Kendra's Blog Tour; How (not) to write a book.

As Many of you guys know, Kendra, my elder sister, is an author... and as an author she sometimes publishes books, and when you just happen to be the younger sister... You just happen to get in on it whether you like it or not. Enjoy. 

Back Cover Blurb:

Arthur is the rightful king of Briton, but his Uncle Mordreth refuses to give up the regency.   Arthur and Grandfather are now returning with allies to wrestle the kingdom from his uncle's grasp.  But not all is as it seems among his allies, and everyone has secrets.  New loves, old loves, lost loves, kingdoms conquered and kingdoms stolen.   Who is the real "rightful heir" and will the nearly forgotten sword in the stone finally answer this question?

Author Person: (really sis! I thought you were a giraffe)

Kendra E. Ardnek loves fairy tales and twisting them in new and exciting ways.  She's been practicing her skills on her dozen plus cousins and siblings for years, "Finish your story, Kendra", is frequently heard at family gatherings.  Her sole life goal has always been to grow up and be an author of fantasy and children's tales that also glorify God and his Word. You can read more about her on her blog,knittedbygodsplan.blogspot.com.

Goodreads Page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23563093-my-kingdom-for-a-quest

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Quest-Bookania-Quests-Book-ebook/dp/B00RN7T004
Paperback: https://www.createspace.com/4322491


To help promote my new book, I have my other books scheduled to be free on the various following days. Please include on your post whichever books are free on the day of your post(s).

14th-18thhttp://www.amazon.com/Sew-Quest-Bookania-Quests-Book-ebook/dp/B005G3ZFKG/

14th-18thhttp://www.amazon.com/The-Woodcutter-Quince-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B00QHEGJEY/

14th-17thhttp://www.amazon.com/Ankulen-Kendra-E-Ardnek-ebook/dp/B00EZAXWYM/

16th-20thhttp://www.amazon.com/Take-This-Quest-Bookania-Quests-ebook/dp/B00CFDHFT4/

17th-21st http://www.amazon.com/Saffrons-Big-Plan-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B008EYY1C2/


Link to tour Schedule: http://knittedbygodsplan.blogspot.com/p/blog-tour-sign-up.html

Snip it

Her posture relaxed slightly, and a grin pulled at the corner of her mouth. “Well, in that case, catch.”
Arthur had barely enough time to put up his hand before he found the sword she had been polishing in it. And then he had barely enough time to raise that sword before the blade was crossed with the one she wore at her side.
After barely blocking a few vicious blows, the sword was twisted out of his hands. A moment later, Robin was back at the bottom of the pile, polishing the sword as though it had never left her hand. A smirk pulled at one corner of her mouth. “Well, now I know what we have to work with.”
Arthur swallowed, glancing down at his empty hand. She didn’t sound terribly impressed.
“I’ve had suitors worse than you, that’s for certain,” she continued. “Your worst problem, as I suspected, is that you’re nervous about the fact that it’s a real sword.”
“Well, I’ve never actually held a real sword before in my life,” Arthur protested.
“My condolences. It’s taught you bad habits.” She held up the sword he’d used and pointed to a few notches in the blade. “These weren’t here five minutes ago. You blocked wrong – with the edge rather than the flat. Of course, that is precisely why I gave you a sword with such inferior metal, so you wouldn’t damage my sword.”


And now folks, for the main event. Her tips for writing... *insert face palm* You guys will understand in a moment. Here we go.


It seems my sister wrote a post about writing an essay several weeks back and you guys loved it and wanted her to follow it with a post about how to write a book. Except that, while she’s a good writer, she doesn’t consider herself to be an expert on the subject, so when I told her that she had to put up a post for me during my blog tour, she presented me with the topic.

I’m the author of six books now, I should be an expert, right?

It’s a simple process, really. I don’t know why everyone insists on making such a huge deal of it.

First, decide you want to write a book. (See, I said it was simple) Whether or not you have story is another issue. Just decide you want to write a book.

