Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Reader's Entertainment Radio Show Appearance

This Thursday I will be doing a live radio interview on the awesome Reader's Entertainment Radio Show hosted by Sheila English. The show starts at 6:00 p.m. EST and lasts a half hour. If you want to listen, call in, or chat on the chat board, simply go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/circle-of-seven. The call-in number is (646) 200-4071.

It would be super duper completely awesome if anybody calls in to talk. I'll answer questions about The Nightmare Affair, the sequel, my favorite sushi rolls, anything's game. Hope to see...er...I mean, hear, you there!

***originally published at www.mindeearnett.com. You can comment here or there***

Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Nightmare Affair Official Blog Tour

That's right! The official blog tour for The Nightmare Affair starts tomorrow, Feb 18, hosted by the awesome Itching For Books. Details are posted on my main blog here.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Writer Brain, a Follow-on Post


So the incredibly talented Laini Taylor wrote this amazing post yesterday about having a jerky writer brain. If you haven't read it yet, you should. There's something very comforting in knowing that someone as awesome as Laini Taylor struggles sometimes with getting the job done. And I completely agree with everything she has to say, especially the part about how weird it is that the very thing that gives us our creativity is also the source of our struggles. But the thing is, my experience with this problem isn't at all like hers.
Let me explain. First up, a confession: I have never in my life written a novel out of order. I start with chapter 1 and end at "the end." Always. I am incapable of writing a story any other way. And yes, I imagine that Laini might give me a cat hiss if she were ever to read this. But the thing is, our journeys are still similar. I struggled to write something publishable for years. I wrote four whole novels of impressive (read: ridiculous) length. My first novel was 180k—can you imagine? That's two YA novels in one.
And the thing is, writing all those words was easy. I would sit down at my computer, set a word count goal, and then vomit out sentences and paragraphs until I met it. And I would do it without even thinking about it, with the critical part of my brain asleep. Kind of like this:


Trouble was, these novels, complete and whole as they were—with characters, something resembling a plot, a beginning, middle, and end—all sucked. Big time. Did you read the part about vomit? Yeah, I really meant it. I wrote those first four novels a bit like this:


But just as Laini suggests in her post, when I sat down to write The Nightmare Affair, I decided I needed to do something different. I needed to write a novel that wasn't just vomit. But unlike Laini, that didn't involve tricking the critical part of my brain into staying quiet long enough to let me get the story out. No, it meant just the opposite. I had to wake up my critical brain and force it to pay attention and do its job. That part of my brain is the smart part, the one that can find plot holes, detect character inconsistencies, even rat out the boring scenes.
And guess what? It worked. The moral of the story, I think, is that all writers need to find the way to trick the critical part of their brain into working for them instead of against them. Once you do, magic will happen. And if you're looking for another visual, I imagine it might be a bit like this (because seriously, Sherlock without Watson would just suck, and vice versa)
 Happy Writing!
***Originally published at www.mindeearnett.com. You can comment here or there***

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Powell's Books New Leaf Literary Author Event!


So you remember how last fall my awesome agency New Leaf Literary & Media held a major multi-author event that got written up in Publisher's Weekly? Well, they're doing it again only this time I get to go! And yes, I'm completely excited. The event is April 17th,  7:00 at the Beaverton, Oregon location of Powell's Books. I'll be joining these fellow New Leaf authors:

  • Kody Keplinger
  • Ingrid Paulson
  • Leigh Bardugo
  • Lisa Desrochers
  • Sarah Fine
  • Kristin Halbrook

Did you see that lineup??? Seriously, how could you miss this? Oh, and I suspect there might be more news to add to this later. Just saying!
And in case you missed it, quick reminder that my book launch for The Nightmare Affair is March 5, 7:00 at Books & Co at the Greene in Beavercreek, Ohio. For more details on that and the rest of my tour, visit my Events page.

***Originally published at www.mindeearnett.com. You can comment here or there***