Elizabeth Mueller's Promo Tour

Would you like a chance to win some fabulous prizes and meet a special lady at the same time?  Do you want a chance to visit some new blogs and make new friends and followers? Do you want to learn more about the craft of writing at the same time?  Keep reading.


Join Elizabeth Mueller in her celebration the entire month of July for Darkspell’s release this fall!

The darkness sends his followers, the Watchers, to haunt Winter Sky, but Alex Stormhold battles to keep her safe from the prowling evil. Rather than being dragged into the dark's destruction, Elizabeth Mueller will provide a way for you to protect yourselves.

These are the *talismans that you could win:

Nox Arcana's Shadow of the Raven for the FIRST WEEK

Canvas Wall Scroll Tapestry: 12"X 17" for the SECOND WEEK

Dragons Sculpture Bookends: 4"X5"X8" for the THIRD WEEK

My favorite: 13" tall. Dark Shadows Lamp for the FOURTH WEEK

Here's how to enter so you can avoid the Shadoweaver's clutches:

It is your charge to haunt the resident bloggers--listed below--that are hosting Elizabeth Mueller for the week. Go here to answer the questions posted into the contact form every Saturday:

♥.•*¨

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♥ Each correct answer will equal one entry.

♥ Every comment in the blogger's post will equal one entry.

♥ Every follower on Elizabeth Mueller's blog will have 2 entries: a must to qualify for 2 entries: please let her know that you're following her!

♥.•*¨

¨*•.♥

She will announce the winner Sunday evening on her blog!

Do you see Mr. Ole Dark Shadows Lamp there? He likes to pretend that he's the venomous Shadoweaver who seeks Winter. Could it be because he looks so much like him?

Elizabeth will enter every person who dares to display his blog button. Just cut and paste the html code from her grab button on her sidebar to your sidebar for a second chance at the lamp.

♥ In order to qualify, you MUST leave comment in this post with your blog address stating that you've posted the button to your sidebar to make it easier for the Watchers to seek it out.

In other words, Elizabeth is giving 2 lamps away!

Enter the daring bloggers:

**July 1 Sue Roebuck
July 4 Charlene Wilson
July 5 S. B. Niccum
July 7 Roland Yeomans
July 8 Deirdra Coppel
July 11 Alex J. Cavanaugh
July 12 M. S. Hatch
July 13 Tristi Pinkston
July 14 Susan Gourley
July 18 Jo Schaffer
July 19 Konstanz Silverbow
July 20 Melissa Kline
July 23 Lisa Turner
July 25 J. D. Brown
July 27 & 28 Anastasia V. Pergakis
July 29 Michele Bell
July 30 Rebecca Carlson

*this is all make-believe in the spirit of my debut novel, nothing has been placed under any kind of spells and the Shadoweaver lives within the boundaries of Darkspell.

** first official Contest Saturday starts July 9th!

Tour De Gourley

I'm rounding out my mini blog tour right here where I started.  At home.  It was fun, informative and I made many new friends. 

I more than doubled my number of followers and have discovered many, many great blogs I'll be visiting as often as I can.  I've made arrangements to have some of my fellow bloggers who hosted me on my tour guest on my blog later and some of them have already made a stop here.

Now that I've finished the tour I'll probably go back to posting 3 or 4 times per week.  I have some catching up to do on my WIP but I'll continue to promote Beyond the Gate and grow my blog.  Thanks to all of you who have been such a great part of my experience, giving me advice and encouragement.

What are some of your plans for the next few weeks?  Are you in the middle of a project or starting a new one?  Or are you going to tackle a big TBR pile?

About Me

Today I hope you'll visit me at Natalie Damschroder's blog for a last interview about me and my new release.  I like learning things about my favorite authors because I often pick up clues about what makes them successful.  Sometimes I learn things about their process or how they sold their first book or what they do for promotion.

Today I'll tell you a little more about my newest release, Beyond the Gate, Book #2 of The Futhark Chronicles and a little more about me.  Please hop over to Natalie's and leave a comment.  You might want to check out her books also.  She guested on my blog in December and will back in the spring when her next book is released.

Meet Me at the Masters

Today I'm thrilled to continue my blog tour with an interview on Cate Masters's blog.  If you're new to my tour, I should tell you I'm celebrating the release of Book #2 of The Futhark Chronicles, Beyond the Gate.  This second novel takes up the epic fantasy tale started in Book #1, The Keepers of Sulbreth.

 Cate is such a successful author I'm thrilled to have a chance to appear at her site.  Not only does she write excellent romance, she's taught me many things about promotion and blogging.  I can go to her with questions and I know she'll listen when I feel the need to whine a little about the difficulties of promotion in this quickly changing world of publishing.

