Big Dreams Bloghop February

The Big Dreams bloghop is hosted by Misha Gericke and I. So sorry for hosting so late in the day. Ridiculous since I'm a co-host. I had an assignment for my MFA I thought was due tomorrow then realized it was due today and really had to hustle. I got my pages turned in, which means I finished the month with about 15,500 words. Not even close to my goal of 50,000. But in fairness, Feb has been a horrible month starting out with food poisoning and a huge disaster I can't talk about on the blog followed by a root canal and no resolution to before mentioned huge disaster yet. In other news, I got notes back on Perfect Harmony and have decided to rewrite the whole book in past tense based on one sentence that wasn't working. I guess my goal for March is to finish The Senator's Son and I will have to revise the first fifty pages for my professor. These aren't really writing goals, but I'd like to get in control of my eating habits and kick my sugar addiction too. NO more root canals. What are your goals?

P.S. I'm teaching the method I used to query with a 50% full request rate here beginning Monday. The blurb I wrote using this method led to my agent and book deal. Down to two remaining slots. 

Bloodlust Cover Reveal

Hi, everyone! Nicole Zoltack here and I'm so happy to share with you the cover for my upcoming release.

Isn't it just beautiful? And it's perfect for the story.

Here's the blurb for BLOODLUST, a NA epic fantasy romance.

In a world torn by prejudice and hatred, six races struggled for supremacy.

Desperation…

Barbarian-Princess Ivy is unwilling to allow her father to provoke the other races into war and forms an unlikely alliance with Lukor the goliath to save her people from utter destruction.

Betrayal…

Unbeknownst to her, Lukor blames the barbarians for murdering his sister and plans on sabotaging her goal.

Bloodlust…

Almost despite each other, they grow to respect each other on their journey to decode secret messages from the trolls. But nothing Ivy can do will prevent the war as her father is blinded by Bloodlust and incites it himself. Not even killing him and becoming Barbaroness can stop the tide. And when Bloodlust claims Ivy, forcing her to kill everyone in her path, she must make a choice to destroy even Lukor, who she may have started to fall for and him in return.

The cover is so fitting, am I right?

The story will be released on February 24th. Ack! So excited. I'd love for you to share this and I'd even kiss you if you add it on Goodreads.

What do you think about the cover? The blurb? Does it sound like something you'd like to read?

Bio:

Nicole Zoltack loves to write in many genres, especially fantasy romance. When she's not writing about knights, superheroes, or zombies, she loves to spend time with her loving husband and three energetic boys. She enjoys riding horses (pretending they're unicorns!) and going to the PA Renaissance Faire, dress in garb. She'll also read anything she can get her hands on. To learn more about Nicole and her writing, visit her blog.

Covert Review Book #4

First, I'm finally teaching another blurb writing class in March. It will run from the 3rd-31st and is a crash course in plotting as well as blurb writing. You can register here. And of course if you wanted to spread the word that is always greatly appreciated.

Now for the review!!!

Okay, this was another craft book. Like most craft books it was aimed at amateurs. For $9.99 things that are free in the blog-o-sphere, things that anyone who has been writing fiction for any amount of time probably already knows, were repeated. For 300 pages. Blah. Because I wasn't getting much in the way of new information I found this book boring and hard to read. It took me much longer than the last craft book. However, some of the repeated information was a good refresher and I found one thing that made me think, so that was good. But another thing that bothered me is that the author (who was apparently a writing professor at some point) used examples from short stories and novels interchangeably. For certain techniques like foreshadowing or characterization I think this works. But when you're talking about pacing, opening lines and even endings I'm not sure these short story examples work to help a writer craft a novel. The pacing of a short story is naturally faster by virtue of being short. He made the point that a reader of a short story will only give you a few paragraphs to grab them but neglected the fact that paragraphs into a short story you're already hitting plot like a hammer. Your short story should have grabbed long before that. I think for most people--because the plot has to span hundreds of pages--a novel is harder to keep fast paced, but it still has to be or the reader will put it down. That's why I think for some segments the author attempted examples from novels would have been better.

