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Blog postHi everyone!
I'm more active lately on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram than I am here, but wanted to stop by to announce my new book news! Here's the announcement from Publishers Weekly:
The writing of this book was quicker for me than most; I just got the idea for it last year when I saw this image fly by on Twitter:
Thankfully I was online at the right moment, and that I scrolled back to read the description. After a little research I found th -
Blog postLast week I had an online school visit with a great group of students, but our time was cut short because of some
tech issues. Our test visit the day before was fine, but on the day of the actual visit, either I could hear them or they could hear me, but not at the same time. We finally gave up on trying to connect via webcam and they instead put me on speakerphone. It was already kind of a short visit, one of the 20-ish minute Q&A sessions that I offer to classes that have read Chain -
Blog postHey, there's a pretty stack o' books!
I got to announce last summer that there would be an Indian edition of CHAINED, and it was published by Penguin India in January. But now I have a few!
It turned out lovely--the cover is beautiful, and there's an adorable elephant footprint on the page numbers:
Although India has approximately a kajillion languages, Penguin India publishes books in British English, which is commonly used in schools. So, aside from a ha -
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Blog postA couple weeks ago, there was a picture making the rounds on Twitter--a page from Elle magazine showing a wardrobe for "The Novelist." Here is is if you missed it:
See the original tweet here
I couldn't stop laughing.
Here are some closer shots, in case you need to get your pen and shopping list:
I just don't know how I get anything done without that key item, the long-sleeved silk blouse.
Just for fun, let's see what all this -
Blog postThanks to my Class of 2k12 sister Gina Rosati for inviting me to be part of the Writing Process Blog Tour. Gina is a library volunteer and author of AURACLE, an awesome YA paranormal romance from Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan. Visit Gina's website, follow her on Twitter, and read about her writing process here.
As part of the blog tour, I've been asked to answer these four questions about my writing process:
What am I working on?
Something totally different -
Blog postHey, guys, can I crash on your couch?Well, wouldn't this make for an interesting day? A lost baby elephant wandered into a ranch house living room. Only ten
days old, she was hungry and dehydrated and had walked a long way--about thirty miles--before showing up in Francoise Malby-Anthony's home at the Thula Thula Private Game Reserve in Zululand, South Africa. See the full article and adorable photo in this article from The Telegraph.
After hanging around for a snack, the cal -
Blog postI was reading the first post of Darcy Pattison's month-long series on author websites, and when she mentioned that one thing readers like is access to exclusive content I thought, "Hey I have that. I should put it someplace people can actually find it."
I'd added a subdomain for Chained a long time ago so I
could add more content about the book without overwhelming my author site. (If you have a website already, it doesn't cost anything to add a subdomain, and it wor -
Blog postThis is my "I kind of hate myself, but had
to see" look. Strangely enough, it's a little
blurry, like most Bigfoot photos.Tuesday evening I went to the Alamo Drafthouse for the tour stop of Bigfoot hunter Rick Dyer's alleged Bigfoot corpse. Dyer is not well-liked, to put it nicely, by most of the Bigfoot community, but since I have a middle grade novel manuscript about a girl with cryptozoologist parents, I pretty much had to go. You know, research. And one of the cha -
Blog postComparing the dogs I've had reminds me of how different we writers are. Our goal is the same—craft stories that readers love—but how we reach that goal varies wildly.
I think we all know how smart dogs are and what great examples they offer about how to live. So let's look at a few lessons we can learn from them about how to be better writers:
1. Get out and play, but don't get lost
I will not leave your sight, human.Some writers are like my last dog, Lacey. I co -
Blog postHi everyone!
Excited to share a new cover reveal today--still for CHAINED, but for the Indian edition. I announced a few months ago that Penguin India would be publishing the book in January 2014, and now there's a final cover.
I'd talked a little with the editors about the new cover design, and we wanted the new cover to feature both characters, Hastin and his elephant Nandita, like the original cover does. They mentioned too that they planned to do something with br -
Blog postSigh. It's over. I'm sad to see Breaking Bad go, but I couldn't be happier with the ending. As always, everything makes perfect sense, although I didn't see any of it coming. Just one of the accomplishments of the show's writers: we know the characters so well, but the story surprises us at every turn, without getting ridiculous or forcing anyone do to something out of character.
A couple weeks ago I put out a call to Breaking Bad fans to share their favorite writing lessons from th -
Blog postIf you're a writer and you watch Breaking Bad, you've certainly noticed that every episode, and the whole series itself, is a study in great writing. (And if you haven't been watching, get on it, people! You'll want to start with Season 1, Episode 1 and binge-watch the entire five seasons from there. Go ahead, I'll wait).
I've been wanting do a post on "Writing Lessons from Breaking Bad," but the task seemed daunting. Where to start? And where to end? The list could go on -
Blog postHey, I made an author video! If you'd like to skip right to it, you can view the video here.
Or, read on if you want to find out more about how and why I made it.
