Posts Tagged With: books

Editorial comments from Chasing Nonconformity (Part 2)

I am happy to announce that my editor (i.e. my mother) has returned the latest draft of Chasing Nonconformity back to me, full of comments and ready for revisions! Upon going through said comments, I found some of them quite amusing, and thought I might share them with you here today. This is part 2 of the images, so be sure to check out part 1 to see the first half of her excellent and insightful commentary. Also make sure to check out the caption on each photo for context.

Without further ado …

[SPOILER ALERT] The following images contain snippets of text from the Chasing Nonconformity manuscript. Don’t scroll down if you don’t like spoilers!

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Random scribbles at the bottom of the page. No idea what they mean. Very mysterious.

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Mother misinterprets the verb “snap”.

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Mother gets sassy.

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Mother questions my protagonist’s hygiene.

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… I have no idea.

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Mother makes fun of my inability to keep people’s heights consistent.

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More mysterious, scribbled-out numbers.

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Inscription on the last page of the manuscript. Approved!



Categories: My Works, Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Editorial comments from Chasing Nonconformity (Part 1)

I am happy to announce that my editor (i.e. my mother) has returned the latest draft of Chasing Nonconformity back to me, full of comments and ready for revisions! Upon going through said comments, I found some of them quite amusing, and thought I might share them with you here today. This is part 1 of the images — part 2 will be posted tomorrow — so make sure to come back and see the second half of her excellent and insightful commentary. Also make sure to check out the caption on each photo for context.

Without further ado …

[SPOILER ALERT] The following images contain snippets of text from the Chasing Nonconformity manuscript. Don’t scroll down if you don’t like spoilers!

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Mother kindly illustrates a scene for me in order to demonstrate … something.

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Mother gets sassy.

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Mother gives me her life story at the start of chapter 3.

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Mother illustrates her current editing situation.

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Mother gets sassy, and then explains the sudden and alarming switch in pen color.

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Mother gets really excited about a furniture store upon a mention in the text of Swedish meatballs.

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Mother takes issue with my description of a room.

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Mother is alarmed by flying eyebrows.

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Mother illustrates an awkward water situation.

Categories: My Works, Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 30 Comments

Photos from my Book Tent at the Gathering on the Green festival!

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Today I’m pleased to share with you three lovely photos taken by yours truly from my little stint selling books at the Gathering on the Green festival here in sunny London, Ontario. Without further ado …

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My first henna tattoo! Ain’t it sparkly?

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My brother Jesse chilling in our booth.

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A close-up of the table — Imminent Danger overload!

Hopefully that brought you some small measure of entertainment to brighten your day. And if not, here’s an …

Unrelated media of the day:

Categories: Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Book Review: The Seventh Spell (Danielle E. Shipley)

Note: I won this novella as part of a contest on the lovely Danielle E. Shipley’s blog — not only did I get a signed copy of the novella, I also got some truly excellent artwork based on the novella, done by the author herself! Thanks so much, Danielle!!!

The Bookseventh-spell-cover-front

The Seventh Spell (Book 3 of the Wilderhark Tales)

The Genre

Fantasy / Fairy tale Novella

The Author

Danielle E. Shipley

The Plot

A witch’s attempt to cast one spell too many casts everyone touched by her previous spells into chaos. Scattered throughout each other’s pasts, Sula and Edgwyn, Villem and Rosalba, and the rest of the magic’s affected have a single chance to break this last enchant- ment before their “happily-ever-after”-s cease to have ever been.

The Review

I really enjoyed this fairy tale! I’ve read the second book in the Wilderhark Tales series, so it was really fun to see many of the same characters in this story — not to mention some new and intriguing faces! I loved the concept of the seventh spell re-setting all the witch’s prior spells and having all the characters revert to their pre-happily-ever-after states. It was such a fun twist, and something you don’t come across a lot in fantasy series. The writing itself is charming, and there are lots of unexpectedly funny laugh-out-loud lines.

I was also a huge fan of the storyline between the enchanted harp princess and the wandering minstrel — which is great, because I’m pretty sure the next Wilderhark Tale is about them! Speaking of the characters, I’d suggest reading the other Wilderhark Tales before you read this one — having missed the first one myself (soon to be corrected!), I felt I was missing a couple of important story elements, although the author does a great job of filling in the gaps for those of us who may not have had a chance to read all the prior books in the series.

A quick, cute, romantic read — check it out!

