Reading from Chapter 5 of The Fourth Piece in Lawrence Ladreth’s POV.
The entire book is told from the shifting first person perspectives of four brothers. Lawrence is the one often misdiagnosed by strangers as having ADHD.
I read this section so fast that even I am amazed at the speed. I talk fast, listen to my audio books at double speed, and am a fast reader, silently and aloud, LOL. I haven’t read to an audience in years and really need to practice to a beat now.
I’ve realized something after my reading on Thursday. It’s something I’ve known, but it’s really funny to actually see it in action. I talk fast, I read faster. I used to get frustrated listening to audio books because I could have read a page twice over before the narrator finished it once. Then a genius friend said: “Um… why don’t you increase the speed?” As a result, I always listen to audio books at double speed. So, when I got up to my reading, I practiced vocal inflection, voices, being animated, using my stomach voice to keep from being nasal, but I read the section as fast as I read things to myself or listen to audio books.
Watching the playback, I found it simply amazing how fast I could act out a section. It was like watching a video in semi-fast forward. My mouth was going at 60 mph. I thought the reading went well, I got some giggles, had some folks interested, but yeah, it was FAST. I will start practicing with a metronome. (Yes, I’m a dork and was in band for 6 years. I know all about tapping your foot to a clicking beat to keep tempo. 😛 ) I wonder if there’s a metronome app. Heck, there’s an app for everything. I’m going to look into it.
Overall, I love reading aloud. A few people who didn’t know me well mistook my fast reading for nervousness and a need to practice before an audience to get comfortable with reading. When you tell people that’s not the case, they all give you that “oh sure” or the “you’re getting defensive” look. But it really isn’t the case. I used to do story times for kids, and I used to read to the high school classes I taught (for one year before I ran screaming for the door and another profession, lol. Teachers you are saints with a higher calling.) I’m comfortable reading to people. I just haven’t done it in a two years and have developed Quicksilver/Flash tendencies. I need to set a beat.
Now, here’s some publishing news! Cover art for my book… the cover artist who initially had the job was dismissed and a new artist has taken over. I’m really excited to get to see some new cover designs. I also received my second round of edits from the publisher, so I’m getting started on that. I also think I’m ready to submit the first two chapters of the sequel to the publisher. I wanted to let my writers groups go through them first, and they finally have.
Okay, to close this entry out, if you go to the category, The Fourth Piece Readings, you’ll find pictures and links to the speedy reading of a selection from The Fourth Piece. I’ll see if I can actually upload the video onto the blog, but I think it may be too big. If it is, as I said before, there will be links :).
Until next time, take care!
Life is great when you’re good-looking and popular…so long as no one knows you’re a vulatto. Being half-alien gets you labeled “loser” quicker than being a full vader. So it’s a good thing Devon, Lyle, and Lawrence can easily pass for human—until the night of the party. Nothing kills a good time faster than three brothers sharing a psychic vision of a fourth brother who’s off-world and going to die unless they do something. But when your brother’s emergency happens off-planet, calling 9-1-1 really isn’t an option.
In their attempt to save a brother they barely remember, Devon, Lyle and Lawrence expose themselves to mortal danger and inherit a destiny that killed the last four guys cursed with it. In 2022, there are humans and aliens, heroes and monsters, choices and prophecies—and four brothers with the power to choose what’s left when the gods decide they’re through playing games.
Book I in The Order’s Last Play series
Publication date coming soon.
This article could also be titled “How Pinterest Can Be Addictive”. After choosing models that I think are good visual representatives of my characters, I couldn’t let them go. No, I can’t use those people on my book cover, though I wish I could. But I don’t make enough money to pay any of those gorgeous people to grace my cover. So… this is where Pinterest comes in. I created a board of my cast, pinning up pics of models and actors and labeling them. It was really fun.
Now, ask me what I’ve written.
Uh… well, you see. What had happened was…
I’ve turned into a couch potato, lol. I know I need to write. I know I’m behind. I signed up to do a writing marathon with a group of writers I’ve never met before, out in Oakland. I really need to get back on the ball, and off Pinterest and Tumblr, and Twitter, and Goodreads, and whatever else I will find to distract me between the marathon and now. But honestly, I’m so excited about what’s going on with The Fourth Piece, I can’t concentrate very well on other things.
