#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: RF Kacy

Meet some of your fellow June WriMo’s in our Featured Author series each Saturday and Thursday through June.

I have a confession to make. I am a creative writer.

There, I said it. It isn’t an easy thing for me to do. We of Eastern European descent don’t Art, we Work. When I was younger there was a cousin who was a musician, but he earned a pass because he played at family weddings for free.

Now, decades later and post retirement, I haunt corners of our modern-day salons, pen in hand, steeped in caffeine and sugary confections. I create worlds from dreams, solve problems of my own making, and spark the most unlikely of romances. I don’t consider what the market will support, nor what readers want to consume. Though I spent many years as a professional economist, now I write what I like and pass it on to whoever wants to share in my joy.

I have too many tales that I want to tell, and they rarely fit into any recognizable category. So, I try to amuse myself and the small circle of friends who stumble across my work. As a journeyman writer I write every day because the doing of the thing is what is important. But, I will try to explain my plans if you don’t expect too much.  Once I embark on a writing journey I refuse to follow even the most basic of navigational charts. In short, I pants for as long as I can get away with it.

So what connection do my ramblings have with JuNoWriMo?

This—my project for June:  Fatal Bequest is the second book in “The Megan Lark Mysteries” series where Megan and her maybe-could-be-sometimes-boyfriend, Neal Parker, pursue truth, beauty, and justice on a college campus. Oh yes, and they solve murders, or at least find themselves in the thick of the action. Think Nancy Drew meets Alfred Hitchcock at a party thrown by David Lynch, and you won’t be too far off… well, perhaps except for the David Lynch part. I put that in for you art film lovers.

Where did the inspiration for the stories come from? Maybe from decades of observing the study habits and mating rituals of college students. Maybe from forgetting to put on my tinfoil hat in the morning. Both the NSA and aliens have some explaining to do.

This will be my first JuNoWriMo, and I look forward to contributing to the group and helping to encourage others. Or I might decide to lob grenades filled with brownies and red wine, which I guess is encouragement for some, although my internist would disagree. Regardless, I plan to hold my head high and claim victory by the end of the month, even if I have to lie about my progress. Did I mention I am now a full-time creative? Or perhaps a full-time liar. It depends on your perspective.KacyCedarKey

I’m often found at RF Kacy (include the space) on the Book of Face and @RFKacy on the Chirping Bird platform. I pop up here and there in all kinds of forums, so say hello if you see me. Be sure to do it before the moderators realize I am there.

Good luck on all your projects, and until we meet at the great gathering (you know, in a real physical place), peace out!

  • Author email — Kacy@KazDigital.com
  • Facebook — RF Kacy
  • Twitter— RFKacy

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: MC Simon

Meet some of your fellow June WriMo’s in our Featured Author series each Saturday and Thursday through June.

The Writer’s Tao – MC Simon

Writer’s Tao

Two years ago, when I was told to consider the option of becoming a writer, all the cogwheels inside my brain started to turn rapidly.

Oh! Did I just say “rapidly”? Actually, a hurricane started up inside my brain. The storm met up with a volcano, and soon all my being was under fire.

“Why not?” asked my heart. “The man you love sees it inside you.”
“You should think more,” argued my brain. “You have a stable engineering career ; why should you bother?”
“But… what about the dream–my childhood dream? It was told that I was already a writer”, whispered my soul.

The soul’s victory came fast. The project manager residing inside my brain planned the details.
In a blink, the writer inside me was born.

After the first two published books, again my life turned to an interesting direction. Because of my passion for blogging, soon I started earning as a web content writer.

What’s next? Of course… quitting my engineering job to become a full-time writer.

But… there is one thing that was not mentioned above. My first published book is not the first book I started. My beloved unfinished novel, “Memories of an Arcturian” has been locked away, awaiting rediscovery.

But… I have great expectations now.

Because 2016’s JuNoWriMo starts.


“Memories of an Arcturian” is a blend of personal experiences in the corporeal life and the parallel dimensions of my dreams—dreams that started in my childhood. Do strict borders exist between these worlds? What are these boundaries?

