Ohmygoshyouguys I’m so jazzed! My latest horror book, CHRYSTINE’S SLEEP SOLUTION, is part of a new Books2Read Promo!
(I’m relieved my cover looks like it belongs with the other kids!)
(My book looks like this and is listed under the “Horror” section.)
It’d help me and the other authors out a ton if you’d share this promotion with your friends and family. Just share/retweet/whatever this post to anyone you think would love to find their next favorite book!
Looks like there’s some great spooky stories to be had for every budget and taste!
A Kickstarter Campaign Creating Five Writing and Publishing Bundles that Include 17 Writing Books.
Normally I’m not one to signal boost Kickstarters, but this one’s well worth a look. Veteran writers Dean Wesley Smith and his wife Kris Rusch have a Kickstarter going now where if you pledge $10, you can pick from one of five bundles of books on different writing topics. Pay a little more, you can get them in paper…get lectures…etc.
Here’s why this is exciting to me: Smith’s Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing blog posts (two sets of which are compiled in two of the books in the “Industry” bundle) literally changed the course of my writing career. At the end of 2016, I’d just finished the manuscript for Steel City, Veiled Kingdom (SCVK) and was feeling pretty down. It was a ginormous novel and I knew novels that big rarely do well with literary agents. It’d take years to shop around, and after that, they’d probably want me to change it, if anybody accepted it at all (which was a long shot).
Then I stumbled upon those posts and realized…yeah, I had ALL the skills to self-publish it. And no need for an agent at all. Three-ish years later, SCVK is out in ebook, soon to be in paperback, and in the meantime, I’ve got, like, a dozen shorts and a few other novels available on Amazon, BN, and libraries (among other digital storefronts) and more fiction on the way.
NONE of that would have happened without Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing–and in this Kickstarter, you can get it plus three other ebooks in the “Industry” bundle for just $10. And there’s, like I said, five total bundles on different topics.
It’s good stuff, folks.
If they make it to $9,000 before April 30th, 2020, everyone who pledged $5 or more will get access to SIX workshops on topics like Writing Sci/Fi, Writing Thrillers, Writing Time Travel, etc. I’ve done some of their free courses and have LOVED them so this is a great goal to aim for. Even if that doesn’t come true, the info in these bundles is invaluable–it was career-changing for me!
So please, check out this Writing Bundles Kickstarter. They’re covering topics I bet you never even thought about. 🙂
Hi everyone! I aten’t dead, I just switched to Linux and have been busy writing and arting away! (If not always scanning, d’oh!)
I’m rethinking the kinds of things I want to feature on PIXELVANIA STUDIOS. But in the meantime, I wanted to let show you the covers totwo new stories I released: THE WITCHING LICENSE and DEBUTS AND DRAGONS.
Mavis Burnsides is on her deathbed when her best friend brings her a Witching License. Now she’s got magical powers—and one last night to make up for a lifetime of regrets.
By turns sassy and touching, The Witching License is a gentle tale of regret, romance, and righting wrongs.
Though she’s not much to look at, dragon Sellafield Terrormouth never worried about snagging a mate for herself. But now that her little sister is about to debut in dragon society, Sella’s got one night to go from drab to fab. If she fails, she’ll lose her entire dowry—and quite possibly doom herself to eternal spinsterhood!
Can this plain dragon get herself a date, or is her future about to go up in flames?
Contemporary fantasy fans won’t want to miss this lighthearted (and scaly) look at love, friendship, and inner beauty.
Did you know I wrote a feel-good Valentine’s Day book? Don’t worry, it’s not too mushy. It’s called LOVE POTION COMMOTION and it’s got talking French Bulldogs. If you’re still jonesin’ for Hallmark movies, you’ll probably get a kick out of this. It’s normally $4.99 but it’s on discount for $1.99 ’til the 19th. Get it at: http://books2read.com/frenchies1
Sale price is active at Amazon right now, but the other stores are soon to follow!
