lishmcbride

East Bound and Down Chapter 11

New chapter is up! The story takes a turn here, and we finally get to meet some of the Crows. Hope you're enjoying the story!

ECCC, Rewrites, and all the headaches that come with that

So I'm currently rewriting Curses. For those of you who don't know much about publishing, this sort of things happens a lot. When I sold Curses to my new publisher, I knew we were going to have to do some pretty extensive edits. After a two hour brainstorming session with my new editor (I love her so much already) I have a pretty good idea where the book needs to go. Sadly, this means scrapping a fairly large chunk of the plot. Which is a lot of work, but I feel good about it. We're also focu...

East Bound and Down Chapter 10

So I know a lot of people have deep feelings about the book to movie debate and how accurate you should stick to a story. Sometimes it makes more sense to change a story when you adapt it to film or the stage because things that work in one format don't necessarily translate to another. In this case, things that look AMAZING in film--car chases--don't work as well in book form. Basically, it gets super repetitive. East Bound was starting to get like that --and when I go back to compile this, ...

East Bound and Down Chapter 9

In which we FINALLY LEAVE THE CUTTER. Hope everyone is enjoying this story as much as I've been enjoying writing it. I have to say, I hadn't anticipated the issue of the fact that car chases are REALLY EXCITING on film, but actually kind of difficult to write. So...now I'm worried that I'm boring all of you.

Ava Winter Text Exchange

I wanted to post this earlier, but I underestimated how hard the holidays were going to be on me. Retail is rough my friends. I was exhausted and then I got sick. Too sick to read, which is the worst kind of sick. The upside being I've caught up a little on my movie watching--I watched Infinity War, Venom, Ant Man, some episodes of the new She-ra, and caught up on some of my favorite British and New Zealand mysteries. I'm feeling better--my head no longer feels like it's going to split open a...

Winter Text Exchange

As promised, I wrote a new text exchange featuring Sam, Ramon, James and Frank. I had entirely too much fun doing it. I'm giving you first peek at it, then I'll probably put it up on my blog or something after a few days or so. 

Other than that, things have been crazy. Holidays at the bookstore mean that I come home exhausted. So busy! Plus the usual holiday stuff, and THE NEW BOOK DEAL! I posted it all over my social media with the link to the publisher's weekly info. Hope you saw it! I'...

East Bound and Down Chapter 8

FINALLY. Thanks for your patience. I'm working on a text exchange featuring Sam and Friends, which should be up shortly, and of course a new East Bound chapter. Hope December is treating you nice! If you work retail...I'm sorry. Hang in there. It will be over soon.

Annual Mashed Potato Day Text Exchange

I'm attaching a fun text exchange I wrote a few years back--it features Sam and the gang, and it makes me happy. Some of you have likely read it, but oh well. I want to do another one this week as a gift to you guys for your patience on here. Who would you like to hear from? Ava's crew or Sam's? Sound off in the comments! The next installment of East Bound should be up in the next day or so. 

Very soon I will get to share fun news that will explain WHY I've been so MIA.

Happy Mashed...

Character Building Ramble Post

As a professional author, how do you make your characters "come to life" ? Exactly how much detail did you need to make Sam and Ava the people that they are?

So this question came to me via my author facebook page, and since I get asked about this kind of thing a lot, I thought I’d share my answer. (As a Patron, no matter what level, if you have questions, please feel free to message me. If it’s something I think everyone would want to know, I’ll do more posts like these.) Welco...

East Bound and Down Chapter 7

We're back with the Sheriff in this one, and Bo is starting to draw more attention. It's a shorter post, but I'll put another chapter up soon.

PS Someone pointed out that I'm not coming up as a creator when you search. Apparently I was marked as making "adult content." So hopefully that will get fixed, soon. If you've been enjoying the content at all, please share the first chapter of East Bound and Down with anyone you think might like it. Thanks!

East Bound and Down Chapter 6 Part 2

I hope you enjoy this latest installment! 

Q & A

Do you have a writing question? A question about publishing, or my books, or some other thing I haven't thought of? Ask away! I will answer in either text or video format, depending on the best way to answer the question. 

East Bound and Down Chapter 6

Hello to you from muggy Mississippi! I'm down visiting my grandma for her 90th birthday party. Which means a rather large portion of my family has invaded coastal Mississippi, so local inhabitants might want to stay inside. We are an unruly bunch.

A little housekeeping--I'm adjusting the page so it has the pay up front feature. This won't impact current subscribers at all, it simply means when new people sign up they will get charged right away instead of the first of the month.

I hope y...

East Bound Chapter 5

Enter the SHERIFF.

East Bound Chapter 4

Chapter up! Rey, Bo and Cletus are on the road, and we finally get to meet Reed. Enjoy!

(Photo by Annie Spratt from upsplash.com)

Mistakes Were Made--Some Writing Advice

When I posted news about sending a full draft of Curses to my agent (Woooo!), I mentioned that I made a huge mistake during my writing process and that I knew better. Several people asked what that may be, so here it is:

I went back. Instead of finishing a full draft of Curses first thing, I kept rewriting the first 120 pages. I know why I did this, and I can understand my logic, but I still knew better. Whenever I'm working with a writer who is in the drafting process and we discuss changes, ...

East Bound Chapter 3

Chapter is up! If you any of you have a moment, check in and let me know if you're enjoying the story so far. It can be kind of difficult to tell on here, and I don't want to keep throwing up chapters to a story you're not into. Hope you enjoy this installment of Bo, Rey, and Cletus's adventure.

