Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Short Story Conundrum

I’ve been writing short stories, which is a completely different experience for me. I’ve done flash fiction for years as a kind of daily warm-up for my novels, so you’d think upping the word count wouldn’t be that much of a difference, but it really is. With my novels I spend a great deal of time and effort on character development. I do personality studies, have pictures painted, go overboard, really. But I have to; I need them to be real to me so they will be real for my readers. Now for my flash fiction, I don’t do any of that. I just sit and write for a few minutes whatever pops in my head. Short stories should fall somewhere in the middle, right? But they don’t. I can’t justify the months I usually spend on getting to know a character whose story will be told in thirty pages or less. At the same time, though, it feels like I should do more than just sit and write. It’s a conundrum. How about all of you—do you spend the same time prepping for short stories as you do your longer works?

Friday, September 18, 2015

Bloodbrothers

Here it is.

It's been over a year in the making, but I am happy to (finally) announce the release of the fourth and last novel in the Newstead series: Bloodbrothers.

Joel Cranston thinks Steven is dead, Newstead is empty, and Rachel is his.
Joel Cranston is as clueless as ever.

You can get it here

This is bittersweet for me; I'm happy to see a conclusion to Joel's story, but I will miss being with him everyday. I started writing this series five years ago, and finished this book almost to the day of our anniversary. Can you believe it? Time has just flown by.

For those of you who offered to help promote this, I'll be happy to take you up on it. Anyone else who wants to spread the word, it would be much appreciated.

Also, an update on that writing class I told you about--it went very well. Thanks for all your suggestions, they really helped. I went in just being myself. When we had a little extra time at the end, we just talked about the books we loved and why we loved them; no end to the conversation there. In case I don't say it enough, thanks for all you do. I'm so grateful for each one of you!

Until next time.
-Mel

Friday, September 11, 2015

Yikes

Today I’m teaching a writing class, it will be the first one ever for me. I’m the local SCBWI rep, so I’ve had meetings and write-ins, but this is different. This is me getting in front of a room and speaking. I’ve agreed to hold a six session class starting today and ending some time in November. I have notes and other props, but each class is an hour. An hour. I’m picturing me standing there staring at them and them staring at me and crickets chirping somewhere. :) And did I mention the students in this class are teenagers? Yikes. I'm thinking of bringing cookies as bribery. Any other suggestions?

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Mel

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

IWSG

Today is the first Wednesday of the month, which makes it IWSG time. Thanks to Alex Cavanaugh and co-hosts for putting this on each month. It’s a wonderful community of writers who are also humans. We make mistakes. We’re insecure. This month I’m more sad than insecure. I’ll be finishing my Newstead series, which means saying good-bye to some characters who have become a major part of my life. It feels timely though, five years ago tomorrow is when I started this venture; it feels right that it should end now. Do any of you have problems with that-with saying good-bye?