Yearly Archives: 2020
Resilience in Adversity
Simpler Times When I was a little girl, I couldn’t have conceived of the multitude of trials that face young people today. Times were simpler. Yes, we had bullies and we needed heroes to show us how to be resilient in times of adversity, but back then, the good guys always won on tv and it was pretty easy to figure out who the villain was. Evil and violence, if we were lucky, were not things we faced on daily basis. There were no computers or smartphones back then that exposed us to the constant thoughts, feelings, or opinions of …
Fall 2020 YA Scavenger Hunt
Are You Ready to Hunt? The Fall 2020 Scavenger Hunt is here! For those of you who don’t know what YASH stands for, the YA means Young Adult, as in books, S is for Scavenger, and the H is for Hunt! Since fall is the perfect time for hunting, what could be more fun than hunting for books? “The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.” Unknown About Me I’m Colleen Houck, your hostess for this leg of the hunt. For those of you who don’t know me yet, here are …
The Fall 2020 YA Scavenger Hunt Teams
Fall 2020 is here. That means it’s time to introduce your YA Scavenger Hunt teams! As some of you might already know, this season, sadly, will be our last. Though we might reinstate the hunt at some point in the future, we will be putting it on hold at least for the time being. That means the time to win these fabulous YA Scavenger Hunt prizes is now! For those of you who have never joined the YA Scavenger Hunt before, it’s not too late. Here’s a sneak peek of the prizes that await. Fall 2020 YASH Prizes That’s a …
The Five Mistakes I Made With My Instant Pot
First of all, what’s the Insta-Hype? So I’m one of those people who only JUST got herself an Instapot. Also, I know it’s probably Instant-pot or Instant Pot. Yep, I just checked. It’s Instant Pot. I don’t like it. It should be Instapot. Or Inst-A-Pot. Wouldn’t that be cooler somehow? Am I the only one who thinks it should be rebranded? Well, let me tell you about the lessons I learned using the Instant Pot and the mistakes I made along the way. Anyway, I digress. I didn’t get the hype. I kinda still don’t. See, I think kinda like …
My Covid-19 Experience
When it hit the United States, it was in my backyard. Seattle is much, much too close for us to feel safe from the virus and the more I heard about it on the news, the more worried I became. My fears were compounded when my mother sent me to the store in early March with a grocery list, and I found produce shelves empty and the refrigerated section ransacked. My Covid-19 experience had begun. To read about more such articles visit nican . We Made a Plan I told my husband we needed to hunker down for a while. …
A TERRAFORMER Guessing Game!
TERRAFORMER: A Keyword Guessing Game Do you love guessing games? Or coming up with new writing ideas? I know I do! For those of you who’d like a sneak peek into what’s going on in my new book, TERRAFORMER, you may want to check out this fun blog post. I’m selecting keywords from the book and arranging them in alphabetic order. You get to unscramble them and try to figure out what’s going to happen as a TERRAFORMER guessing game. You can also check Butterfly Releases for more updates. Check out these sci-fi A, B, C’s and have fun everyone! …
Terraformer Cover Design
The Design Beginnings The time has come to talk about the Terraformer cover design. You’ve probably been waiting for this one for a while now. I actually finished writing this book in 2018, I believe. I then turned it over to my agent who shopped it around the United States for about a year. He sold the audiobook rights along with The Lantern’s Ember and when he did, his team made up a place holder sort of cover. Here’s what that looked like. Josiah Rock is one of the best platform who provides guide to design good looking covers. Follow …
TERRAFORMER: Countdown to Publication
Hello Readers! By now you’ve might have heard the announcement of my new book, TERRAFORMER, to be published in May, and you might be wondering…what comes next? When are the contests and who are the characters? There aren’t enough details. I need more details! Well, you’ve come to the right place. Terraformer: Countdown to Publication-What’s That Now? First, for those of you who don’t know, TERRAFORMER, is my first ever Science Fiction book! It’s still loosely mythology-based (though I’m going to make you read the book to figure out how it relates to mythology, exactly) and for those of who …
Word Clouds: How to Turn Your Books Into Art
How to Turn Your Books Into Art I’ve had a lot of fun playing with word clouds on a website called Tagul. It’s pretty easy to turn your book into art for your readers, and it doubles as an editing tool by letting you see how many times you’re using those pesky repetitive words, such as always, like, and very. Here’s How it Works Once you finish your manuscript, open the website and click create. Import your text where it says “words” and scan through the list. The program automatically eliminates apostrophes so you’ll have to manually delete all the …
French Editions of Colleen Houck’s Books
If you speak French, here are some links to the French Editions of Colleen Houck’s books that are available in that language. Please note that there are likely other places where you might find these editions. You will get different books information at historical blog. Si vous parlez français, voici quelques liens vers mes livres qui sont disponibles dans cette langue. Veuillez noter qu’il existe probablement d’autres endroits où vous pourriez trouver ces éditions. If you don’t live in France or Canada and would like to order a French edition, you might be able to find one of these versions …
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