Down to business.  As I near the end of my tour, I'm going to reward one of the faithful followers of my tour.  Every person commenting on Cate's blog today will be entered for a chance to win Book #1 of The Futhark Chronicles, The Keepers of Sulbreth.  Please click over there and comment. 

The Week That Will Be

I'm continuing my blog tour celebrating the release of the second book in The Futhark Chronicles, Beyond the Gate. 

Tomorrow is a special day in that I'll be giving away a print copy of book #1 in The Futhark Chronicles, The Keepers of Sulbreth over on Cate Master's blog.  Every person commenting will be entered into a drawing for an autographed copy. 

On Tuesday, I'll be doing an interview on Natalie Damschroder's blog.  Natalie is one of my oldest(as in I've known her a long time, not her age) friends in this writing business. 

On Wednesday I'll be wrapping things up on my own blog.  Since this is my first ever blog tour I made it a short one.  I wasn't sure how I would do getting everything ready while working and recovering from my ankle surgery.  It went surprisingly well.  Keeping up with the blogging that is.

I have more things going on in the next few weeks and I'll talk about them on Wednesday. 

Hope lots of you have tomorrow off but for me and lots of other teachers it's an inservice day.  I can suffer through inservice but it violates our internet use policy to visit blogs so I'll be checking in on Cate's blog after I get home in the late afternoon.

I only did about 3K on my WIP this past week.  I spent a lot of time following my own blog tours and visiting others and being on crutches all day left me exhausted at night. That's my excuse for lack of production this week.

What is your best excuse or rationale for procrastinating? 

The Week That Was

The first week of my blog tour celebrating the release of book #2 in The Futhark Chronicles, Beyond the Gate has been a blast. I hope you had a chance to join me on some of my stops around the blogosphere.

On Monday I visited Alex Cavanaugh with a short post about world building. You can still check it out here.

Tuesday I visited The Susquehanna Writers group blog and shared a brief opinion on creating interesting characters. Add your take here.

Wednesday found me guesting at Jon Sprunk's blog, Fear of the Dark, where I shared some secrets on how I name those unique characters I create. You can find some great ideas visitors shared with their comments right here.

Thursday Megan Hart interviewed me on her blog. She's a very funny, creative writer and you can tell by the questions she asked. Read her quirky interview here.

I finished Friday on my blog with some advice on getting past a rough spot. You can still comment.

Blog tours are meant to promote a book but on my tour I'm trying to share some of what I've learned and start discussions on said subjects. There have been so many clever comments I think I've learned more than the visitors to my posts. Thank you to everyone.

My tour will continue into the beginning of next week. More on that tomorrow. I've made this my first ever blog tour a short one of only nine stops. I wasn't sure if I could handle the time demands of a longer one. I only had a few days of stress but for the most part I handled it with ease. If I do another one it will be during the summer months when I'm not teaching.

How much time do you spend on social networking? How many blogs do you visit each day? Do you consider the time well-spent?

Follow Me to Alex's Place

Today I'm appearing at Alex Cavanaugh's blog today.  I'm discussing world-building.  The topic could actually make a book and I've only brushed the surface with a few points.  There is so much to creating a fantasy world different from good old Earth.  I'll appreciate your comments on how you build a world for your writing.
Of course I'll use details from my newest release, Beyond the Gate, as examples in my post.  After all, the purpose of a blog tour is to call attention to my work.  Hopefully you check it out further right here.
Tomorrow I'll be talking about character development and giving them depth over on The Susquehanna Writers' blog. 
So please hop on over to Alex's place.

HELLO and Good Bye

Happy New Year! Hopefully you all have some wonderful events to look forward to in 2011.  The first day of the new year brings my first highly anticipated event.  Today is the official release date for Beyond the Gate!


Ebook Cover



Book #2 in The Futhark Chronicles picks up the story only moments after the end of book #1, The Keepers of Sulbreth.  It has two terrific covers, one for the ebook and one for the print.  You can purchase the ebook here and probably other places also.  It's not up on Amazon yet and my publisher is blaming them for being behind. 

You can buy the print book here if you'd rather have that.  Being my book, I prefer to have it both ways.  LOL.



Print Cover



I have other good news I'll share later this week but I do want to take this chance to say good bye to some dear friends.  My local chapter or RWA, called Central Pennsylvania Romance Writers, are a talented, supportive and friendly bunch.   Our monthly meetings are filled with laughter and generosity as members share knowledge and support.  I've learned so much from then and am certain I would never have been published without them.  But the economy (well, two kids in college) forced me to some tough choices this past year and one of those was to end the high yearly dues I must pay the national organization, RWA, to belong to my local group.  Their rules disallow membership in a local group if one doesn't pay the hostage fee, I mean dues, to the national organization.  So I say farewell to those lovely people and wish them the best.  Perhaps I'll rejoin later but in the meantime I'll keep in touch with many of them through my blog, their blogs, facebook and a few are fellow members of Pennwriters, a statewide and much less expensive group to belong to. 

