ChaBooCha Lite - Final Day! #ChaBooChaLite #ChaBooCha

The final day of the ChaBooCha Lite has arrived. I hope this day finds everyone who participated, if not finishing their books, then at least having written more this month than they would have done without the challenge.

We have some prize winners to announce for three of the four give-aways this month.

The winner of the Novel Under Construction writing journal is Melissa Stoller! Congratulations Melissa! Please contact me with the mailing address that you would like your journal sent to.

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The winner of the signed copy of THE ENCHANTED SNOW GLOBE COLLECTION: RETURN TO CONEY ISLAND is saputnam. Congratulations! Please contact me or Melissa with the mailing address you would like your book sent to.

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The winner of the hand-made mermaid charm bookmark (different from the one shown in the picture; pictured is a cat charm bookmark) is Meli Glickman! Congratulations, Meli! Please contact me with the mailing address you would like your book sent to.

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I hope everyone has enjoyed this "lite" challenge and found it aided them in being more productive with their writing! Feel free to let me know a little about your book in the comments below. And thank you for joining us!

ChaBooCha Lite Prizes!

With everything I've been working on, I seem to have forgotten to post the winners for the prizes during ChaBooCha Lite 2015!

I'm really sorry to be announcing these late, but here is the list of winners:

$5 Amazon US gift certificate:
Ashley
Kelly Vavala
Julia Stilchen

cat charm bookmark:
saputnam

ebook cover created by me  (using photo-manipulation). You can use it either for your ChaBooCha novel or for a short story or just for inspiration:
Beverley Baird
Ashley

Please contact me within the next two weeks to claim your prizes.

Goal-setting: When You Don't Succeed #ChaBooCha

Goal-Setting: What Happens When You Don't Succeed at your Goals

First off, for those of you who have succeeded at the ChaBooCha challenge this month, congratulations! I know it wasn't easy to set aside time for writing, but you did it! Let me know if you wrote your book start to finish during the challenge, and if you succeeded, I will send you a winner's badge for your blog or website within the week.

But for those of you who didn't succeed, I have a bit of advice. (Chapter Book Challenge member Melissa Gijsbers has mentioned that she is giving some tips for this over on her blog too, so feel free to go have a look.)

You've already done something great just by participating, just by putting words down on paper, even if you didn't reach your goal. Did you read one of the guest posts during the challenge? Then you learned something. Did you write down an outline, a page or an idea for your story? Then you are already further along than you were at the beginning of the challenge. Succeeding at a challenge or achieving your goal is a great thing to strive for, but don't forget all of the smaller achievements along the way that move you closer to your larger goal.

Not all deadlines you give yourself will be met. Trying is what is the important part. Putting in the effort to do achieve something, even if that effort is only the effort for one small step in the journey, is worth the time spent on it.

Achieving a writing goal is a journey, and part of that journey is to learn and grow while you get there. There is no set time for each person to reach their goals. Yes, this is a challenge with a set time for reaching your goal, BUT its main purpose is to give you some impetus towards writing your book.  If you are even just a tiny bit further along, even if the distance further you have travelled is only in your head and not written down yet, that means the challenge has done its job, and you ave benefited from it.

You don't have to take my word for it though. There are a lot of people who have mentioned the journey towards success. I thought it would be fun to use Google to find some image quotes that would help give some perspective on our successes, failures and efforts. (After the images, keep reading and find out about a different writing challenge and the Teapot Tales anthologies.)

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Blog Your Book in 30 Days

For those of you who want to continue to challenge yourself to write in the month of April, I am running a Blog Your Book in 30 Days challenge. There are a lot of helpful writing posts on the blog from last year, and even more fitting, April is National Book Blogging Month. The challenge can be participated in concurrently with Camp NaNoWriMo too. You don't need to actually blog your book. For those of you who want to keep your writing more private, there are some alternate routes to participating in the Blog Your Book in 30 Days challenge.

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Teapot Tales anthology submissions

Do you like to write fairy tales? In addition to the "donate" button that can be found on the right sidebar of this site, there is another way to donate to keeping the challenge running. Every year we bring out a new volume of our Teapot Tales anthologies. This will be the third volume and the theme is returning to fairy tales. you can find out more about previous anthologies at Melusine Muse Press as well as more about the submissions process. the stories are flash fiction and are to either be a new take on an old fairy tale (sometimes called twisted fairy tales or fractured fairy tales) or completely new fairy tales. Submissions are only open to Chapter Book Challenge members, Previous Teapot Tales anthologies are "Teapot Tales: A Collection of Unique Fairy Tales" (Teapot Tales: Volume 1) and "Teapot Tales: Pirates, Mermaids and Monsters of the Sea" (Teapot Tales: Volume 2). The anthologies are sold through Amazon, but will be expanding to other retail outlets. All authors get to retain the copyrights to their stories to publish in their own collections or on their own websites. Up to three stories may be submitted. Artwork (line drawings) is also accepted. (Deadline is not definite yet, but will most likely be in June or July.)

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Winners!

And here's the fun part of today. I get to announce the prize winners for all of the prizes during the challenge!

The winner of Girl Incredible by Patti Larsen is:

Robyn Campbell

Congratulations, Robyn!

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The winner of Yes! You Can Learn How to Write Beginning Readers and Chapter Books by Nancy I. Sanders is: 

Sydney O'Neill

Congratulations, Sydney!

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The winner of Writing the Paranormal Novel by Steven Harper is:

Kelly McDonald

Congratulations, Kelly!

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The winner of Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Stories by Terry Pratchett is:

Priya

Congratulations, Priya!

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The winner of the e-book copy of  Swallow Me, NOW! by Melissa Gijsbers is:

saputnam

Congratulations, Sharon! 

