Finished A Guy's Dream Come True and working on a new YA sequel

After finishing A Guy's Dream Come True a few weeks ago.  Here's where you can find my books:

Smashwords

Amazon

Update:

I've started the new draft of  a sequel to my YA book, City of Fury.  The sequel is called School of Fury.  I'm going to write about what it would be like to come back from saving a world to finding out the world you knew is completely different, but you haven't changed.  You're a few weeks older and a lot wiser than you were when summer started.  You left to find your parents and ended up in the middle of a planetary war.  Now, summer's over and you want to turn in an abbreviated version of the best summer ever report and introduce all your friends to your new boyfriend, but everything's different.  Completely and utterly different.  

So far, it's a fun story.  I want to write about culture shock, the environment and figuring out where you belong.  

Hope you enjoy my newest romance novel.  I'll be back to writing the 4th Guy novel later this year.  It's called, A Guy's Last Request.

Have a great weekend!

Beta Readers needed for my new book, A Guy's Dream Come True

Hi - I'm working on the final draft of my third romance novel, A Guy's Dream Come True, and need beta readers to give me feedback.  If you're interested, let me know!  I'll return the favor someday!

Breathe

Hi everyone - having fun this summer?  I've been working on my Young Adult book, School of Fury and letting my third "Guy's" romance breathe before I do the final rewrite.  Ok, I was a little lazy on writing School.  I worked out a couple of chapters and have been doing some planning for the shape of the book.

Basically, I've been letting ME breathe a little before the rewrite for my third romance novel.  I'm feeling good.  Strong, ready and excited to make the book a terrific read for you!

Thankfully, I don't have a need to do any major plot overhauls.  I like the way this story played out.

I took 2  days off this week and earlier today I was tempted to try to get the book out by next weekend, but I am going to slow down, check carefully for typos or repeated sections and then check it again.
And Again.
And Again.

Once I publish "A Guy's Dream Come True," my writing schedule actually gets intense.  Before the end of the year, I plan to carefully check my first 2 books for typos and repeated sections based on reader reviews and feedback (THANK YOU).  I will be working on "School of Fury" and hope to publish it before Summer 2014.

My fourth romance novel, "A Guy's Last Request," is going to be a lot of fun to write.  I have a deadline of Summer/fall 2014 for the completed draft.

That's the plan.

Enjoy the summer!

Breathe!

Need a beach-ing e-read? Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale - use code SW100

Hi all - need a beach-ing e-read?  You can get all of my books for 100% off using code SW100.

Smashwords Shawna Hansen books

Enjoy!

Pride in Ownership

Indie authors can take pride in the new Smashwords' Indie Author bestseller lists on Publishers Weekly.  Indie Bestsellers

Smashwords keeps pushing the boundaries of Indie books and establishing itself as the place to be as an Indie writer.  Every point of contact that I have had with Smashwords has been encouraging to me as an artist. 

My experience with Smashwords has been A+++  My books are really getting out there.

When I first started out in 2011, I thought Amazon would be the major player, but I feel like Amazon is tip-toeing around trying to keep the publishers on top and the indies can scramble for the crumbs below.  I don't feel any pride in ownership with Amazon, but I feel extremely proud to see my books distributed worldwide on many different devices and in many channels with Smashwords.

I know Amazon is doing the same thing, but why don't I feel any pride in ownership?  I just don't feel like Amazon knows what to do with Indie writers. 

Hurray for Indie writers and the new bestseller list!  I'm going to shift my focus to not only publishing on Smashwords, but being a Smashwords consumer!

Eat, Drink and Be Merry!

A friend of mine gave a speech at his birthday party and said we should live our each day as if it is it our last -- we don't know when, but one of the days of our lives WILL be our last day.

Tell the ones you love, you love them!  Spend time with them.  Enjoy each minute.

In the world of writing and rewriting, as you work through a manuscript, do you practice this philosophy?  Do you write each page as if the book may end on the next page?

Do you write each chapter completely as if it were the end of the book?

Or do you just live and enjoy each moment of the writing process?

If today was your last day, did you write the story you wanted to write?  Did you get to the important parts of the story or did you nitpick over and over and over through a scene that you may delete later anyway?

If you only wrote the story you need to write on your last day on this planet, what would it be?

School's out!

While I'm letting my new book draft breathe for a couple of weeks before starting editing/rewriting, I'm starting the sequel to my young adult SF book, City of Fury. 

