The Girdle of Melian

elp Talli Roland's debut novel THE HATING GAME hit the Kindle bestseller list at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk by spreading the word today. Even a few sales in a short period of time on Amazon helps push the book up the rankings, making it more visible to other readers. Amazon.co.uk readers go here , and Amazon.com readers here . No Kindle? Download a free app at Amazon for Mac, iPhone, PC, Android and more. Coming soon in paperback. Keep up with the latest at www.talliroland.com . About THE HATING GAME: When man-eater Mattie Johns agrees to star on a dating game show to save her ailing recruitment business, she's confident she'll sail through to the end without letting down the perma-guard she's perfected from years of her love 'em and leave 'em dating strategy. After all, what can go wrong with dating a few losers and hanging out long enough to pick up a juicy £200,000 prize? Plenty, Mattie discovers, when it's revealed that the contestants are four...

oom! Writing full on for NaNo - especially given my writing habits, which involve pen and paper, and typing it all up later - cut into all of my reading time, so that I was reduced to reading only during my commute to and from work, and one very late night, when I had to keep reading The Hating Game (look for Talli Roland 's Take on Amazon blog splash, coming Wednesday!). This past weekend, I returned to reading with a vengeance, finishing Dorothy Sayers' Clouds of Witness , kc dyer's Facing Fire , the Songs of Love & Death Anthology (featuring a new short story by Diana Gabaldon), starting A Christmas Walk by Zan Marie Steadham , Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings by Hélène Boudreau and The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (thanks again Jenny !), and starting and finishing  Alan Silberberg 's Milo - Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze , the second of the local author MG/YA books I picked up at the CANSCAIP meeting last month . Milo is a great char...

did nothing yesterday. Nothing. Well, I wrote and plotted in the morning, then went to work, came home and did some chores. But after that? I read three days' worth of newspapers, a magazine, a couple of short stories and kc dyer 's Facing Fire . Imagine! Reading, for pleasure! Not for research and not while wracked with guilt for not writing. On the other hand, this is exactly how the slippery slope starts. Now that NaNo is winding down, and I don't have the push of other Forum writers barrelling or crawling through the process with me, it's easy to fall back into old habits of "I'll just read a bit tonight. I can get more editing done tomorrow, if I get home from work early and we order take out." That kind of talk leads to two years or more and no finished novel in sight. What are your tips for nipping laziness in the bud? For corralling yourself back to that chair in front of your notebook/laptop? logsplash for Talli Roland 's The Hat...

one! 51,300 words all typed and organized into the master file. Now, if only I could say the draft was complete. Not yet, by a long shot. The beginning is undergoing a major overhaul, the ending has yet to be written, and I just hope the middle doesn't fall out like the inside of a cake as I sit there holding up the sides. Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States. If you're feeling slightly overwhelmed by family and food, skip over to Margaret and Helen's and read their T hanksgiving letter to the family . First bit of advice: "If it jiggles, slap a girdle on it or leave it at home." Solvang and TerryLynn have both won the Middle Grade Giveaway ! Please send me your addresses.

eekends are slow during NaNo, at least for me. I typed up all my words but haven't written any new ones, either yesterday or today. Distractions abound as well - for instance, would you like to play Mad Libs with your characters? Do so here ! I did wake up with a Brilliant Idea for shaking up the beginning of the novel, but the lack of words was getting me down - I'm only 3,000 away from completing NaNo early after all - so in order to feel like I'd accomplished at least one thing today, I baked Kait's yogourt beer muffins (meanwhile, part 17 of Forsaken by Shadow is up !), which turned out very yummy, and was the easiest recipe I've followed in a long time. Also, I've been thinking of character names again. I originally blogged about this back in 2008 , where I was discussing the characters in my middle grade story The Face of A Lion . Even after all that, however, I'd never found a surname for the main character Austin. A couple of months ago, how...

eering away from word counts... There I was fretting about how to frame my blog post for the day – how many NaNo blog updates can a NaNo blogger write before NaNo readers get NaNoed out? – when my trusty sidekicks/whip hands/inspirational writing friends on The Forum came through once again! Here's Sheena's post for the day , wherein she quotes yours truly. Where else but on the Forum can you segue from NaNo to lycanthropy to Doctor Who to VCRs to Medieval Europe, and survive another day, to talk about Thanksgiving and seven league boot spells? In re Doctor Who, visit the BBC page for links to archival footage featuring the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, and Frazer Hines, here and here . How To Write Badly Well mentions Istanbul ! Middle Grade Giveaway is still up for grabs ! Don't forget to save a word ! Must dash... got an appointment with my notebook.

h, NaNo. Still going strong! My schedules have gotten a bit topsy turvy, so that I'm still writing every day, but with lots of family and friend (and, oh yea, work) commitments, haven't been typing up my words nearly every day. Cracked 30,000 over the weekend but have another 6,000 to type up tonight, to bring the novel itself to c. 120,000 - the longest I've ever had. Just look at my notebook! Frodo did: Here are my 15 Authors Who've Influenced Me (per the Facebook meme, off the top of my head, without overthinking it): 1. L M Montgomery 2. Jean Little 3. J R R Tolkien 4. C S Lewis 5. John Bellairs 6. Diana Gabaldon 7. Walter de la Mare 8. Agatha Christie 9. Dorothy L Sayers 10. Marchette Chute 11. Madeleine l'Engle 12. E L Konigsburg 13. Fyodor Dostoyevksy 14. Charles Bukowski 15. James Herriott Then I added in the comments that I'd forgotten Ted Keneally, Beatrix Potter, Louisa May Alcott, Kit Pearson, Margaret Buf...