Once you have that goal fixed firmly in your mind (and blasted across every social media site you can find), find Microsoft Word on your computer (unless it’s Windows 7 or newer, in which case, you’ll have to go find a program to download online, such as Open Office – or a Mac, but I’ve never used a Mac, so I can’t help you there), and open up a nice, new, shiny document and … stare at the flashing curser for about ten minutes as it crashes upon you that you don’t even have a title.

Quickly back-peddle back to those social media sites and beg and plead for tips from anyone who might have any experience with writing. Among all of the bad advice (which you assume is solid gold), you get directed to a couple dozen writing blogs and books, which you devour eagerly, and that in order to write a book, you need Characters, Conflict, and Conversations.

Characters first … well, you’re an interesting person, so you decide that your main character is going to be just like you … except, well, you don’t really want to include the fact that you’re actually terribly lazy and wouldn’t survive five seconds on an epic quest (you’ve already decided that you’re writing a fantasy novel that will rival Tolkien), you leave that out. No one wants to read about a lazy person, right? And while you’re at it, you get rid of those few extra pounds and tone up your muscles, since your main character has to be awesome. You are smart enough not to give your character your own name, instead giving your brainchild something fittingly awesome, like Destinee, or Hunter, maybe Rowan.

For conflict, well, naturally, you need a quest, so you have a random old man show up with a prophecy and a map, which your character realizes was meant for them, and so they pack up their bags, including the last bit of coin that their parents had been saving for some special occasion and the old sword that they’ve been practicing in secret with for the last few years. Oh, and you decide that their father died when they were an infant, because nothing sparks sympathy in the hearts of readers faster than a dead parent.

After dutifully tapping away for about three hours, you run out of ideas, but no matter, you have some good words, and your story is moving, and besides, it’s time for supper, so you head downstairs to eat, play a few video games before bed, and then crash.

When you pull up the document the next day, you stare at the blinking curser for about twenty minutes, as you realize you still have no ideas. So you bring up your problem in the writing forum you joined the day before, and you get told to introduce a new character. One person suggests that it be a love interest, and you really like that idea.

So you create this new character, giving them all the qualities you’d like in a mate, making them smoking hot, or drop-dead gorgeous, because you NEED to have them fall in love at first sight in order for your plot (or lack thereof) to work. Oh, and you make them an apprentice mage, because this is a fantasy world, and you need to do some worldbuilding.

And so your writing day continues, and you get more good words in until you run out of ideas, and you go eat supper and go to bed.

The next day, as you stare at that blinking curser, contemplating your lack of ideas, you recall the advice of yesterday, and decide to add a second love interest, because love triangles are popular, and you can never have too much of a good thing. You decide that this second person will be the complete opposite of the first, but also smoking hot/drop-dead gorgeous as applicable. But let’s make this person a thief, who’s trying to undermine the whole mage system.

You’re main character will take FOREVER trying to figure out which one to choose.

The next day, you realize that you need to put that sword to good use, so you defeat some ogres that randomly pop out of some friendly woods, and then realize that you need to be focusing on that prophesy, so your Mage Love Interest suggests that they go to visit an oracle. When you get to her, the Thief Love Interest reveals her for the shame she is, and thus succeeds in toppling the mage system. Your character realizes that this is the one for them, since the other was nothing but a phony who wanted you only for the prophesy … which, it turns out, was fulfilled when you took care of the oracle.

You excitedly type the words “The End,” publish it immediately to the fiction site you had just joined, and blithely ignore everyone who declares it the worst thing they’d ever read. They obviously wouldn’t know good fiction if it hit them upside the head with a fish.

-----------

SISTER! I do hope you guys enjoyed my sister's snarky, not give you straight answer, side... Cuz I didn't. Believe me guys, DON'T FOLLOW HER ADVICE! In this post, she gave you all the things "NOT" to do. Anyways... Good grief. 

VK