Read an Ebook Week--Final Day!

It's the final day of Read an e-Book Week!

If you haven't entered to win a free copy of The Vigilantes, this is the last day to do it!

You can earn entries by sharing my books and pages all over the web.

Leave a comment letting me know what you did this week to celebrate. Did you read an ebook? If so, which one? Did you go to smashwords.com to find free books? What did you get?

If you're a writer, did you participate? Did you give stuff away? Join the smashwords promo? Read an ebook yourself?

If you helped me or another author out this week, let me know what you did. Any other ideas to help make indie books more visible? Share that too!

I look forward to hearing from readers, writers, and followers about what you did this week.

Look for the winner of the ARC copy of The Vigilantes coming soon...I still have to tally up entries!

Hope everyone had a great, successful week of e-reading.

Read an Ebook Week (Day 6)

It's almost over! Congrats to the five winner so far!

If you want to win a free ARC hardcopy of The Vigilantes, make sure you check out all my "Read an Ebook Week" posts to see how you can get extra entries! And don't forget to leave links to what you've done so I can give you credit. To enter to win an ebook copy of The Vigilantes, keep reading.

Today is Friday...Follow Friday! Make sure you've followed my blog, Twitter, and liked my Facebook pages (writer and book).

Here's what you can also do: enlist your friends to follow my blog (+3 entries each) and leave a comment telling me you sent them.

Get your friends to like my FB pages and leave a comment telling me you sent them.

Tweet a #FF post with my name in it: @lenahillbrand....every time you post a #FF tweet with my name, +1 entry. Every time you get someone to retweet it, +1 entry. Every time you get one of your followers to follow me, +2 entries (have them let me know who sent them, of course!) Also, share this post on Twitter, the same retweet rule applies!

Additional ways to enter on this next-to-last day of the contest:

Like, share, or add me as a favorite author on Amazon (+3). If you like The Superiors and The Vigilantes, make sure you let me know on amazon (+2 for each).

Pin one of my books on Pinterest (+3).

Add me as a favorite author on Barnes&Noble. FB like The Vigilantes and The Superiors on Barnes&Noble.


The Superiors is free for 2 more days on Smashwords! Pick it up while you can! Add me as a favorite author on Smashwords. FB like The Vigilantes and The Superiors on Smashwords. Share my books on all the social media sites on the right-hand side of the page a few inches below the FB like button.

If you have a Goodreads account: Follow the link to The Superiors and The Vigilantes. Scroll down to the bottom of the righthand column and you'll see where you can share via FB, Twitter, Pinterest and Google. Do that stuff!
Add me as a favorite author.

(For +10 bonus points, take The Superiors quiz if you've already read the book...you don't even have to get the questions right! Post a comment on the quiz letting me know your score).

As always, bonus entries for sharing this post all over the place! Share buttons below!

Read an Ebook Week Day 3 and 4 Giveaway

Have you picked an ebook to read yet?

If you're looking for free books, check out Smashwords.com and find some free books on promotion this week for free or cheap!

If you want to win a free e-copy of The Vigilantes, I'm giving away one every day. If you haven't won yet, try again. I'm also giving away an ARC hardcopy at the end of this week to the person with most entries for the whole week, so keep trying!

If you haven't entered the contest yet, find tons of ways to get extra entries in yesterday's post.

Here are some new ways today: get somoeone to follow my blog (have them leave a comment with your name on this post so I know who sent them) +5 entries.

Go follow me or get someone to follow me on twitter (again, have them send me a tweet with your twitter name) +1.

Like or get someone to like my FB writer page or book page, and get +2 for every like (have them leave a comment so I know who sent them).

Get someone to pin one of my books on Pinterest (+5 each).

Tomorrow I will post a poetry blog as usual. Share it via FB, blog, twitter, Google+1 for additional entries (as always, post a comment letting me know you did those things so I can add your entries to my random drawing).

Read an Ebook Week (#Giveaway) Day 2

Want to win a free copy of The Vigilantes?

Well, you can. I'm giving away one every day this week. Congrats to yesterday's winner!

You can find the first book in the series for free on Smashwords this week: The Superiors.

ALSO, at the end of the week I will be picking the person with the most entries for the whole week (not random selection like the daily winners) to receive a paperback copy of The Vigilantes. So keep coming back and helping me promote this great event to get people reading Ebooks and independent authors!

Today, to win a copy of The Vigilantes, I've added extra chances to win. Here's how:

Like yesterday, share this post via Twitter, FB, Blog, Google+1. One entry per post, +5 for blogging this. Please leave links in the comments section to your posts. Also, if you ask people to retweet, I will check your twitter post and give you an additional two entries for every person who retweets your post or reposts your FB link!

