Random Act Of Kindness BLITZ!

A smile. An encouraging word. A thoughtful gesture. 

Each day people interact with us, help, and make our day a bit brighter and full. This is especially true in the Writing Community.  

Take a second to think about writers you know, like the critique partner who works with you to improve your manuscript. The writing friend who listens, supports and keeps you strong when times are tough. The author who generously offers council, advice and inspiration when asked.

So many people take the time to make us feel special, don't they? They comment on our blogs, re-tweet our posts, chat with us on forums and wish us Happy Birthday on Facebook.

Kindness ROCKS! 

To commemorate the release of their book The EmotionThesaurus, Becca and Angela at The Bookshelf Muse are hosting a TITANIC Random Act Of Kindness BLITZ. 

And because I think KINDNESS is contagious, I'm participating too!


I want to give a ginormous THANK YOU to Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi—the creators of the most fabulous BOOKSHELF MUSE. For spending so much of your time creating thee most awesome thesaurus ever. We appreciate your hard work and believe me when I say it is continually put to good use. You guys rock!

There are so many people who I would like to blitz as a thank you. 

I would like to send out a BIG shout-out to all my fabulous CPs (you know who you are). THANK YOU for sharing all your awesome feedback! 

I don't know where I'd be without you guys. My mss shine because of you. Finding the right critique partners is truly a blessing and I am eternally thankful for YOU. Thank you for being part of my writing journey. I will never, ever forget those who were there for me. I ADORE you with all my heart! ❤❤❤❤❤❤

To my loyal readers.  I HEART YOU! And as I've said before, oh, how I appreciate you. Thank you so much for connecting!

To Lucienne Diver, who is an amazing author, agent, and person—a huge THANK YOU for sharing your invaluable insight. I really can't thank you enough. Thank you also for taking the time to connect with those in the publishing community. You truly are a gem! I am forever grateful I have gotten to know you. You're just plain AWESOME. P.S. Your appreciation package is on its way!


To James Scott Bell who is the most awesome writing coach. Ever. When I first started writing five years ago, I started with two writing books, On Writing by Stephen King and your Plot & Structure. I devoured every word faster than I could think. Then of course, I bought the rest of your writing books and they literally changed my life. I've learned so much from you, not just in your books but through your correspondence. Thank you for your extraordinary guidance and for helping me take my writing to the next level. Much gratitude and appreciation! Your blitz appreciation is on its way.


And to Cindy Bell for supporting JSB in his writing and for sharing all his awesome appearances with us. And just for plain being awesome. You two really make a great team! 


Thank you to Alyson Noël and Jessica Brody—the Bill Contardi sistas. For your encouragement and for your friendship, for your genuine support and for always having something fabulous to say. Your words have meant more than you know. I appreciate you! Endless thank yous for your inspiration and for reaching out and being you. XO I feel very privileged to have gotten to know you both. Gratitude packages are on the way!


Cherry Adair - What can I say? Love your witty personality and the way you reach out to others. Thank you for your kind words and for your words of wisdom. I will never forget your laughter and your encouragement. Your support is beyond special as so are you. So thankful for you! Gratzi!Appreciation is on its way!


Big thanks to Bonnie Calhoun, computer extraordinaire. I think you know more than Google itself. Ha! Seriously. Thank you for all your help and for never abandoning my questions. Appreciate you so much! (Check your email--you'll see why).

  
Kat Duncan, one of the best instructors out there. Thank you sooo very much for always making time for me. For sharing your insight and for steering me in the right direction. I appreciate you very much. Don't forget to check your email. :)


Casey McCormick, I cannot thank you enough for Literary Rambles! Thank you for starting Agent Spotlight and for all the invaluable info. And thank you so much for your latest feedback and praise.  Much appreciated!  To Natalie Aguirre, thank you for partnering up with Casey and contributing your awesomeness to the blog. You both rock!

I really appreciate all of you and I know I sound like a broken record (excuse the cliché) but it's true. I can't help it if I repeat it. I am beyond fortunate to have gotten to know ALL of you! YOU GUYS ROCK! My heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you. 

Love to you ALL. Big hugs XXXX

Do you know someone special that you'd like to randomly acknowledge? Don't be shy—come join us and celebrate! Send them an email, give them a shout out, or show your appreciation in another way. Kindness makes the world go round. :)


Becca and Angela have a special RAOK gift waiting for you as well, so hop on over to The Bookshelf Muse to pick it up.


Have you ever participated in or been the recipient of a Random Act Of Kindness?  


Let me know in the comments!

If you have a minute, please stop in and tell these fellow author and friends how awesome they are! 

