Category: Writing (Page 24 of 72)

NaNoWriMo and ELIXIR SAVED Sneak Peek

November 21, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

NaNoWriMo is in full swing! As I’ve mentioned, the book I’ve been working on is ELIXIR SAVED, a companion novel to my published YA fantasy ELIXIR BOUND. I thought as little treat, I’d share the working blurb (i.e. jacket copy) for the second Elixir book.

The Elixir has a way of entwining the lives of those it saves. Kylene was spared from a painful death by a poisoned spear, Zelenka from a vicious animal attack, and Devon from an incurable childhood illness. Although saved by the Elixir, none were left without scars. After a shocking message from the Higher Beings, each one will embark on a journey. Kylene is sent to the frozen depths of Blanchardwood, Zelenka back to the wilds of Faway Forest, and Devon on a spiritual journey of self-discovery. Three paths that lead to war against an ancient foe where even the Elixir cannot save everyone. They will be pushed to the limits of what they think they can do. It all comes down to how much they are willing to sacrifice with their second chances.

Three lives saved by the Elixir; three lives bound by it. In ELIXIR SAVED, escape back into the world of the Kase family in this much-anticipated follow up to ELIXIR BOUND.

Alrighty, back to the grind for me. Gotta get those 25,000 word finished!

November #InkRipples: Shaped but not Defined by our Heritage

November 7, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Our heritage is where we come from, what we’ve inherited from our ancestors and family. It can come in the form of physical traits, property or monetary assets, titles, traditions, and many other forms. Heritage often has a big role in determining who we are when we are born and how we grow up.

A person is born a prince, another in poverty. A person is born to be classically beautiful, another with an inherited physical deformity. A person inherits a great wealth, another a debt left behind by a loved one who passes away. These are the hands we are dealt, but they don’t have to be the sole thing that defines us.

One of the most interesting things about human nature is that there is no one things that makes us who we are (kind of like those masks we talked about in last month’s #InkRipples). Sure, there are some things about our selves that we can’t change, but we don’t have to let that one thing be the only thing about us. I’m short…I’ve inherited that trait, but that never kept me from playing basketball, and I ended up being quite good at it.

To put my writer mask on for a moment, that’s one of the most fun things about writing characters. No character is one thing. “Good” characters have faults and “bad” characters have redeeming qualities…at least they should in order to be well-rounded. I love a hero who has deep-seeded flaws, and an antihero can be so interesting to read. And villains who have nice sides to them or who have somewhat justifiable reasons for their actions are so much better than purely evil characters.

How has your heritage shaped who you are and what aspects of yourself have nothing to do with your heritage?

#InkRipples is a monthly meme created by Katie L. Carroll, Mary Waibel, and Kai Strand. We pick a topic (November is all about heritage), drop a ripple in the inkwell (i.e. write about it on our blogs), and see where the conversation goes. We’d love to have you join in the conversation on your own blogs or on your social media page. Full details and each month’s topic can be found on my #InkRipples page.

Meet Me at the Annual Authors’ Festival at the Groton Public Library

November 4, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Taking an afternoon off from the craziness of my NaNoWriMo goals to meet up with fellow authors and readers at the Groton Public Library’s Annual Authors’ Festival. If you’re local, stop on by and grab a signed book by one of the over 40 authors who will be there. Get a head start on your holiday shopping with gift wrapping available, enjoy the refreshments, and try your luck at one of the raffle prizes. It all starts at noon tomorrow (Saturday, November 5)!

Gearing up for National Novel Writing Month 2016

October 31, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo). The idea is that crazy writers set aside the month of November in an attempt to draft 50,000 words of a novel. That’s approximately 1,667 words a day, including weekends and holidays.

Before I had kids I actually did NaNoWriMo one year, the whole 50,000 words. And it sucked. The process of writing that many words in one month sucked. The words themselves sucked. The story sucked. And it sucked the life out of me! It’s a manuscript where I really liked the initial idea, but when I revised it, nothing was working. I tried different point of views, shifting tenses, reworking the plot. Let’s just say I’ve moved on from this story and it kind of soured me on the whole NaNoWriMo thing.

Elixir Bound by [Carroll, Katie L.] But I’ve been in a bit of a writing funk the last few months, since summer really. I’ve done lots of “smaller” writing things (writing a new beginning for a finished manuscript, working on a picture book idea, and the usual parenting articles and such). I had a few spurts of productivity, but not a lot of new words flowing. And I really have been wanting to get a draft done of ELIXIR SAVED (a companion to ELIXIR BOUND). Like I’ve been working on a first draft of this manuscript for years and it’s really starting to weigh on me.

Now it’s a tough manuscript to write because one of the point-of-view characters is based on my sister Kylene (and even has her name) and can be emotionally draining. So I’ve been lenient on myself when I’ve had to take breaks, but it’s time to get this one done. I decided to come up with a plan to finish. Earlier this month I took a look at how much I’d actually written, and it was a lot more than I thought I had–over 50,000 words. To put that into perspective, the completed novel of ELIXIR BOUND is a little over 55,000 words.

Now I knew that SAVED, with its multiple points of views and more epic scale, was going to be quite a bit longer than BOUND, but it was a nice surprise to see that I had accumulated so many words. It was heartening, and it made me feel like I could actually finish this first draft…and soon. That’s was when I was like, “I could use NaNo to get this done.”

