This past weekend, I had the fortune of attending the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in Colorado Springs. It was my first writers conference, and it was also amazing! I came home with so many new tools that I want to implement into my work.

I thought I'd share ten things that allowed me to really immerse myself in the writing world.

1. Team Up then ( Read more... )

What's funny to me is the amount of posts kicking 2010 out the door because it was so terrible for them. The way I see it, every year is filled with ups and downs. That's the way of things. Even broken down to a monthly or weekly level, we have moments of warmth and cold. Why, as humans, do we find it so easy to recall the bad memories over the ( Read more... )

With the introduction of Netflix to my life, my book to movie ratio is almost one to one (it used to be two to one). As a quick aside: I don't care for Netflix streaming movies because you can't turn on the subtitles (sometimes I like to watch movies in English and see how they translate in French or Spanish. Sometimes I can't hear what they're ( Read more... )

Yes, the moment you've all been waiting so patiently for is here! Before I list all the winners/prize combinations, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of our donating authors and also those authors that wrote such great posts for September! THANK YOU SO VERY VERY MUCH!! We couldn't have done this without you. Participants, if you get a chance, ( Read more... )

I <3 being able to share new authors' happy news. Today I'm helping reveal the cover of Victoria Schwab's (aka: veschwab) book: The Near Witch. It comes out in August 2011. YOU CAN PRE-ORDER IT RIGHT NOW!

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The Near Witch is only an old story told to frighten children. If the wind calls at night, you must not listen. The wind is lonely, and always ( Read more... )

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WELCOME TO DAY TWENTY-SEVEN OF THE COMPLETE YOUR DRAFT CHALLENGE!Twitter is a really amazing place. I've met way more awesome people than I have any right to meet. Our next guest poster is no exception. She runs a group blog with several other YA writers and has some great YouTube videos. In one of them she recommended one of the best books I've ( Read more... )

WELCOME TO DAY TWENTY-FOUR OF THE COMPLETE YOUR DRAFT CHALLENGE!Today's author is someone I've been following on her website for about a year. The premise of her first novel fascinated me (it's out now, which means you can read it too!). She lives in Paris, which is basically my Valhalla, and is a lover of languages and cultures. Also, she writes ( Read more... )

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WELCOME TO DAY TWENTY OF THE COMPLETE YOUR DRAFT CHALLENGE!

Everyone should follow today's guest on Twitter. She's one of the most fun people to watch The Vampire Diaries "with". Well, her and Heidi Kling. They are a duo of hilarity. Which is one of the reasons I asked her to guest blog for the CYD. So enjoy a few words from a past participant and ( Read more... )