Johanna Reinhardt is alone at the outpost when it happens. The Machines have shut down, her husband is gone, and—imperceptibly, but surely—sound is disappearing from the world.
What might disappear next?
A dreamlike tale from the post-apocalypse.
An oldie-but-goodie short story to celebrate the new year.
First, I watched this great video about quitting the internet for a month.
Two ideas hit me hard from this video: 1) you never run out of content on the internet. Compare this to reading a newspaper. That activity has a definite endpoint. The internet…just keeps going. There is always something there to consume. 2) A lot of what we consume as “news” isn’t news but peoples’ opinions of the news.
Some of the sites I was on were like that–it’d take me 3 minutes to read the article, then 20 minutes to read the comments for that article. And I’d want to read a dozen articles from a site.
That added up.
But one day, just being sick and tired of feeling sore and stiff after too much tablet reading, I decided to get an app blocker for my Android tablet.
WOW it opened my eyes. Even though I didn’t have a lot of apps (like Facebook, Instagram, etc.) on some days, I spent hours on one or two of my little games. And many, MANY hours were spent just reading sites on my browser. Pointless! And here I am wondering why I can’t get my art and scanning done!
So I used the app to restrict the amount of time I spend on certain apps on certain days. And like the Firefox/PaleMoon add-on Leechblock, it can also ban an app during certain hours of the day. Pretty flexible!
The free version of StayFocused only lets you block 4 or 5 apps, but since only 4 or 5 apps plague me, it works just perfect for me.
PS using an app like Habitica or TaskHero can help you start building systems that will help you use your time doing things YOU value. Leechblock is great for desktop to block time-sucker sites during certain hours, and Neil Cicierega’s WORK! program keeps you accountable in the programs you need to be working in!
And here are two highly relevant Mormonads to use for your lock screen:
Author Dean Wesley Smith was talking about Heinlein’s Rules on his blog last year. I can’t recall the exact post, but the more I read this quote, the more I realize it’s not just great creativity advice, but great LIFE advice:
“You won’t be able to stay on [Heinlein’s Rules] for too long, but just keep climbing back on when you realize you have fallen off and you will make it.”
Of course, you can substitute “Heinlein’s Rules” with any practice you’re trying to grow in. The Gospel of Christ, healthy eating, exercise…the list is endless! I love this quote.
Writer Dean Wesley Smith wrote a post in late 2018 called Critical Voice Kills Everything. Apparently some people get so critical that they read to pick a book apart, even if it’s from an author who’s mega successful in their writing.
He recommended the following practice instead:
“Second, on a book you LOVED, ask yourself how an author did something in the book that you admire. A craft bit, a pacing, a dialogue scene, whatever. […]
If you liked the plot, outline the book to take that in more. […] You never tear apart someone else’s work, you study it for what they did right. A HUGE DIFFERENCE.”
I chewed on this for a while and later formed this reply:
Thinking back on [the above] part of your post this morning I realized this part fits in really well with how I try to improve as a visual artist. Find work/artists you love, study what they did and how they did it, and adopt the things you like into your own work through practice. You’d ***never*** study a master artist to nitpick him/her! (And if artist X does feature Y really well or often, but not Z…then you find another artist who does Z well and adopt them, too! Choose from the whole buffet of artists!)
In related news, a fellow Mastodonner posted this great quote from the legendary Phil Tippet (pardon the language at the end)
My increased writing output of the last couple of years is the result of by heeding advice like the above: don’t noodle something to death! Better to do the best you can at the time, get it out there, and start on the next fun project.
(My book looks like this and is listed under the “Horror” section.)
![A clock with different silhouetted items - like a girl kneeling in prayer, a man running, a globe, a temple, a book - is featured against a bright yellow background. Black text reads: Spend Time Wisely. "Choose to do many good things of your own free will" (For the Strengh of Youth [2011], 3)](https://pixelvaniastudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/mormonad-spend-time-wisely-1118462-mobile.jpg)
