By Shannon Yarbrough on May 28, 2010
And by halfway mark, I really mean for the year, not for your book. In last month’s post, friend and fellow reviewer Cheryl Anne Gardner wrote about the first page of your book. Prior to that, I’ve dissected each page of the front matter of your book. We’ll push forward in June with other topics like page numbers, justification, headers, and all that fun stuff. But for now, as we approach Memorial Day, let’s rest a moment.
Posted in Book Synthesis, Opinions | Tagged Book Synthesis, creative writing, finding inspiration, how to be creative, kick ass creativity, summer writing, taking notes |
By Shannon Yarbrough on February 5, 2010
Just this week, The New Podler emailed me asking for my participation in A Symposium: The Function of Self-Publishing at the Present Time:
The publishing industry is undergoing change in how books are delivered. It is not unreasonable to presume that in a decade electronic devices such as the Apple tablet or the Kindle will be the premiere platforms delivering text to millions of readers. On the other end of the spectrum there is the democratization of the publishing process itself. Once reserved only to a chosen few, publishing has become available to anyone wishing to publish his or her book either through traditional means or as an ebook.
Posted in Opinions, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged self-publishing questions, the function of self-publishing, the new podler |
By Shannon Yarbrough on December 13, 2009
While I lean more toward surfing GoodReads, Facebook, Twitter, and my fellow reviewer’s sites on a regular basis more than all the other Creative Writing sites that have popped up recently, WEBook is one that I did sign up for this year but haven’t taken full advantage of due to lack of time and interest. However, this site did launch an interesting program recently called Agent InBox.
Posted in Getting Published, Opinions, Rejections, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged agent inbox, agentinbox, book agent, book query, literary agent, query agent, webook |
By Shannon Yarbrough on December 11, 2009
About a year ago, I received an email from a college-going complete stranger on MySpace who had been recommended my first book, The Other Side of What, because a friend of his thought the storyline of the lead character sounded a bit too much like his own life. We corresponded very briefly, and while I was flattered, I hopefully convinced him that the book was not based on any events in his life because (1) I had never met this person and (2) We established I wrote the majority of the book before those certain events in his life had even taken place. I think he was disappointed.
Posted in Opinions, Shannon Yarbrough, Writing | Tagged capote in kansas, historical fiction, mark zero, michael cunningham, novel writing, r.j. keller, the blackest bird, the hours, the other side of what, waiting for spring, write what you know, writing, writing what you know |
By Shannon Yarbrough on November 22, 2009
For those who might have missed it, best selling author John Grisham was on the Today show this morning to plug his new book, Ford County, but also had a thing or two to say about the recent web war with book pricing that’s been taking place amongst Amazon, Wal~Mart, B&N, and Target. He believes printed books are an endangered species and that the surge in popularity of EBooks isn’t helping.
Posted in Announcements, Opinions, Sales, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged amazon, amazon.com, book agent, book pricing, book war, cheap book, ebook, ford county, internet book, john grisham, Kindle, print on demand publishing, traditional publishing, walmart books |
By Shannon Yarbrough on November 21, 2009
Just over a week ago when I posted my NaNoWriMo ramblings on Day 13, you probably would have guessed that I was a lost cause. But being one to never give up, I was determined not to let the looming word count of NaNoWriMo get the best of me. I was on vacation last Friday and sat down for my three day weekend with plenty of coffee and determination to catch up. I was only 7,000 words behind the suggested goal. Easy as pie!
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Opinions, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged nanowrimo, national novel writing month, write or die, writing a novel |
By Shannon Yarbrough on November 13, 2009
By today, I should be over 21,000 words to be on track according to the NaNo Calendar. I hate to admit it, but I’m just over 14,000. Cheryl Anne Gardner over at PodPeep recently posted about quality vs. quantity, and I totally agreed with her from the start. The word count target on the calendar [...]
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Opinions, Shannon Yarbrough, Writing | Tagged nanowrimo, national novel writing month, novel writing, writing a novel |
By Shannon Yarbrough on November 5, 2009
Well, it’s Day 5 of NaNoWriMo and I was off to a good start, but the calendar I posted in my Day 1 post is catching up with me as far as word count goes. I need to be at 8335 words by midnight tonight, and right now I’m about 1,000 short. I’ve yet to [...]
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Opinions, Shannon Yarbrough, Writing | Tagged Jasper Fforde, nano, nanowrimo, national novel writing month, novel writing, on writing, write a novel |
By Shannon Yarbrough on November 1, 2009
Did you sleep at all last night? After only passing out candy to about 16 trick ‘r’ treaters, rushing outside during the commercials in the Roseanne Halloween Marathon on Nick at Nite to take down Halloween decor so it didn’t go missing in the night, and making sure all the clocks were set back, I sat down at 12:01am this morning like many others across the country participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year and wrote the words: “Chapter 1.”
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Opinions, Shannon Yarbrough, Writing | Tagged nano, nanowrimo, national novel writing month |
By Shannon Yarbrough on October 12, 2009
Last weekend I finished reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. Brown is one of the few authors these days who I will drop everything to read. In the past Anne Rice and Stephen King held such power over me. While my tastes in reading have changed over the years, there are other authors who I still feel the same way about, but there aren’t many.
Posted in Opinions, Shannon Yarbrough, Writing | Tagged antagonist, dan brown, equation for writing, protagonist, quest writing, stephen king, the lost symbol, thomas harris, villain, write equation |