Additional chances to win if you do these things: Add me as a favorite author on Smashwords (under my picture, it will have a list of people who added me as a favorite author. Below that, there's a link that says "add author as favorite." Also, there's a button on the top left that says the same thing. Click on either one to add me (+2 entries).

While you're on my page, click on, The Vigilantes (or follow these links). On the lefthand side of the book page, there are tons of ways to share that book: Twitter, FB like, Stumbledupon, Reddit, Digg, or bookmark on Delicious. If you have one of these, it's a +1 each time. Tomorrow do the same for my other book, The Superiors. And download it for free while you're there!

Happy ereading!

Read an Ebook Week! (#Giveaway)

Hello fellow readers and writers,

In case you didn't know, this week is "Read an Ebook Week." What does that mean?
It means you should read an e-book!

It also means many other exciting things like:
I'm giving away a free ebook of The Vigilantes every day for the rest of the week!

I'll post with new details throughout the week, so check back often and try to win the free copy for that day.

Here's how you can win: Throughout the week, I will post about Read an Ebook Week. When you see those posts, check out what's going on for chances to win. I will add new ways to get extra entries as the week goes on.

Sunday: Go to the bottom of this post and share it on Twitter (+1 entry), Facebook (+1), Google Plus-One (+1), and your blog (+5), or Pin one of my books on Pinterest (+3). Also, if you link my blog to yours (add it to your list of websites) that's +10 entries. Make sure you leave a comment letting me know what you did, with links to your posts & blog. I will message you on Twitter if you win, or you can leave your email address in the comments if you don't have Twitter.

If you don't win a copy, you can still get The Vigilantes for half price on Smashwords.com for the promotion they're having this week. They are having a huge promotion! Tons of books are 25% off, 50% off, 75% off, or FREE. Make sure to go check it out. If you don't have an account, it's free to sign up, and you can download ebooks in any format so they work on whatever digital reader you have.

ANNNNNDDDD...remember how I said a bunch of books are FREE this week? Well....The Superiors is one of them. So, if you win The Vigilantes and you haven't read the first book in the series, you can get it free on Smashwords all week. And if you get The Superiors free and want a great deal on the second book, it's half off.

Check out the site and see what books you can score all week long. Yay for ebooks!

On a personal note, I will finally be finishing an ebook or two that I've been meaning to read for a long time. Look for an ebook review at the end of the week.

Review Wednesday: The Stand, by Stephen King

The Stand by Stephen King


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I've read a lot of Stephen King, and this is one of my favorites. I read it quite a while ago, maybe 2002, around the time of the Antrax scare. So when I read this, it was so scary to me, because I kept thinking how easily it could really happen. That made it much scarier.




Most of King's books have supernatural aspects, but I usually like the ones with few supernatural elements. The more likely the situation could happen, the scarier his books. So I really enjoyed The Stand.




I thought he did an amazing job of creating a post-apocalyptic world. The banding together of the group was gradual, as all King's novels are. He never rushes anything. He takes his sweet time building suspense, which I know bothers some people who are used to the instant gratification of the action-packed fast-paced fantasy novels out today. But I'd trade all of them for The Stand.




This book is chilling in it's possibility. The different groups all seem equally possible despite their differences. When you're reading, you have no doubt that those groups would band together if something like this ever happened. There are good people, bad people, and people who will follow along with whichever group finds them. I loved the characters, even the gross ones (and it's Stephen King, so there are some horrifying and disgusting characters and actions).




Without summarizing or giving too much away, this book is amazing, and it's one of King's best. A classic that should and probably will be read for a long, long time.




Recommended to anyone who likes well-developed books of chilling possibility.




View all my reviews

Cyber Monday!

Alright, well, while I'm at it, I figured I'd keep my book at .99 through the weekend and Cyber Monday. So if you want to find The Superiors for super cheap, go check it out! And look at all the other great deals while you're there, too. I'm pretty excited about the tote bag I found on amazon!

Guest Author: Meghan Ciana Doidge

Hey everyone! Please welcome to my blog Meghan, author of After the Virus. She's got some great tips on writing for us. After you read the post, go check out her blog and see what else she has going on!

The role of structure in a 1st draft novel

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

Transitioning from writing screenplays into writing novels has been an exciting and daunting task. Exciting, because, after writing screenplays for over 10 years, I fell into writing my first novel, After The Virus, and the writing just flowed. Daunting because now I have to follow up and recapture the magic I found while writing After The Virus.

When I write a screenplay I rely heavily on structure to craft the 1st draft, and I mostly adhere to the Syd Field school. I don’t even write a single word, other than jotting down scene ideas or bits of dialogue when they come to me, until I have the entire screenplay plotted out. But, I didn’t craft my novel, After The Virus, in this same fashion, though it is quite structured (as that is just in my nature), however its structure ended up, by necessity I now believe, being flexible.

