Monday, August 5, 2013
Hey guys! Welcome to the Dragonwitch tour! I was a part of the previous book, Starflower's tour so I'm excited to be back with more goodness for you today! I've got a great guest post from the author, and a swanky giveaway so read on! First here's a little something about the book itself!
Dragonwitch
by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Published: 7.13
Pages: 423
a Rafflecopter giveaway
by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Published: 7.13
Pages: 423
Submissive to her father's will, Lady Leta of Aiven travels far to meet a prospective husband she neither knows nor loves--Lord Alistair, future king of the North Country. But within the walls of Gaheris Castle, all is not right. Vicious night terrors plague Lord Alistair to the brink of insanity. Whispers rise from the family crypt. The reclusive castle Chronicler, Leta's tutor and friend, possesses a secret so dangerous it could cost his life and topple the North Country into civil war. And far away in a hidden kingdom, a fire burns atop the Temple of the Sacred Flame. Acolytes and priestesses serve their goddess to the limits of their lives and deaths. No one is safe while the Dragonwitch searches for the sword that slew her twice...and for the one person who can wield it.
Sounds exciting doesn't it? If you're interested, don't forget to check out the rest of the series!
Author Anne Elisabeth StenglAnne Elisabeth Stengl makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Rohan, a passel of cats, and one long-suffering dog. When she's not writing, she enjoys Shakespeare, opera, and tea, and studies piano, painting, and pastry baking. She studied illustration at Grace College and English literature at Campbell University. She is the author of HEARTLESS, VEILED ROSE, MOONBLOOD, STARFLOWER and DRAGONWITCH. HEARTLESS and VEILED ROSE have each been honored with a Christy Award.
Anne is totally awesome! So is her brain! Here's a little bit about her writing process!
Writing A Bookby Ann Elisabeth Stengl
My
novels always begin with the first whisperings of an idea, so faint
that I couldn’t begin to try writing them. So I will let those
whisperings float around in the back of my head for quite a while as
I work on other projects. If they die away never to return . . . oh,
well. I have plenty of other things to keep me busy!
But,
if they stick around, I will eventually sit down and jam out a few
notes. Just a few, no more than a page-worth. Then I’ll let those
notes sit, sometimes for months, even years. And I’ll write other
stories, some of which will reference this new idea, and I’ll
gather more ideas to go along with the original one, until my mind is
no longer full of whisperings, but of loud clamorings.
When
the time is right for that new story, I will write out in no
particular order all the various ideas I’ve been considering for it
over the last several months and years.
These are
sometimes quite disjointed and disconnected, but I’ll write them
all out in various degrees of detail so that I can have a look at
them on the computer screen. Then I start tweaking and finagling to
see how they’ll all fit together, asking out “What if . . . ?”
and writing little scenarios as I go along. If any idea doesn’t
seem to fit the story during this stage, I’ll toss it back into the
“idea pile” for later consideration.
Once
that is accomplished, I will take all the ideas that are gelling well
together and compile a loose sort of outline. This allows me to see
the story in a glance, from beginning to end—all the major plot
points, all the major reveals and climaxes. It helps me to see that
every character is serving an important role, building toward the
final climactic sequence.
After
this, I create a chapter-by-chapter outline. In this outline, I make
certain that I know what
needs to happen in each chapter, but I don’t worry about how
it
will happen. I figure out the how
as
I go, leaving plenty of room for spontaneity and inspired creativity.
The outline is a map to help me navigate the complex plot twists of
my world and to make certain that the current novel is properly
connecting to the other novels. But it is not a prison. I can move
around as I like inside it.
Only
then do I start writing the novel itself. I write from the beginning,
starting with the prologue or chapter 1. I will rarely
skip around as I write. Sometimes I will go back to flesh out and
adjust things written earlier, but I never jump ahead.
This
process can take me anywhere from two to eight months to complete. I
don’t think I would write my novels anywhere near as fast if I
didn’t carefully outline and plan ahead! They’re tough enough as
it is . . . And I definitely recommend outlines to all of my writing
students.
A
few of my novels have varied from this process a little bit.
With
Dragonwitch,
for instance, I tried to write the story without an outline, simply
figuring out what would happen as I went. That was a big
mistake! I ended writing 40,000 words worth of material and dumping
it—not once, but several
times.
That’s an entire novel’s worth of unusable material! And I still
had nothing to show for it.
Only
when I sat down and mapped out the story using the outlining process
listed above—beginning with listing all the various ideas and
figuring out which ones worked and which didn’t—did Dragonwitch
start coming together. I could have written it so much faster if I
had simply followed my usual process!
Giveaway Time!A tour is not a giveaway without a little something for the readers is it? Enter away to win an Amazon Gift Card up to the value of $25! Giveaway Ends 8/13/13
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Click Here for the rest of the Tour Schedule!Thanks for stopping by today!!! Hope you found something awesome! Have a good one! XOXO,
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(Atom)
Grab My Button!
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Heyo! Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment! I love to hear from my awesome-sauce blog readers. You just made my day! I try to reply to every comment I get so if you have a question check back later! Or just link me up to your blog (if you have one) and I'll visit you! Have a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day! <333 Inky