As a closing I'd like to invite you to their sites and their blogs (also be sure to click on their names above for Twitter links). And don't forget to pay it forward and share RAOK. You'll never know whose heart you'll touch.  

Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi   Blog

Lucienne Diver   Blog   Website

James Scott Bell  Blog   Website

Cindy Bell   Facebook

 Alyson Noël         Blog   Website

Jessica Brody       Blog   Website

Cherry Adair       Blog   Website

Bonnie Calhoun    Blog   Website

Kat Duncan            Blog   Website

Casey McCormick  & Natalie Aguirre Blog

 

Liebster Blog Award

 

I’ve received the Liebster Blog Award from Cera Dubois and JenniferLowrey!  Thank you so much Cera and Jennifer!

The Liebster Blog Award originated in Germany. Liebster means dearest or beloved, and Liebe is love.

To accept this award, the recipient will:
- Thank the person who gave it to them and link back to that person’s blog

- Copy and paste the award to their blog

- Choose 5 blogs to award in kind, and break the news by commenting on those blogs

- Hope those people pay it forward in turn by accepting and awarding “The Liebster Blog Award” to bloggers they’d like to honor.

Pretty easy to do, pretty amazing to award! So here are my five (note I added five more since I was nominated by two people):

Elana Johnson- http://elanajohnson.blogspot.com/

Shannon Messenger  http://ramblingsofawannabescribe.blogspot.com/

Alyson Noel- http://alysonnoel.blogspot.com/

Sheri Fredricks- http://www.sherifredricks.com/

Trish Mccallan http://www.trishmccallan.com/blog.htm

Victoria Adams: http://victoriaadams.blogspot.com/

Casey McCormick and Natalie Aguirre- http://caseylmccormick.blogspot.com/

Jessica R. Patch- http://jessicarpatch.blogspot.com/

The Bookshelf Muse- Angela Ackerman-Becca Puglisi-

 http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/

Denise Grover- http://www.denisegroverswank.com/blog/blog/

SAVE THE CAT! Part 1

Okay, so I have to say that this blog post is loooooong overdue! I read Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! (book #1) last year and I can't believe I hadn't heard about it years ago.


SAVE THE CAT! is one of my top picks for recommended books for writers. I have to give a huge shout out to Alyson Noël. Thank you Alyson for introducing me to Save the Cat!


THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Seriously I can't thank you enough!! It's no wonder you dedicated one of your books to Blake. He truly is amazing.


I cannot emphasis how fabulous Save the Cat! is. I don't want to sound like an annoying parakeet but it's really THAT good. So what makes it so dang good?


Good question. What make a book a great read?


Let's see, there's the hook—the pacing—characters you can relate to—originality—and most importantly a voice you can't turn away from.


I think what makes Save the Cat! so fabulous is that Blake has a likable voice and when reading it, it doesn't feel like you're studying. You're actually absorbing and understanding what Blake has to say.


In his final interview (it saddens me deeply that he is no longer here) he talks about how and why structure is important. He points out that you are misleading yourself if you are shying away from structure because it’s formulaic or hampers your creativity.


I've always been a SOTP (Seat of the Pants) writer but after reading this book I found that not only did it spark ideas, but it gave me structure and guidance. As a SOTP writer, I like having the option of being able to change things around spontaneously and even though Blake shows you how to structure your story it really doesn't have to be set in stone.


So what is the first thing Blake suggests to do?


He stresses on the importance of creating a one to two sentence logline for your story. It must have irony and an adjective. And although Blake's beat sheet (The BS2) is well structured, I still feel I have the opportunity to change things around but yet it guides me just like a business plan does.


Next, you must think up a title for your story. Not just any title but a killer title that resonates. One that yells, "Hey, look at me!" Try it out on friends and strangers. Feel their reactions.


Did their eyes light up with excitement?


Did the title do its job?


Did they want to know more?

Are they hooked?


Make note of their reactions. If it didn't excite them as you hoped, maybe it's time to think up a few more titles.


Blake shares a ton more—but I'll shut up now so you can hear it all from the master himself. (Reading Save the Cat! is well worth it!)


So why the cat you say? Why not save the earth or save the giraffe? Well, I'm not one to give up spoilers so you'll have to read the book to find out. However, I can confidently say one thing though, you'll be thanking me later and you'll be glad that you've been introduced to Blake and his fabulous how-to guide.

Are you now anxious in finding out what Save the Cat! Is all about? You should be! With so much to cover, I've decided to break up the post into two parts. Tomorrow we'll talk about the Perfect Beast aka The Board. For now I will leave you with some great links you can learn from.


