Category: Books (Page 57 of 81)

Book Signing at Bank Square Books Wrap Up

April 8, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

So as I’m sure you all know, I had my first book signing event at Bank Square Books in Mystic, CT last Saturday. Mystic is a fantastic town and I was thrilled my first signing was there and at a great indie store as well.

Admittedly, this photo is from last September when I was in Mystic on vacation, but it gives a good sense of what the town is like.

Admittedly, this photo is from last September when I was in Mystic on vacation, but I didn’t take nearly as many pictures on Saturday as I should have and this gives a good sense of what the town is like.

I brought along my trusty entourage of my brother (the muscle to carry all my materials) and my mom (moral support extraordinaire). I talked to lots of people (including catching up with my 2nd cousin once removed who lives in Mystic), gave out a bunch of bookmarks, and sold some books (some even to complete strangers!). All in all, I’d call it a successful event.

My display of books and bookmarks…lovely bookmark fan the creative work of my brother (now he can’t say I never give him credit for anything!).

A new reader and the baby bump making an appearance as well!

We even made it home in time to watch the UConn men’s basketball team win their Final Four game! I know it was a little far for my some of local friends to make it, and I’m hoping to book a signing a little closer to home, but baby time is fast approaching so we’ll have to see about that. And I’ve got to admit it kind of exhausted me a bit…took a nice long nap Sunday afternoon.

How was your weekend?

Erin Albert Author of The Prophecy on the Editorial Process

April 4, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

One note before we get to the guest post: Just wanted to remind you all I’ll be signing Elixir Bound at Bank Square Books in Mystic, CT tomorrow from 2-4 p.m.! And now back to the show…

Returning guest Erin Albert and I both have a lot in common. Aside from being short and writing YA fantasy, we also both have experience working with books as an author and an editor, which I think gives us an insightful look at the book editing process. Let’s give Erin a big welcome as she shares what it was like editing her YA fantasy The Prophecy.

When I first got my contract on The Prophecy, I thought I had submitted a pretty tight manuscript. I am, after all, a grammar freak. Given that, I honestly had no idea what to expect from my editors. My publisher, MuseItUp Publishing, assigned Katie Carroll and Susan Davis to be my content and line editors, respectively.

I received an email from Katie about a month or so after returning my contract. That day, I happened to be at a carnival and couldn’t see her changes from my phone. I spent the rest of the afternoon distracted. Upon arriving home, I raced to the computer to see what comments she may have made. Imagine my surprise when I noted she made nearly 100 comments on the first chapter alone. Talk about a reality check!

I poured through her notes. In the process, I learned a great deal about the publishing process. I discovered adverbs—my near and dear friends—receive no love in the writing world. When I studied as an English major, my professors encouraged the use of adverbs. But Katie told me to take out as many as I possibly could. Oh, my heart ached as I chopped adverb after adverb. Next, she mentioned my point of view shifts—those subtle moments when I’m in one character’s head but show a brief thought from another character’s. I learned to recognize the times I made those slips and correct them.

Katie and I went back and forth on edits for several months, and each time, I watched my story transform, getting better and better. When Susan took over, I again had no idea what to expect. The work Katie and I had done appeared complete, yet the line edits came back with even more corrections. Susan showed me I overuse certain wording like “she knew” and “she saw.” I watched in wonderment as the story improved yet again.

Thanks to Katie and Susan, I learned a great deal about myself as a writer and about the writing world in general. I’ve taken those lessons and combined them with my own grammar freakishness to become a line editor myself. And my personal writing has made leaps and bounds. I am about to enter my second editing cycle with Katie and Susan for The Outlanders, sequel to The Prophecy. I hope I’ve addressed the problems they discovered the first time, but I’m sure a host of new changes will present themselves this second time around. I will continue to grow, hopefully improving with each round. And that’s really the biggest lesson I learned from my editors—never stop honing your craft. Never hang up your hat and say, “It’s the best it will be, and I have nothing left to learn.” You always have something left to learn. Your work can always be better. So, don’t shy away from the assistance of others. Instead, embrace it and watch your mind expand.

The Prophecy blurb:

Growing up on a small farm in the kingdom of Vanguard, seventeen-year-old Layla Givens lives a deceptively tranquil existence. But her carefully constructed life quickly falls apart when she’s abducted by a religious zealot who proclaims her The Fulfillment of an ancient peace prophecy and whisks her away to marry her greatest enemy.

