditionally published. As well as sold over 1000 copies of his books all on his own. Talk about getting your hustle on. Please take this opportunity to learn from one of the most helpful and encouraging author's I've met.





Can you tell us about yourself? Some fun facts?

Fun facts? Well, in my Clark Kent job I handle media relations for the Defense Department, but inside I’m a philosopher and a teller of morality tales thinly disguised as mysteries or adventure stories. I’m also a husband and father, a flirt and a loudmouth, with a big heart and an even bigger ego. And I’m a hard-working marketing fool who wants every adult alive to read his novels.

Tell us about your books? My favorite The Troubleshooter and your character Hannibal Jones?

I write a detective series about a Washington DC-based, African American private eye named Hannibal Jones. Hannibal is a tough, honorable, determined man who fancies himself a problem solver to the world and who gets thru mysteries as much by stubbornness as inspired detective work. He’s also rather conservative and a bit chauvinistic, although his girl friend is working on that.

The Troubleshooter, the first Hannibal Jones story I wrote, isn’t really a mystery – more urban thriller - but it was my way of figuring out who this guy is. In it Hannibal is hired to free a crack house from the drug addicts and winos that hold it. A powerful drug lord nearly drives him off, until he realizes that his success or failure will determine the fate of a neighborhood, and the future of one small boy.

What inspired you to write mysteries?

I’m a lifelong mystery fan but when I started to try to write it was action-adventure stuff. Then one day I was reading a mystery and realized about a third of the way through it that I knew everything that was going to happen after that. I thought, “Heck, I can do better than this.” At that time I was working on a TV news story about the local bone marrow donation program. I thought, “Finding the match to get a donor – that’s a REAL mystery.” That idea grew into Blood and Bone, the second Hannibal Jones novel I wrote but the first in print.

Your books have a great mix of action and mystery, how do you come up with your ideas? What inspired you to write an action packed mystery instead of the more subtle suspenseful kinds?

I didn’t want to write about someone who was just a detective. I wanted to write about a hero, and Hannibal Jones is that. Plus, I have a real affection for the old school private eye stories. I see the stories in my mind like movies, so there has to be action. Plot ideas are everywhere. Every time I turn on the news or pick up a paper I play “what if” with the stories I see and evolve a whole different explanation for the facts presented.

What is one of the most difficult parts of writing for you?

I don’t know if there is a most difficult part of the creative process. But I suspect a lot of writers are like me in that the hardest part is the physical part, the “Butt in the chair” part. Life offers so many good excuses to be something else. But when I get into a story, and get into the zone, I find myself asking “why did I put this off? This is where I belong.”

What made you decide to write your book for writers? Successfully Marketing your novel in the 21st century.
When I was first published I read a number of excellent volumes on how to market self-published books, but none of them did a good job of addressing my specific needs. The most successful self-published books are nonfiction, but the best advice on marketing nonfiction books won’t help you sell your novel. So I set about culling out what was most useful to me. A lot of trial and error was involved, and more than a few disappointments. This book is the result of the synthesis of knowledge found in those books, my public affairs training, and my ten plus years of hard won personal experience.

What have you learned most from your journey as an Author?
I’ve learned that if you’re doing it right, creating fiction forces you to look at the parts of yourself you’d rather leave hidden. Then it makes you reveal those parts to everyone else.

I’ve learned that if you have something to say you can do it better with fiction than nonfiction. And that when you start making up a story you find out – often to your surprise – that you DO have something to say.

I’ve learned that no one will read your book until, one way or another, you tell them they want to read your book.

When you first sat down to write your very first mystery, how did you plan it out? Was it published?

When I sat down to write I knew how the story started, and I knew how it had to end. So I wrote an outline that described all the action that takes place in between. Then I thought about what else my characters would be dealing with at the same time and I wrote that into the outline. I outlined the story as a series of scenes, just like a movie. Then I wrote the scenes, in order, from beginning to end. That process hasn’t changed a bit.

After an exhaustive series of submissions to publishers and agents (I’ve had 3 of those) I decided to publish myself through a Print On Demand company. I learned more about the business and self published. I sold enough books that a small press (Echelon) asked for the right to my flagship novel, Blood and Bone. The rest, as they say, is history.

How did you go from a self-published author to a selling your works to a publisher who supports your work?

I sold a few thousand novels at street festivals and writers conferences and kept writing more stuff. At Book Expo America I met a publisher who recognized my book cover and asked me how I had gotten so far as a self-published fiction author. After a lot of conversation about what we could offer one another, I decided to sign with Echelon to increase my distribution. That got me into Borders and Barnes & Noble, where most of my sales are today.

What’s your creative process?

