Category Archives: Guest Blogger

A to Z Challenge, Guest Blogger, Personal

Family

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So, I’m cheating a little bit today, but only sorta. As you can see, I’m still writing part of this blog, so I am not actually counting this as a cheat, but, at the same time, the bulk of today’s content isn’t coming from me, it’s coming from my daughter, Danica.

F is for family, and my family are the biggest supporters of my writing. They put up with me living in my own head far too often, they don’t mind when I bounce ideas off them (and they don’t take offense when I shake my head and say ‘No, no, that will never work’). They contribute ideas to my fishbowl. They don’t complain that our house isn’t spotless, or that our income isn’t higher (as it would be if I had a paying job). They are always there for me and if it weren’t for them… well, let’s not go there.

I asked Danica if she’d like to write about what it’s like to have a writer for a mother for my blog. Her response? “You have a blog?”

LOL Okay, so they are super supportive, but that doesn’t mean they follow my blog :-p After I told her that yes, I did have a blog, she was happy to complain about me in public on it.

~*~


Hi, I’m Danica, Rhonda’s daughter. I really have no idea what to write about in this blog, so I guess I’ll talk about writing, and how living with a writer can sometimes suck.

My mom, as you can tell is a writer, and I’ve picked up a few things from her. For instance, if you have writers block, just write. What you write may sound stupid, but it usually helps to get rid of that pesky writers block.

One horrible thing about living with a writer is: If I say something  that is not grammatically correct, my mom corrects what I say. Or, if I’m just being silly she’ll correct what I say anyways. It can be pretty annoying, but you learn to live with it.

Here’s another thing: My mom said I have to write a conclusion for this, but I don’t want to. So here’s my ‘conclusion’. Don’t live with a writer unless you love them a lot, like how my dad and I love my mom.

~*~

Short and sweet, eh? This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter F. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about… um… something… something Grrreat! My schedule says Goodreads, so maybe… 🙂

Guest Blogger

Guest Bloggers

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I mentioned a while back that I was going to try and have more guests on my blog, and I am, but so far I haven’t actually gotten around to organising that in any sort of proactive way. This post is meant to change that. I thought it might be nice to have one blog post I could point to when I ask on social media sites and the like for people to do a guest blog spot here.

One thing you should know is that I can’t stand blog posts, and especially guest blog posts, which are actually blog-sized book advertisements. They drive me bonkers. That’s not what I’m looking for here. Guest blogs on my blog can be about pretty much anything related to writing (there’s even some flexibility toward gaming and/or crafting as we’ve seen me leaning that way a bit these past few weeks) but they have to have some content other than ‘This is all about my book. Here’s the blurb for my book, and the cover for my book, and look down here, it’s the links for where you can buy my book!’. That is actually pretty much the only ‘rule’ I have, come to think of it.

You have to promote your book, of course you do, but don’t look at my blog as just a giant infomercial. Write a blog post like Jon Pinnock did, which is about his book (Mrs. Darcy Versus the Aliens) but relates that book to something else. Or write a blog entry like Charlotte English‘s, which was on a topic she truly cared for, and was well-written and interesting enough that you wanted to follow the link to her own blog at the bottom of it.

I am happy to do guest blog exchanges if that works out better for you, but it’s not a requirement, I’m very happy to share your words with my readers either way.

For my part I promise to do what I can to make sure the greatest number of people possible see your post. My readership isn’t huge, but it’s growing. I’m happy to share more details via email if you’d like, but I don’t want to post them here because then it would be extra work to keep them up-to-date. In addition to the traffic I receive here directly, this blog is mirrored onto LiveJournal. I also tweet about each blog post (usually twice) and those tweets are mirrored to my Facebook account. Yay mirrors!

If you’re interested in making a guest appearance on my blog, for whatever reason, just let me know. There are loads of ways to contact me. A comment here, on on my LJ, a message on Twitter or Facebook, or good old fashioned email (rhonda@jofigure.com).

Finally, in case you were curious about my choice of photograph… I’ve been trying to include a photo with every blog post, but I didn’t have a clue what to put to go with this topic, so I just picked a picture from my Flickr account that I liked. It’s my blog, I can use random photos if I wanna :-p

Goals, Guest Blogger, NaNoWriMo, NovPad, Personal, Pictures, Shadows

Paint and Music and Love. Oh my!