So as I jump into another novel (or 4) I’ve been thinking about screenplay structure and how it applies, for me, to novel writing. Here are the elements that I think are most helpful when crafting a 1st draft.

1. Three Acts – Beginning, Middle & End – this might be a no brainer for most writers, but it is odd how many stories don’t actually have a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. It is amazing how many novels and/or movies I have read/seen that don’t end well (God, that can ruin a story!!).

So pull out a piece of paper, divide it lengthwise into three sections, and jot down a sentence to describe the beginning of your story (aka your set-up), the middle (aka the confrontation) and the end (aka the resolution). By the way, each sentence should be about the plot not about the characters feelings or thoughts; what happens?

2. The beginning – start with the The Inciting Incident – what is the one action or plot point without which your entire story could not actually take place? Start writing there, and don’t worry about an introductory chapter or setting up the story. What propels the plot? What pushes your protagonist through the story?

After you’ve compelled your 1st draft and you still think you need an introductory chapter, write it in your 2nd draft pass. But start in action, and you’ll suck your reader right into the story. The character background, environmental elements, and other introductory items can be worked in to the action of the plot as you move forward.

If your story is a chess game, you lead with your queen not one of your pawns. Pawns are follow-up, development. Start strong. Play your queen.

[spoiler alert] In my novel, After The Virus, the inciting incident is when my main protagonist, Rhiannon chooses and succeeds in escaping her capture/captors. Without this action (aka plot point) none of the remaining story is possible. Note my emphasis on the protagonist choosing action, as there are not too many stories that can function well with a passive protagonist (there are, of course, always great exceptions to this and any other rule).

3. The middle – also known as the place where writers go to die a slow, painful death – solidify your The Midpoint - this is your hook from which your entire story hangs. If your story was actually hanger this would be the hook that hangs off the closet rod.

The entire first half of your book builds to this point and then something happens that propels us into the second half of the book. This something is directly tied to the main plot and completely changes the game. Someone dies, someone loses, or, in less action driven narratives, someone has a massive epiphany. This is the point of no return. The characters will never, ever be the same and, to repeat myself because I think it is important to stress this point, there is no going back.

To take this a little bit further, the midpoint is usually tied directly to the inciting incident.

[spoiler alert] The midpoint of my novel, After The Virus, is when the mute child, Snickers, falls in the river and Rhiannon--ever the hero--chooses (again, chooses), risking her own life, to dive in after the child. How is this tied to the inciting incident? By jumping in the river after Snickers, Rhiannon finds herself entering, under duress of course, the very city she escaped at the beginning of the novel. This midpoint also causes Will, the secondary protagonist, to step up and spring into action. There is literally no turn back from this point forward for Rhiannon or the plot.

Side note: speaking of being flexible with your 1st draft. What is now the midpoint of my novel (spoiler: Snickers going in the river) I had first thought was my turn into the 3rd Act (The Climax). As I was writing it became apparent I was wrong and this plot point was actually my midpoint.

4. The ending – ramp up to The Climax – after the midpoint this is what the entire set-up and confrontation of the novel has been building too, and, after this point, it is all resolution, which doesn’t necessarily mean we are in the happily-ever-after section of the story, but that everything that happens after the climax is a reaction to that climax.

This must be a big moment, ideally it should involve all your main characters, and it is (to paraphrase from Save the Cat) always the darkest night of the soul.

[spoiler alert] In After The Virus, the Climax is the moment Rhiannon stops fighting her (second set of) captors, willingly adopts the movie star persona, a mask which she has spent the entire novel attempting to shed, and chooses to face the evil she’s been running from, in order to save the child.

The 3rd Act of After The Virus opens with my absolute favourite scene of the novel. Here is the snippet:

A brisk, salty wind, they must be very close to the ocean here, blew through the buildings and billowed around and beyond her. The dress was instantly slicked against her. She could feel the light fabric lift about four feet behind her and her hair a similar sail. Her silk-sheathed nipples rose in protest of the chill, and a murmur, punctuated with gasps, rustled through the following crowd. She gritted her teeth at the exposure, at the perceived sexuality, at the perceived vulnerability of an involuntary bodily function.

They reached for her then.

Lining the sides of street, suddenly as far as she could see, they reached fingers for her, but didn’t touch.

She walked like that for a full block, so close she could feel the brush of energy from each fingertip--thousands of fingers.

What was she to them? The time before? Whatever it was, it wasn’t a role she was willing to accept, or that she was even qualified for.