Chap 3 of East Bound with the copy editor

So it should be up for you to read in the next day or so, depending on her schedule and mine. We got hit by a nasty stomach bug which took the whole family down. It was short, but intense, and made for rough week. Then a couple of migraines, and a rough week at the day job--it doesn't take much to lose what little writing time I have.

I thought while you were waiting, I'd share a link to Ilona Andrews site. If you don't know their work (Ilona Andrews is actually Ilona and Gordon Andrews, a wif...

East Bound and Down Chapter 2

So I'm home sick today--killer migraine and allergies of doom. I got the copy edits for this last night, and I wanted to get it up for you guys, but it's hard for me to even look at the screen. So if there are typos...I'm sorry. The copy editor did their job, but my brain is stabby and as soon as I post this I'm going to go take large doses of medicine and sleep in a dark room. Yay.

For those that were wondering, Kitty Pest saw the doctor yesterday. X-rays, bloodwork, antibiotics, p...

East Bound Check In and Kitty Update

Chapter two of East Bound is with the copy editor, and hopefully will be posted today. I need to go back over it. I wanted it up sooner, but of course the minute I set a deadline, I got sick (or it's really bad allergies, I can't decide which), a bunch of other stuff popped up, and my cat and dog that usually get along great seem to have had some sort of throw down while I was at work last week, and now I have to take the cat into the vet. 

Tempest (aka Bubba/Bubbita, aka Kitty 'Pest, aka...

East Bound and Down Chap 1

As promised, fresh from the copy editor! I did another read through as well, but typos still happen, and most books are edited SO MANY TIMES before you see them. So forgive the errors as we're still in drafting phase, but I hope you enjoy Bo and Rey! 

*Edit* I changed the title on here so that it's easier to find the first chapter for all of you. Sorry about the confusion!

Quick Update for April

So this video is not mine--it was a promotional bit from the movie Gentleman Broncos. Jemaine Clement plays a Scifi author and these videos are hilarious. (I think there are two of them?) My husband kept sending them to me when I was under deadline for Pyromantic and they crack me up.

So, first, bad news. My agent has asked me to shelve Curses, the YA book I've been working on for two years. What does that mean? It means that for now, it will not be my focus, and I'll go back to other projects...

NorWesCon

Just in case any of you might be local to me, I'll be at NorWesCon this weekend. You can find my schedule here. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

-Lish

Tamora Pierce & Rachel Hartman Interview

I got to interview Tamora Pierce and Rachel Hartman a few weeks back, which was great fun. University Bookstore streamed the event, and you can watch it here!

https://www.facebook.com/ubookstoreSeattle/videos/10155604268163759/ 

The Process of Revision

So, as you guys know, I've been working on a new thing, which (for now) is called Curses. I'm working hard on finishing the full draft. Up until last month, I've been writing, revising, and completely rewriting the partial, because my agent is hoping to sell it just on that. What does that mean? Well, a partial is exactly what it sounds like--it's a (usually) large portion of book manuscript, but not the whole thing. In this case, about 140 pages. I don't usually write like this, laboring over t...

Writing Retreat

I'm currently at a writer's retreat. In this case that means I'm in a giant house in Louisiana with 14 other writers for a week doing basically nothing but writing. It's like big brother, only everyone is being really polite, and we have designated quiet hours. The amount of coffee that's been consumed is unholy. If any of you have ever wondered what happens on retreats, I basically write so much that I can't spell anymore and start mixing up my homonyms. It's great.

I'm working really hard to...

Curses Snippet!

So as you might know, I've been working hard on a book that is slooooowly killing me. I love it, but this one has been fighting me. I've shared bits featuring Merit and Tevin, the leads (enjoy those as some of those scenes have already been cut), but today I'd like you to meet Jarita. She works for Merit as a seamstress amongst other things and all of her little brothers have been turned into ravens. She is kind, but a little cheeky, and a I love her. Enjoy!

*****

“Milady’s curse was...

Create a Book Writing Schedule

My friend Daniel has put together a short video (about 15 minutes) that might help some of you writers out there structure your writing time and get that first draft done. I actually think this is a pretty good break down and helps get words on the page and avoid some of the basic pitfalls you can get into while writing. (Reediting old pages instead of writing new ones, getting stressed out and not getting any writing done, getting overwhelmed, etc). Check it out--it's worth your time.

Winter Interlude - Part One

New story! Sorry things have been a little slow on my end. Holidays, plus struggling with Curses, plus working retail, and of course everyone got sick. I have asthma, so colds are no joke, and I've had to use my rescue inhaler a lot. Upside? I discovered that my other inhaler had a fun side effect that I didn't enjoy, so I had to stop using it. (I would tell you what the side effect was, but it's kind of gross, and some people have a much lower threshold for TMI than me, so I'm exercising restra...

Curses Snippet!

Apparently, I just like to share Val's sharp shooting scenes with you? Anyway, here's one I wrote yesterday. Ignore any typos. I'm still drafting and my drafts are a mess.

*****

Val walked to one end of the hall, stopping at the furthest point, keeping her back to Tevin. He walked to the other end, holding the sack of enchanted birds that Val had found on her brief excursion into the estate’s tiny armory. Tevin pulled out the first training bird, the bespelled creation built to look li...