The Rating

Five out of five stars

 

Links:

Danielle E. Shipley’s blog

Buy the novella on Amazon

Check out the novella on Goodreads

 

Unrelated media of the day:

I may have shared this already, but it’s tons of fun, so why not give it another shot?

http://en.akinator.com/

It’s “Akinator, the Web Genius”, which is basically a website that plays 20 questions with you to guess which person/character you’re thinking of. I’ve played it a bunch, and it’s fairly alarming how quickly it can guess some extremely esoteric characters.

Categories: Book Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

New Book Marketing Idea — Short Story Booklets!

This Saturday I’ll be at the Gathering on the Green 2014 arts festival with my little tent and table, ready to sell some copies of Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It!

In terms of marketing, my new strategy this year is to give away printed copies of my short story, The Coin Collector. I figure I can give these out to people who express interest in the book but aren’t sure they want to commit to buying, or even as a grand prize to people who spin the golden stars on my Wheel of Imminent Danger. I’ll also ask them to pass the story on to friends or family once they’re finished reading, in the hopes that some of these booklets might end up circling around the city and reaching multiple people. I doubt it will actually happen, but I remain hopeful!

Here are some pictures of the booklets:

Pretty booklets all in a row

Pretty booklets all in a row

Inside!

Inside!

Inscription on the back

Inscription on the back

I’ll let you guys know how this whole booklet thing goes, and if they actually entice anyone to buy the book. If you feel like reading The Coin Collector yourself, just click the cover on the right-hand column of this blog and it’ll take you to Smashwords, where you can download a free copy.

Wish me luck at the festival tomorrow!

 

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Categories: Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 29 Comments

And the winners are …!

Remember that giveaway I started a month ago? Well, it’s finally finished, and it’s time to reveal the winners!

The grand prize winner of a signed copy of Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It (plus related swag) is …

Celeste DeWolfe

Congratulations!!! Send me your address, and I’ll send you your prize!

We also have two runners-up, who can choose their prize from the list below:

  • Imminent Danger fridge magnet + swag
  • Short story (written by me) featuring yourself and an Imminent Danger character of your choice
  • Digital artwork — one scene from the book (your choice) drawn by me (probably in Paint)

And these winners are …

Danielle E. Shipley

Francis Guenette

I’ll be contacting the winners individually, but if you’re a winner and you happen to read this post, feel free to email me at michellishelli@gmail.com with your preferred prize.

Thanks to everyone for participating!!!

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Categories: Blog-related | Tags: , , , , , , | 11 Comments

May 2014 Writing Update + Mega-Giveaway Ends Soon!

Happy Saturday, fellow bloggers!

Just thought I’d do a quick writing update for anyone interested in how my assorted projects are going. In no particular order …

Chasing Nonconformity (sequel to Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It)

The manuscript is currently in the hands of my mother/editor/life coach. She’s reading it through right now, and has promised to return it to me by the end of May. We’re actually meeting up for my friend’s wedding, so I’ve kindly informed my mother that she’s not allowed to attend the wedding unless she brings me the edited manuscript as tribute. Muahahahahaha.

Assuming she doesn’t suggest any crazy, sweeping changes to the story, I’m hoping to have this book out and published by the fall. Fingers crossed!

D.Y.S.C. (working title)

This is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian YA trilogy I’ve been working on for a while now. I actually wrote half a first draft a few years back, scrapped it, re-wrote it, and scrapped it again. Now that the weather’s nice again, I’ve started going on daily walks with my little brother, and we’ve been planning out the full trilogy. We’ve got the first book pretty much planned, the second one’s in fairly good shape, and the third one’s a mess. But we’re making good progress!

In terms of actual plot, the story will follow Victoria, a teenage girl who lives on an asteroid colony out in the belt (the Earth was destroyed about a century earlier, so this is the last outpost of humanity). Crime runs rampant on the asteroid colonies, and she lives in a poor sector, so she joins a street gang. An arms deal goes horribly wrong, and she ends up getting arrested. In this world there are crazy rules for what happens if you’re a criminal, and Victoria ends up being drafted to a DYSC team (DYSC is the sport that everyone follows — it’s sort of like a gladiatorial arena, except with more sport-like elements [scoring systems, teams, branding, sponsors, etc.].) So she joins a team, has to risk her life in the arena, has to deal with her psychopathic teammates (who are also criminals), has to deal with the team owner lusting after her, etc. Fun!

Those are the big two I’m working on right now. I have a couple of other projects off to the side, but they’re sort of on hold while I play around with these two projects.

