#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Eden Mabee

Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Wednesday and Friday through June. 

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Hi!
Hi!

A ‘Jane of All Trades’ in a long line that has included farmers, slack-rope walkers, mechanics, forgers, teachers, horse-thieves, and writers, featured author Eden Mabee shares stories of a universe filled with magic, tech and political intrigue. She’s a self-proclaimed WriMo addict and photography dabbler.


Hi! Nice to meet you all. Welcome to JuNoWriMo, my fourth year of this challenge. It’s a great bunch of people to write with. Come join us for Twitter sprints and chatting about craft via our Facebook page.

For this year’s JuNoWriMo, I’m continuing to work on my Swan Song Series, a set of five planned novels, and will be placing the majority of my emphasis on the first book, Courting the Swan Song. The series crosses genre boundaries somewhat, but the first two books hold to the “Coming of Age” fantasy form. Here’s a quick overview of Courting:

Only child and heir, Alanii Vestimiir has decided that his father’s plans for him are shortsighted and suffocating. He’s off to become a soldier and serve the crown in the way he sees fit. In his attempt, he runs afoul not of only his father, but two powerful noble houses who stand poised to tear down his family and possibly involve their country in a war that might destroy them all.

Along the way, Alanii has to deal with all sorts of normal teenage problems: squabbles with friends, pretty girls, perfectionist teachers, etc.–who said growing up was easy?

Many elements went into CTSS. In writing my space opera, Release, secondary characters such as Alanii founded stories of their own, demanding to show how the brutal universe of the story come about through more than their actions. Before that, my best friend and I wrote fanfiction together, where I learned elements of story writing and developed the seeds of the Swan Song Series. Another MC, Atyr (book 2, Singer of the Swan Song), came out of those stories grew to be her own person as my vision of their universe became clearer.

Since CTSS comes out of writing I’ve been doing since high school, one would have thought I should be further along in the story. I am, and I’m not. A ‘finished’ version, that is very much a First Novel, has been duly been appointed a drawer where it can spend its days peacefully, while I scavenge its corpse for useful tidbits. Integrating elements from this very rough work has meant that I work on the first three books of the series concurrently (books 1 & 2 happen during the same in-world time, and book 3 follows soon after, starting where the original book began). However, this June, finishing a complete draft of CTSS is the plan.

Come visit me on my writing blog Many Worlds From Many Minds, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Heena Rathore

Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Wednesday and Friday through June. 

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BackgroundHeena R

I’m a 24 year old freelance content writer and an aspiring author.

I’m a voracious reader and a book reviewer. I also love baking and I have 3 blogs (1 book-blog, 1 personal author-blog, and 1 food-blog.)

I’m married to the love of my life and as a result of my husband’s undying trust in me, I left my engineering degree course in the 3rd year to pursue 3D Animation Film Making (as I have an infinite love for drawing.)

I love watching psycho thrillers and slasher movies. I’ve been a fan of the genre since childhood. From Texas’ Chainsaw Massacre series to The Strangers, Touristas to Nightmare On The Elm Street and Vacancy (1 and 2, though I like the first one!)… I love watching them all and I often wonder what goes on in a psycho killer’s mind or how will it feel to find myself in a similar situation. I watch Zombie movies with my husband and we plan out ways to survive such an apocalypse.

After finishing up with the film diploma, I started with my book-blog and content-writing. And after a year of writing, reading and reviewing, I’m here talking about my debut novel that will be written during JuNoWriMo.

Heena’s JuNoWriMo Plans

The working title (and hopefully the final title) of my novel is Deceived.  It’s about a couple who’ve recently moved to an isolated setting to begin a happy new life, but soon they’ll discover the horror that awaits them. The psycho neighbors have been waiting for a nice new neighbor for a long time!  The story completely turns in the last few pages and ends with a possibility of a sequel.

It’s a psycho thriller book that’ll mainly focus on the female lead. I’m still working on which point of view I should write the book in (It is first-person for now.) This book will show different phases in my lead’s life and her growth as she realizes how deceiving near and dear ones can be.  The later part of the book will focus on her survival and an ultimate plot twist in the last line.

My JuNoWriMo goal is to get the first draft done by the end of June, as I have plans to get this book published by December. Before June started, I wrote out chapter summaries and built character profiles to help my writing. So hopefully, I’ll nail WriMo’s much dreaded 50,000 word count, though i’m hoping to write even more.

