novel research

OKC Event Debrief, NaNoWriMo Decisions, and Hashtag Adventures.

/ Rozkai / 2 Comments

About Last Night…

A big thank you to everyone who came out the Bricktown Freaky Book Bang in OKC!  We had a great time.  I signed and sold a book, and I was able to meet and introduce some new people to my work.  I call that a success.  Also it was fun to be a supermodel for a day. lol OCKpic

NaNoWriMo 2018

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  This year, for the first time, I have decided to do the NaNoWriMo challenge.  I’m still feeling my way around the site and trying to get the gist of this phenomenon, but I already have a couple of writing buddies. So yay! The challenge for me now is deciding which work in progress (WIP) to focus on for the challenge.  Also I think I am supposed to set a word goal.  I guess that will depend on which WIP I choose.  Here are my choices:

God or Mammon

Originally, I was going to choose the second book in the Life Choices series,God or Mammon (Life Choices Book B). It’s a medical thriller.  This one will be fun to write, and I am very excited about it.

Patches

The first draft of Patches is already finished.  It is a supernatural thriller with angels and demons, and all kinds of wonderful spiritual warfare.  It’s about an interracial couple that moves to a small town called Purblind.  Christopher White is an architect and his wife, a black woman, is  his lawyer.  After doing a remodeling project in Purblind, AL, Christopher falls in love with the quiet little town, and purchases a house and some land there.  Purblind only allows certain families to own land, so imagine their surprise when not only has an outsider purchased their land, but he also shows up with a mixed family.  I still have a few beta readers who are reading it, and I recently got it back from my editor.  So if I choose it, I will be mostly correcting and rewriting.  Which can be fun as well, but I want to hear from more of my Beta Readers before I get started on this one.  And some of them are still reading.

Wrong Number

I started working on this novel a few years ago, and lately it has been calling me back to it.  Here’s the blurb:  Billions of digits randomly collated into systematic sequences of ten, doled out according to nation, state, and area have linked our society in an intricately woven tapestry of communication. For Jason Gord, one systematic sequence became a lethal obsession, and for Cardigan DuPree the same phone number started a life altering nightmare. It is a thriller suspense novel. I am seriously itching to work on this one again. So I think I will choose it for NaNoWriMo.

#LiveTweetANovel

So I have started to do this new thing on twitter.  You know how people live tweet their favorite shows and such?  Well I thought it might be a fun thing to do with novels as well.  So I started #LiveTweetANovel.  Basically I am giving my reactions to what I am reading as I go along.  Not for every page of course, but ever so often when I have a comment or thought about what I am reading.  I am hoping this catches on, as I think it could be kind of fun.  I am currently reading Miranda Warning by Heather Day Gilbert.  Follow me on Twitter @Rozkai to find out what I am thinking about the novel so far.

 

 

Talent, Research, and Betas! Oh, My!

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Happy Friday all!  As my title might suggest, many exciting things are happening with regard to Author Roz.  I would like to share some of them with you today.

Before I get into today’s blog, I want to let everyone know that I finally finished reformatting the e-book.  For everyone who had a previous version, you should receive an update.  Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Talent

First of all, I am looking for the right male voice talent for The Wages or the Gift.  Yes, that’s right, my next step for the novel is to make it into an audio book.  I am super excited to get started, but first I need to find the right guy for the job.  I have invited numerous voice actors to audition, but the auditions are trickling in slowly.  At this point, I have no clear trajectory as to when audio book enthusiasts can expect to listen to The Wages or the Gift, but as soon as the voice has been chosen, I will update.

Research

I have started working on the next book in my Life Choices series: God or Mammon.  I am super excited because this book is going to be a medical thriller.  This is a fun genre that will require a lot of research.  I am studying everything from medical terminology to hospital administration.  Fun stuff!

Betas

Right now my second novel (completely unrelated to The Wages or the Gift) is with a wonderful group of people called Beta Readers!  My Beta readers include my publicist (Jen Thomas), my editor (Martha Lowe) and a group of around 7 or 8 random lovers/readers of Christian Fiction.  Most of them are still in the process of reading the book, but I have gotten a few of the results.  So far, the general consensus is that I am on the right track (ie. they already really like/love the book), which is good.  After I hear back from everyone, I will start working on draft two.

Oh, My!

I am super excited to draw your attention to  The Voice of Literature Ezine at www.voxlit.co.uk. It’s a great publication out of the United Kingdom that features book reviews, excerpts from novels, author articles, and a section called Writer’s Notes. I am excited to share that an article I wrote on the technique of zooming is featured in this month’s Writer’s Notes section! It’s the first one you’ll see.  Check it out!  If you are a writer, or a person who loves literature, this is a great e-zine to follow.

 

 

 

Fun Interview Share (And other items…)

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Checkout this interview that I did with www.ilikeebooks.com! It’s been a couple of weeks since the interview, but I have been trying to decide the best way to approach announcing it.  I think in addition to making an announcement on my blog of interviews, live talks, author chats, and the like, I am going to add a media section to this blog to archive all such instances.

In other news, I got a new review that truly touched my heart.  This is review is from a friend of mine who is not a Christian, and does not at all care for the message of my novel.  However, she still enjoyed the story, and she said a lot of nice things about my writing.  Hats off to Kathleen, for being able to put aside her personal preference and still appreciate the book.  I think that’s awesome, but that is not what touched my heart. Keep in mind that I did not tell Kathleen anything about my writing process, so what I am about to point out is a major compliment.

She recognized my research!

That made me so happy.  As a person who reads a lot of reviews.  (Okay, I just let you in a little secret about me.  I occasionally go onto Amazon and read book reviews.  Lots of times I read reviews from books that I really liked, or books that are currently on the bestseller’s list.  Often times I read five stars and the one stars to two star reviews. And see what naysayers are saying about otherwise renowned works of fiction.)   Even with most five star reviews, I don’t see many reviewers noticing the research that went into creating the novel.  I did so much research for The Wages or the Gift.  (Not my favorite pass time.  I do it when necessary.) It was so cool that someone noticed my hard work. 🙂 I am impressed, thankful, and humbled that someone actually noticed that aspect of my story.