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Joylene butler's Blog (23)

Writing Advice from author JUDITH MARSHALL

Judith Marshall is a author of Husbands May Come and Go but Friends are Forever, winner of the Jack London Prize awarded by the California Writers Club. She is currently working on her second novel, Staying Afloat, the story of a devoted stay-at-home wife and mother who morphs into a sex-starved adulteress. SOME DO'S AND DON'T ABOUT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: Do pay attention to your characters. Remember story is as much (if not more) ab… Continue

Added by joylene butler on November 28, 2009 at 5:39pm — No Comments

POD and Self-Publishing

My guest blogger today is Charles Jacobs. Charles has some interesting information on POD that will surely clear up some misconceptions. He also writes tips to help you write, publish & promote your work. http://cluculzwriter.blogspot.com/2009/11/pod-most-misunderstood-ca... -- joylene Author of Dead Witness Broken But Not Dead set to be released by Theytus Books 2011 "Man's heart away from nature becomes h… Continue

Added by joylene butler on November 5, 2009 at 11:56am — No Comments

Good News

Several months ago, the distributor for my novel Dead Witness, Nancy Wise from Sandhill Book Marketing, suggested I contact Theytus Books about publishing my novel Broken But Not Dead. I did. And last Saturday, October 17, I signed a contract. Note the gigantic smile on my face:

… Continue

Added by joylene butler on October 22, 2009 at 9:30am — No Comments

An Interview with author Martha Engber

An Interview with Martha Engber, author of The Wind Thief and Growing Great Characters from the Ground Up. Martha wrote her first book at the age of seven. About flowers, or "flawrs," it included many lovely illustrations, including a painfully elongated, but happy, brown horse with a mouthful of daisies. Having just finished the project on the way to school, the smell of Crayon still fresh on her hands, she walked into the classroom beaming and handed the professionally stapled b… Continue

Added by joylene butler on October 5, 2009 at 9:30am — 2 Comments

Keith Pyeatt, author of STRUCK

My friend Keith Pyeatt will be guest blogging here next week, so in anticipation, I thought now would be a good time to introduce him and his book. Keith and I met online in 1997. He's the reason my suspense novel DEAD W… Continue

Added by joylene butler on August 10, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Story Breakdown

I'm in the middle of doing movie plotting exercises because I've hit a wall with my work-in-progress. II'm hoping they'll spark some ideas. Monday, I watched Get Carter twice in one day to see if I could pinpoint its turning points. Get Carter is about an enforcer for the Las Vegas mob going home to attend his brother's funeral. It stars Sylvester Stallone and is directed by Stephen Kay. If you're into screenwriting, you must purchase a copy. Under Special Features, Mr. Kay does a… Continue

Added by joylene butler on July 24, 2009 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Housework? No entiendo.

After dinner, my husband and I walk six paces from our dining room table to the sofas to plop ourselves in amongst the 3 cats and a dog. The idea is that the old guy will read while I either watch a documentary, drama or something on BookTV. Sometimes I print off a chapter… Continue

Added by joylene butler on March 8, 2009 at 11:16am — No Comments

It Ain't Easy, But I'm Gonna Market

Blogging is creating content that one feels is of interest to the reading public. Those of you who blog know how difficult that can be. Similar questions arise: What in my life would interest you? There's no easy answer to that. But witnessing the inauguration last month brings to mind that what draws us together is our humanity. It's the one thing that binds all nations under God. And therefore seems like a good subject for blogging. As a Canadian, I was moved by the inauguration. While liste… Continue

Added by joylene butler on February 2, 2009 at 12:06pm — No Comments

Constructing Memorial...

I found two sites, thanks to help from Careann with the list of Canadian casualties in Afghanistan. I'll be spending however long it takes constructing a memorial page at The Ghan Memor… Continue

Added by joylene butler on December 19, 2008 at 11:24am — No Comments

Interview with author Marta Stephens

I had the privilege of interviewing author Marta Stephens about her second book The Devil Can Wait. If you have a moment, please stop by. Marta is an outstanding writer and an inspiration. http://cluculzwriter.blogspot.com

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Added by joylene butler on December 1, 2008 at 11:36am — No Comments

Marketing Stress: Real or Imagined?