What is true and what is fantasy will be up to YOU, the reader .

12-year-old girl has a revelation one day while at school and decides to run away from home. She wants to find her true family which she suddenly thinks it’s not from this planet. She takes a small luggage bag, writes a goodbye letter to her parents and leaves home. While walking the streets without having any direction she meets a mysterious beggar who finally convinces her to go back home. But they continue to meet almost daily. Until one day, he takes her on a trip.


M.C. Simon is an author, SEO content writer, blogger, reviewer, project manager, engineer, happy mother and a beloved wife.  Find her on social media at any of these sites:

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Shawn Contant

Meet some of your fellow June WriMos in our Featured Author series each Saturday and Thursday through June. 

Hey there, everyone.  I’m Shawn.

I’ve been writing on and off since I was twelve. My first story ideas came from dreams I had. As I got older, books I read and things I learned became my inspirations. I typically write in the Christian, sci-fi, and young adult genres, sometimes mixing them together where I can.

I’m a life-long Trekkie so it’s probably no surprise my most major inspiration was Star Trek. The episode “MirI”, from the 1960s series, has fueled my imagination and muse for almost a decade. The episode features a world where adults have died off, leaving teens and children behind. I wondered what might happen if that happened in our world. That thought has led to what I call the After Adults series, which follows the lives of several young men and women after the death of all adults, and how their actions affect the reconstruction effort.

I use writing as a way to explore dilemmas of the heart and mind. To paraphrase William Faulkner, “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” I’m also a fan of taking tropes and pushing them to their logical ends. Writing is a fun challenge and a personal journey. Words are really neat, not just in matters of etymology, but also the images and feelings they can evoke in the reader’s mind. Orson Scott Card is an inspiration because of his powerful characters and compelling plot in Ender’s Game. Another favorite of mine is George R.R. Martin because of the sheer detail and scope in the A Song of Ice and Fire series and the conflicted, morally grey characters he writes.

JuNoWriMo 2016

Tentatively titled A New Hero, my JuNoWriMo 2016 story is set in the same universe as my two NaNoWriMo novels The Red Eye Effect and The Ragged Platoon. However, it is set much earlier, just after the pandemic that wiped out everyone over the age of 18. Alex Caffey hides in the outskirts of his hometown as gang violence spikes. A group calling itself the Order of Friendship moves in, claiming to be interested in restoring order to the world. He agrees to work with them, first as a mechanic, then as a soldier in the Knights of Friends. For the next year, Alex travels with his fellow fighters defending those who can’t defend themselves, falling in love, and trying to figure out where he stands in the world. It’s an adventure for him externally and internally, one he never imagined taking.

I already have some of the story written, but much of it remains to be developed. I am dedicating this June to completing the novel, then moving on to others in the same world that help tell the larger story of survival, power, and social order.

Connect with Shawn:

Facebook | Twitter | Website

 

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Terrelle Shelton

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

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BackgroundTerrelle

I became a writer shortly after reading the Twilight Series. I began writing my very first story back in 2010. It was a story centered around an ancient blood feud between two rival clans from the 1800’s set in current day Atlanta, Georgia.  I never finished writing this story because I lost the notebook I was writing it in.  About two years later, I was watching an anime known as Fairy Tale and suddenly I got the urge to write again. This time I came up with a whole new story centered around two men who decided to work together to take over the world that they were in. This led to betrayal and all sorts of things. I started working on this book back in 2013, which I finished in my first ever NaNoWriMo. It was a lot of hard work, but I loved every minute of it. I write in the fantasy genre.

Terrelle’s JuNoWriMo Plans

For JuNoWriMo, I will be working on a brand new series called, Dragons And Gods. There isn’t much to say about this book at the moment because I am still working on the blueprint,  but what I can tell you is that is that one of the dragons named Dias will attempt to take over the realm of the Gods, which will spark a war between both realms. How will it play out you may ask? Well you’ll just have to wait!   I didn’t write anything before June started, but I did work on a blueprint so I had an idea of where I wanted to go. I plan on meeting the 50k mark during JuNoWriMo, but my ultimate goal is either going to be 60 to 65k.