With so many words already, I don’t need to set the (unrealistic for me) goal of 50,000 words in a month. I’m going to halve it for a goal of 25,000 words, which would be about 834 words a day or 1,137 words a day if you only count weekdays. That seems doable to me, and it should be enough to finish off the draft. And you know what, even if I don’t meet my exact goal, it’s going to serve as a framework to get me to the finish.

I’ve spent the last few weeks outlining the plot I already have and listing out the scenes I still need to write. I’ve written, formatted, and scheduled all my November blog posts (with only a few updates needed when the dates get closer), so I don’t have to worry about those. I dusted off my old NaNo profile (for anyone else who is doing NaNo, my username is ktlc1113 if you want to look me up on their site) and got it all up to date. I’ve squared away all my other freelancing, etc… work. (The kiddos will still be around all month bugging me, but not much I can do about them!)

I’m ready to start…tomorrow. And hopefully by the end of the month, I’ll have a finished draft of ELIXIR SAVED. Wish me luck!

Getting Excited About Science with Julie Murphy Author of GILLY’S TREASURES

October 19, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Today I have a great guest post from Julie Murphy, author of the picture book GILLY’S TREASURES. I always love seeing how people’s day jobs or passions influence what they write, and Julie’s post is full of wonderful pictures. Let’s give her a big welcome!

Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Katie, and helping me to celebrate the October 11 release of my new fiction picture book for children (4-8), Gilly’s Treasures.

Some writers say they always wanted to be an author, but my journey to Gilly’s Treasures was a little more roundabout. I always loved animals, so after finishing school I went to university and studied to become a zoologist – a scientist who studies animals.

The mornings were cold, but living close to a seal colony for a couple of weeks was a wonderful experience. (There’s a baby seal on the rock behind/between us.)

I was especially drawn to animal behavior, and studied how guide dog trainers assess the temperament of their trainee guide dogs for my Masters thesis. It was a great project, but city-based, so I made a point of helping friends with their projects in the field which got me out into nature from time to time. Among other things, I helped to collect sea cucumbers (which, despite their name, are actually animals!), and sea stars, and observed a population of fur seals on a restricted stretch of shoreline for ten precious days. That last project was especially amazing – and liberating. Can you imagine? Three young women on our own, camping along the coastline next to a colony of hundreds of seals. Our only outside contact was a radio call to the local ranger every afternoon to say we were okay. It was fantastic!

With a baby wombat in my zookeeper days. Wombats are still one of my favorite animals.

Later on, I worked as a zookeeper for ten years. But even then I couldn’t resist doing voluntary research projects in my spare time. One project involved rigging up time-lapse cameras to film the nocturnal behavior of native Australian mammals. I wanted to find out when they were active, what they did, and how they got along with each other in their mixed-species enclosures. Of course, doing the research is only half the job; the other half is sharing the results with others who could benefit from them. So I wrote my results into an article for a zoo journal, and presented them at a conference. This is how my published writing list began.

I view science as having a healthy curiosity about the world and trying to answer some of the questions we have about it. I believe that curiosity is something we should actively encourage in our kids, which is one reason why I love writing for children. It’s my chance to encourage children to be excited by nature, and life in general. Not only is it enriching for the child, but the more that children learn about animals and the environment, the more they will care about conservation.

My daughter (3) has always enjoyed exploring nature, and I’m sure she benefits from it in many ways.

It wasn’t until I became a stay-at-home mom that I focussed on writing for children. Reading picture books every day to my daughter taught me about the kinds of books that were being published, and through which publishers. I was able to use my science training to get a foot in the door with some publishers with work-for-hire, which involved writing non-fiction books about animals and the environment to specific briefs provided by the publisher.

It was a steep learning curve, but doing writing courses (some on-line), joining organizations such as the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and finding some trusted critique partners to provide honestfeedback all helped me to improve – and still do! And it turns out that the skills I learnt from working in science – objective observation, critical thinking, research, and concise writing – have all come in handy too.

Some of my non-fiction books about animals.

I am extra excited to welcome Gilly’s Treasures into the world because it is my first fiction picture book that began as my own idea (as opposed to from a publisher’s brief). Here’s the blurb: While out fishing, Gilly the seagull finds a beautiful, shiny treasure. He loves it so much he can’t help searching for more…and more. Will he ever be satisfied with what he has? The story has the feel of a traditional fable, which illustrator Jay Fontano has done a wonderful job balancing with fun, friendly illustrations. I especially love the new character he introduced – an adorable little crab. I am sure children will love spotting him (or her!) on each page.

I hope that readers of Gilly’s Treasures will be inspired to visit the beach for themselves, and maybe find a treasure or two of their own. (I for one can never leave a beachcombing session without a pretty shell or two in my pocket!) And it might even spawn a conversation about what they hold most important in their own lives.

A “family portrait” from one of my beach holidays.

About the Author:

Julie Murphy is a children’s writer of both fiction and non fiction. She trained as a zoologist and zookeeper, and is never far from animals and nature. Her favorite place to be is at the beach. She lives in Melbourne, Australia – a country surrounded by beach – with her husband and daughter.

Julie Murphy’s web site – (not working) www.juliemurphybooks.com

P.S. On a sad note, my website host has gone missing in action. True! I have set up an interim web site, in case anyone is interested. You will find it at http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~julieamurphy/

Twitter: @juliekidsbooks

Facebook page with book preview: www.facebook.com/GILLYSTREASURES

Gilly’s Treasures is available from many on-line book stores, including Cedar Fort’s sales site, Books & Things (free postage to most states in the US): www.booksandthings.com