I outline in great detail, and my outlines have evolved into a form that imitates film scripts. There has to be a strong hook – I like to start with action to pull the reader in. Because I work with series characters I always consider what needs to happen in their lives and weave that into the plot. I write from scene to scene, often moving the chapter starts for pacing purposes. Every chapter should end with a cliff hanger. I often writer for a couple hours at a time, but can sit down and lay down a stack of words in 30 minutes if that’s what I’ve got. And the characters often push the plot line around as I write, so the outline isn’t carved in stone, it’s flexible as I get into the book.

Do you work with a critique group? Beta readers?

I stopped working with critique groups because I always seemed to be giving more than I was getting, and the time I spent critiquing other people’s work I could spend improving my own. These days I often get paid to critique manuscripts.

Beta readers are very valuable if you ask them the right questions. Whether or not they like what they read doesn’t help me. I need to know: at what point did you put it down? (checking pace) Which characters do you want to get to know better? (make the others more intriguing) what did you think were the important plot points? (if they can’t tell me what happened I need to make it clearer) and for a mystery, did you guess the ending (need to know if the clues are hidden well enough, and if they felt I played fair with them.)

You’ve impressed me with the marketing of all of your books. Can you share with us the most effective ways you’ve marketed yourself as an author?

For me, personal appearances have been most effective. Book signings in book stores, presentations and panels at book conferences keep my name in front of the public and move books off store shelves. I have recently learned that commenting on Yahoo Groups like Kindle Korner is effective in moving ebooks. A strong presence on social media sites seems to have helped a lot too, but it’s harder to trace results back to them

You do a lot of speaking engagements, mystery related writer’s conferences did you go to them when you were an aspiring published author?

I never even knew about all these mystery conferences and conventions until I was published. I often wish I had had the chance to attend Bouchercon or Left Coast Crime or Love is Murder or Malice Domestic as a fan.

Do you have any new books in the works? Mysteries? other genres?

There is ALWAYS a book in the works. I’m about a third of the way thru the next Hannibal Jones mystery and a new Stark & O’Brien adventure will hit shelves in the fall of 2011. I want to spend some time pumping up my thriller series to see if it can be as strong as the mysteries.

Where can we find you this month?

Well, THIS month is half over but you can meet me Saturday, Oct 16 at Borders, 2904 Prince William County Parkway, Woodbridge VA - 2pm - 6pm;

Saturday Oct 30 at Borders in Baltimore Washington International Airport – 9am to noon, and that evening speaking and book signing at Wine About Books at Linganore Winery, 13601 Glissans Mill Road, Mt. Airy MD - 6pm - 10pm

In November you can meet me Sunday, Nov 7 at Borders Express - Columbia Mall, 10300 Little Patuxent Pkwy Columbia, MD 2 - 1pm to 5pm.

November 14–21 I will be presenting at Mystery on the High Seas; A Cruise to Die For, onboard the Carnival Splendour to the Mexican Riviera - http://2010mysterycruise.blogspot.com .

After that you can meet me Saturday, Nov 27 at Borders, 11270 Bulloch Dr , Manassas , VA Manassas - 12pm to 4pm and Sunday Nov 28 at Borders at Baltimore Washington International Airport – 9am to noon.

How can we learn more about your books?

The easiest way is to check my web site – www.hanibaljonesmysteries.com or www.ascamacho.com but there are lots of other ways – Facebook, Gather, Crimespace, Myspace… my best answer is: Google me. J

Have More Than a MOVIE NIGHT

We love movie night at our house. The two times a month we do it is a major affair. We turn it into an all night movie marathon and snack fest.

THEME IT

We create a movie night theme. With 4 kids we have a major voting event of putting ideas in a hat and picking the one THEME for the night.

CREATE A BIG EVENT OF IT

If the theme is ADVENTURE NIGHT, we create intermission games to play between switching out the movie. Our last adventure night featured PETER PAN, PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN and TRANSFORMERS. To prepare we made cup-cakes with theme inspired designs. We made popcorn with chocolate and caramel and we created swords for sword play during intermission.

INTERMISSION – PLAY TIME

Between each movie, we play a game of HIDE AND SEEK, STORM THE GATES and ACTING OUT. Hide and Seek is the most favored part, because the winner gets the small bag of goodies up for grabs. Storm the gates, we separate into teams and create forts in which we tickle and wrestle our way in to capture the treasure of the opposing team. Acting out consists of teams acting out a meaningful scene from one of the movies viewed and they win the ultimate prize of the night, usually a craft kit that we get from the $1 store.

FUN FOR ANY OCCASION OR AGE

Movie night can be a great sleep over party event when you add spice to it by creating fun, interactive activities. It’s also a breeding ground for great fun and imagination.