It’s like now I finally feel comfortable talking about the story. If you want to see a write-up for it, visit: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29058267-the-fourth-piece . That’s right. I have my own Goodreads Author page! I won’t have my own Amazon Author page until the book actually comes out. But, man, I feel legit. I’m doing things to self-promote, like starting an Author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/eardell/. If you guys click on some of these links, and feel so inclined to like me or follow me or rate me, I’ll give you gummy bears. Well, imaginary gummy bears. That way you can pretend they’re all cherry or whatever flavor you prefer. It’s the thought that counts, right? 😀
So, anyway, I wrote this post, because I wanted to share my Pinterest board for my characters with you all: https://www.pinterest.com/eboniardell/orders-last-play-characters/ . I’m such a nerd, I know. Don’t ask me what I’m watching on Amazon Video right now. You don’t want to know.
Yeah, okay, so I might be watching Ninja Turtles, the Nickelodeon version that turned incredibly dark in its last few seasons. (Hey, it’s funny and it’s got the spirit of the cheesy 80-90’s Turtles I grew up with.)
All right, so wish me luck on my writing marathon. I do still want to meet my goal of finishing the sequel to The Fourth Piece in my birthday month of April. Here’s a plus, I really like how the sequel’s going and maybe I’m afraid to write more because I think I’ll mess it up, lol. Silly, right? Eh, it happens.
Next time, I hope to be popping in to tell you about some sequel-writing progress and giving out further publication details. I can’t wait to be able to unleash a cover for people to see.
Take care!
The third and final book in the Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown came out today. The closest Barnes and Noble to me is 45 minutes away, but that didn’t stop me from hitting the road after work and driving out to get my book on its release date. There’s something special about getting a thing you’ve been waiting for right when it comes out. It’s the same as needing to see a movie on its opening night.
Yes, I’m one of the people who went to the midnight Harry Potter releases, in costume. Graduate robes look a lot like Hogwarts robes. I thought of myself as a role model to all the kiddies who saw me and said: “Great robe! Where did you get it?” Well, little one, if you get a master’s degree, you too can have a Hogwarts robe.
Yes, I completed my MFA in the same year Deathly Hallows came out. It was a milestone–and not just because of Harry Potter, lol. As always, these posts always have to come back to writing. Where am I right now in the publishing process? Languishing over creating just the right summary. Summaries are harder than writing the book, ugh! Also, I’m looking at cover models and their clothing and facial expressions, and objects to be used in the background art. (FUN!) I might have a book cover to preview soon. And, it’s time to make promotional materials. (YAY!)
I’m setting aside little chunks of change from my paycheck, so that I can help promote myself too. Last night, I went to an author networking dinner where we talked about marketing plans and social media. I got some great ideas and I’m ready explore and research them further.
When I was in grad school getting my degree, we had a panel of professors, all published authors, who were asked how hard it was to be a full-time writer and hold down a regular job. Most of them said the equivalent to: marry well, because if you really want to take this writing thing as far as it can go, it needs to be your only job.
Well, I know a lot of folks who still work and do fine, but I see why someone might want to say the heck with it, let me get on E-Harmony and find a rich hubby! It’s like having two jobs, and it hasn’t even gotten hard yet. But you know what, bring it on. I can take it.
Until next time, note that I’m going to start reading Morning Star tonight. I will resurface when I have finished and know Darrow’s fate. (…still grumbling about how stupid Darrow is… and Roque better live…and Cassius and Darrow better make up…)
Oh, let me just go read. Take care!
I turned in all my edits on Sunday, and on Monday and today (Tuesday), I updated all of my social media accounts, submitted a head-shot and an author bio, established my pen name and sent in a summary to go on the back of the book. Here’s what I have to say about all of that: EEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Profound, I know. Soon, I’ll be up on the publisher’s website, and hey, I can post the link so all of you can see it too! I can’t wait to start discussing marketing and… COVER ART! Who doesn’t get excited about cover art? Do I get cover models, do I get a symbol, I don’t know. I think I do have some say in it all, though. And here’s my say on all of this right now: AAAAAAAAAA!!!
So, yeah, I’m tooting my horn. But you know, people put such a negative spin on tooting your own horn. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that you’re doing cool things. Sometimes, if you don’t, no one will ever know what you’re doing and how strongly you feel about it. Feel good about yourself people. If no one else pats you on the back and tells you “good job”, you should. Only you truly know what you went through to accomplish certain tasks.
Okay, so I really didn’t have all that much to say in this post aside from sending off all those materials. It just makes it all feel more real. In the words of Jessie Spano from Saved By the Bell (there I go dating myself again!) “I’m so excited…I’m so excited… I’m so excited.”
Now, I need to get back to sequel-writing. I’m SO very glad of my decision to bring the second story to a good stopping place before going on with the edits for Book I. It has been more than two weeks since I touched the sequel and now I’m starting cold. I’ll get back into the swing of it, but I’m going to need to reread and do a little editing.
That said, I’m going to sign off, so I can do some rereading. Take care and thanks for keeping up with me!