 I'm thrilled about some of the things going on over the next few weeks, most of them related to the release of Beyond the Gate.  I have a blog tour later this month, ankle surgery later this week (ouch) and another book being released later this winter.  Busy and busier and wonderful.  So hello to 2011.

Holiday Spirit or Winter Blahs?

As the Christmas season approaches with all its demands on time, emotions and finances, it affects people differently.  I've read a few posts lately despairing of the progress of their goals for the past year as 2010 rapidly spirals down to its end.  Hopefully one can look back at some successes and carry that inspiration forward into 2011.

Holiday shopping, work and family get-togethers, baking, decorating and all the other joys of the season cut into everyone's writing time during December.  It's quite tempting to set aside projects and busy yourself with the many seasonal events and chores needing your attention. It's not unusual for bloggers to post less often, visit fewer of their blogger friends and otherwise not keep up with the social whirl of online communities. 

I have special reason to keep my fingers on the keyboard for the next few weeks. 

On January 1st, Beyond the Gate, book #2 of The Futhark Chronicles will be released.  Though I've tried to plan ahead, I'm busy polishing posts for my blog tour, making improvements on this blog, getting my promotional short stories for posting online for free and a zillion other little things. 

I've wrapped no gifts and actually have only purchased a small fraction of those I need to find.  The menu for our family Christmas dinner is still up in the air and don't even ask me about cookies.  But I'm getting my writing work done.  

How is your holiday/end of the year schedule working? Are you finding time to write? Have you set it aside or reduced your time spent writing?  

After a hectic week of checking the manuscript of Beyond the Gate, I’m able to get back to the thousand other things I need to do to get ready for this release. Okay, not quite a thousand but it is quite a few. One of the things I’m doing is working on two short stories that are prequels to The Futhark Chronicles. Then I have to decide where to post them. It’s been fun to revisit the world of Futhark. More about those stories when they’re ready to go.

I’m also still working on my blog tour. I’m not sure how long to make it. Five blogs, ten blogs, more? How long is a tour anyway?
In the meantime, I’ve discovered a few new blogs I’m really enjoying. One is Alex Cavanaugh, a recently published SF writer. Read about his new release, CassaStar.

I’ve found staying up to date on all the things I’m doing to increase my web presence is taking away from my writing time during the evenings. Not much I can do about it for the next two months as I really push the release of Beyond the Gate. So my writing goals will be to finish one of the short stories by the onset of daylight savings time renders the world dark before dinner every night. I believe that occurs November 7th.

Actually though I miss the many hours of sunlight during the winter, I do get more writing done without so many outdoor activities and chores to tempt me. I’m hoping for multiple snowfalls this season. I love shoveling the white stuff when the world is quiet, especially after dark. Of course, one of the neighbors will eventually power up their snow blower and ruin the peace.

So do you get more writing and reading done in the winter or are you disciplined enough to work like hours no matter the season?

The 'P' Word

Writers overcome many obstacles to follow their career dreams. It’s a tough road where one must battle rejection, loneliness, and frustration. The continuing evolution of technology and the changes it brings to the writing industry offers as many challenges as it does opportunities. Writers are expected to design and maintain websites, blogs and have a presence on other social media. It seems everyday a new tool is invented or updated. Promotion, promotion, promotion. And somewhere in those hours we squeeze out to work on our careers, we try to find time to actually write.

So far I’ve only mentioned the distractions created by the various responsibilities a writer faces beyond working on their current manuscript. The other parts of life intruding on a writer’s work time are worthy of their own blog sometime in the future. But there is one more anchor dragging on an author’s creative ship. It often threatens to sink my own. The p-word. Procrastination.

I’ve used all the things listed earlier in this post to put off getting to work on the current WIP. Sometimes the weather is just too beautiful to miss. Sometimes the minutes I have before the next demand on my time are too few to bother opening the word document. Sometimes I really must read over what I sat at the keyboard. Sometimes I have to warm up my coffee or brew a new pot. Whatever the reason, they’re all just excuses to procrastinate.

Setting goals, having critique partners, deadlines, all these things can help you stay on task. If no one is looking over your shoulder, set targets for accomplishments and make promises to yourself. I used to do that on my blog and intend to start again this Sunday. Each Sunday I’m going to make my week’s goals public on my blog and then report the following week on how I’ve done. Starting today.

1) I'm going to do write no less than 15K on my current WIP.  Grand plan there.

2) I'm going to promote my upcoming booksigning in State College.

3) I'm going to start putting together a blog tour for the release of Beyond the Gate.

Do

es goal setting work for you? Do you make your goals public or keep them private? What is your favorite form of procrastination?