The new book is called School of Fury.  After everything that happened on Fury in the first book, Anjie and Kaz return to Earth so Anjie can go to high school with her friends.  Unfortunately, she's in for a shock:  she's been gone for 20 years! 

Times have changed and Anjie has not.  Anjie's friend, Kaz, a native of Fury, has seen what happens to a planet when war and greed take control. 

Learning about the environmental movement on Earth and the changes Earthlings are making in caring for our planet is going to be a great adventure!

Rewriting -- let me know your recipes for success

I love to bake.  Measuring, mixing, stirring and putting the dough into a pan are my favorite things to do in the kitchen.  

Decorating and frosting are not my strengths.  I really just want to slap some frosting on the cake and eat it!

Unfortunately, my approach to rewriting is closer to my cake decorating skills than I really like.  I want to be a meticulous editor and poet who analyzes every word, phrase and sentence in my books and makes them perfect, but I'm not like that.

My goal for this new draft is to be patient.  Let the cake cool.

Plan how I want it to look.  Pick out the right decorations.  Have the right tools in hand.  

I am going to take my time and make this book beautiful.  

And then I'm going to eat it and enjoy it!  

Let me know how you approach rewriting -- I'd love to hear your experiences and how you decorate your cakes :)

Fashion Week Paris June 2013

Fave of the day:  Inspired by Dandelion Fluff?

 

 

 

Check out my Pinterest Board Awkward Styles

Fashion Week in Paris! Keep up with the fun on my Pinterest Board Awkward Styles

It's here - Paris Fashion Week!  Have some fun and check out my Awkward Styles board on Pinterest...

Awkward Styles

I did it!

Draft is finished!  I have one more chapter to add but the story is on paper now.

WHEW!

Two more days!

Two more days!  I have a really fun scene left to write tomorrow and then my draft is done!

I'm looking forward to finishing it!!!

Day Three - Feeling the Crunch!

The reason why I called this blog ZAP! Writing is because sometimes when I'm writing or thinking about writing it feels like my head just got hit by lightning.

I'm at the point in finishing my draft where I have to make the reader feel like that, too.  I want to surprise the reader with the story, but at the same time, electrify their thoughts and make them want to read so fast that they can't breathe.  

Here's the thing -- for me, I usually think I already know the story as I am writing it, but it's a great feeling when the story surprises me and takes me down an expected path.  So for me, that's a ZAP!

The zaps are what make writing fun.  

I love having a little pressure to finish the draft.  When the draft was dragging out over months and months, I was really unhappy.  I feel so happy that I have only 3 days left to get the story down on paper.

It's going to be great to shift to edit mode!

Thinking ahead - my next book is going to be about a character in the current book, Sofia.  I'm watching for opportunities to bring in a few "hints" about the next book, "A Guy's Last Request."

Day 4 Going with the flow

Amazing how the draft is transforming into a book.

I have a plan for where the story is going, but the book is going its own way. I know I have to get from A to B but the details of how to get there are actually a lot of fun to discover each day.

It's fun to see all the secrets revealed.  Over the next few chapters, time will speed up.  It's hard to imagine only 2 days pass in 30+ chapters.  Isn't that wild?

Day 5 Last night

After work yesterday, I came home and we had dinner and then we started watching an older movie starring Gene Hackman, "The Conversation."  He's such an oddball actor -- the unlikely romantic hero.  I don't know how he does it.

Almost passing out on the couch, we stopped the movie with about an hour left to finish up today.  I went to bed to read my Kindle for a while, but then realized I had not done my 1500 words!  I did something I've never done before -- I wrote a chapter in bed!

The only real message I have about that is that sometimes writers have to write in weird places and grab the time they need to keep the story moving.

I'm working on some tough scenes with a lot of bickering and fighting and mixed communications, so it's strange that these scenes are coming out in an almost gentle writing style.  I expected that this section would be fast-paced, angry and loud, but it's almost the opposite.  The madder she gets at the rest of the group, the more she's moving inside herself.  Strange how characters in a book can surprise even the writer!

Today, is actually day 4, so I'll update you again after I write the next chapter which is literally the explosive point of the book.  Almost every character I've written about in this book is in the same place at the same time in the next chapter; including the killer she's tracking.

Chapter 36 should be fun to write (I love scary scenes).

I've actually already written chapters 38-40, so I'm down to just 2 more draft chapters.  I can't even start to tell you how great that feels about working on this draft since October 2011!

Six Six Six

Yes, I am feeling devilish in my writing today. 

I threw a couple of known enemies in my heroine's way and she's feeling a little unsure of things now. 

