Updates and Opportunities + Havok Publishing is Live!


October 5, 2018



This post is a little outside the norm for me, but there's SO many things happening around the writing realm of the internet that I had to write up a quick announcements post of sorts. Trust me - this is going to be good.




Havok Publishing is LIVE!

What is Havok Publishing, you ask? Well, the imprint Havok of Splickety Publishing (which is, unfortunately, closing down soon) has broken away and will rise up like a phoenix from the flames to become HAVOK PUBLISHING on January first - but the brand new website is live TODAY and it looks phenomenal. And there's so many exciting things going down there! There's going to be stuff happening for both writers AND readers, so y'all need to scamper over HERE to check it out, because I'm not even going to try to explain how epic  this is going to be ;D.

But the most important part is that WE WANT YOUR STORIES! Havok Publishing is open for submissions right now - so please check out the submission guidelines and then send us your flash fiction, because we are super excited to start showing the world more incredible flash fiction.

And if you so feel the urge, please share about this call for submissions on social media! Havok Publishing is ready to wreak Havok and take over the world - er, show the world more amazing stories. ;)  

(also, I'm part of the team over at Havok Publishing, so if I seem a tad excited about all of this...that would be why ;D. Submit, submit! We're excited to see your lovely work!)

http://gohavok.com/


Project Canvas is holding their first contest!

And Project Canvas also has a release date! On November 15th this book of writing-related articles - written by writers all over the globe (including yours truly!) - will be released into the great wide wild. To celebrate, Project Canvas is holding The Handwritten Contest. It looks like it's going to be a ton of fun, but the deadline is October 15th - so if you want in, you'd better check out this link, pronto! ;)

https://projectcanvasbook.weebly.com/the-handwritten-contest.html


The 7th Annual "Promising Beginnings" contest is running!

Okay but first of all - that prize though. A scholarship to either Mount Hermon or the SoCal writing conference? Yes, please! The deadline for this contest is the 30th of November, so hop on over to this link and check it out before it's too late. This is a contest you definitely don't want to miss out on ;).

http://kathyide.com/7th-annual-promising-beginnings-christian-writers-contest/


Summer Storytelling is up for pre-order!

So if any of y'all are incredibly sleuth-y sleuths, you might have seen that I updated my "My Writings" page - and now there's a pre-order link to the beautiful Summer Storytelling book! Talented illustrator Kerilynn Wilson is publishing this beautiful book, which is a collection of lovely stories that she has illustrated, including Uncharted by moi ;). All the artwork inside this book is STUNNING and I can't wait to have a physical copy of all the gorgeousness. If you want to pre-order it, check out this link

https://www.kerilynnwilson.com/shop/summer-story-telling-volume-i





Tons of exciting things going on in the writing world right now, y'all! I hope you join in on some of these, they're going to be a ton of fun (especially Havok Publishing, because Y'ALL, this thing is going to be insanely epic). It's going to be amazing!

Keep being epic, my friends <3.

~ Savannah Grace 

are you going to submit to Havok?
let me know your thoughts on these, my friends!

Highlights of September 2018


October 1, 2018



September was a more of a quiet month compared to the rest of the year - quiet, but still a very, very good month. And yet it also felt like it flew by in an editing-filled blur? ;D

Who wants to hear about it? 

highlights of september 2018



life



First of all (and I'm still on cloud nine because of this one) - my parents surprised me on my birthday by telling me that I'm going to Realm Makers 2019! I'm beyond beyond excited to go back again next year (honestly, RM 2018 was one of the best experiences I've had in all of my life), even though I don't think it's quite sunk in yet that I'm really going back next year! ;D Will I see any of you there? (I dearly hope so!)

My sisters also put together a killer birthday present for me - they emailed and texted tons of my friends and relatives (even a bunch of my sweet Realmie friends!) and put together a massive montage of birthday-wish videos for me. It was an incredible present.