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Today is my anniversary. Another year spent married to this guy. This is Jo. Jo rocks. We’ve been together for just over ten years now, married for seven of them. I love him more today than I did a decade ago and if I were to imagine my life without him it would be a dismal thing indeed.

He’s got his game face on in this picture — we were in the lab and he was pouring things into test tubes for me to photograph. He’s cool like that.

*Insert some sort of clever segue here between anniversaries and music*

Today I’ve got a guest blog over at Beth Cato’s blog. It’s all about music and stories. Check it out 🙂 Once you’ve read my blog post poke around Beth’s site a bit more. I’m the third guest blogger she’s had there recently talking about music. Also, she’s just kinda awesome.

*Insert one more clever segue*

I’m working on a collaborative project with Jennythe_reader. We hooked up via 2xCreative (which I’ve mentioned before here). We’re actually doing a couple projects together. For the first, I sent her a poem I’d written and she is writing it out all pretty-like and then embellishing the paper. I don’t think my description does it justice, but you can hear her talk about it a little bit here. Anyway, I kind of wanted to do something more. Partly because my time investment was pretty small this month (I already had the poem written and only had to send it to her) and also partly because I wanted to do something different. Whenever I work on a collaborative project I provide words in some form or another. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but Jenny, well, Jenny is a fabric artist. It just so happens that I paint fabric. How could we not do something that combined those talents?

I dug out my fabric painting stuff from where it was tucked into a corner of the basement and painted three pieces. I will be popping these into the mail to Jenny this week and I’ll keep you updated about what she creates with them. I can’t wait to see!

 

In other, writing-related news, though I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, I am doing the November Poem-a-Day challenge. My theme is going to be ‘Classic Horror’ with a focus (I hope) on ghosts.

I’ve also begun transcribing and revising Shadows. Right now I’m only working on the revision part (the first couple chapters were already transcribed), and I’m 4,785 words in. I’d love to use a word count meter of some sort here, but that’s tricky when you don’t know how many words you’re going to end up with LOL I think my last estimate was about 70k but at this point, it’s all a big question mark.

Finally, did I mention that it’s my anniversary? Happy Halloween everyone and Jo, I love you.

Guest Blogger, NaNoWriMo

The Benefits of WriMoing

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I met Charlotte on Twitter. She and I decided to exchange blog posts about NaNoWriMo. Charlotte’s post is below, as you can see, she is a very enthusiastic Wrimo. My position is quite different, but you’ll have to check out her blog tomorrow to see what it is 😉

On the Benefits of WriMoing

 You may have heard about NaNoWriMo. The internet gets to buzzing about it around this time of year, and that strange, nonsensical word pops up everywhere.

If you haven’t, though, here’s a breakdown of the name. It stands for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. It’s a time when writers the world over chain themselves to their desks and frantically pound their way through the composition of fifty thousand words in thirty days. It starts on November 1st and ends on November 30th. In order to “win” (that is, to meet the target), one has to write an average of 1,666 words a day, every day for the whole month. Including weekends.

It can seem like a daunting proposition. How curious, then, that so many thousands of people volunteer for it every year and proceed to write those 1,666 words per day around their usual jobs, family commitments and social lives. Why in the world would one burden oneself so, it might be reasonable to ask?

The truth is, NaNoWriMo is a blast. Here’s why.

One of the most difficult things about writing is getting into the flow of it. It’s daunting, staring at a blank page and trying to decide how to begin. Every day this happens, because every day one loses much of the momentum one built up during the last writing session. Ordinary life gets in the way, and the mind must first discard such questions as what to make for dinner, and what time it’s necessary to leave in order to get to work/make it to that appointment/pick up the kids/etc. All this must be waded through before it is possible to get into the serious business of Making Stuff Up. Proper, absorbed focus can be an elusive beast.

But having deadlines – even self-imposed ones – can be an invaluable way of giving oneself a kick up the rear. Never mind the little issues and the worries: you have a target to aim for. Just write!

This is also effective because many writers suffer from a degree of perfectionism. It took me some time to develop the ability to finish writing projects, because I was always crippled with worries about how good my work was – or might be, if I ever got to the end. I didn’t want to write badly. Of course, the only way to learn to write well is to get through the bad stuff first. NaNoWriMo is purely about getting words down. The principle is: it doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you produce your fifty thousand words!

And it’s liberating to think that way. The exciting thing is, once one gives oneself licence to write crap if that’s what comes out, it’s possible to be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the work that emerges. Some if it will be poor; some of it, however, will be great. You never know what your mind can do once you let it go.

