MAKE A CHARACTER STORYBOARD

When writing your novel, it's sometimes easy to forget what your characters look like, especially if you're like me and can only make weekly appointments to work on it. My workspace is also relatively small considering all of the other things I write and that take up my time in my working area. After a storyboarding workshop last winter, I decided to create a visual profiles board. I had already written character sketches and found images online of people who I thought looked like my characters, so it was just a matter of copying them and old-school cutting and pasting.

The result is the board you see on the right side in this photo. With pictures of my characters (and other key items like my characters' home) attached to a piece of foam core, I can tuck the board away and pull it out when I'm working on my novel. When I'm done, I can stash them back out of the way, keeping my space tidy and organized.

GETTING READY TO LAUNCH

The door prizes -- by a door!

This Saturday, August 16th (1-3 p.m., 3rd floor, Bucktown, 225 E. 2nd Street, downtown Davenport, Iowa), I'm holding a launch party for my fourth book, Melody Madson - May It Please the Court? This is not my first rodeo - I know that people are not going to be coming out of the woodwork to hear me read and purchase my book; I will most likely know everyone there. I'm not going to sell out of my books and will probably have a lot of food left over. But the launch party is still worth it to me because that's not why I do it.

My launch parties are celebrations of a completed project, years of writing, rewriting, revising, editing, and getting a print book in my hand. It's a graduation of sorts - moving into a new phase in the book's life from production to marketing. Plus, I just like to have a party. I try to make the parties as fun as possible with very little focus on selling books. Since my first naive launch party for Crush and Other Love Poems for Girls, I've learned to have a presentation - a reading and a question and answer period.

I'm also into theme parties so I get creative with food and door prizes. For Other Side of Crazy, I had crazy food and door prizes. For Melody Madson, I'm sticking with a lawyer and from-the-book theme. For food we're having M&Ms (for Melody's initials); gavel cookies I'm fashioning out of hard drying frosting, sandwich cookies, peanut butter cups, and tube cookies; soda; and veggies pizza (because Melody is always eating pizza in the book, though not veggie). In addition to free books, I have four themed door prizes: a basket of items one might find on or in Melody's desk at work; a bag of chocolates because every teen I know likes chocolate; a can of instant vanilla coffee because Melody's develops a taste for it; and dog toys she might use to play with her cocker spaniel, Justice.

It will be fun for me and whoever else shows up - because it's a party!

(To read more about the book, click here to go to the book page on my website.)

I'M BACK...

A shift in priorities has kept me away from posting to this author blog regularly - but my priorities have shifted back - so I'm back, too. I have a new book coming out on August 16th, Melody Madson - May It Please the Court?, so I'm delving back into the literary world.

I've populated my Facebook author page and created a Melody Madson Facebook page. I've also dipped my toes into Instagram. I want to become not only a readers' author, but a writer's author so on my author-focused online presence I plan to post things that appeal readers and writers alike, like my historical fiction reviews blog which I'm gearing up to restart soon, too.

I've also added a whole "For Authors" section to my website. Click here to check it out. It has some other blogs I like fed into it, resources and links, and services.

Finally, I'm working on a new project helping a very special group of writers say what they want to say launching in 2015.

So... keep reading and writing.

I'll be back in two weeks!