So your homework for today is to come up with a killer title and a killer hook. BTW in case you haven’t noticed Save the Cat! Is the first book in a three book series. I am anxious to read the other two and I can't wait to blog about them.




How about you? Have you read Save the Cat!? Have you heard about it? Please let me know if you are a STC fan and would be interested in future blog posts regarding STC.


NY best-selling author Jessica Brody raves about Save the Cat! After I heard about it from Alyson, I found that Jess loved it just as much and I was sold!


Author Vicky Dreiling shares an awesome post (mentioning Save the cat!) HERE Pitch Begins With Premise.

To Blake Snyder—such an inspiration to all writers.

You will be greatly missed! R.I.P

 Blake Snyder

1957-2010

To view Save the Cat part 2 click HERE

An Interview with ALYSON NOEL!

Interview with Alyson Noel!

I am proud to present my first guest, Alyson Noel. Her upcoming release SHADOWLAND will hit stores on Tuesday, November 17th! Be sure to pick up a copy. If you haven't already started to read The Immortal series, you're missing out!

Martha: Welcome, Alyson! Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. It is an honor to have you as my first guest. Let's start with the first question.

What made you start writing books?

Alyson: The moment I finished reading Judy Blume’s ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET back in sixth grade, I knew I wanted to be a writer too. I’d always been an avid reader, but Judy Blume’s books were the first I’d read that addressed the kind of issues I could relate to, and I knew someday I wanted to write like that too.
So I started writing really dreadful poetry in junior high, and short stories in high school, but mostly I just talked about writing until the tragic events of 9/11 when I was working as a flight attendant in New York City and thought a career change might be in order! That’s when I dusted off a short story I’d written long ago, and turned it into what ultimately became my debut novel, FAKING 19.

Martha: Please tell us about your latest book SHADOWLAND.

Alyson: At the start of SHADOWLAND Damen and Ever travel to Summerland in search of an antidote to reverse a powerful poison that turns their touch lethal. But instead of the cure they seek, they find something far more sinister: the truth about their existence and the fate lying in wait of an immortal’s soul.

As Damen fights to save them from the Shadowland, Ever turns to magick, hoping to break Damen’s curse. Along the way she encounters the mysterious Jude Knight, and finds herself drawn to him in a way that will test her love for Damen like never before . . .

Martha: Do you believe in crossing over?
Alyson: I do believe that some sort of energy survives long after the body is gone, yes.

Martha: Would you mind sharing your experience when your first book was accepted?

Alyson: Well, my route to publishing wasn’t the usual one, and the truth is, in the beginning I was so incredibly green and naïve I didn’t query any agents, I just went straight to the publishers and received a slew of rejection letters in return. Though the good news was that most of them said they’d love to see it again if I was willing to revise. So I set out to do just that, enrolling in an online writing class to try to figure out what I was doing wrong, and it was through a fellow student in that class that I met my first agent, who told me to read STORY by Robert Mckee to get a handle on some of my structure problems, and then revise my manuscript accordingly. So I took the next three weeks to do just that, then I sent it back to him, he signed me, and a few months after it went out on submission I was offered a two-book deal with St. Martin’s Press, and I’ve been writing for them ever since!

Martha: Where do you get the inspiration from for your books?

Alyson: I steal from my own life all of the time. Like Alex, the protagonist in my debut novel, FAKING 19, I was pretty lost my senior year of high school too. Like Rio in ART GEEKS AND PROM QUEENS, I know what it’s like to be the new girl in school and have all the other girls instantly hate you. Like Hailey in FLY ME TO THE MOON, I was also a NYC based flight attendant. Like Colby in CRUEL SUMMER, I lived on a Greek island for several years. And like Ever in THE IMMORTALS series, I know what it’s like to lose the people you love and to question the meaning of everything.

Martha: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Alyson: This is a really tough business, if I’d had any idea what I was getting into I may not have tried! That said, writers write, it’s what we do, and in the end, perseverance is key. Rejections are a given, the one thing you can count on. And even after you’re published they still come in from Hollywood, foreign publishers, reviewers etc, so it’s important to learn early on to not take them personal and to just keep on keeping on—it’s the only way. And never forget it only takes one “Yes!” to get you where you want to go!

Martha: Where can readers find out more about you and your writing?

Alyson: They can find me on my websites:

http://www.alysonnoel.com/
http://www.immortalsseries.com/

My blogs:
http://www.alysonnoel.com/blog.html
http://teenfictioncafe.blogspot.com/
http://www.livingyourfive.com/

My Myspace:http://www.myspace.com/alysonnoel

My Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/ImmortalsSeries

Martha: Anything else you'd like to add?

Alyson: Thanks for the interview!!!