Given that I am so wholly in favour of NaNoWriMo, then, it’s perhaps odd that I’ve never yet “won” at it. Somehow I always miss the month of November; it’s never been convenient for me. It’s the middle of the first term of the educational year, so for a few years I was too busy at that time to do it. This year I’ll miss it again. That’s because I’ve been writing in the spirit of NaNoWriMo for the last two months anyway; come November I’ll be deep into the editing phase.

But I don’t think it matters when you do it. I’m sure it’s much more fun – and easier to complete the challenge – if you do so alongside many others all cheering each other on. But it’s quite possible to simply adopt the principles and apply them to private work. It’s surprisingly possible to write fifty thousand words in a month; you just have to be prepared to give it a serious try. It’s a challenge I recommend to anybody who likes to write, no matter what it is that you’re doing.

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Miss Charlotte E. English writes fantasy novels with a twist of mystery. Her first novel, Draykon, was published in September of 2011; her second (produced under the benign and helpful spirit of NaNoWriMo) is scheduled for December. She blogs at www.charlotteenglish.com.

Books, Guest Blogger, Niteblade

Guest Blogger: Jon Pinnock

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Are you kidding me? Take a look at that cover right there. How freaking amazing is that? I love it. Seriously. And I know, I know, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but dude! Also, I know Jon and happen to think he’s a pretty awesome guy and a skilled writer, so, ya know, that helps…

Right. I should start at the beginning, I suppose, instead of just sort of gushing randomly.

There’s this guy, right? Named Jonathan Pinnock and he submitted a story to Niteblade. It was a great story and I happily accepted it. I enjoyed working with him and followed him on Twitter. I have since gotten to know him better and consider him a friend.

His novel, Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens was recently released and though I haven’t yet read it (It’s sold out on Amazon.ca at the moment) I am seriously looking forward to it.

When I learned he was doing a blog tour, I invited him to make a stop here. I think Jonathan is my first ever guest blogger on this blog, and what did he chose for his topic? Um, in part, me. O_o

Give it a read and then please check out the links at the bottom, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

 

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Hello everyone. I’m supposed to be here to say a bit to publicise something I’ve written, but I really think I ought to say a bit about Rhonda instead. Because Rhonda is one of a very special bunch of people that keep writers like me going: small press editors.

In case you don’t know, Rhonda edits a Horror and Fantasy magazine called Niteblade. It’s a reasonably challenging publication to get into: according to Duotrope, only 7.5% of submissions get accepted (and you can bet the real figure is considerably lower than that). So for an aspiring writer, to get accepted by Rhonda is pretty encouraging.

Back in 2008, when I was struggling to make my mark on the world, I had stuff published in a number of small press magazines, including Niteblade (with a rather odd bodyswap story called “An Unsuitable Replacement” if I remember correctly). I think a clocked up somewhere between 30 and 40 hits that year, and each publication felt like another step along the very long and twisting road towards becoming a writer.

The editors of magazines like Niteblade aren’t in it for the money. It really is a labour of love. Again, according to Duotrope, rejections are sent out an average of 18.5 days after receipt and acceptances an average of 23.5 days. If you stop to consider the amount of consistent effort required to keep up that quality of turnaround (and also imagine what some of the rejected pieces must actually be like), you realise why so many of these magazines fold. But some of them, like Niteblade, keep going, publishing stuff from the likes of you and me.

So here I am, with my first novel in the shops. It’s called “Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens”, it’s a comic sci-fi sequel to “Pride and Prejudice” and it’s very funny if I say so myself (but I’m kind of biased, I suppose). If you want to read more about how it came to be written and published (by Proxima, an imprint of the extremely respectable Salt Publishing), please do take a look at some of the other posts on this blog tour (check out www.jonathanpinnock.com for more details). For now, I’d just like to salute the heroes of the small presses and thank all the folk out there like Rhonda who keep on doing it for the love. I wouldn’t have got to this point without you guys.

Important stuff about the book: the website for it is at www.mrsdarcyvsthealiens.com and it’s available in all the usual online places (including, amazingly, the Jane Austen Centre Online Giftshop, where they have some signed copies). If you’re in the UK, it’s still on promotion in WHSmith, so you can actually buy it in a high street store. How about that?

~*~

Thank you so much for stopping by Jonathan, and best of luck with Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens and all your future projects 🙂