Yesterday morning I read chapter one of Dead Witness at CFIS 93.1 FM in Prince George, BC. I didn't realize just how stressed I'd been. In fact, up to that point, I was pretty impressed with my calm attitude. Ben Meisner is a popular radio personality in BC, and I conversed with him as if he were my neighbour. Then I sat down with Reg Feyer and recorded my first chapter without a hiccup. It airs Monday night at 6… Continue

Added by joylene butler on November 28, 2008 at 1:54pm — No Comments

We May Have Something in Common...

The sun's shining, the lake is smooth like glass, people are fishing, water-skiing... but don't kid yourself, summer is over. Especially for those of us in the north. (We're in central B.C., but for the sake of argument, let's say "north" includes everywhere north of the mid-States) The end of summer means more cloudy days, cold weather, rain and finally five to six months of winter. No more warm, lazy days laying in the sun, sipping cold drinks with fancy names, and hearing children's laughter… Continue

Added by joylene butler on September 8, 2008 at 10:02pm — No Comments

They Would Have Accepted Nothing Less

Despite being a child of the 50s, growing up during the woman's movement, I'm still a product of my parents generation. They raised me by the standards of the times, and though I often tried to shake those ideals, they're part of who I am today. My father was the breadwinner, my mother the homemaker. By the time I came along they had already lived through a world war, stood in line for bread, and bought things without the aid of credit. During my teens I looked upon their philosophy and beliefs… Continue

Added by joylene butler on July 26, 2008 at 11:00am — No Comments

Being Published Changes Things.

My daughter-in-law called tonight to congratulate me on the release of my novel Dead Witness and the subsequent interview in The Prince George Citizen. Then she said something that I'm just now pondering. In the paper's interview, Mr. Strickland asked about my other manuscripts; I've written five, three of which are in various stages of editing. Although my daughter-in-law and I have known each other for years, she was surprised by how little sh… Continue

Added by joylene butler on July 17, 2008 at 4:38pm — No Comments

Is Loving an Animal supposed to be heart-wrenching?

Last week my neigbhour called. She works nights so we don't see each other as often as I'd like. She's one of those special people, the kind that would give you her last loaf of bread or cup of coffee. A genuine person. Someone I liked right from the start. I knew as soon as I heard her voice that something was wrong. She asked if my husband was home. He wasn't. I said, "What's wrong?" then waited for what I knew would be bad news. There's a voice that people inevitably use when they're hurting… Continue

Added by joylene butler on July 11, 2008 at 3:23pm — No Comments

DOUBTS, SELF-DEPRIVATION, & CREATIVITY?

I've been reading my favourite blogs this weekend; aside from admiring the weather outside my window. As I read, I'm stuck by the similarities between writers. So many of us share strong commonalities. We'd rather write than go to a party, attend a banquet, or shop with a friend. And I've forgotten how many times I've heard a gifted, talented writer say, "I terrified they'll discover I'm a fraud." Or another state: "I don't know why I think I can write -- I can't." And yet another: "If I don't p… Continue

Added by joylene butler on June 28, 2008 at 9:14pm — No Comments

ARE YOU OVERWHELMED BY THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY?

Even if you aren't a writer, the amount of knowledge available online is ... daunting. Or for want of a better word: frightening-intimidating-overwhelming-mind-boggling, and let's not forget head-spinning. How can we possibly read everything? Or ever hope to remember a faction of what we do manage to read? There are days when I literally feel like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, minus the green puke ejecting from my throat. I'm glued to my chair, wandering from page to page, never quite finished… Continue

Added by joylene butler on June 25, 2008 at 8:10pm — No Comments

ARE YOU A SLAVE TO YOUR COMPUTER?

