Threats of Sky and Sea
by Jennifer Ellision
(Threats of Sky and Sea #1)
Publication date: May 20th 2014
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Synopsis:
Sixteen year-old Breena Perdit has spent her life as a barmaid, innocent to her father’s past and happily free from the Elemental gifts that would condemn her to a life in the Egrian King’s army. Until the day that three Elemental soldiers recognize her father as a traitor to the throne and Bree’s father is thrown in jail—along with the secrets from his last mission as the King’s assassin. Secrets that could help the King win a war. Secrets he refuses to share.
Desperate to escape before the King’s capricious whims prove her and her father’s downfall, Bree bargains with him: information for their lives. It’s a good trade. And she has faith she’ll get them both out of the King’s grasp with time.
But that was before the discovery that she’s the weapon the King’s been waiting for in his war.
Now, time is running out. To save her father’s life and understand her own, Bree must unravel the knot of her father’s past before the King takes his life– and uses her to bring a nation to its knees.
The Best Writing Advice I’ve Ever Received
The internet is full of people who are all too happy to tell you “how” to write.
“Do this,” they’ll tell you. “Don’t do that.” Writing every day is a popular piece of advice. So is reading in your genre (but, mind you, not too much). “Know the rules to break them.” Don't use too many adverbs. Don't make the characters flat. Don't, don't, don't. Do, do, do.
I'm not saying that any of that advice is wrong-- for everyone. But the best writing advice I've ever received?
Find what works for you, but keep growing as a writer.
I can't attribute the advice to anyone in particular. I'm sure it came from more than one person.
But, listen, you can make yourself miserable trying to make yourself do things the way other people do them.
For example, writing every day is great advice-- but not for everyone, and not all the time. When I write every day? It leads to a lot of melancholy. The drafts are so rough that I despair, and can't move past it. I find myself roiling in envy over writers who write workable fast drafts. My creative well runs dry and has very little time to refill.
Writing every few days instead gets me to a completed draft faster. Because I don't want to give up.
It took me a long time to figure out what worked for me. And I figured it out through trial and error. By gritting my teeth and trying to write every day. By experimenting with different tenses, points of view, and genres.
You have to be unafraid to try different things with your writing. So even though I have a baseline for what works for me, when I see new writing advice, I'm not afraid to give it a whirl. Because I may find something that works better.
And no matter what works for you?
Revise. Revise, revise, revise.
AUTHOR BIO:Jennifer Ellision spent a great deal of her childhood staying up past her bedtime with a book and a flashlight. When she couldn’t find the stories she wanted to read, she started writing them. She loves words, has a soft spot for fanfiction, and is a master of the fangirl flail. She lives in South Florida with her family, where she lives in fear of temperatures below 60 Fahrenheit.
Threats of Sky and Sea, a young adult fantasy, is her first novel.
You can find Jennifer online at www.jenniferellision.com, or on twitter @JenEllision.
Author Links:
**Giveaway**
Open to US/Can
--Prizes listed on the Rafflecopter - includes several prize packs.
1 comments:
Great advice and completely true. Trying to go with everyone's advice can just be worse for the taking. Everyone thinks they know what's best and a lot of advice contradicts the others, too, that you can easily lose your own tricks. You should find out what works for you and stick with it. There is no right way to write - not that I'm a writer but even as a blogger, there's so many "dos and donts" lists and most of them are full of crap because we don't blog for them (blogging police) we blog for us, and by showing your own voice and personality is what will get you noticed, not following rules set up by those who like to think they know better. Anyways, I'm going to stop before I get myself in trouble baha.
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