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Danika Dinsmore

Author / Educator / Activist

  • Writings
    • White Forest Series
      • Song from Afar (Coming Soon)
      • Brigitta of the White Forest
      • The Ruins of Noe
      • Ondelle of Grioth
      • Narine of Noe
      • Voyage from Foraglenn
      • Omnibus Edition Vol. 1
    • Poetry
      • 3:15
      • Her Red Book
      • Everyday Angels and Other Near-death Experiences
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      • And the start line is…
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Narine of Noe

Book Blog Tours Are Us! (+ new year writing exercise)

January 3, 2016 by Danika 1 Comment

Hey . . . stuff!

Quick post to announce my official Narine of Noe blog tour kicks off this week and will run through February. I will post more dates/locations as they are announced. Please check out the blogs of these lovely book tour hosts. All of them are writers themselves who work hard and deserve recognition.FRONT COVER Bk 4-1

During the tour there will be multiple chances to win prizes (copies of Book Four or the Omnibus, other books and gift certificates. yay.).

Enter to win a copy of Narine of Noe on GoodReads (deadline Jan 10).

Enter to win various books by posting reviews (deadline Jan 31).

2016 Blog Tour Stops

Thursday, Jan 7
Guest post (and giveaway) on Smack Dab in the Middle

Tuesday, Jan 12
Guest post on Roger Eschbacher Books

Monday, Jan 18
Interview (and giveaway) on Kate Johnston’s 4 AM Writer

Thursday, Jan 21
Guest post on Laurisa White Reyes

Tuesday, Jan 26
Interview / Review on Everett Maroon’s Trans/plant/portation

Thursday, Feb 4
Interview / Book Exerpt on Kim Aippersbach’s Dead Houseplants

MORE TBA…

YOUR WORKOUT

If you’re anything like me, both the end of a long writing project and the end of a long year mark a slow down in writing time. Put those two things together and I’ve got an ennui sandwich. Downtime is perfectly understandable, so is taking time to enjoy the holidays. However, my spirit knows it’s time to start writing again, but my mind and body are sluggish in post holiday indulgence haze.

When I get like this I know that ANY writing is good. I know that if I carve out some time and get my pen to a notebook that the ideas, inspiration, motivation, and joy of writing will all come back to me. I know because I’ve been here before many times.

That’s when I pull out my timer and use a tried and true invention of two of my favourite writing mentors Jack Remick and Bob Ray: The story I want to write is about…

Today, though, I thought I’d add a little twist, which I brought to the exercise during one of my Surrey Writers’ Conference workshops.

1)  Set your timer for 5-7 minutes. Using the start line below, write without stopping and without editing. If you get stuck, just write about being stuck (gosh, I’m stuck, my mind feels like a piece of cheese…) OR just keep writing the start line over with a different response each time.

Start line: The story that wants to be written is about . . .

2)  Set your timer for 5-7 minutes. Using one of the start lines below, write without stopping and without editing.

Start line: I often get in my own way (of being the writer/person/friend I want to be) by . . .

OR

Start line: My protagonist often gets in his/her own way by . . .

3)  Set your timer for 7-10 minutes. Using one of the start lines below, write without stopping and without editing.

Start line: Breaking open my cage of limitations would look like . . .

OR

Start line: Breaking open my protagonist’s cage of limitations would look like . . .

Happy writing and Happy New Year!

Plain_tree_image

Filed Under: Archived Blog, Book Launch, Book Tour, giveaways, Narine of Noe, writing exercises, writing life

And we’re off . . . like a herd of turtles!

December 10, 2015 by Danika 2 Comments

Launching a book from a cell phone isn’t easy! Trust me on that one. My computer went into the shop 4 days before my launch and won’t be ready until next week! Doh!

I’m keeping this short and sweet until I can get my magic box back.

Let’s call this the softest book launch in White Forest history!

Ladies and gentleman, small and large humans, Narine of Noe is officially available TODAY!

In celebration, the publisher has listed the ebook price at $4.99 (regularly $6.99) through the weekend. As well, BOOK ONE is on sale for .99 through the weekend.