That’s it! Just four elements with which to construct your 1st draft: Three Acts, Inciting Incident, Midpoint and Climax. Make sure the Inciting Incident, Midpoint and Climax are all tied together, like knots along the same piece of string.

Be flexible, let the writing just flow, don’t edit yourself…at least not until the 2nd draft!!

If you’d like to read my novel to see if I actually know anything about writing (which I hope to God - after all these years - I do, even if I don’t articulate it particularly well above), please check out, After The Virus:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Goodreads ePUB

Four FREE chapters

And drop by my blog for a chat!

Thanks for reading,

Meghan

The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read a lot of McCarthy's southwestern books, but this was my favorite of his works. He can write a sentence that goes on for paragraphs without losing the reader (I don't recommend anyone else try it). This book was so disturbing, and yet so poignant and beautiful it took my breath away. It's grim, and gritty, and dark, depressing... I literally had to stop reading a few times when it got so intense that it overwhelmed me. Surprising to say that about a book in which nothing at all happens except for walking down a post-apocalypic road (or post nuclear fallout?). There are scenes that made me want to vomit, and scream, and shudder for days. I still remember this book with amazing clarity even though I read it several years ago.

Despite the bleak atmosphere, the book is one of the most well-crafted and well-written I've read in a long, long, long time (yes, it does require three 'longs'). The imagery and setting are so clear that I felt like I was IN the book, that world, that cold and bleak nothingness that fills the book with such pervasive gloom. I can't begin to explain how affecting this book is. It is definitely not for the faint of heart, but I can't think of one guy I know who wouldn't love this book (and some girls, too, of course, although it's a very masculine read). It is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. And I've read a lot.

View all my reviews

The Waiting Game (again)

Must exercise patience. Yes, much patience is required in this business of trying to become a writer. I've found the best thing to do when waiting for anything....is to edit. I'm not a big fan of editing, but I'm a big fan of the results. So while I wait on queries, wait on cover artists, wait on a million other things...I will edit. And later, I will be happy I did. (Or that's the hope, anyway). At least it will keep me from all that banging my head on the wall. And it's productive, in a not-as-glamorous way. Writing is the big fun. Editing is the work that goes into making it look like the writing was big fun. Haha. A writer joke. At least I amuse myself.

Weekly blehhh...

Sometimes you just have one of those days/weeks/months/years. Everything goes to bleh and you just want to drum your head against the blehing wall.* But if you don't, or even if you do, you might get something else done, too. You might knock out your blehs, or some brain cells at least. You might shake loose an idea. Or you might just get a headache, if you didn't already have one.
You might learn a valuable lesson while you try to knock out your blehs. You might learn that it takes 26 good knocks before you get a headache, or only 6. You might learn that this is time well spent, or not. You might learn that you now can't remember why you started banging your head to begin with, and you'd rather go back and force yourself to do something more productive. Or you might just stand there thumping your head against the wall until the neighbors come over to complain. But that could be a learning experience in itself.

*I in no way condone banging one's head against the wall, nor do I claim responsibility for either positive or negative effects resulting from this activity if at any time you decide to do this because of or not because of reading this or any other blog entries I have posted previously or may post in the future.

Fifteen Books Everyone Should Read

Currently Reading: Sophie's Choice, By William Styron

This is just my opinion, of course. But here are fifteen amazing books (in no particular order) that I would share with absolutely anyone, regardless of age, genre preference, or any other factor.

1. House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer
2. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
4. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison
5. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
6. Tangerine, by Edward Bloor
7. His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Phillip Pulman (cheating to pick 3 books, I know, but they are all too AMAZING to pick just one).
8. Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
9. The Stand, by Stephen King
10. Jane Eyre, By Charlotte Bronte
11. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
12. The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
13. A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
14. The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
15. Outside Over There, by Maurice Sendak

Not for me.

I'm a little behind on posting since I had the flu and was out of commission for a while. Here's another post to make up for it. Plus, I find lists are a great way to procrastinate when I should be writing.

When querying, the standard rejection letter can be boiled down to one line, or three little painful words: Not for me. That's the polite way to decline a query letter. So, in honor of rejection letters, here is ten reasons why someone might find that my writing is not for them.

You might NOT want to read my books if:

1. You expect the guy to be all sappy and romantic or metrosexual
2. You want lengthy descriptions of how people look/how hot they are
3. You don’t like the C-word, F-word, or B-word
4. You don’t like the D-word or any other anatomically exact words used to insult someone
5. You have a problem with age disparity in couples
6. You don’t want any of the characters to die
7. You only like books that end shiny and happy for all the characters
8. You don’t like books with sex/people who talk about sex a lot
9. You want someone to hold your hand and explain every sentence
10. You don’t like books with fantastical elements (vampires, clones, psychics, oh my!)