Connect with Heena: 

Facebook | Twitter | Author Blog | Book Blog | Instagram

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Alathia Paris Morgan

Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Wednesday and Friday in June.

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alathiaI am an author who writes mysteries. I started really writing last April for the CampNaNo and was able to get my first book started with 25k words. Then, in July, I was ready to start camp again and picked up the manuscript where I had left it in April. I continued into August to finish my first book, Ding Dong is She Dead? It was self­-published in September. I have finished my second novel, Death By Poison, and it came out on June 1, 2015. It has been amazing year, and I find myself writing more when I have a group that cheers me on and writes with me.

I’m an Avon Lady which is what my first two novels are based on. I am also a mom to three daughters, a wife, and advocate for Domestic Violence Awareness. I am an avid reader and own over 6000 paper/hardbacks, and several hundred kindle books. My Goodreads goal is 200 books for the year, but now that I am writing, I don’t read as much.

For JuNoWriMo this year, I’ll be working on a story I started back in high school and left it in the notebook until now. I have 100 handwritten pages that I plan to rewrite and update (cassette tapes are so dated) and publish this novel as the first in a new series called The Agent Series.

I love a good mystery with a twist that no one expects.

Book # 1 in The Agent Series

Mac is kidnapped and taken to Scotland to marry the person who bought her on the black  market. Nathan works for Interpol and is home on vacation for his brother’s wedding. Sensing something is not right with the bride, he uses his contacts within Interpol discover Mac is being held against her will. The castle she is held in holds ways to aid in their escape, but can she trust Nathan even though his brother kidnapped her?

Find Alathia Morgan online:

Twitter | Facebook | Blog | Goodreads | Amazon


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#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Ann Shannon

Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Monday and Wednesday in June.

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Ann ShannonI am the Manic Writer. I’m a voracious reader and author. I read an average of 2­3 books a week and write roughly 3000 words a day. I’ve written 4 novels which are all in various stages of revision and editing, not bad since I started writing fiction in February. I also blog about PTSD, working to educate others and help to end the stigma that comes with it by teaching people what it is, how they can heal from it, and live again. And I have a not so secret love for Anime, which I watch obsessively whenever I can.

My writing journey began when I was in college, and I fell in love with romantic fiction the moment I started writing it. My destiny as a romance writer became clear to me with my first fanfiction, but I quickly figured out that I should be writing my own original work.

I discovered CampWriMo by accident through a friend of mine. She “sort of” bullied me into joining her cabin this past April, and now I’m addicted!

My JuNoWriMo project, however, is a departure from my usual work. I am planning an anthology of short stories that will give my readers a glimpse into my writing style. My goals for it will be 50K words, of course, and to finish the anthology. I’ve already been hard at work outlining it and developing characters. To do this, I will have to write a little more than one story a week, but I think I’m up to the challenge, and I know I will get lots of support from my fellow JunoWriMos when I need to catch my breath.

My inspiration for this project came from a few different directions. I had the idea for a short story called, The Table of Misfit Donors. Chelsea Price is a successful graphic artist who owns her own business, so why is she stuck overseeing a table of misfits at the annual fundraiser for the Winston Pemberton Burn Center? Between Louise the gossip, who is doing everything she can to distract the rest of the table from the fundraiser; Samuel the retired Marine, who wears glasses that might double as telescope lenses and is so deaf you have to tell him everything twice; and the distracting young pilot, Randy, sitting next to her, Chelsea has her hands full trying to keep her table on track and focused on the fundraiser.

This is just one of the short stories I will be crafting next month for my anthology, which will cover a wide range of human emotions including humor, love, and despair. I’ve been hard at work crafting plots and creating characters for my readers that they will love, hate, applaud, and wish they could drown.

Find Ann Shannon online:

Twitter | Facebook | Blog


Enjoying JuNoWriMo? Help us make it bigger and better for next year! Donate, and you’ll receive personal fanfare from our Facebook page.

 

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Neal Abbot

Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Monday and Wednesday in June.

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Neal AbbotMy JuNoWriMo project will be a literary fiction work entitled Entanglement. It will be my sixth novel and my eleventh book.

Entanglement is the story of Rex Monday. It is set in St Petersburg, FL and Havana, Cuba. Rex is based upon the the 19th century character-type common in Russian literature known as the Superfluous Man.  This type of character is usually a part of the nobility or at least  one of the upper-crust. The Superfluous Man is one of the idly rich who lives without concern for others. He wastes his life with chasing women, gambling, and quite often ends up in duels.