Wilhelm, Prince of the Ethereals, is reluctant to meet his new bride. He’s grown up believing Vanguards are evil, an enemy to fight and fear…not love. Can he set aside his prejudices and work alongside Layla to bring lasting peace after centuries of war?

Nash, a loner who has never fit in, carries a huge secret, one big enough to destroy both kingdoms. When he accidently meets Layla, he’s no longer content to live in the shadows, but he must resist his growing attraction—for her safety and for the longevity of the two kingdoms.

When Nash’s secret is revealed, a firestorm sweeps through both realms, with Layla at the center. Now she must choose between duty and desire while the fate of two nations hangs in the balance.

Purchase The Prophecy at the MuseItUp website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other ebook retailers.

About the Author:

Erin Albert is an author and fitness trainer. Since she picked up Morris the Moose Goes to School at age four, she has been infatuated with the written word. She went on to work as a grammar and writing tutor in college and is still teased by her family and friends for being a member of the “Grammar Police.” In her free time, Erin enjoys acting, running, kickboxing, and, of course, reading and writing.

Find Erin online on Twitter (@ErinAlbertBooks), on Facebook, at her website, or on Goodreads.

The Liebster Award Take Two

April 1, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

When I saw that my writing buddy Meradeth Houston had nominated me for the Liebster Award, I had a rush of deja vu. Sure enough I went back in my archives and saw that I had been given this award before…by none other than Meradeth! (She must really like my blog. 🙂 ) But that was like a year and a half ago and the questions were different, so I’ll take another crack at it (although, I’ll admit I stole some of 11 facts from last time). And I have been retroactively nominated by Mary Waibel and J.Q. Rose, so make sure to check out Mary’s blog and J.Q.’s blog.

Here’s how the award works. The Liebster Blog Award translates to “the beloved” or “the dearest.” The award is given as a way to celebrate smaller blogs. (Only blogs with under 200 followers can be awarded.) Before you accept the award, there are a certain set of tasks you must complete. The first is to reveal 11 facts about you, answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you, and then create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer.

So my 11 facts are:

My favorite Harry Potter book is Goblet of Fire.
I used to be a puzzle magazine editor and now edit books.
When I was three years old, I told everyone I was a boy because I wanted to play baseball for the New York Yankees.
My elbows are double-jointed.
I once pierced my own belly button.
The last book I read is Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The Shadow Throne.
I have really weird dreams all the time, some of them lucid.
My favorite artist is Vincent Van Gogh.
I could eat pizza every day.
I totally have a crush on Hook from Once Upon a Time.
Many of the characters in Elixir Bound were based on real people (including myself!).

And here are the questions Meradeth asked me to answer:

1. What do you like best about your personality?

My stubbornness is both a blessing and a curse (it’s probably the main reason why I haven’t quit writing), but I have learned “not to cut off my nose to spite my face” (as my mother used to say I always did).

2. What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?

Dare to get excited, even when you might get let down. We could all get hit by a marshmallow truck tomorrow. ~Laurie Halse Anderson

3. What does it take for a book to stay with you long after reading it?

A book that manages to surprise me in some way.

4. If you could tell an author that you admire one thing, what would it be?

“I wish I had written that.”

5. Who is one person who always makes you happy?

The Boy…even when he makes me angry, sad, or so frustrated I want to punch something (not him!), he brings so much joy to my life it makes me happy.

6. What was the best birthday you ever had?

My 30th birthday was pretty perfect. My family and a few close friends took a boat ride through the Thimble Island in Long Island Sound that ended with the sunset. It was summer, the breeze was cool, good food and drinks, I had my favorite people with me, and I didn’t have to do a single thing other than enjoy myself.

7. What drives you to share your thoughts about books on social media?

I hope that by sharing books I enjoy, other people will find books they, too, enjoy.

8. What’s the best thing an author ever said to you?

Never give up because you might be on the one yard line, and you just don’t know it. ~Donna Gephart

9. What do you consider the ideal length for a book in terms of the number of pages?

No ideal number. Enough pages to tell the story that needs to be told.

10. What fictional character do you most resemble?

Well, I guess that would be the one in Elixir Bound that I based on myself. 🙂

11. If you could give the person reading this an uplifting message, what would it be?

“Find you magic!”

