Posts Tagged ‘news’
Posted on March 14, 2010 - by Monica Valentinelli
Family Games 100: Essay List Announced
Hey folks, FAMILY GAMES: THE 100 BEST just left the printer and I’m pleased to share with you the full list of authors, games and essays. The game that I talked about was GLOOM, which is one of my favorite card games. How many of these games have you played or can recognize?
Foreword by Mike [...]
Posted on March 1, 2010 - by Monica Valentinelli
Announcing the Release of THE QUEEN OF CROWS
Centered around a short story entitled “The Queen Of Crows,” I designed a unique, digital product that I think you’ll really enjoy. At a retail price of $4.99, you will receive a magazine-style layout of THE QUEEN OF CROWS, a professional illustration of a character named Mahochepi and more!
This product is the first digital release [...]
Posted on August 3, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
AP’s New Pay-Per-Quote and the Power of Asking “Permission”
If you work in the business world, you might have heard the phrase: “Ask forgiveness, don’t ask permission.” This phrase is supposed to reflect how you, as an employee, might take calculated risks in your day job to “get ahead” in your career.
As a writer, the reverse is often true, especially if you’re writing [...]
Posted on March 24, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Visit Me at OddCon During These Panels
From April 24th through the 26th, I will be appearing at Odyssey Con 2009, a small science fiction and fantasy convention held here in Madison, Wisconsin. This will be the first convention I’ll be speaking at this year, and I’ve taken on quite a few panels in order to share my thoughts with you and [...]
Posted on March 12, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Breaking News: Using Facebook Pages? Log in ASAP
Just wanted to give everyone a heads up who is using Facebook “fan” pages. Yesterday, Facebook changed those pages to look more like profile pages, and added some new functionality. 3rd party ads are now more visible, you can provide a status update and they look more like a personal page. (Additionally, there is no ability to update your status message automatically by adding an “app” to connect with Twitter, either.)
However, if you have an existing account this new functionality is a hindrance rather than a benefit. The profile information that you had filled out to go underneath your logo is shifted to a new tab, and most of your customization has shifted.
If you’re using a Facebook page, I recommend logging in to see if this works for you. Otherwise, you can join me today while I dig around and see how I can make mine look better.
Posted on March 9, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Need Help with Twitter? Free Webinar!
Hi everyone, just wanted to briefly pop in and mention that I’d like to invite you to sign up for a free webinar that’s going to occur this Wednesday. The webinar, led by Eric Glazer from Marketing Studio with three other professionals, is about “Leveraging Twitter to Grow Your Small Business.”
Posted on March 2, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
On Writing a Serial Novel
Last Spring, I had announced that I was working on a free urban fantasy website called Violet War. The goal of the website was to promote a series of books I’ve been working on and offer the first draft of the series’ first book (Argentum) for free.
Since starting this project, I’ve found that writing a serial novel comes with its own set of challenges related to the fact that this is a novel of discovery.
In this book, the main character (Sophie Miller) is an exile (think convict) from her magical world. Sophie committed a terrible crime and was later experimented on by the Alchemists then imprisoned by them in a House of Illusion. Those experiments ripped apart her memories, so much so that when the illusion “breaks” she is forced her to deal with the world around her in unusual ways. At first, she doesn’t trust herself but later questions everything she sees.
These questions have turned into information dumps at times, so much so that some chapters rely on discussion rather than action to drive the plot. Fortunately, I’ve been able to catch those moments by sketching out the entire novel from beginning to end. Pacing is really important to me, because as a reader I get very bored when the story doesn’t move, so my chapters are relatively short. They range from one thousand to twenty-five hundred words for that reason.
Posted on September 19, 2008 - by Monica Valentinelli
How the Publishing Industry is Evolving
This article entitled “Have We Reached the End of Book Publishing? spells out what I’ve suspected for so long and heard from some of my fellow writers — that the very nature of the way major publishers do business does not bode well for aspiring writers. Large, million-dollar advances taken on new authors spell doom [...]
Posted on September 17, 2008 - by Monica Valentinelli
Update on Network Neutrality – ISPs Rolling Out Caps for Internet Usage
One of the issues that I’ve been following fairly closely, is the concept of network neutrality. What is it? Wikipedia defines it as:
Network neutrality (equivalently net neutrality, Internet neutrality or simply NN) is a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is [...]
Posted on April 29, 2008 - by Monica Valentinelli
Oh Hai…Reading this Blog?
After dodging sunbeams and causing a rain of words to fall on my black umbrella…
I’m sorry to report that my blogging may be a bit sporadic over the next two weeks because I started getting some edits back on the first part of the novella I’m working on for Aletheia. While this is not a [...]
Posted on March 11, 2008 - by Monica Valentinelli
Keep On Top of Jobs, News and Buzz with Google Alerts
As writers and freelancers, it’s imperative that we stay “in-the-know.” Depending upon what aspect of the industry we’re working in, we need to stay informed of job opportunities, book promotions, conventions and (of course) what others might be saying about our work. About two months ago, I started using a neat little trick that I [...]
Posted on January 23, 2008 - by Monica Valentinelli
Welcome to the Updated Site!
Hello everyone,
Sorry for my absence, I’ve been hard at work on a bunch of new projects. This new site format was designed with you in mind, to help make it easier to navigate to content, and so I could branch out into different areas of the writing life.
Over the next few days, the navigation [...]
My Recent Releases
The Queen of Crows
Download THE QUEEN OF CROWS e-book at DriveThruHorror.com
Family Games: The 100 Best
Order through Amazon.comBuried Tales of Pinebox, TX
Available at Amazon.com
Available at DriveThruHorror.comCurrent Project