She's finding out she's not the only one with secrets.....

Turning up the heat Day 7

Maybe I'm a bookworm/pyromaniac.  My favorite stories start off nice & smooth, build up some heat and then wham, the story is fire eating oxygen.

How do writers achieve that intensity?

The answer has to do with building suspense and adding a little fear of the unknown.

What is your character most afraid of?  What loss would the character not be able to handle?

If you can push the character to face whatever it is that makes the world explode around them, your book will really take off.

The writing doesn't have to be fast & furious.  It's the reader's thoughts that have to go crazy.

So, day 7 was pretty fun to write.  My character is lying in bed next to her boyfriend thinking thoughts that will take her down that long & lonely road.

She's at the door of her biggest fear -- ending the relationship before it had a chance. 

Scary!!!

 

 

Day 8 - on the Vineyard

Whew, I finally got the whole gang off the ferry to Edgartown.  Monty is so tired from everything that's happened, she flashes back to a frightening memory when a man starts to take photo after photo and just doesn't stop taking photos of the group as they exit the ferry.

She blames her freaky memory on exhaustion and focuses on getting everyone out to the new beach house safe & sound.  Everyone gets settled in for the next couple of days before the fireworks. 

Can't wait to write about the group's time together on the Vineyard.  It's going to be busy just keeping track of everyone!  Day 7 should be fun...

Day 9 The Lady or the Tiger

Day 9   Dragging a minivan full of people from Nahant to Martha's Vineyard is not easy.  Just writing about getting everyone packed and the minivan loaded took forever!  It didn't help that my main character, Monty, unloaded 11 years of lies onto her love interest, Kevin.  He did not take the revelations well and his attitude shifted drastically, but he didn't drop off the road trip.  He stuck it out.

Two of the kids had to go to the bathroom again before they got out of the driveway, but once I got the group out on the road, they had smooth sailing traffic-wise.  At first they were going to stop in Newton to pick up some papers Monty needs to look at in connection with the mystery of her other love interest's sister's murder.  (This makes more sense if you have read my prequel available on Smashwords at Prequel: A Guy's Dream Come True)

With all those kids in the car, I opted to have Monty stop on the way back from the Vineyard when she'll be traveling with just her daughter and Logan.  (Kevin has to fly back to New York after the 4th of July celebration at the Mavericks' home on the Vineyard to be in the city on the 5th.) 

So, anyway, things with Kevin are weird and she has to stop at her mom's house in Hyannis where she's going to leave the minivan and they are all taking the fast ferry out to Oak Bluffs.  This is Kevin's first visit to Monty's mom's house.  He knows her from movie premieres and events and she's been to his dad's houses, but he sees all the photos from Monty's life on her mom's walls and things click for him.  He is starting to understand why she lied to him all these years.

On the ferry, Monty gets a text message right before the ferry leaves that Logan tracked his fiancee to L.A. where she ran off with one of his teammates.  He's not happy and he lets Monty know he's still interested in seeing where things with her might be heading.  Monty's with Kevin, but she doesn't know if that is going anywhere, either, so she texts Logan he's still welcome to join them for the 4th on the Vineyard. 

Ok, so here's the deal - does Monty want the "Lady" which is the easy relationship with Logan or the relationship she "should" have with Kevin, the guy she's loved for a long time?

OR.... does she have 2 tigers behind the doors?  One very angry tiger because Monty invited another guy along on "their" annual get-together on the Vineyard (although Kevin has brought girlfriends to the Vineyard in the past) and a second tiger (a very sexy tiger!)

Uh Oh....

Looking forward to Day 8 to see what happens tomorrow...

10 days to go - "How to Write a Book in 40 days or Less" by Brandy Miller

Confession time:  I was on a roll for a month on the "How to Write a Book in 40 days or Less" by Brandy Miller goal that I set for myself.  I wrote everything except the road trip section of the book.  

Life stepped in and I had to step back from my draft for a couple weeks.

Starting today, I'm doing 10 more days to finish my draft!  

My plan is to write 1500 words a day and diary my 10 days' writing experience here.

Day 10:

I'll need to revise a section I wrote a couple weeks ago because my brain took a plot twist.  I have a pet peeve about couples "coming together" at the halfway point of the book.  Part A of the book has a lot of tension and suspense, then the couple comes together and for me, Part B of the book is a downhill read.

So, I have developed a plot twist that has a hot scene right smack dab in the middle.  I hope the twist will live up to Part A's expectations and enliven Part B for the reader.  