Three blogs does not a blogger make. I’ll get to the reason for that in a moment. Early April my desktop computer crashed. It was just a few days after my good buddy bought one of those nifty new laptops with the built-in camera. I was neither envious nor frazzled. In fact, I wasn’t sweating a thing. I had my trusty old laptop. A Celeron almost seven years old and still running like a charm. Ha! Three days into my publishing forte it betrayed me by waking up with the dreaded “blue screen”. I… Continue

Added by joylene butler on June 20, 2008 at 12:21pm — 1 Comment

DO YOU DO WHAT YOU LOVE FOR SUCCESS?

A few mornings ago I had the pleasure of reading The Ultimate Reward by Aaron Paul Lazar. It's a lovely piece about the rewards a writer sometimes fails to discover. It made me question my own reasons for writing. Did I too have dreams of being on Oprah and Larry King? Being on the top of the NY Times bestseller's list? Or gracing the cover of The New Yorker? Not in the beginning; I still had images of Margaret Laurence, author of The Stone Angel being interviewed in her kitchen with a countert… Continue

Added by joylene butler on June 19, 2008 at 11:48pm — No Comments

IN THE BEGINNING, GOD CREATED THE STORYTELLER.

I used up the entire morning trying to figure out how to add links to my blog, but--Enough already! I'm on a roll with this: "A day in the Life of a Writer" stuff. DEAD WITNESS isn't my first novel. I started with Alway's Father's Child, a coming-of-age story about the complicated relationship between a woman and her dad. Suffice to say, it was a 7-year learning tool. The book's on a shelf somewhere amongst my clutter, collecting dust. DEAD WITNESS was my true beginning as a storyteller. The s… Continue

Added by joylene butler on June 18, 2008 at 10:34am — No Comments

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MORGAN'S OWN BLOGSPOT

New Killer Career Excerpt at Acme Authors Link

Hi Gang,
Today, I've got a new Killer Career excerpt up at http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com/ . This one continues from the first excerpt I posted on Monday at http://makeminemystery.blogspot.com/

If you're curious about my recently released romantic suspense, come on over to one or both blogs to check it out.

Thanks,
Morgan

Time Out for Kindle Reading

Our local library has 8 kindles available for its patrons. The DH and I both got on the waiting list, mainly so I could use one. His number was reached and we picked up the kindle on Sunday afternoon. Now I've got a kindle to read for 2 weeks! So far I'm really loving it, especially the current book I'm reading, My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult.

What about you? Do you own a kindle? Or, have you tried someone else's? Would you like to?

Who's Doing Cyber Monday?

I'm very carefully going to check out the Cyber Monday deals. I have a few items in mind that I plan to buy, but it would be very nice if they'd go on sale and save me some money. I won't be spending much. Can't afford to do so this year.

What about you?

Did You Shop on Black Friday?

There's still time to take the poll to the left about what you ate at Thanksgiving.
About Black Friday -
The DH despises mob scenes, but my brother and I do love the adventure of shopping on Black Friday. We weren't courageous enough to get up at the crack of dawn, though, so we did miss out on a few goodies, like the snuglee blankets and pots and pans sets at Menards, and some other items. I did manage to get some work gloves at almost 50 cents each pair, and a boot/shoe dryer which sounded interesting and was less than $9.00. The biggest extravagance there was this turntable with MP3 encoding/AM FM radio combination thing, but that was only $49.00, which isn't too bad. I didn't go for any of the high ticket items.

I didn't do too bad, but do have some Staples rebates to send in. They're pretty easy to do online, so I don't mind doing them. I bought some USB flash drives, batteries, and CD rewrites there.

I also bought a reversible light grey, almost white bubble coat and some grey boots at Walmart, both items $7.00 each, which I plan to use walking Rascal.

What about you? Did you shop on Black Friday? If so, what kind of deals did you get?

So, this year I was pretty practical, but it was still fun and I did get a few things I hadn't expected to find.

What about you? Did you shop on Black Friday? If so, what kind of finds did you get?