I don’t want to jinx it because the ink hasn’t dried, but I just signed a publishing contract. What does that mean? It means my first book is being published! Published! I will see my pen-name on a book cover. I think I’ll scream or maybe even cry when I hold the actual book in my hands.
Non-writers don’t understand. They cheer and pat you on the back and then look at you strange when you keep dancing on. I’ve been doing the running man, the MC Hammer, the cabbage, the twerk, and a couple of other dances I made up for the past few days. This is a life goal. This calls for celebration.
And the book being published is a story near and dear to my heart. I’ve been working with these characters since the 6th grade, building them up and giving them story. The drafting process was not easy. There are so many different versions of this story on various disks and old computers. Heck, in old spiral notebooks, back when people used to hand-write things.This is the story that received no love what-so-ever when I work-shopped it in grad school. Give it up. Write something else. You’re not a good enough writer to write this story.
I shelved it for years after graduation and finally came back to it almost 2 years ago with a fresh new outlook and confidence in my writing that I had lost along the way. The publisher read the manuscript in a matter of days, gave me glowing feedback, and then made the offer. The contract came in a few days ago.
I did some research on what makes a good contract and what makes bad contracts and compared the articles and examples to mine. It looks great, but one of my co-workers has a fiance who knows legal people so he offered to read the contract over for me. He also offered to call in a second opinion from others who work in the creative property side of law.
Everything checked out… and so I signed! Whoooooo!!!! “Do the Humpty-hump. Do the Humpty-hump!”– Yeah I just dated myself, but whoooooooo!!!
So here is something else that’s amazing: one of my co-workers is also a writer, a fabulous poet, who is getting his book published as well. He was the one who pushed me to start seriously submitting my book and gave me a deadline. He said: You must have published book in hand by December of 2017 when I retire. I said: You’re on.
So, we’ve been dancing together. Now, I wasn’t going to make the announcement to my other co-workers or anyone outside of my inner circle until the ink dried… but my poet co-worker went to the boss and excitedly told her: Eboni has big news, big, big, news, but she can’t tell you yet.
Well, at work we’re experiencing a staff shortage. People are getting married, having babies, and moving away. My boss kind of got a little freaked out, because she was afraid I was going to say I was getting married or pregnant. She approached me when I returned to work (after an awesome Halloween week with my sister), wanting to know my news right then, and I had to tell her. Not to worry, boss, I’m not popping out any little people and I’m not wearing a ring. I’m just getting published. 🙂
Published!
So, the contract is in, and now I’m making the suggested revisions with a deadline of November 18th. I can’t wait for the next part in the process.
Until next time!
There is nothing like struggling for weeks to write one stupid chapter. You start worrying. What’s wrong? All the other chapters came out so fast. Am I running into that dreaded disease called Writer’s Block? Am I losing interest in the story–because, let me tell you, after a few weeks, you sure are bored with that chapter and you really are becoming disgusted with the whole project.
Then, it suddenly dawns on you. Maybe you’ve picked the wrong character to tell the chapter through. Huh. You start thinking it through, and then realize what you must do. You must scrap all 10-20, sometimes even 30 pages of crap you’ve been hammering out for weeks and start fresh in that new voice. You hate throwing stuff out (and I really don’t. I have a massive file for all my stories called: Cut Scenes), but once you do and start fresh, suddenly, you’re writing. Your chapter’s through in a matter of days and you’re happy and mad at the same time. Happy, because YAY you’ve got a new chapter that you like. Mad, because you wasted 3 weeks working on something that was never going to work.
This has been the case for me for the past month on not one but two stories. Because yes, I’m one of those people who writes real novels and fan fiction at the same time. So both of my stories were at a standstill, but hey, now they’re not. I’m glad to be moving forward, finally!
Why am I blogging right now? Because I’m actually writing right now and so amazed (and mad) at my discovery that I had to share it. I also have to share that I now have 40 plus pages of cut scenes this month.
On the publishing front–I’m still playing the waiting game. (Worst… game… EVER). But, hopefully, I’ll start hearing more from people soon. Most of the agents and publishers have a 6-8 window, and I’m approaching 6 weeks for some. We’ll see what happens.
Until next time!
That would be me! I’m the world’s biggest hypocrite. I’m always complaining about people not reading signs or directions and today, I was a repeat offender.
So, good news–I have sent out queries to fifteen different places, agents and publishers. I have heard responses from three, two said thanks but no thanks, and one said, go ahead and send us the full manuscript so we can take a look.
I’m really excited about that, but do you know I misread the directions on submitting to this publisher not once, but twice. The first time, I misread the instructions for labeling my files. The second time, I sent the manuscript to the wrong e-mail address. Both times I corrected my errors, but my gosh. I sure hope this publisher doesn’t think: Well darn, she can’t follow instructions EVER.