And art has been happening! I've been messing around with using oil pastels instead of lead or ink ... but they're just so smudgy. Very hard to use. We'll see what comes of that ;D. I've done most of my sketches this month with my mechanical pencil though, and I'm still loving that. I'm learning that when I run dry of writing inspiration, falling to my sketchbook seriously helps. Thus, since I was editing this month ... lots of sketching happened ;D.

fanart for the Storm Siren trilogy

I've doodled a quote from each of Mary Weber's Storm Siren books, and it took me FOREVER to chose a picture to sketch along with this quote (from the third book). I finally chose to sketch the Realmie taco night, because why not? ;D

fanart for Romanov by Nadine Brandessketch of Moana


Come on, it's never too early for Romanov fanart ;D. I did that one right before the cover reveal (*cough* because I was overexcited *cough*), and then doodled Moana as well, because it was too fun to resist!
the writing desk

The writing front has been... well, I can't decide whether it's been 'pretty quiet' or 'exhausting', honestly ;D. It's been quiet in the sense that I haven't worked on much new stuff, and exhausting in the sense that I've been editing all month.

All. Month.

But I've FINALLY finished my current round of edits (yay!) - and I'm incredibly happy and thankful about this, because this was both one of the hardest and yet best of round of edits I've done so far (...confusing, I know xD). I've got a couple more rounds of edits to complete, and then it will be DONE. I'm planning to have the beta call posted in mid-October (so it's happening SOON!).

Oh, on another exciting note - Kerilynn Wilson posted the illustrated version of Uncharted! Her work is AMAZING, and there's so much blue! (y'all know I have an affinity for the color blue ;D) I loved seeing what she did with it, and absolutely cannot wait to get a physical copy of it!

Also NaNoWriMo is coming in one month. Am I ready NO.
bookishness


collage of books read in September 2018

Two of these books were assigned for school, four of them I chose to read - so while it was a slower month reading-wise, I also discovered a new trilogy that I ADORE, so I consider it a win ;D.

- The Storm Siren Trilogy by Mary Weber. This trilogy, people - THIS TRILOGY. I read The Evaporation of Sofi Snow and Reclaiming Shilo Snow right when they came out, but for some reason never finished the Storm Siren trilogy after I read the first book a couple years ago? But I decided to nab it again after I meet the lovely author at Realm Makers, and YOU GUYS. I honestly can't even express my thoughts on it here without going on for hours, so I'll just tell you that I LOVED this trilogy to death, and a review is coming soon ;D.

- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. So...I went into this book expecting to dislike it. Nothing against the book itself, but "classic" books normally don't sit well with me (for some reason I just find it hard to connect to them?) but THIS ONE WAS DIFFERENT. I literally couldn't stop reading it, it was such a good book. 4.5 stars to this one. (and maybe I'll think twice before refusing to read other classics now, haha!)   
posts

The nominations round, voting round, and award presentation ;).

http://savannahgracewrites.blogspot.com/2018/09/cover-reveal-romanov-by-nadine-brandes.html

elsewhere online

- Danielle at Life is Like a Book, R.M Archer at Scribes and Archers, Allison at The Little Bookworm, and Jane at Jane Maree did my Get To Know Me Tag: Writer's Edition! Go check them and out and give these epic girls some love <3 <3 <3. (also, if you've done the tag, let me know in the comments so that I can check it out and include you in my next wrap-up post!)

- The lovely Deborah O' Carroll and the epic Jane Maree both celebrated blogoversary's this month, so go pop on over to their amazing blogs and throw some confetti at them ;).

- Micaiah Saldana guest-posted an amazing story on the lovely Hanna Rothfuss' blog - make sure to go check it out! It's beautiful <3.     

- Danielle over at Snapper did an epic post on her writing process in GIFs, which was a ton of fun ;D.

- The amazing Rosalie over at Penprints did an equally amazing post about why The Lion King means so much to her, and I have been fully convinced that I need to see that movie!

- Victoria over at The Wanderer's Pen did an awesome post about how she juggles two jobs, writing, editing, social media managing, while still having a  social life (I am beyond impressed, y'all).    

- Paper Fury's Cait did an epic review of Blackbird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel, and I immediately scrambled over to my library to snag a copy, because this book is right up my alley.

