Happy Thanksgiving!

To all my stateside readers:

I hope you have a

safe and happy 

Thanksgiving holiday!

FREE EBOOKS!

Need new books for the holidays?
 Try some guilt-free one-clicking from The Indelibles!

My Paper Heart: http://goo.gl/8Yfqbu

One Wild Night: http://goo.gl/pNrTRS

Third Daughter: http://goo.gl/8bHJxJ
Open Minds: http://goo.gl/j1cPTC
Day of Sacrifice: http://goo.gl/wMPPp8
Become: http://goo.gl/j6UXxW
Sun & Moon: http://goo.gl/9N8XRs
Perception: http://goo.gl/MrLnDG
Bound: http://goo.gl/YjSPhE
Celestra Series: http://goo.gl/sSlW9x
The Soulkeepers: http://goo.gl/jPr29e
Captive: http://goo.gl/gu2F1l
Dragonfly: http://goo.gl/lchQMe
The Fool: http://goo.gl/HzVWEF
Grasping at Eternity: http://goo.gl/atcZzT
3 AM Kisses: http://goo.gl/Ylyssc
Beautiful Stranger: http://goo.gl/VG4CPZ
The Guardian: http://goo.gl/zCB02z
Prom Impossible: http://goo.gl/rLKBSG
Vampire Lies: http://goo.gl/U9JHvz
Lacrimosa: http://goo.gl/ifzkec
Watched: http://goo.gl/QR9eCv
Unenchanted: http://goo.gl/wvYieM
Blood and Snow: http://goo.gl/KLJMfA

Contest Winner and Another Announcement!

Elizabeth!

You're our lucky winner from yesterday's contest!

Send me an email at katiekleinwrites@yahoo.com and we'll get your ebooks to you!

Thanks for entering! 

 ~:|:~

In other news, and this isn't exactly news if you're subscribed to my newsletter, but I've gotten *SO MANY* emails over the years about Cross My Heart not being available in print.

Well. . . .

I am pleased to announce that is no longer an issue. 

 

~:|:~

 

Yes! CROSS MY HEART and COLLATERAL DAMAGE 

are officially available in paperback!   

What do you think?

I'll admit, I squealed a bit when they arrived in the mail.

I love ebooks, but man--there's nothing like holding a book and flipping pages and seeing every word written in physical form. 

*sigh*

I'm a geek, I know.  

If you want the latest and greatest at the earliest, make sure you're signed up for my newslettter! 

Link in the sidebar. --->

Otherwise, I hope you have an awesome weekend! 

Any cool plans? 

I'm trying to get as much Christmas shopping done online as I can. Also, I'm hand-drawing some note cards as an "extra" for some of the lady family members, so it will be an artsy weekend for me--a nice break, actually. :D

Be Brilliant!

~Katie~

Christmas Novella Giveaway!

In honor of RELEASE WEEK, 
fellow Indelible Lee Strauss and I are giving away  
a Christmas Novella Prize Pack!

 

Peace and Goodwill, A Contemporary Romance Novella

and my latest:

 

HOW TO ENTER:

Leave a comment on this blog post telling us

Something you want for Christmas this year

The contest closes at midnight eastern on Thursday, Nov. 20

Winner will be chosen at random

 

Check back Friday to see who wins! 

(The winner will need to contact me with an email address.)
(If we don't hear from said winner within 24 hours, a new winner will be chosen.)

Ready? Set? 

Good Luck!

The Christmas Novella is LIVE!

!!!BREAKING NEWS!!!

Okay. That was a bit dramatic. Seriously, though. . . . 

 

It's Officially Live!

Once Upon a Christmas Eve: A Novella

A chance meeting on Christmas Eve 

will change Jonathan and Olivia’s lives forever.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

iTunes

(You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.)

On Writer's Block

It was like I woke up one morning and it was GONE.

It came out of nowhere--this not knowing.

Where this story was heading.

The words I needed to tell it.

All. Gone.

And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find them. The words I did find I couldn't make work.