You might know I've had a book trailer for a long time, but my editor for the Indian version of Chained wanted something in addition to that to show her co-workers--something that gave more of a hint about the adventure in the story. Making a new trailer in a short time wouldn't be feasible, but an author vid -
Blog postLast month I attended a fabulous writing retreat in La Grange, Texas, with a group of Austin friends. Lots of fun yet productive, in a beautiful setting. The cabin, though, is affectionately known as "The Lodge of Death." P.J. Hoover had been before and has posted some great write-ups of the retreat.
Allow me to share some samples of the decor that give the cabin its nickname:
Yes, it's a fawn in it's natural habitat, a flower-filled rowboat.
...it's eve -
Blog postIt's a new foreign rights sale for CHAINED!
And thanks to this post by Darcy Pattison, I found a fun way to announce it. If you're not familiar with Fiverr.com, it's a site where you can find all kinds of random things people will do for $5. It's kind of addictive to scroll through. When I heard about my next foreign rights sale, I had a video made by this user, who spells out messages using Indian spices. Then I had to hang on to it for a couple of weeks until I could officially an -
Blog postFor spring break this year, my daughter asked if we could take a mother-daughter trip to Boston. Last year we did a road trip around New England, so we were in many places for a short time. Since I loved what little of the city I got to see, and there are far worse things a 21-year-old can be doing for spring break, I said okay.
Despite being dressed like Houstonians in the surprise snowstorm, we had a fabulous time and visited a different part of the city each day. One of our favor -
Blog postI mentioned in my last two posts that I attended the Kindling Words West retreat in Taos, New Mexico last week. I flew into Albuquerque with my buddy Crystal Allen, and we carpooled from there with Pam Bachorz since that would be more fun than the shuttle and it would allow us to stop at Trader Joe's for chocolate almonds and beverages.
While Crystal and I were waiting for Pam in the lobby of the car rental place, a woman approached us and asked if we were on our way to Roswell. If -
Blog postI mentioned in yesterday's Catching Up post that I'd write a little more about our poetry lessons from
Nikki Grimes at Kindling Words West, so here's some of what we learned in just one of our five workshops last week.
I had a hard time thinking poetically, so it's obviously something I need to work on more. "Found poems" were a little easier for me because I felt like I had something to work with--in the confines of an article instead of the whole English language. -
Blog postIt's been a long time since I've done a post, so let's catch up! Where in the world have I been and what have I been up to?
One reason I've been online less is that at the beginning of April I woke up with pain from my upper back to my hand that was so bad, the only comfortable position I could find was flat on my back with my arm raised. Not super-conducive to productivity. I'd had similar pain in the fall, but it came on more gradually then. Each time, it's happened after extended -
Blog postProbably the most exciting time for authors is the day their debut novel launches. You might have heard of Bridget Zinn, whose debut novel POISON was released this month, but if you haven't, you can read more about her on her website.
2009 was an eventful year for Bridget--she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, found a fabulous literary agent after years of writing, and got married. Sadly, she lost her cancer battle in 2011 and isn't here to celebrate her book's publication. -
Blog postToday we have a special treat--a guest post from the folks at World Elephant Day, who last year brought us the documentary Return to the Forest.
Now they're at work on a new documentary, Elephants Never Forget, which explores the lives of working elephants (like Nandita in CHAINED), along with other issues like poaching and habitat loss that threaten the elephant population.
So now I'll turn things over to the World Elephant Day organization, with some ways to help ele -
Blog post...I mean, not that I'm buying or anything, just uh, feel free to have sushi for lunch today if you'd like.
Because CHAINED is headed to Japan! Japanese rights for the novel sold to Suzuki Publishing this week.
You might remember from the sale to France a few months ago that I celebrated with a traditional French toast dinner. I'm actually not a sushi fan, but this would be a good time to cook those shirataki noodles I've been meaning to try.
I don't know -
Blog postThis week I watched the new cooking competition show The Taste, which is a lot like The Voice, but with a bite of food instead of a song.
A quick description if you're not familiar with it: contestants, who are either professional chefs or really good home cooks, have one chance--literally one bite--to impress the panel of superstar food people. If one or more of the judges falls in love with that one bite, they'll offer the chef a spot on their team. (From there I guess they'l -
Blog postThis week at the Houston SCBWI
It feels exactly this awkward to ask.
But if they like it, they'll put a ring on itmeeting I did a brief presentation about writing query letters, and was asked afterward if I'd send my own query letter from CHAINED to the group's listserv so members could have it as an example.
It occurred to me on the way home that it'd be better to include it in a blog post so I could share it with whoever would like to see it, and SuperAgent Joanna ki -
Blog postHi everyone!
Here's a little video I made for the Class of 2k12 blog recently, so I'm reposting here for your amusement. It has just a few of the funny questions writers often get, plus a message about what we're thankful for.
Writers, what other questions do you dread answering? And aren't you done with that book yet?
Titles By Lynne Kelly
