Feb 16, 2015

Guest Post w/ Giveaway!: Top 10 Rituals When I Write by Jeanne Barker author of The Intergalactic Adventures of Queen Bea

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Welcome to my tour stop for The Intergalactic Adventures of Queen Bea by Jeanne Gransee Barker. I have a great Guest Post for you today :)

The tour runs February 16-27 with reviews, author interviews, guest posts and excerpts. Check out the tour page for more information.

About the Book

Genre: Young Adult, Sci-Fi

Everything she’d ever known was a lie. Now Bea must find the courage to trust her own voice to save not only herself — but an entire planet.

At almost 15, late-bloomer Bea Parker has just discovered that her aunt, uncle and cousins—the only family she’s ever known—aren’t actually related to her and don’t know anything about her birth parents. Then a strange, high-tech device shows up in her room in the middle of the night with a note promising answers about her shadowed past. This alien technology takes her on a journey that forces her to leave behind Earth, and everything she knows, to meet her destiny.


On sale for only .99 cents on Amazon for a limited time! 

The below Guest Post was written by Jeanne Barker.
Top ten rituals I like to do when I write

1. BIC. The first thing I do is get my Butt In the Chair. Obvious, I know. But not always easy to do. There are always other—very loud—draws on my attention.

2. Prevent electronically interruption. I quit my email app, turn off my ringer, close Facebook and Pinterest. I know there are apps that are great gatekeepers for this—I haven’t tried them yet. For now, simply closing them is usually enough.

3. Light a candle. Call me woo-woo, but I light a candle and invite the muse. (This is my favorite of my pre-writing steps. :-) If nothing else it focuses and honors my creativity. And I use a scented candle, so it smells nice. Bonus!

4. Turn on music. I try to have it match the mood of what I’m writing. I can’t listen to anything with words in it. I envy those authors who can. If I hear lyrics, I listen to them. Next thing you know I am following their story and not mine. I can’t help myself. Instead, I listen to movie soundtracks. I have tracks from love scenes, chase scenes, scenes that build tension, etc. Sometimes I choose a generic background scores and set it and forget it. But I always have something playing to drown out the world around me.

5. Get a solid picture of where my scene takes place. If I have to I’ll do a quick—less than five minute—search on the web. I know I’ll never find exactly what I’m looking for. I just need enough similarities to help me solidify the idea in my head. Enough so I can be visually grounded before I move my characters around in the space. Saves time in the long run.

6. Re-read what I wrote yesterday. Again, not more than five minutes. Just enough to ensure I’m in flow with whatever I’ve already got on the page.

7. Check my outline. I break my outline down and have a few sentences on my virtual notecard for each chapter. I make sure I know where I’m going before I begin.

8. Set a word count or time goal. Some days are just more prolific than others. I can tell what kind of day it will be before I begin. If I sense I’m going to be digging out words with my bare knuckles, I set a time goal. Then I just stay there until I meet that goal. Often just knowing I won’t let myself get up frees me to actually write. And no matter which I goal set, word count or time, I’m always proud of myself when I achieve it.

9. Write. Duh, of course. But I find it amazingly easy to let steps 5–7 expand to fill a whopping amount of time. Since I know that about myself I watch out for it.

10. Write the first sentence in the next scene or chapter. I hate starting on a blank page. Because time is tight I often have to stop when things are flowing. So the first sentence of a new chapter is easy at the end of a writing session. Not so much when I’m coming to it cold. Having it there is a good way to get me going.

 

About the Author

I discovered science fiction when I was four. My father loved Star Trek, the original series. Every Friday night he’d make a big deal of getting the house quiet so he could hear the TV. The importance of it drew me in. And then I was hooked on other worlds, molecules being scrambled and reformed, and meeting totally logical aliens. As I grew older and continued to watch, I loved the idea that a story could explore our contemporary dilemmas couched in two-tone faces or hidden with green skin. Science fiction was the “gateway genre” that led me to fantasy and paranormal fiction.

I began my first novel at age 12. I still have the ring binder with the hand-written pages of OOTG-1 (that stands for Out of the Galaxy)—the story of the first manned expedition to venture forth beyond our galaxy. Alas, after about thirty pages my hand got tired and the crew never left the Milky Way. But that experience sparked a lifelong love of writing which  has continued through my school days to the present.

When I'm not enjoying the alternate universes of my written creations, I live, work, and play  Seattle, Washington.

Find the Author

Website | Facebook | Twitter 


Five (5) $10 Amazon gift cards (5 winners)
Open Internationally
Ends March 3, 2015

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.


4 comments:

  1. I like #10. That's one I wouldn't have thought of but it makes so much sense!

    Thank you so much for hosting a tour stop!

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  2. The Intergalactic Adventures of Queen Bea sounds like a great story, I would enjoy reading this book. Thank you

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  3. Great Top Ten list. I think this book sounds like a great read, I'll have to check it out on Amazon. :D

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  4. I can't listen to music with lyrics either when I write. If I do, I accidentally start typing the lyrics!

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