SPOOKY BOOKS from THE PAST

In the spirit of Halloween and Fall, I'm taking you down my memory lane of scary books.

I’m a lover of spooky character’s and scary stories. Truth is, I’m too much of a scaredy cat to write them though. As a writer, that story stays in your head for quite sometime, pushing you further and further into the minds of your characters. And let’s face it – I don’t want something spooky hanging around in my head that long –I’d be so jumpy.

These are some of the scariest books I’ve read. Definitely not for kids – but I read some of them when I was in my teens (sorry, I don’t remember there being a YA section of the library when I was a kid.)

HERE ARE THE SPOOKIEST BOOKS OF PAST






Read them if you dare to be scared. Truth is, I don't think I could read them again. I'd be far to scared now :-D

How My Trip to Newport, RI Inspired my writing

Believe it or not, this trip played a major part in my world building for BANDITS.

I love to travel!!! It gives me so many great resources for my active imagination. Lots of times when we travel we do rode trips. Why? Because having four kids means living on somewhat of a budget. Let's face it, if I am going to bust my butt working a full-time job and teaching on the side, I am going to enjoy my life and eek out time to step away from it all. Now, I must admit, I am a little obsessive about traveling, and I try to go somewhere every month even if its just up the road. I've always had this obsession, but never really traveled until about seven years ago when my husband and I lost to cancer four close family members consecutively. My husband's cousin (upon realization of his impending deterioration of health) told us that if he had his life to do over again, he would have gone more places with his kids. He would have adventured places that he had never gone to before, and he would have made the time, taken the money to treat himself and his family first. Well after that talk with him, we decided we needed to re-focus our lives. Sure we both loved working hard, but now, we would make sure we played hard also.

Anyways, on my trip to Newport we stopped in New Jersey to Six Flags. It was packed and hot, but we are thrill seekers and sought out the coasters first hand, and waited no less than 45 minutes for each ride.

While my dear husband drives (because he doesn't trust my driving) I hook up my computer and write. I also read to them (hey a writer's dream is a captive audience) while we ride. My family is my first critique group and trust me, they don't hold back. There has been many of family arguments about the turn of events in my writing.

Newport for me was awesome. We arrived on a sunny day to look out of our room to a sea of boats. All kinds, big and small. I was awestruck, because I had never seen that many boats before. My kids, loved it, and we would sit out and eat while watching the boats.

The best, best, best and most interesting part of our trip was when we went to Brenton Point State Park, by way of ocean blvd. We went up on a bright sunny day, and viewed gorgeous historical mansions that we fantasized about living in. We made up stories of being royalty and waking up to see mermaids in the sea. WELL, let me tell you that all changed later...

We got to Brenton Point and the sky was filled with kytes -- ok let me take this moment to tell you that my dear husband is a big kid whose secret obsession is kyte flying -- we were in awe. So beautiful. We purchased a kyte while there, and launched it easily into the air. The breeze their was wonderful and before we knew we had been flying the kyte for hours.

Then it happened - THE FOG - ok, I have to admit, I didn't do as much research on this trip as I have done on many others. I was TOTALLY surprised at how quickly the fog came in, and how thick it was. Well we looked around and saw the vendors calmly pack up, as if to say, "The fog is not going anywhere, time to go". Well we were slow to get the message and we had lost our kite in the thick fog.

My dear son takes that opportunity to remind me that the fog is like in the movie, THE FOG. I am starting to get tingles from having a small freak out scared cat session, because I looked up and EVERYONE else that was at the park had left. Ugh....

Anyways, we packed up and left -- but was hooked, and made it a point to come back.

Remember, I mentioned that we wished we lived in the mansions that we passed on our way up to the park -- Well, those mansions turned REALLY spooky looking on the way back, and needless to say, we all said that we would never want to live in one of those mansions after the FOG sets in. Although, it was hauntingly beautiful, my imagination would get the best of me every single time the FOG rolled in.

This trip inspired the new world that I am building in EXPLORER X - Book 2 as well as aspects of BANDITS, because it was so beautiful, yet frightening for this new explorer.

Our Trip Report, just in case you would like to explore this wonderful place, and write your own story about your adventure.

Sat – Easton's Beach. The playground, carousel and snack bar were all a hit. There is also an aquarium. The beach is well-maintained but you may experience a little algae. Gooseberry Beach is more ($20 a car vs. $10) but is also a good option for smaller bathers. Overall, the beach was definitely a disappointment to us spoiled beach goers. So we played in the sand instead and made it a great time.