Connect with Terrelle: 

Facebook | Twitter

#JuNoWriMo Featured Author: Kalen Williamson

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

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Background Kalen

I always wrote growing up, and enjoyed writing whether it was a novel, an English project, or a poem inspired by my tumultuous emotions. I started writing as a career a few years ago. I am publishing an anthology, called Tapestry, this summer. It has various sized stories from flash fiction to novelettes linked together as an emotional journey.

Kalen’s JuNoWriMo Plans

This June is going to be hectic for me; it’s my first JuNoWriMo and I am going to be a sprint leader! I want to complete the finishing touches on Tapestry, and I plan to continue work on a novel I started a few years ago. While Tapestry is literary fiction, my novel is going to be Christmas, fantasy fiction. It’s about a boy who has learns the origins and meaning of Christmas when someone in the North Pole notices his bad behavior. There are some dark parts in the story, so i’m not sure if I would put it in the Young Adults or Adult category. I’ll have a better idea when I finish writing it.

There’s no title yet. I’ve been playing around with different ideas, but none of them seem perfect. I don’t recall if anything in particular inspired me to start down this path, but I love Christmas and stories about Santa Claus and how he came to be. Since it is a holiday story, I hope to have it written, edited, and polished in time for the holidays. I want to get most of the first draft completed during JuNoWriMo; however, the whole novel might take until the end of July.  I have not started a Pinterest board for this project yet, but I enjoy making them and will probably end up with one by the end of the project.

Connect with Kalen: 

Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Pinterest | Goodreads | Blog

Pep Talk Week 4: Do you ever get stuck?

Stacy Claflin, author of four book series, shares with us her advice on what to do when you get stuck in the midst of your novel–just the Pep Talk we need for the middle of JuNoWriMo!

InspirationDo you ever get stuck at some point when writing a novel? Sometimes that middle-ish point can be the most challenging. The beginning is fun because you come in with all these ideas, and it’s exciting. The end is full action, and the writing sometimes seems to happen by itself.

Really, though, any point of the story can give the writer problems.

Feeling stuck

When you’re in the thick of it and things slow down, a lot of different variables can leave you feeling stumped. Maybe the story has gone in a different direction than you planned. You’re not sure if you need to map out a different ending or maybe look for a new path to the end you have in mind.

Or it could be that the story is right where it should be, but doubt has crept in. You know what I mean. Do I have enough material to get to the end and have it long enough? Is this as good as it could be? What if it sucks and I just can’t see it? Or maybe you feel like it is horrible, and you don’t know whether to go on or not.

That valley between the exciting peaks can feel like a wasteland. 

The good news is that it doesn’t need to stay that way. There are a lot of things you can do to turn everything around and get excited about writing again. Continue reading “Pep Talk Week 4: Do you ever get stuck?”

#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: 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


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Pep Talk Week 2: Seven Things to Do When Your WIP is a Hot Mess

This week, Katharine Grubb offers advice on how to rescue your work in progress (WIP). Katharine’s blog is about the “Confessions of a Busy Mom Who Became an Independent Novelist.”

So it’s JuNoWriMo and you’ve hit the second week!

You’re like um, I have how many words to go?

You thought you could do this. You had ideas! You had characters! You had a plot! I mean you kind of have a plot but now it kind of feels like a plod. You had a vision for the perfect story in this genre! But then you realize that maybe this contemporary romance might do better on Mars? Maybe your heroine needs fangs? Maybe you could kill everyone off, call it a dystopian and be done with it?

What do you do?

1. Take a deep breath. Deep breathing can calm you down. They don’t tell you this in writing classes but breathing when you write is as important as the kind of mug you use for your hot beverage. Take another deep breath. No one ever died from JuNoWriMo. Continue reading “Pep Talk Week 2: Seven Things to Do When Your WIP is a Hot Mess”