This is pretty much the life of Rex. His story is a cautionary tale and demonstrates how his own life falls apart when he lives wantonly and selfishly.

Find Neal Abbot online:

Facebook | Blog | Amazon


Enjoying JuNoWriMo? Help us make it bigger and better for next year! Donate, and you’ll receive personal fanfare from our Facebook page.

 

 

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Elizabeth Conrad

Meet some of your fellow JuNoWriMos in our Featured Author series each Wednesday and Friday in June.

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Elizabeth ConradI’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. By age six, I was typing little stories on my mother’s typewriter and illustrating them. This fascination with storytelling grew with me and has culminated in two novels which I am preparing for self publication over the next couple of years. I don’t have one specific genre, but my first two novel length works are sci-­fi and romance.

My still­-untitled novel for June, however, will be a more of a mystery about two sisters who deepen their relationship while solving a cold case murder on an island in south Texas.

Mia is twenty-five years old and is an accomplished writer who has chosen to live on a rather remote island in the Gulf of Mexico. When her sister, Isabel joins her to attend the local university far from their home state of Iowa, the differences between them are highlighted even more. Yet the unique 0pportunities of living together as adults draw them closer together. They begin collaborating on the death of a jazz singer from the 1950s and uncover secrets that will astound everyone on the island.

I have loved south Texas since vacationing there when I was twelve. The setting seemed a natural fit, because I loved the idea of someone living there year round and discovering what might happen when the summer is over. I am a singer myself and have been a jazz fan since I was eighteen and love writing about singers from that wonderful era.

I’ve not started on my novel yet, but I am outlining and getting my ideas together! I hope to reach around halfway during JuNoWriMo. It’s such a wonderful opportunity and I very much look forward to it!

I’m active on social media with several accounts

Find Elizabeth  Conrad online at:

Twitter | Facebook | Blog


Enjoying JuNoWriMo? Help us make it bigger and better for next year! Donate, and you’ll receive personal fanfare from our Facebook page.

 

Be a Featured Author

JuNoWriMo Featured Authors
JuNoWriMo is an amazing experience, and each year we like to highlight a few of our authors to help everyone get to know one another.

You don’t have to be published or even have a finished work to become a JuNoWriMo featured author. Just share a little about yourself and the project you’ll be working on in June.

We have eight spots available, and it’s first-come, first-served. We will open for submissions starting Friday, May 15th at 2pm Eastern Time. (Why 2pm? It’s to be friendly to the time zones of our participants across the globe.) When we receive 8 qualifying posts, we will close to submissions.

How to Submit

Write up a simple post about your planned project for June and send it to info.junowrimo@gmail.com. Here’s some things your post could include:

  • Some background info on yourself as a writer
  • Name, genre, and any other basic info on your JuNo novel (ie: related books, etc.)
  • Synopsis
  • Back story—your inspiration for the story, how you came up with the idea, or why the topic interests you.
  • Your Twitter name, Facebook profile, blog URL, or Goodreads author page (if applicable)
  • Whether or not you’ve started working on your book yet and if you have, your progress. Also, the progress you hope to make on it during JuNoWriMo. (Obviously 50K words, but are you going to finish it, get it to the halfway point, etc.?)
  • Photo(s) (if you have an image that goes with the book or if you’d like us to include a headshot, or both)

Don’t get caught up on the details, just think of it as a casual introduction about yourself as a writer and the project you plan on working on this June. If you don’t have a name for your book yet, that’s fine. If you’re a pantser and don’t actually know the synopsis until you start writing–no worries! Just talk about what sparked the idea and where you think you’ll begin.

The post should be approximately 500 words. Include any social media links you want us to share.

This is open to anyone who has not been previously featured on JuNoWriMo.com. Submit your final post on or after Friday, May 15th at 2pm Eastern Time. (Early submissions will not count!) This is to be fair and give everyone who is interested time to put a post together.

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Don Beard @drb1227

Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Monday and Wednesday starting June 4. ~

Background

unnamedMy name is Don Beard, and I started writing in college. In fact, I finished my first short story then, a horror story set on my university’s campus. Anyway, once I graduated and had to really start working for a living, I put the pen and words away for awhile. Too long in fact, but that’s okay.

About three years ago, I started writing again, and took about a year to finish my first full length novel. It ended up being nearly 150,000 words, and it was a joy to write. However, I felt that it needed some sort of story to take place before it to set the stage for it. So, that story, entitled Seven Days,was born in NaNo of ’12. After several edits and revisions, I’m proud to say that it has been published by WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson.