- Scenic Drive on Ocean Drive to view the Mansions - I really enjoyed this. Lucky for us we went on a sunny day, because the next day we went the mansions were draped in fog. Very eerie and spooky looking, which was great to see also. The mansions were all very different and impressive, definitely worth the ride.

- Brenton Point State Park

- This was the best part of our trip. This place is gorgeous. We were able to fly kytes for hours here, while looking over at the water crashing against the rocks. Bring a picnic lunch and hang out here, walk on the rocks and take pictures. Most of all, bring a kite. If you do not there is a guy that sales them. The sky was filled with them the first day we went. We loved it so much we went to Walmart and got everyone kites. However we did buy a nice cloth kite from the guy for $30 and it was worth it. We were able to fly kites and enjoy the day until about 6pm when the fog rolled in and took over. You could barely see in front of you. It was a great experience for the kids because they had never seen any thing like this before and neither had we.

Sun – The Cliff Walk is a public access road running three and a half miles along the shore of Newport, and offers a breathtaking view of the mansions and the Atlantic Ocean, sometimes aspiring to heights as high as seventy feet! This was nice. Definitely a must do, although we did not do the whole 3 miles.

BANDITS UPDATES - New Month New set of PRiZes

Yippee! A new set of prizes are kicking off this month. Since October is Halloween month the publisher has given me some cool T-shirts to give out. I have 2 shirts up for grabs this month.

Just email the publisher your info, and the link to this blog with T-SHIRT - October prize in the subject. First 2 peeps to respond get the goods. Just click the EMAIL button on the pub website. www.phenomenalonepress.com

BANDITS UPDATE!!!!! Whoooooooot!
This is the pre-pub cover.




We are working on the BOOK TRAILER for Bandits and I'm so excited!!!

Our artist for THE PACK, Shoshana Epsilon has also agreed to find time to do the book trailer for BANDITS! wooooot!

Here's a snippet about Shoshana,

I am heavily involved in Second Life. If you haven't been there, you should check it out: This is NOT a game. If you want to "win" something, you will be sadly disappointed. (Games *do* exist there, but the world itself if not a game.) Second Life is an awesome world where you can be creative and see things you never could have seen in Real Life (abbreviated RL by afficiandos).

In Second Life (SL), I have many activities. Primarily, I am a Mentor, a photographer, and a curator. As time goes on, I'll discuss these activities in more detail. Suffice it to say that I am happily occupied all the time there.

TEEN SECOND LIFE, check it out: http://teen.secondlife.com/footer/cs

That's all I'll write for now. Thank you!

-- Shoshana

Her stuff can be found here:

Her Flickr pages: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoshanaepsilon/

Her Red Bubble Page: http://www2.redbubble.com/people/shoshanaepsilon

CAPITAL BOOKFEST A FUN SURPRISE

Well here it is a year since my journey to get my first book published started. I found myself signing books at the Capital Bookfest (http://capita2.bizland.com/) this weekend. It was sponsored in conjunction with Borders and I must say, I was skeptical when I signed up. You see I’ve been touring now for about four months and I’ve done it all. This event though, was one of the most fun events I’ve done in a long time.

DO YOU REALLY SELL BOOKS AT BOOKFEST

Truth is, most times authors don’t sell a lot of books at these events. I left with selling 13 books in 4 hours which about paid for the investment in getting a table. This year my publisher wanted me to tour different kinds of venues for signing to see which ones were more profitable. We find that authors rarely sell hundreds of books at these types of events. Now these events require payment for a table (or spot) for the author. The author should come prepared with tablecloth and promotional materials as well as some books. However, with this particular bookfest the Borders bookstore carried some of our books. My publisher called in advance and requested that they purchase some since I was in attendance and we were in the Borders book ordering system.

SO WHY DO BOOKFEST?

We are keeping select bookfest on our list, and the Capital Bookfest is one of them. I’ve done a few others and I just enjoyed the networking with other authors so much that I really like going to them also. However, our marketing budget will decide. There were various types of authors at the bookfest. Some had a publisher and others were self-published. I must say I visited everyone’s table, and there were some good quality self-published as well as traditionally published books out there. And you know what? People were purchasing them. Not only that, but each author had an opportunity to get up and speak about their book on stage as well as give a reading. I personally sold 6 books after the reading. It also helped that I was the only YA-Scifi author in attendance. Also, for my time spent I was able to network two additional speaking opportunities at local schools in which fellow authors were teachers! Wow!

HOW TO JUDGE A SUCCESSFUL EVENT

I truly enjoyed all the kids who purchased my books. I got a few hugs, ‘Wow – you are a writer of scifi?”, an opportunity to read The Pack, and some great advice as well as additional event opportunities from other writers that have pursued their careers in varied fashions.

It was definitely a successful event.