Wednesday, March 30, 2011

A Quandary

Once again, I have been remiss in my bloggerly duties. However, since I have been in the midst of writing Book 3 (as yet untitled), I hope you'll forgive me.

And speaking of upcoming books... I have ARCs of A SHOT IN THE DARK! Well...more precisely, I have one that I'm willing to part with.

But how? By what esoteric method can I choose the recipient of this one and only single lonely ARC? And therein lies my quandary.

So let me know, folks! What kind of give-away do you want to see? Just a random commenter chosen? Something you have to work for? Let me know what kind of things you like to see in online contests.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Giving What We Can

Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure everyone is aware of the devastation in Japan over the past week. I know that even with film footage and photographs, it's still hard to wrap my brain around the enormity of what's happened.

At times like this, we often think, "What can I do to help?"

Those of us at the League of Reluctant Adults have put our writerly brains together, and come up with a way to contribute not only to Japan, but to our fellow writers.

Currently on Ebay, there are two auctions up. Members of the League have been divided into two teams (Team Claw and Team Fang) and we are offering to be a crit group for a day to the winning bidders. The winning bidders will get to submit a synopsis and pages up to 6000 words on any fiction project, and we will each give you our personal thoughts on your work. You can find more details on the auctions themselves.

Team Claw consists of Sonya Bateman, Michele Bardsley, Carolyn Crane, Kevin Hearne, Jackie Kessler, Diana Rowland and Jeanne Stein.

Team Fang consists of Mario Acevedo, Dakota Cassidy, Stacia Kane, JF Lewis, Nicole Peeler, Anton Strout, and ME!

Proceeds from the auctions will go to the Red Cross to benefit Japan.

Monday, March 14, 2011

I'm not dead yet!

But man, sometimes I wonder.

Between weather, real life tragedies for people I love dearly, and just flat out feeling like warmed over donkey poo, I haven't been posting like I should.

The line for the flogging forms to the right.

However, my silence hasn't been entirely unproductive! In the interim, I have managed to receive and complete my page proofs for A SHOT IN THE DARK. What that means is, IT'S DONE!! Boo-yah! Hopefully we'll see ARCs soon, and the release date is creeping up faster than you realize.

I am also diligently working on the as-yet-untitled Book 3. I'm about 30K words into it, and less than halfway through my first draft, so I'm hoping this means my final word count will be closer to what it the final polished count needs to be. Every time, my first drafts are cleaner. Maybe that means I'm figuring this writing thing out.

I have a few entries for Kari's Critiques sitting in my email box, waiting for my loving attention, and I'll try to have those up for class on Friday. Things just haven't been working out schedule-wise for my kids/their teacher. Hopefully, stuff will settle down soon.

AND, for anyone who might want me to come babble at THEIR blog (I take off my shoes at the door, and I'm house-trained, I promise), shoot me an email at kari(dot)stewart21(at)gmail(dot)com. I'm trying to get things scheduled ahead of time so I have enough time to write nice, thoughtful posts and/or interviews for anyone who wants them.