Some of my readers may get angry with me if they believed Part A was leading up to a traditional hot scene plot (Girl and Guy are "meant" to be as it was before the twist), but I like the new storyline a lot better now.  I was struggling with how to write the story of a complicated woman who lives her own life her way and carries the burden of the secrets and lies of her life, including a love hidden deep and dark inside her.  

My mom was like that - she was in love with my dad even after they divorced.  Personally, I am not complicated enough to be secret or hidden about love (and I don't have to be since I'm married and a one-heart-one-guy kind of woman!)

So, the struggle for me is how to make "one-heart-one-guy" women like me accept a plot twist that won't make them throw the book at the (or turn off the Kindle!)

The rest of Day 10's new writing will be starting the journey back through Monty's life starting in Revere Beach and heading out Newton, the Cape and all heck breaks loose on the Vineyard.  Her journey forward goes from the Vineyard out to Hamilton and then the rest of the book through the climax takes place on Revere Beach.  

We drove up to Hamilton again last weekend.  I snapped some photos and have a clear idea of what I'm writing for that section.  Travel to-dos are another trip down to the Cape and out to the Vineyard this summer.  Oh, the hardships, we romance/suspense writers must endure...!

Happy Day 10!

Shawna 

Bad Luck Spot - Felix Morelo's art & message: PAY ATTENTION to every step in your life

Last April, my family visited New York City on a gorgeous spring Sunday.

We parked our little Fiat 500 near a Nissan GTR in the municipal parking garage near Chinatown and walked, walked, walked and walked to Rockefeller Center to visit Nintendo World.

I've always wanted to do that walk.  For me, walking is the best way to think and just "be" alive.

Walking in New York is an adventure like no other:  massive surges of people flow around corners, cars turn and halt on a dime at crosswalks, car horns pound out an urgent rhythm to move now, move now.

Walking puts you right in the there.

Walking puts you in the now.

Walking puts you here, where you need to be.

Walking is the best way to see and "feel" life in New York City.

Taxis are great to get you there, but if you want to stretch out the "getting" and soak it all in:  Walk!

New Yorkers squeeze parks into every nook and cranny they can find.  There are plazas and squares and lots of places for weary walkers to stop and sit and people watch.

Food trucks plant their four wheels and myriad of tantalizing smells near the parks.

With the spring yellow and purple flowers sprouting, all of New York wanted to "be" outside.
Everyone wanted some sun on their skin.

"Being" in New York means sensual satisfaction is offered on every inch of sidewalk in the form of street music and street art.  Walking in New York means you are part of the Art Movement.

Music and art overflows and beckons walkers from park to park.  Horns honk to move it; keep it going.

We made a few stops on our trip and just soaked it all in.   We watched city dogs play in their little doggie parks.  A Persian festival with exotic wealth partied in one corner of Union Square.  After eating lo mein and the world's largest potstickers we bought from an idling truck, our footsteps led us to discover an art fair with tables showcasing paintings, prints and all forms of art set up near the doggie park.

Just past the tables, our favorite art was Felix Morelo's chalk art, "Bad Luck Spot" and his chalk faces.

I want you to take some time and "feel" Felix Morelo's art. I know you can't jump up and drive to New York City RIGHT now, so I've collected some places for you to explore and made a footpath of Good Luck Spots dedicated to Felix Morelo below with images I pulled from Google Images for you to follow and to wish the artist success on his own journey.

You can read about Felix Morelo's chalk faces and buy some of his art here:  Official Felix Morelo web page:http://felix-morelo.com/  and check out  Felix's Online Space and Store

Get to know him and his work on facebook at:  The Felix Morelo on Facebook

Here is a link to videos of Felix Morelo's work on YouTube:
YouTube Videos

Cool blog post:
The Most Loved Man in NYC

Although some of the bad luck spots have a dark message, the crowd's reaction to the dark messages tended to be an eruption of laughter and sometimes a shriek or two to get out of the Bad Luck Spot!

Felix also has created PDA Spots (Public Display of Affection) and Good Luck Spots.

Thank you, Felix, for your beautiful, artistic message about life:  PAY ATTENTION to every step in your life.  Walk your life, "be" in your life, be alert and ready.

I hope you continue to enjoy all the faces you encounter in your path and that there are a lot more PDA Spots and Good Luck Spots in your future.

Thank you for the warning about the Bad Luck spots.  Wouldn't it be great if we could see and avoid bad luck spots in real life?

A Footpath of Good Luck Spots for the Artist, Felix Morelo