Sara Creasy

Three Horn Toots

It’s been a weekend of headaches jumping though Amazon’s hoops to get the plagiarized versions of my first two books removed from their store. This process reset to 99c the “permanently free” price-matching Amazon did for me, but it looks like the books are free once again in the Australian and US stores. I’ve asked for them to be free across all marketplaces.

On April 1st, Little Sister Song hit the top 100 free Kindles in the Literary Fiction category, which was a huge and pleasant surprise.

Introducing Blunderbelly

In my Wynter Wild series, middle brother Indio plays in a college band called Blunderbelly. It sounds like a name they dreamed up while drunk or high, and I have no idea how it came to me as I was neither at the time…

Blunderbelly’s never gonna make the big time. I love it, and I love those guys, but no one’s really listening to rock music these days.

No one but me??

Cover reveal! Book 4 Lost Melodies

Here ’tis! Lost Melodies is the fourth installment of the Wynter Wild series. I’ve almost finished uploading book 3 to Wattpad, and it’ll be a few weeks before I start uploading book 4. NOTE: It will be tagged “Mature” on Wattpad, as it’s suitable for ages 16+ due to adult themes (among other things).

Meanwhile, I’ll be posting a bonus chapter there (actually part of the prequel, which will become flashbacks in a future sequel) about the first time Wynter and Xay met at the ashram.

Lost Melodies

Wynter’s dreams are coming true: after more than a year in foster care, she finally has the home she always dreamed of when Caleb buys a ramshackle farmhouse on the mountain. Her experience of the world is growing, with Jesse to guide her at every step (even when she’d rather he didn’t). She has her first boyfriend, her first job, and a new hard rock band at school.
But one of her brothers is hiding a shameful secret. Just when her hopes of a united family seem possible… he’s gone.
And one by one, her other successes are falling apart. How will Wynter cope when her desire for a simple, safe life is under threat?

Little Sister Song is out now on Kindle

I’ve just published Little Sister Song (book 1 of the Wynter Wild series) on Kindle!

BUY NOW

What’s it like on Wattpad? Part 3

I’ve been talking about my experience so far after a couple of months sharing my books on Wattpad.

Wattpad allows you to tag your stories so interested readers can find them. It was through the tag system I first realized there’s a sub-genre of general and YA fiction revolving around siblings. In most cases, the protagonist is a girl in her early-to-mid teens, the siblings are mostly older, mostly boys, and the stories are first-person accounts.

What’s it like on Wattpad? Part 2

In my last post I talked about my reasons for using Wattpad, and how my first two books are doing since I started uploading them, chapter by chapter, about 6 weeks ago.

I wanted to share a few thoughts about how this method of sharing my books differs on a more personal level with the two sci-fi books I had published a few years ago.

What’s it like on Wattpad?

In late December I started uploading chapters of Little Sister Song to Wattpad. That story is now complete on the site, and I’ve almost finished uploading Out of Tune (book 2) as well. I thought I’d talk a bit about my reasons for using Wattpad to distribute these books, and my experience so far.

Read Little Sister Song on Wattpad

UPDATE: Little Sister Song is now available for purchase on Amazon.

Just a heads-up that Little Sister Song, book 1 of the Wynter Wild series, is now uploaded and complete on Wattpad, a free book platform where books can be serialized. In the future I’ll be releasing the first few books of the Wynter Wild series as free Kindles (and other ebooks).

I changed the cover for Wattpad and discovered that adding a figure to the image correlated to an increase in “reads”. Click the cover for a direct link. (You do need to sign up, or log in with your Facebook or Google account.)

Getting instant feedback on a story, chapter by chapter, in the form of votes and comments, is certainly a different experience for me. Better still is the chance to interact with readers in real time, as well as to check out the other books they’re reading in order to discover new fiction for myself.

I’m in the process of uploading book 2, Out of Tune, and updating every day.

Pure emotion songs

I know, I know, you disagree! Maybe with all five. But don’t blame me. These are Indio’s “pure emotion” songs, meaning, according to him, they bypass the cerebral cortex and drive directly into the brainstem. The list is guitar-heavy because he’s guitar-heavy.

These songs aren’t my “songlist” for writing to—I prefer instrumental music for that. Indio is the middle child, a musician and songwriter who also expresses himself through art.

Personality Typing for Made-Up People

I became fascinated by personality typing years ago. I see personality typing as a model of actual humans, meaning it’s a structure we’ve imposed on the messy natural world in order to understand it, rather than a real thing. For this reason, I think it probably works better on fictional characterization than actual humans.

In the past I’ve typed characters at the start of the writing process. Whether or not you have a large cast, it helps to keep personalities distinct. You probably already have broad characters in mind at that point. Reading through personality types to find ones that “match” can help hone the characters.

A few systems to try (I’ve provided a link for each, but there’s loads more info available by Googling, including zodiac signs if you’re looking for more arbitrary ideas):