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The winner of Writing Irresistable Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers by Mary Kole is:

Anita Banks

Congratulations, Anita!

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The winner of Writing Plots with Drama, Depth and Heart: Nail Your Novel (Volume 3) by Roz Morris is:

Joanne Roberts

Congratulations, Joanne!

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The winner of The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes by Tami D. Cowden is:

McMarshall

Congratulations, Maria!

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The winner of You Can Write Children's Books Workbook by Tracey E. Dils is:

Kathy Phillips

Congratulations, Kathy!

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The winner of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Children's Book Publishing by Harold Underdown is:

Kelly Vavala

Congratulations, Kelly!

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The winner of The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi is:

Nancy Kotkin

Congratulations, Nancy!

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The winner of A Rat and a Ransom by Y. I Lee is:

Manju Howard

Congratulations, Manju!

Everyone has two weeks to notify me of your mailing address and/or the e-mail address you like e-books sent to (and which format). If we don't hear from you by April 14th, the prize will be donated to a local library instead.

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And that concludes the prizes for this year's ChaBooCha! Thank you so much for participating, and a big thank you to the authors who guest posted during this year's challenge!

How to Avoid Writer's Block and Get Your Story Written #ChaBooChaLite

In my third year participating in NaNoWriMo, I set a goal of writing 10,000 words every three days until I reached 50,000 words, and I beat that goal by reaching a word count of 50,020 words within the first two weeks. The following year during National Novel Writing Month, I wrote 100,126 words within the 30 days of the challenge. These are some of the strategies I used while writing my novel for NaNoWriMo. (This is reposted from Blog Your Book in 30 Days.)

This is the half-way point in your writing, and for many, this is the point, when writing, that writer's block can sneak up on you or you might start feeling a lack of enthusiasm for your story. It's also possible that you have continued writing daily until this point, but you don't feel that you are getting the word count you were hoping for. Here are some tips that will help you to avoid writer's block and produce a high word count over the next two weeks.

1. Split your focus between different parts of the story-line. By writing different parts of your book at different times, whenever you feel stuck on what you are writing or just need a break from it, you will be able to switch to a different story to write about. This can work when writing a one-story novel or a non-fcition book as well. When you get stuck on a certain part of the book or just need a break from what you are writing, start on a different scene within the story or a different chapter within your non-fiction book. You can always go back to finish the one you started with and when you do, you will feel refreshed and full of new ideas.

2. Set aside as much time as you can spare for writing. You may find that you can sneak more writing time into your day than you originally thought was possible. If you're a parent, you can write when your kids are at school, when your youngest takes a nap, or when all of the children go to bed. Maybe you will stay up late to write. Take a notebook with you everywhere and write while on the bus or while waiting at the doctor's office. Wake up early to write before everyone else is up or before you have to leave for work.

3. Get rid of distractions during your writing time. Many things constitute distractions. Children can be very distracting, so write when they were in bed or at school. The TV is distracting, so make sure it is off when you are writing. Facebook and Twitter are distracting, so tell yourself that you will reach a specific word count before allowing yourself time on either site.

4. Challenge yourself. Try and beat your best record for word count in a day. Or look at how your friends are doing and try to beat their word count. Think of a daily word count that seems slightly out of reach for you and then challenge yourself to find a way to reach it that day.

5. Believe in yourself. No matter what obstacles seem to be in the way of you reaching your word count goal, believe that you will overcome them. Because you can.

6. Make writing a priority. There may be a lot of things that have to be priorities in your life, but if you are reading this, then there is at least a part of you that wants to make writing a priority too. So do it. Make writing something you will not allow yourself to set aside.

7. Get rid of your internal editor. Just write without looking back. When you finish your novel, you can go back and edit what you have written, but just let it go while you are in the middle of writing. You can't edit writing that hasn't been written.

8. When you are not writing your novel, talk about it with others. Not only is this helpful in coming up with new ideas or ways for you to think about your plot, but also, just the act of talking about it will help you to come up with new ideas on your own.

9. Give yourself a break from writing every now and then. Sometimes a change of scenery is all it takes to give yourself fresh ideas and keep the writing flowing.

10. And the one thing that is the most important is to have fun with your story! Enjoy every second of the world you are creating!

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And now to announce the winners of the first two prizes!

The winner of the journal is:

Melissa Khalinsky

Congratulations, Melissa!

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The winner of the mock book cover is

Kelly Vavala!

Congratulations, Kelly! (Please e-mail me with your book title and any ideas you have for the cover.)

"Once Upon a Slime" winner announcement! #ChaBooCha

Winner!

We have one last give-away winner to announce. Chapter Book Challenge member and regional ambassador Melissa Gijsbers Khalinsky kindly offered to send one lucky member a copy of the children's book "Once Upon a Slime: 45 Fun Ways to Get Writing Fast!" by Andy Griffiths.The winner has been drawn by a random number generator.

And the winner is:

Dani Duck!

Congratulations, !

Announcing the winner of "How to Write for Children and Get Published" by Louise Jordan #ChaBooCha

Today's prize is "How to Write for Children and Get Published" by Louise Jordan. The winner was chose by Random.org out of a total of 19 entries. the winner is:

Tia Mushka

Congratulations, Tia!

Announcing the winner of "Writing Irresistible Kidlit" by Mary Kole #ChaBooCha

Today's prize  is "Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers" by Mary Kole.

I know that many of you already have this book, so if you win this book and already have it, you may choose to have it sent to someone else in the challenge as a gift or you may choose one of the two items below from the Chapter Book Challenge 2013 shop as an alternative prize.

The winner has been chosen through a random number generator at Random.org out of 17 entries. The winner is:

Kathy Ellen Davis 

Congratulations, Kathy!

 The Chapter Book 2013 Journal

 The Chapter Book 2013 mug