Celebrating Women

I will be a vendor at the Celebrating Women event in Prince George’s County at Marietta House Museum. I will have my novel and coloring book available.

Red August copies are $14.95, the coloring book is $8.99 – descriptions and photos at the end of this post.

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I’m lucky enough to know two other fantastic area women artists who will also be vending at the event, Bridget of BDevlinDesigns, and Mary of Scribbles In Stitches.

The event is meant to showcase the talents of women artists and entrepreneurs.

From the website event page:

September 17th – 11am-6pm

Celebrate women of many talents – artists, and entrepreneurs.  Shop female owned food, wine and craft vendors.  View artists’ demonstrations and enjoy readings, plays, music and more. $5 per person entry – children 5 and under are free.

Please come by and support area artists and businesses!

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Red August Description.

What if you found out that you were descended from a long line of clandestine fighters, and that your family was still at war? Or that the love of your life was something other than human? August Archer thinks she’s a normal teenage girl—even though she has been having disturbing and erotic dreams about wolves lately. Still grieving over the loss of her bookish, charming father, and wondering over his final gift of a red hooded cloak, August is uprooted from her New York City apartment to a tiny town in Maryland, and the rambling Victorian house where he grew up. There she meets a wise woman with a gift for herbal medicine, the gentle old man who keeps the house in repair and the grounds thriving, and her new neighbor: an enigmatic, irresistibly fascinating man who refuses to talk to her, yet who seems to know her better than she knows herself, and fuels her most intense romantic fantasies. But it’s when August begins to coax her feisty Scottish grandmother out of her self-imposed catatonia that a strange tale of werewolves and hunters emerges—one in which the man of her dreams may be her family’s oldest enemy—in this modern-day telling of the Red Riding Hood story.

 

Fairy Tale Fortnight Event and Giveaways

I posted a few posts back about an event by The Book Rat and A Backwards Story – Fairy Tale Fortnight.  It’s pretty much just an awesome online celebration of fairytales.  Please go by and see what they are featuring, which by the way includes some contests for free stuff.

Which also includes a contest to give away five e-copies of my book Red August, which is coming out in August.

Go directly to that part of Fairy Tale Fortnight HERE.  That page features a Safe For Work excerpt from Red August that can only be found at the Fairy Tale Fortnight page.

Below is the book synopsis or blurb.

Writing Process Stuffs

If you have suggestions and software you’re excited about, be sure to leave a message in the comments!  I want to know all about it!

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I was talking with a friend about some of the writing process stuff I do.  This was pertaining primarily to publishing novellas and novels.  There are a lot of great tools out there for writers and some of the software is technically advanced and helpful.

You can go old school and send out query letters to agents and publishers – you will need a copy of Writer’s Market.  Or, you can do what even some established authors are doing and switch to self-publishing. In recent years independent publishing has had quite the boom.  That’s pretty good for people who are anxious to just get their stuff out there or who don’t want to wait for replies or who are just sick of rejections.  But remember, publishing on your own has its own set of problems, too, as you will find in my friend’s blog HERE.

I am always curious about the processes of other people.  In the e-book version of  Water for Elephants there was an author Q&A that was wonderful.  So, in case anybody is interested in what my process is for novels it is very simple.

1 – I make a notebook.  In the case of Red August, I used a cheap composition notebook and decorated and made a pocket in the front.  I divided it into three sections for notes on all three books in the series.  This is helpful not only before writing the books, but during the editing process as well.

2 – I draw “props” that are in the story that might get complicated.  Like August’s wooden box that is full of treasures. So when I revisit the item later, I can be sure to remember all that is in the box and what it looked like.  I make family trees, so I can keep track of births, deaths and the years and ages people should be and the way they are related to each other.

3 – I write in Word.  Here are some links to the proper formatting of manuscripts:

http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/what-are-the-guidelines-for-formating-a-manuscript

4 – I give myself deadlines.

There is usually plenty of research that goes into writing a novel.  For me, there was a lot of time spent looking into original Red Riding Hood stories as well as werewolf lore and Celtic traditions.  If the piece is set in a specific era that has an atmosphere I want to convey, there is usually research related to that as well.

 

 

Shenanigans in Publishing

I keep up with what’s going on in the self-publishing market, for obvious reasons (oy, with the research, can’t a girl just write something?) and I wanted to share THIS ARTICLE just because it’s the strangest article I’ve ever read.  At first I thought it was a satire article – in part because photo looks so staged and in part because…just…so.many.things.

Even as I’m about to post this, I double-checked to make sure it wasn’t the plot of a weekly evening soap opera.  An interesting read even if you aren’t in the book world.  But especially if you’re in the romance and erotica book world.  And also, anybody who follows Amazon and their shenanigans.

Can’t we all just play nice?

Fairytale Fortnight

Here is a link the “Fairytale Fortnight” invitation.  This is a very cute idea to help bring fairytale lovers together.

 

Red Riding Hood Exploration

Here is a nice little blog entry about Red Riding Hood by Debey Sklenar.

I’ll Tumble For Ya

***UPDATE – I am trying to focus all content here on this blog (not tumblr) and on my website and Insta. I do some Facebook stuff, but that’s usually just Insta stuff pushed over there. I’ve tried SnapChat and TikTok, but find Instagram and my blog to be the best for mu purposes.***

I have a Tumblr account, which is mostly a visual feast.  The array of photos and artwork on that platform is inspired!

If you have a Tumblr account and would like to follow each other, you can find me here:  http://hlbrookswrites.tumblr.com/

It serves much the same way as my Pinterest does, which is to mainly be a muse.