All in all, as far as craft books go this was pretty average. 3 stars

Forever Book #3

"All I want is my happily-ever-after.

That's all I've wanted since meeting Noah Miller.

From the day we met, the world has tried to keep Noah and me from being together, but now that I'm carrying his child, no one will be able to tear us apart. Or so I hope. But Noah and I have made some mistakes along the way, and the consequences are impacting the people we love. Worse, there's a storm on the horizon, and it's sure to cause serious devastation.

If we can get through this, we'll finally be Rose and Noah; a family, forever.

But first we have to survive the road ahead. And happily-ever-after is a long way off."

Wow! I've been waiting on this book since August and that leaves lots of room for the hype to be better than the book, but I still loved it. It was a tumultuous read with some happening like every minute. It felt like Rose and Noah just could not catch a break. And the author made a choice that shocked me.--Shocked me. Something horrible was going on and Rose survived unscathed. Then Noah survived with very minimal damage. And I was thinking come on. Someone has to die. This can not be real. But then someone did die, and the person who it was--wow. Why? Why did that have to happen? OMG! This was a good ending to the trilogy, although *SPOILER ALERT* I really thought they should have gone Amish and was slightly disappointed when they didn't.

Big Dreams Blogfest

The "Big Dreams Blogfest" is hosted by Misha Gericke, and once a month we all come together to talk about what we've done to get closer to our dreams.

I have two goals. Write a million words. Make a million dollars.. That's it. So I got Perfect Harmony through a round of edits and sent to my first reader, and I did a final final round of agent edits on FH and it's now on submission. I also went to Connecticut for a week for my MFA residency where I learned a lot of really practical stuff about the industry. I enjoyed the residency much more than I usually enjoy conferences. The sessions were small, so not as overwhelming as some cons and most of the workshops included actual writing exercises. Very helpful. I started on TLMG while there, but I needed to use it as the book I'm writing for my class this semester. My mentor thought another book would be better and I can't write two at a time and take care of a one year old, and teach classes, and blog, so 20 pages into TLMG, I stopped to write an outline(for class) of The Senator's Son. What I accomplished in January: PH edits, FH edits, residency, 20 pages. My goal for February is to write 50,000 words of The Senator's Son. I doubt that will finish the book, but it should make it easy to finish in March. I mean come on, after 50k everything is downhill. Wish me luck. I know I'll need it.

What are your goals for this month? Are you getting closer?

Covert Review Book #2

Here it is! My first covert review of the year. Let's see how this goes over. Quick reminder, a covert review is a book which I'm not sharing but rather sharing my thoughts on. I won't tell you what book I didn't like just why I didn't like it, because I really want to do reviews and my agent and I thought it was best I not criticize other authors.

Let me start off by saying, this is where I think authors are crazy for getting upset about low star reviews. I really liked this book. I'd even recommend, but I stay fairly objective about reviews so this is not 4 star material. And it could have been. Easily. What's wrong with it? Slow start. Still, it could have easily been a four star book. But there was a serious serious lack of craft. Way too much telling. I'm talking blocks of narration that would often go on for pages. And really interesting contractions like "Mom'd" or "I'dve" or "Mom'll." In dialogue I wouldn't been a fan of this but in narration, I think it's just wrong. This was a self published book that did fairly well, but I can see why it wasn't traditionally published. (Not to insult self published writers. Just use an editor). And it did have a lack of editing with extra words here and there.

Now Offering Editorial Services

I've decided to start offering freelance editorial services. My B.A. is in English and I'm currently working on a MFA in creative and professional writing with an emphasis on fiction and technical writing, so I can edit any from non-fiction articles to full length fiction. Also, I teach a crash course on plotting and blurb writing for fiction writers, so I'll critique your query for free if I'm editing a short story or a novel. My turn around time is quick, and I'm happy to discuss specifics with you. I'll be charging $1/page for copy edits/line edits and $1.25/page for structural edits (big picture plot issues, characterization, world building, voice).