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What I'm writing in YEAR OF THE DOG

I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
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CAN marketing blog

Captain's Log, Supplemental

Blog book giveaway:
My Monday book giveaway is the Coffee Cup Bible Study books by Sandra Glahn.
My Thursday book giveaway is PINK by Marilynn Griffith.
You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Monday, I'll draw the winners for the Coffee Cup Bible Study books and post the title for another book I'm giving away.

FIRST: This month’s novel excerpt is SQUAT by Taylor Fields (posted below).

Marketing for writers!

The members of the CAN (Christian Authors Network) Marketing blog entitled We Can! promote our books, formally welcome you to join our little corner of cyberspace.

Check us out at: http://canblog.typepad.com/canbookmarketing/

Twelve authors will be participating in this blog:

Monday: Tricia Goyer and Gail Gaymer Martin
Tuesday: Cyndy Salzmann and Allison Bottke
Wednesday: Suzie Eller and Sharon Hinck
Thursday: Susie Larson and Camy Tang
Friday: Mary E. DeMuth and Kathi Macias
Saturday: Jill Nelson and Susan Meissner

We want this blog to be the place authors go if they want to promote, publicize and market their books.

We'll approach this from many different angles, with many different voices. Some of us have many books out, while others are promoting their first. We've all had some level of success in our marketing endeavors, and some blunders too. We'll share interviews, insights, and creative ideas with you with humor, candor and a dose of humility.

It's our hope that you'll tell your friends about this new blog, that you'll make a comment or two, and that you'll walk away from this blog with many practical and insightful ideas.

Camy here: I’ll be posting every Thursday on website marketing for fiction, focusing on blogging. Fiction writers have to approach things a little differently than nonfiction writers, so I hope to offer tips specific to novelists and recount my utter disasters to keep all you guys from making the same mistakes.

TMI:

Writing: I have to give mucho kudos to Dineen Miller for helping me brainstorm my book. She’s a gem!

I posted another synopsis tip at my Story Sensei blog today.

I have come to realize I need to actively set aside an hour a day to read—books in my market (chick-lit, both secular and Christian) and books for review. My TBR pile has reached terror-inducing proportions.

I had a great time at the romance readers book club at Borders in Valley Fair Mall last night. Everyone talks about books they read the past month, so I plugged BEAUTY AND THE SPY by Julie Anne Long, SPYING IN HIGH HEELS by Gemma Halliday, A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND by Kristin Billerbeck, and MURDER, MAYHEM, AND A FINE MAN by Claudia Mair Burney. The first two are secular, the last two are Christian—I figured those two particular Christian titles would interest the ladies, who are mostly non-Christian. Shelley Bates and MaryLu Tyndall go to those meetings, as well.

Diet: Doing good on the exercise front, although I don’t know why I have such terrible headaches at night the past few weeks. Maybe because I haven’t visited my chiropractor in forever and my neck has problems, regardless of the good the exercise is doing for it.

I have been drinking plenty of water and my caffeine addiction is quite healthy, thank you, so the headaches can’t be because of either of those.

Shortbread count = 0! Starbucks blackberry green tea frappuccino count = 1. :(
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Comments

Mary DeMuth said…
Thanks for promoting the CAN blog, Camy, you loud Asian chick, you. Next thing you know, you'll be sporting a nose ring....
Fri Sep 01, 09:12:00 AM 2006
Ruth said…
I hear you on the terrors of the TBR pile! I have GOT to seriously whittle mine down...before I start have nightmares of SERIOUSLY being smothered by books. :P
Fri Sep 01, 09:50:00 AM 2006
Georgiana Daniels said…
I'm surprised that you don't set aside an hour a day. Did I read that right? You must be a speedy to read all that you do in under an hour! Or maybe I'm just slow. OK Camy, how big IS your TBR pile? Inquiring minds want to know.
Fri Sep 01, 10:33:00 PM 2006
PatriciaW said…
How DOES one whittle her TBR pile? I can learning about such interesting books from yours and other blogs and from online writing groups. So I keep adding. I'm reading 8-12 books a month, although I've slowed a bit this past month in order to focus more on writing. Now if there were a moratorium on new releases...but then what would I have to look forward to???

My goal for this year was to read as many "new to me" authors as I could. I'm shocked by how many authors there are! Thinking about this recently, I discovered that although I haven't read the specific books on my list, in some cases, I've read one of the author's works. I've decided to strike them from the 2006 list as read and put the specific titles on my 2007 list. (I actually keep a spreadsheet.)

If you're going to drown in something, why not a stack of books?
Sat Sep 02, 10:18:00 AM 2006
Anonymous said…
The CAN marketing blog looks great. Congrats for being a part of this new venture! Can't wait to see the fabulous marketing resources and info that come from the stellar list of participants!
Sat Sep 02, 08:30:00 PM 2006
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