So now I must make my nominations…and I nominate you, dear reader. Any blogger out there who would like to participate, just leave a comment here and I’ll include a link to your blog here. You can just answer the same questions posed above.

I’ve got fabulous bloggers Christopher Mannino, Suzanne de Montigny, and Marie Laval to take up my offer of being nominated for the Liebster Award. And I’ll be happy to add any other bloggers who would like to play (instructions in the comments)…just let me know in the comments. 🙂

Event Announcements and Updates

March 28, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

I have my first book signing coming up in just over a week. If you live in Connecticut or southern New England, I’d love for you to come by. I’ll be at Bank Square Books in beautiful downtown Mystic, CT on April 5 from 2-4 pm. I’ll be signing copies of Elixir Bound, talking writing and books (or whatever topics may come up), and giving away my shiny new bookmarks.

Mystic is awesome and I recommend making a day trip out of it (we vacationed there for a week last September). There’s a bunch of great shops and restaurants, the Mystic Seaport, Mystic Aquarium, and Olde Mystick Village.

Also, I’ve been invited to participate in the Milford Author Day at the Milford, CT Public Library on June 11 from 5-8 pm. This is incredibly close to my due date, so I’m a maybe, but there will be other great authors there and exciting presentations as well. I’ll have more details on this event as it approaches (and fingers crossed that I’ll be able to attend).

And finally, Amazon has been dropping the price of Elixir Bound in paperback. Currently it’s $6.83 ($4.12 off the cover price and only $1.33 more than the ebook). I’d be happy to send anyone who purchases (or has purchased) it a signed bookplate. Just use my contact me page to send me an email.

Okay, that’s all for my announcements. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Confessions of an Author: Writing Process

March 25, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Confession #8: No matter how long I write and how many stories I complete, I have yet to master my own writing process.

Ask a dozen authors about how they write their books and you’ll probably get twelve different processes. You might hear some similar terms (plotter vs. pantser) and techniques (setting certain daily word goals, for example), but ultimately how an author writes (and by writes, I’m mostly talking about writing first drafts here) is a highly personal endeavor.

Me, well, I’m never quite sure how to answer that question. Because every manuscript I have written has ended up entailing a different process. For some reason, the projects I have tackled have each required their own approach to drafting.

Elixir Bound, my published YA fantasy, started with journal entries of character sketches and world building. I drafted this novel over a period of several years, writing in spurts and putting it away for months at a time. It was my first attempt at writing a full-length novel and it was somewhat blissful being so ignorant about the writing process and the business of publishing. I wrote this with high expectations but without any real pressure. It presented itself in very chronological order, I think because it’s essentially a quest novel, and I just wrote it with little outside forces involved.

The second manuscript I completed is a middle grade mystery with a first-person male point of view. I wanted to write something very different from Elixir Bound. I did a lot of research before and during the drafting process. I read entire non-fiction books; attended a lecture on local history; and created maps, calendars, charts, and pages and pages of supplemental materials.

And the process for my current WIP (currently titled Black Butterfly) is, well, a hot mess. I’m writing it in scenes, but not necessarily in any kind of chronological order. And there’s an element to the story in which the main character can only know certain information at certain points in the story, and I haven’t quite nailed down the timeline for that (or for the main plot in general). So, yeah, this one is going to require a lot of rewriting and editing.

But writing this way has been incredibly freeing. I normally (for the most part) write a story from beginning to end in order. To be able to jump around in the story and to not have to worry about transitioning from scene to scene means I can just write the good stuff, the stuff that’s being persistent about being written. It means I’m writing this story faster than I’ve ever done before. I look forward to my writing sessions, even as I approach the dreaded middle of drafting (which is usually the point where I start to burn out and need a break).

I think it’s important to be flexible as a writer. Set goals but realize that it may take some experimentation to get there, and the way you envision achieving those goals may have to change over time. Have a commitment to writing, but realize that the creative process is not a set step-by-step process. No one can tell you how to best write the book you are writing (maybe you can’t even tell yourself that). Like in life, in writing be open to new ways of discovering things (like your own drafting process), and you may find the perfect fit for your manuscript.

Writers and non-writers, what kinds of projects are you currently working on? Is your process working for you?