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Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone! Which, if you didn't know, is National Make a Veteran Snickerdoodles Weekend. No lie.

And now for a mini excerpt.

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Hello ye faithful bloggers, it’s Denny again, writing from inside the Ally Fortress and feeling rather safe here, if you know what I mean.

As I walked into the house- after passing through the eye scanner and the voice recognition, which is the final stanza of Beowulf in Etruscan (yup, the long lost language of the pre-Greek Europe. I dare you to figure that one out) I realized that many of you are blogging for the same reason I am interning. We both want to be writers.

Ally, on her site, and just about every writer of all time, will say that you must read a lot and write a lot, in order to be a writer. This is true. You should read everything you can get your hands on- romance, fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, horror, everything. There is no book in the world that has nothing for you. Even the bad ones are important. They teach you what not to do. One of the greatest authors of all time, Stephen King, said that he knew he could be a writer when he read a short story and thought: “this is a piece of crap. I can do better than this.” I think bad novels are good for this reason as well, they not only are good lessons of what not to do, but they give you confidence. A wide range of books is good. However, when it comes down to it you should read what you like- no one will tell you to keep reading romance if you don’t like it. BUT sampling around is good.

But, like I said, that is the basic part. With Ally I have been learning about the next step in writing: editing. I have been watching and learning how she looks through her books after she sends them to the editor. We have mostly been working on a manuscript for a new novel she will publish, soon, called…. Just kidding I can’t tell you yet.

Anyway, when looking back over your own work she told me to consider these three things:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->1) <!--[endif]-->Less is More- In this case Ally has taught me that extra words are bad. You want to get your point across using as few words as possible. It bogs down the reader when you have too many words and it makes the reading choppy and cumbersome. When the point is made in the appropriate amount of words, the story flows nicely, like Cammie’s Portuguese.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->2)<
span style='font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;'> <!--[endif]-->Vary up the sentence structures- Whether we know it or not, we all have tendencies when we write. We have a certain flavor of sentence structure in our heads and we over use it. This becomes tiresome and boring. Here’s an example

According to the sun, Jimmy could tell it was three o’ clock. Upon his arrival, it would be the dead of night.

You see how those sentences sound the exact same with an intro then a comma then the point of the sentence. Yeah, that’s bad and a good editor, looking back over his work, will realize these tendencies and change not JUST to change them, but to make the story better.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->3) <!--[endif]-->Show Don’t Tell- First off showing is WAY more interesting than telling. Ally gave me a really good example when she was explaining this one to me:

Not so good: Sarah was really mad and couldn’t think of anything to say.

Very interesting: Sarah slammed the door, gritting her teeth, words wouldn’t form on her lips.

You see the difference. In the first one we are TOLD that Sarah is mad, in the second one we can SEE that Sarah is mad by her actions, which is way more interesting.

Top Secret of The Day:

Ally would kill me if she knew I was telling you this one. When she was writing Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover, the song that got her in the mood was Invincible by Pat Benatar. Yeah, I guess you could say that Invincible is the theme song for Gallagher Girl 3. Till next time, adios.

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Hi everyone!

A quick reminder that I will be attending the International Reading Association's annual convention in Minneapolis, MN next week.

I will be signing at the Anderson's Booth on Tuesday, May 5th from 4:00-5:00.

On Wednesday, May 6th I'll be speaking on a panel called Summer Reading - Some are Not: Books for Girls on the Verge of Adolescence from 9:00-10:00 a.m.

I'll be signing books again that afternoon at the Disney-Hyperion booth from 1:00-2:00.

If you're going to be there, please stop by and say hi!

--Ally

--Ally

ps...Thank you to everyone who has been following www.twitter.com/OfficiallyAlly.

For all of you who don't have Twitter accounts and don't want to pop over there to check from time to time, we're working hard trying to figure out a way to automatically include anything I post on Twitter on the blog as well. I'm optimistic this will happen shortly.

In the meantime, back to copyedits!

Hi Gallagher Girls and Guys! I have a mission for anyone who is willing to accept it.

You see, sometime this summer (probably after the big GG3 release) I'm going to be doing a lot of work to AllyCarter.com and I need your help with two key questions:

1. What are some of your favorite websites (especially for authors)?

2. What things would you like to see on the newly redesigned AllyCarter.com?

And to show my appreciation I give you...

"So..." Bex spoke slowly, carefully. "They know."

Thanks bunches!
Ally

I still remember the day--the moment--when I found my first secret passageway.

GALLAGHER GIRLS 4 *
First first draft progress

*title and publication date to be determined in the extremely distant future