It went beyond "spewing crap," which I encourage every writer to do, even when it's hard: just get something on paper.

I couldn't even spew crap, and it was one of the worst feelings ever, because I AM writing, and writing is ME: we are not one without the other. And at the time I honestly didn't think I would ever get past this block.

Writer's Block

I've been blocked before--sure. I'm a writer. It comes with the territory. But being pregnant with my second kid brought more than just a block. Before, whenever I was stuck, I could do what all good writers suggest and it would work:

Take a break. Read a book. Take a nap. Work on another project. Go for a walk. Movie binge. Go back to the last place everything "worked" and take a different route. . . .

All sound advice.

But what do you do when you're pregnant and puking your guts out every morning, on vitamins and Unisom to make it through the day, and you Just Can't Write?

I knew I needed to get as much written as possible before the baby came, because I would be worthless the first few months after he was born (at the very least), but every time I tried the session would end in anger and frustration and tears. I would write for "hours" with only a few sentences or a paragraph to show for it. 

So I gave up. I put the laptop away. I quit.

I felt like such a failure.

I worried I would be forgotten--that, by the time I was able to publish again people would have moved on. 

I felt incomplete.

So I started drawing--something I've always enjoyed, but never really made time for. And it helped. The block, it seems, only divided the "word" part of my brain from my fingers. Everything else seemed to work just fine.

Drawing became my outlet. My release. It kept me centered. Sane.

Until the baby was born and I was too exhausted to even care about making up stories. Until the holidays passed. Until I started to feel more like myself--still sleep-deprived, but more able to deal with it all. Until one day I picked up my laptop and opened the file. . . .

Here, I confirmed rather quickly that yes--everything I'd tried to add to my story while pregnant was utter crap.

And I fixed it. I removed and reworded.

I was back.

And now I'm here to remind you that this, too, shall pass--whatever it is you're dealing with right now. Whatever is keeping you from giving 100% to your writing or your passion: the block doesn't last forever. 

There are unfortunate realities--realities we have no control over. It's better to just admit that they exist and move on from there. We can't change the reality, but we can choose our attitude--how we deal with it. 

Fact: I had to stop writing for a while. 

It was upsetting, yes, but I began to see it as an opportunity to focus my attention elsewhere. I had to realize that "failing" at writing for all those months didn't make me a failure as a person. 

What's most important is that I learned from the experience and returned at the appointed time. 

And you will, too.

That is all.  :D

~Katie~

Guess What's Coming Soon?

A chance meeting on Christmas Eve

will change Jonathan and Olivia's lives forever.

Who's vs. Whose

So I was doing a round of proofreading today when I realized that I have a problem with the difference between who's and whose. It seems that when I'm storytelling my fingers want to use the words interchangeably. And . . . yeah. This can't happen.

I'm not even sure what made me look up this rule, but it's actually pretty simple:

Who's 

A contraction for who is or who has

For example: Who's coming to dinner?

Whose

Shows possession

For example: Whose grandmother is that?

The best way to fix this is to replace the word with who is or who has.

Who is coming to dinner? Yes.

Who is grandmother is that? Um, no. 

I saw one error, which made me notice the discrepancy in the first place, then I thought there could be others, so I did a simple search for the word "who" in Scrivener (this can also be done in MS Word). It pulled up a bunch of other words (whole, whom, etc.), but I was able to quickly scroll through and determine which of these were misused.

And yes, there were others. *sigh*

We are all fallible. :)

~Katie~

P. S. I don't know how many stories I've sent into this world with such a simple mistake. If you locate one, just don't tell me. I'd rather not know. :D

P. P. S. Boring post, I know. Sorry!

Printing Things

Newsletter

Are you signed up for my newsletter? Because 

I have news, and I will be sharing it soon!

And if you want to be the first to know, well, your name better be on that list.

I don't spam. 

In fact, this will be the first letter I've ever sent out.

So if you want to stay on top of all things Katie Klein, the link is in the sidebar.

No pressure. . . . ;)