All official book launch events and parties will be in the New Year. We needed to get the book out before the end of the year, though. So… looking for a holiday gift for a 10 year old or a 10 year old at heart? (nudge-nudge, hint-hint)

Thank you Tony Ollivier, Kate Fink-Jensen, Kelly and Karyn Hoskins, Kristi FitzGerald, and Yvette Dudley-Neuman for being my early readers! THANK YOU to Jennifer Munro – who may just be the best copy editor ever. Thank you Julie Fain and Chris Fink-Jensen for the lovely cover. And last, but not least, THANK YOU Tod McCoy for being such an awesomey publisher.

Narine-official softcover cover

Narine’s Amazon Page

Narine’s GoodReads Page

Win a signed copy on the GoodReads GIVEAWAY

Filed Under: Archived Blog, Book Launch, Faerie Tales from the White Forest, giveaways, Narine of Noe, novel adventures

Trusting the Process

November 20, 2015 by Danika 2 Comments

Wow. Wow. Wow.

I haven’t posted in over four months. That’s the longest break I’ve taken since I started blogging ten years ago. And it’s not for lack of wanting to, it’s because life happened (moving, working, family stuff, etc) and I was in the middle of a crisis of faith with Faerie Tales from the White Forest Book Four.

Or really, I should say a crisis of trust.

Faith and trust are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Faith is known as the “substance of hope.”  It’s very nature is that it requires no evidence, one just believes. Trust is based largely on evidence from previous knowledge/experience. For example, you might trust someone because they’ve never given you a reason to do otherwise. You generally trust your friends not to stab you in the back.

I did not like book four while I was writing it. I honestly thought it was a hot mess. At one point I called it the “suckiest piece of suck that ever sucked.” Half-way through my first rewrite I nearly called my publisher to tell him I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t finish the book, I couldn’t figure out how to deliver it from hot messness.

Instead, I called one of my author friends, the one I always call on because she entered the world of children’s literature a few years before I did, and she always tells me the thing I need to hear. She told me: Danika, you know how to do this. Trust the process.

Trust the process.

This is what I always tell my students. I proclaim to them that “creation is messy!” I’m a process junkie. I’m all about the journey. I usually find editing the most inspiring part of writing, my editing skills applied like wielding a wand. But this story was being a difficult child. It was too confusing, too convoluted, too complicated. There were too many continuity issues between Book 4 and the rest of the series, and I thought I could never address them all. I was totally overwhelmed.

I took a break from my rewrite and read the first three books over again. I took copious notes on continuity issues and typed them up. Every time I started a new chapter I read over those notes and pulled out the ones that applied to that section.

And one by one, each note was addressed (or dismissed) and crossed off. It took months. When I got the first draft to the copy editor, it didn’t feel real. And the day I reached the last sentence on the last draft before it went to the publisher, I burst into tears.

Somewhere during my final rewrite, I realized what the story was about. It was a story about trust. I was in my kitchen when I realized it and I stood there for a full minute reveling in the irony. The idea of trust appears over and over again throughout the story. Imagine that.

Launch date for Narine of Noe is Dec 5th.

Send a note to info@danikadinsmore.com if you’d like an ebook review copy. Please specify pdf, mobi, or epub format.

YOUR WORKOUT

Where is the moment in your story where your character loses trust in themselves or someone/something else? Is it a cheating lover? A friend who steals? A failed attempt at something? A writer who has written five novels who suddenly can’t see her way through her latest manuscript? Is the trust lost for irrational reasons? Over a misunderstanding? Over prejudice?

Set your timer for 5 -10 minutes per start line

When timer starts: write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.
(just do it!)*

Start lines:

1) My character has a hard time trusting (in general, self, or specific person) because . . .

2) My character’s trust is broken when . . .

3) The cage my character creates for her/himself due to his/her lack of trust looks like . . .

3) My character doesn’t/can’t learn to trust again until . . .

Now write your next scene . . . :-)

*If you want to try various ways of writing try short sentences, long sentence release (no punctuation, just connect everything by conjunctions), or listing.

Filed Under: Archived Blog, Book Launch, Narine of Noe, writing exercises, writing life

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