- The incredible Kara Swanson started up a STUNNING author website! So y'all should definitely scamper over there and check out it, because it's absolutely gorgeous, my gracious <3 <3 <3

- The final Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindewald trailer released and I AM SCREAMING. Who else is excited for this move to finally release?
ramblings to come
   Well, like I said - the beta call is coming! Hopefully sooner than later, because I have to get this thing off to agents (o.o). And then I have a couple book (and movie!) reviews planned, so that'll be fun. I also miiiight do a Q&A vlog (as a late celebration for my blogoversary, which was on Sept. 12 and which, yes, I totally skipped ;D) - maybe if you guys really want me to ;). We'll see what happens!


I hope y'all had an amazing September, and that October is just as good! Keep being epic, my friends <3.

~ Savannah Grace 

how was your September?
who's planning on doing NaNoWriMo?

COVER REVEAL - Romanov by Nadine Brandes


September 26, 2018



IT'S FINALLY THE DAY - I've been waiting since last Realm Makers (read: almost 4 months) for this and it's finally time! Who wants to see the incredible cover of the incredible Romanov by the incredible Nadine Brandes??





As per usual ... I'm going to make you scroll  ... a lot

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 But I will also throw random info at you as you scroll! Let's go, y'all. 


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(it should surprise no one that I have way too much fun with cover reveals) 


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1. Romanov releases MAY 7, 2019
(yes,a full 224 days away. Shall we steal a time-turner and make it come a little faster?)


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2. Nadine posted a YouTube video all about finishing Romanov, which you can find here

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3. Romanov is a YA historical fantasy Anastasia retelling
(which means....I don't know how all these Marvel GIFs play into this post) 

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 But there's always reason for Marvel GIFs 
(so I really don't care ;D) 

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There's also always reason for Harry Potter GIFs. 
(because he's the chosen one) 
(but not today!) 
(today, ROMANOV IS THE CHOSEN ONE)

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And now we're getting off track 

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4. Romanov is a standalone! 
(which means no cliffhangers out to kill us, yay!) 


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5. Romanov's color scheme reminds me just a teeny bit of Claire Legrand's Furyborn 
(oooh, was that a spoiler as to what the cover looks like??) 


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6. The tagline for Romanov is amazing - "Not even royal blood can stop bullets"
(I think we're going to need two heapings of help to recover from the epicness of this book)

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7. Romanov is available for pre-order! 
 (and it would be beyond cool if you snagged a copy!)


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(how are you doing with all the scrolling so far? ;D)

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You know what ... should I just show you the cover? 


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 Okay then ...
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 Lo and behold ... 


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ROMANOV




From the author of Fawkes comes a magical take on the story of Anastasia Romanov.

The history books say I died.

They don’t know the half of it.

Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them . . . and he’s hunted Romanov before.

Nastya’s only chances of survival are to either release the spell, and deal with the consequences, or enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya’s never dabbled in magic before, but it doesn’t frighten her as much as her growing attraction for Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her . . .

That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.









- Connect with Nadine Brandes - 


- Pre-order Romanov - 







I CAN'T STOP SCREAMING. Nadine showed me this cover at Realm Makers (and you better believe I had a LARGE inward-scream moment when she leaned in and whispered "do you want to see the cover?") and I am BEYOND ECSTATIC that it is now out in the world! And doesn't it sound like a stunning book? I have a feeling I'm going to love this one even more than I loved Fawkes!

And to summarize everything I said during aaaallll that scrolling (in case you skipped it, like I would have ;D) - Romanov is a standalone YA historical fantasy Anastasia retelling that releases on May 7th, 2019! If I survive the wait, it'll be a miracle ;D. Y'all can click THIS LINK to find all the other links that Nadine has to all the Romanov-things ;).

Also, Romanov is available for pre-order!! So what are you waiting for? Run over to Amazon and snag a copy! Scream about it on Twitter! Post a pic of the cover on Instagram! Add it on Goodreads! LET US MAKE THE INTERNETS EXPLODE WITH OUR WILD LEVELS OF EXCITEMENT.



Meanwhile, I'm off to find a time-turner to speed up this epic book's release date. Who's with me?

~ Savannah Grace 

what do you think of the cover?
who's going to pre-order Romanov? (*raises hand*)