In Imminent Danger news, I’ll be attending the “Gathering on the Green” festival in London, Ontario next month and selling my book. I’ll have my prize wheel out and ready for kids to spin, I’ll have a bazillion bookmarks and stickers to give away — and, of course, a big box of books to sell. If for whatever reason you happen to be in London, Ontario on June 7, stop by and say hi!

 

Mega Giveaway Ends Soon!

My mega giveaway for Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It ends on Monday! It’s really easy to enter (almost too easy) — just do something (literally anything) to promote my book. Tweet a link to it, Facebook share it, buy it, write a review, write some fanfiction and post it in the comments, draw some fanart … sky’s the limit! And you can enter multiple times — if you want to tweet about my book every day for the next three days, that’s 3 entries! Wow!

Ahem. Check out the original giveaway post for details. Prizes include a signed copy of my book, plus possibly more awesome prizes if I get enough entrants. Now go forth and conquer!

 

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Categories: Blog-related, My Works, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

New Imminent Danger Fanfiction!

As you may or may not know, I’m currently holding a mega giveaway for my novel, Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It. One of the ways you can enter is by writing up a bit of fanfiction for the book. Now, the esteemed Misha Burnett sent me a tiny little fanfiction piece for funsies, but I think it’s awesome and I’m therefore sharing it with you all!

Here it is, in untouched glory (for reference, Grashk is a six-armed lizard man):

Varrin buried his face in Grashk’s scaly chest, breathing in the musky reptilian odor.

“If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right …” the Raskorsian husked.

“What about Eris,” Grashk asked. “Have you told her?”

“Her?” Varrin sniffed. “I am so over the whole human thing. Once you go Ssrisk, you’ll never go back!”

That’s all for today! Have a glorious weekend, and don’t forget to enter the giveaway! Oh, and if you decide to write me some fanfiction, yes, you will 100% be featured on this blog whether you like it or not. Ahahahahahahaha.

 

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Categories: Blog-related, My Works | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

8 Storytelling Wisdoms

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Today, I’d like to share with you some wisdoms about storytelling that I found in an old notebook on my bookshelf. I’m pretty sure I wrote most of them down whilst playing through Kingdom Hearts, although a couple are potentially from elsewhere.

Do with these wisdoms what you will!

 

Storytelling wisdoms found in my old notebook

(possibly inspired by Kingdom Hearts) 

  1. Things with wings that don’t traditionally have wings are awesome!
  2. Insightful, strong, and silent guys are hot.
  3. Permanent reminders of childhood memories and friendships are sweet.
  4. Best friends who turn evil for good reasons are tragically appealing — but only if the hero believes they can be redeemed.
  5. Evil best friends who appear out of nowhere, taunt you, and then disappear, rock.
  6. It’s really annoying when bad guys withhold vital information.
  7. Obscenely over-powered fathers are awesome, especially when protecting their children.
  8. It’s extremely tragic when someone with ultimate power loses their power.
  9. Tanning works better if you aren’t fully dressed.

 

That last one was written in red ink, while the rest were written in blue ink, so I think I might have tacked it on as a more general life wisdom. Anyhoo, hope you enjoyed the wisdoms!

 

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Imminent Danger Giveaway!

Remember, my mega-giveaway for my debut novel, Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It runs until May 26! Entering is really easy — just share the giveaway, or a link to the book, or draw some fan art, or write a short fanfiction piece, or … basically anything you want that even slightly relates to my book in some capacity! The grand prize is a signed hardcover copy of the book, and then there are potentially secondary prizes if enough people enter. Click here to learn more.

Unrelated media of the day:

Kind of a fun little musical compilation. Guy sings Katy Perry’s Dark Horse song in 20 different musical styles.

Categories: My Works, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 30 Comments

Poem + My Editor Hard at Work!

Happy Monday everyone!

First off, I wanted to share this poem with you. The first line resulted from a rather silly conversation I had with my mother, and the rest followed. See if you can guess what the poem’s actually talking about:

I ate its ears in a fit of pique
Broken shards of brown
Cascade down smooth curves
Sprinkled across a carpet of cream

Also, I recently finished the re-write for Chasing Nonconformity, and I gave it to my mother to read when she went to Cuba for vacation last week. She just sent me some photos of her hard at work at the beach, editing my book, so I thought I’d share!

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Doesn’t she look tranquil? She’s about halfway through the book, and has tentatively agreed to have the full edit done by the end of May. So, fingers crossed, I might actually be able to release this book this fall!

In other news … don’t forget to enter my giveaway! 

It runs until May 26 — click here for details!

Unrelated media of the day:

I may have shared this before, but I just came across it again and I love it, so here it is!

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

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