JuNoWriMo Plans

The book I plan on working on for JuNo is the fourth book in the series, and it’s called The Final Days of August MacLayne. It’s already started, and my plan is to finish it in June. Once that’s done, I can go back and pick up the third book in the series which is also underway. It’s called The Greatest Gift. I also have an idea and working titles for a young adult trilogy that springs from this series but that’s all they are at this point. They’re all Christian fiction, something I hold dear and have thoroughly enjoyed writing!

Final Days is about a father who finds out he has a limited amount of time left and sets out to find his only child, a red-headed daughter named Anna Margaret MacLayne. She is a character that we first meet in Seven Days, and we find that she has a rough history and was essentially wrongly disowned by her father. She leaves and changes her name and he has had no contact with her for several years. In the process of searching for her, terrible things happen to him and those around him. I know how the story is going to end, but I’m not sure exactly how it’s gonna get there.

Find Don:

My twitter handle is @drb1227, and you can find me on facebook at www.facebook.com/don.beard1. I have a blog at blooger.com called The Freshening Breeze, but honestly, I haven’t been very good at keeping it updated. Between two jobs, raising my kids, and writing I run out of time.

 

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Missy Kirtley @MissyKirtley

Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Monday and Wednesday starting June 4. ~

Background

My name is Missy Kirtley.  I’m a writer.  I’m also a housewife and a mother.  I’m in my thirties, live in the Bay Area, California, am college educated, and I love cats.  I’ve been telling stories since before I could actually hold a pen in my hand.  The first piece that I had published was an article for the local paper called “Santa Claus is Magic” when I was in the fourth grade.  Since then I’ve been going nonstop.  I studied screenwriting in college, and was planning to move down to LA to make movies before I met my husband.  Career went off track as I got married and had babies.  I’ve won NaNoWriMo three years running, and just finished Camp NaNoWriMo this year for the first time.

JuNoWriMo Plans

The collection I’m working on right now is called “The Royals” and it’s a set of seven contemporary short stories inspired by classic fairy tales.  Each story is around 12,000 words long (post-editing), and the first two have been written and edited.  I’m in the process of writing the third, though I’m not sure I’ll have it completed by the time June starts.

The Royal Family’s fortune came from the Royal Car Company, founded by Charles Royal the first.  His son took over the company, married, and had six children.  As close to American Royalty as possible, due to the fame and fortune of the company that bears their name, the children grew up in the spotlight.  How much or how little it affected them is yet to be seen.

In my writing class I was encouraged to push myself out of my comfort zone.  I’ve been writing and editing my NaNoWriMo novels (a Contemporary Supernatural series) for so long that I felt it was time to take a break and try something new.  These stories may be inspired by fairy tales, but there is nothing magical about them.  Just characters and situations set in the real world–that we can all relate to.  As soon as I started writing them, I fell in love with the characters.  I wanted to learn more of their stories, so I had to keep going.

So far I’ve written and edited the first two stories in The Royals series.  The rest are briefly outlined, and the characters are solid in my head.  I’ve set up some of the situations for the latter stories in the first couple, but the majority of the work will need to be done during June.  I hope that I will be able to finish the third story, and write all of stories four and five. My goal is for each story to end up around 15,000 words long, so that I can edit down to around 12,000.  I will need to outline the sixth story, and start on turning my outline into a full fledged story.  I doubt that I will get to the seventh story in the series.  (But that’s what July is for!)

Find Missy:

Twitter | Facebook | Blog

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Debra Mauldin @dmauldin3

Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Monday and Wednesday starting June 4. ~

Background

DebraMy name is Debra Mauldin and this is my first JuNoWriMo. I started making up stories and writing them down, by age ten. I served as Editor of my high school newspaper for two years. I took creative writing classes throughout college.

JuNoWriMo Plans

My project for JuNoWriMo is a novel I started writing after the passing of my maternal grandmother. I wanted to show the twists and turns of her life; some fictional and some non-fiction. It was a time in my life when I became interested in the menstrual cycles of women and life.

I have begun writing this novel several times, but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. During JuNoWriMo, I hope to finish this book. I have experienced twenty-plus years since the passing of my beloved grandmother. I feel ready to finish the book.

Find Debra:

Blog | Facebook | LinkedIn | Stumble Upon | Twitter