January 2007 – PLOTTING BOOTCAMP
Online
is back by popular demand!
Dates: Jan 1-26
Last date to register: Jan 1
Cost: $35
Offered through
http://www.rosescoloredglasses.com/
online workshops

What you can expect:

PREMISE Pushups
LOGLINE lunges
CHARACTER Strengthening exercises
CONFLICT! CONFLICT! CONFLICT!
Breaking through the STORY STRUCTURE stronghold
Battling the PLOT LINES

We do more in one month than some people do all year!

Get tough! Get motivated! Get Plotting!

Join your Drill Instructors, Elle James and Delilah Devlin to learn a methodical approach to harness your creativity in order to produce an in-depth plot for your next novel.

Sound scary? It is!!!! Especially when you're staring at an empty page without a compass and a map to guide you through the novelistic jungle. Your DIs will lead you through four weeks of tactics, exercises and training that will help strengthen your abilities. Elle and Delilah will accomplish this with weekly lessons, bi-weekly chats and daily online communication. Join us for bivouac, In January!

Note: Spaces limited to 25 trainees. We’re already up to 16! Join this elite force now!

Post Release Relief!

The nervous stomach is starting to settle. My first book seems to have pass first muster. I've had many great comments about Thirty Days already. I'm so excited! The sweetest was at Liquid Silver's blog, Silver Expression. The woman actually made me cry!

Check out her comment here: http://www.liquidsilverbooks.com/blog/?p=390#comment-2494

So many others have emailed or posted on boards I frequent. I'm thrilled at the response.

Of course, now the nervous stomach starts for my February release, The Cost of Eternity at Ellora's Cave. Will it live up to expectations?

*cackle* Yes, writers do tend to be a little insecure. But the voices won't let me stop writing so I guess I'll just buy stock in antacids...

Thirty Days is out!

Today is the release day of my first book, Thirty Days. I have the silliest grin on my face that just won't go away! The cover looks so pretty on the New Release page!

Go check it out! And maybe you'll want to treat yourself to a hot little romance!

Chatting today!

I'm chatting at Joyfully Reviewed's Yahoo loop today! It's Liquid Silver authors day. There promises to be contests, prizes and lots of steamy excerpts!

Join us! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chatting_with_Joyfully_Reviewed

Hugs,
Shayla

Free Chocolate!

Shayla's First Contest!

In honor of Shayla's first release on December 18th, she's giving away free chocolate and a download of her first published novel, Thirty Days!

Check out her new contest page for details on how to win, a Ghirardelli Gift Basket and a free read!

Contest ends 12/31/06 when the winner will be chosen at random from the list members.

Thirty Days has a release date!

I woke up this morning to an email from Liquid Silver Books. They are releasing Thirty Days on December 18th. It had been tentatively scheduled for January. Did you know it is really hard to type while you are floating on air?

I can't stop grinning! My dogs keep looking at me funny with all the cackling noises I'm making. This is my first book ever published. I'm having trouble believing it's real!

Bookmarks!

I ordered bookmarks! My first promo item! I'm still nervous about how they'll turn out. Writing is so much more than just getting a book published. A lot of it involves getting the word out about it. Fortunately, I have good friends willing to share information.

So step one is the bookmarks. Step two is creating a banner ad. I did this one last weekend. You can view it here: http://shaylakersten.com/images/ShaylaWebsiteBanner2.gif

April Martinez did the Thirty Days banner for me based on my book cover. I did the other three panels and made a gif out of them.

Next is finding a place to advertise!

If you're interested in a bookmark, use my contact page and send me a snail mail address. I'll mail them out as soon as I get them!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have so many things to be thankful for this year. My family, my friends, my writing career getting off the ground, even the dratted day job. Before I head to Momma's house for great food and time with at least part of the family, I wanted to wish everyone a happy, safe holiday.

Hugs,
Shayla

Doin' a Snoopy Dance!

My Ellora's Cave editor emailed me with the release date of The Cost of Eternity! As my first completed novel and first submission, it gives me great pleasure to announce the publication date of February 7, 2007!

And it turns out to be a nice little present since my birthday is a few days before.

Now if I can stopped bumping my head on the rafters!

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends!

Today we had a timed writing day. Several of the Roses (www.rosescoloredglasses.com) got together and wrote our little fannies off. Well, in my case, that would be considerable fanny.

Timed writing combines competition and encouragement via an internet chat. We meet at a specified time, in our case 8:00 AM, and write for 45 minutes. When the time is up, we meet back in our chat room and report our word counts. For 15 minutes, we discuss problems, rejoice over counts or take coffee/potty breaks. At the top of the hour, we start over again.

Today I reached 7200 words for the day, pushing me over 27k for the month. Since this week has been slow, my word count today really helped me toward my NaNoWriMo goal of 50k.

So with a push in the posterior from the Roses, I get by with a little help from my friends!

Slow writing day

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year. No, it has nothing to do with Mork! *cackle*

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50k word novel in 30 days. Last year, by Nov 18th, I was wrapping up. Finished 50k in 19 days. This year, I haven't made it to 20k yet. That makes me woefully behind.

I started thinking about why it's so much harder to write this year and I've come to a conclusion. I didn't start writing with the intention of getting published until after NaNo last year. When I started learning about what it takes to put together a novel polished enough to get an editor to look at it, I realized I didn't know squat about writing. It didn't matter that I spent two years before writing award winning fanfiction. Fans vote on the stories they like, it doesn't matter if the character's point of view is all over the place, or passive voice is everywhere or the plot isn't tight enough.

Editors look for things I'd never heard of. So much for losing the inner editor for last year's NaNo. I didn't have one! The novel I wrote last year proves it. It languishes under the proverbial bed waiting for a rewrite.

Thanks to good friends like Delilah Devlin, Myla Jackson and Layla Chase, as well as the rest of the Roses at RosesColoredGlasses.com, I now know the difference.

So this year, I have an inner editor and getting the witch to shut up and let me write has been difficult. Now, I'm off to beat my inner editor into submission and get some more words done tonight!

Thanks for stopping by,
Shayla

Brand New Blog!

All nice and new and shiny! Welcome to my new blog!

I'm not new to blogging but most of my other site consists of miscellaneous rambling. I feel the need to post something profound on this blog... Nah. It'll probably end up as random and incoherent as my other blog. *cackle*

Anyway, make yourself home. Snoop around my website. Check out my upcoming releases. Let me know what you think.

Shayla