I want to blame it on excitement, and just being tired. I keep telling myself not to submit late at night, because I make dumb errors, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Sometimes, I have to submit when I can, or it just won’t happen.
I know I’ve said it before, but preparing materials for submitting takes such a long time. I almost wonder if it’s not harder than writing the book itself.
So, anyway, my full manuscript is in the inbox of a teen lit publisher. I’m crossing my fingers and praying that they like it. But you know how it goes when you send off a submission. Just yesterday you liked your story just fine, but now that you know someone else is going to be reading and scrutinizing it, you’re thinking: Man that story sucks. Lol!
Well, here’s to hoping they don’t think it sucks. They liked the query and the first three chapters (prologue included.) So, we’ll see. And hey, if they don’t like it, it’s not the end of the world. I will continue to submit. There’s power in pressing “send”.
So now, I need to get back to writing new material while I wait. It’s hard, you feel restless, but you can’t put your other projects on hold for months while you wait for responses.
Until next time!
First off I want to start off by saying: “BWHAHAHAHA!! I blogged again this month.” Okay, I’m done. Next off I want to share that I’ve submitted 8 times in the past week and half to agents and publishers (one by snail mail). I am no longer lazy or procrastinating… or chicken. I’ve been hitting “send” on e-mails like I hit “purchase” on Amazon. No problem, NEXT!
Now what has been time consuming is getting stuff ready for different publishers and agents. I had a query letter all prepared for agent submissions, and suddenly, they all want cover letters. I had a one page synopsis ready, and they want a one paragraph synopsis… or one that is three to ten pages. They want pasted manuscripts with 1.5 spacing, they want attachments in Courier. They want my query letter to answer their particular questions. Why it’s almost like they want met to tailor my submissions to meet their requirements!–hah, I’m kidding. I just never thought it would take days to get each submission of the same material ready for send-off.
I’ve learned to take my time and to read all directions at least three times. Some agents are vaguer than others and leave a lot to creative interpretation, while some tell you to the letter what they want and what they don’t. It would really stink to get rejected due to improper format. I’d kick myself.
Oh, and tell me why, 200 reads later, I’m still finding typos in the manuscript. Even after other people have read and edited, new typos just pop up. I think a little troll comes in the night and deletes single words like “to” from every 14th sentence on every 15th page. Well, maybe not quite that often, but still. Every time I see where a word is missing from a sentence, I think: When did this happen? Has it never been there? Did I accidentally delete it while editing something else? It’s irritating, but then you think, if me and like fifteen other people missed this, then it’s very likely to be missed by fifteen more people. Hopefully whoever reads my manuscript won’t notice them.
So… now I’m playing the “Waiting Game”. The one where you want to check your e-mail every five seconds, though the agents and publishers say: Give me 6-8 weeks or longer. One says: six months. But it still doesn’t stop you from looking. You get all giddy thinking what if someone got my e-mail, opened it right away because your name sounds cool, read your stuff immediately because you’re awesome, loved it, and can’t wait to contact you. Whoo hoo! (And yeah, right.) If anything, when an agent responds within a day it’s usually an auto-reject. I know; I’ve gotten them before, lol.
Here’s the process I’ve decided on to keep me from going nuts. Since submissions take so long and I get so antsy waiting, instead of doing submissions every week, I’ll do them every other. I’ll submit 2-5 times a week, then take a week off to write new material and hopefully distract myself with what I love to do: write. I’ll still check my e-mail a lot, but I’ll have other deadlines to meet as well. We’ll see how it goes. 🙂
Okay, random change of subject. I want to talk about this creepy book I’m reading. I run a teen book club for the library I work at. The kids voted to read The Diviners by Libba Bray. I’m listening to the audio book of it, because I had a free audible credit. So, I’m chilling, listening, enjoying it… then things in the book get weird and I flashback to being a little kid looking at Freddy Krueger. The narrator, January LaVoy, is awesome. This is officially one book I don’t want to listen to before trying to go to sleep at night because I’ll end up lying in bed seeing shadows and hearing noises. (It doesn’t help that my water heater makes noises like someone trying to knock the house down with a sledgehammer in the middle of the night for no reason.) Anyways, I haven’t finished the book yet, but so far so good.
To sum up this post: I’m all over the place, but doing what I’m supposed to do. I’m submitting, I’m going to be writing new stuff soon, and I’m keeping organized (somewhat). I’m anxious to hear some feedback, always ready to hear positive things, but hey if I don’t, there are many other agents and publishers out there that I’ve yet to try!
I will blog again soon, I hope. And maybe I’ll have some news :).
E. Ardell 