The "Once upon a times" of a Writer

"Once upon a time". . . . Ah! The magic that those words hold! The possibilities of what lies in wait to be spoken, or written, directly following.

The endless wonderment.

The endless enthusiasm.

The never ending intrigue!

. . . Or so it would seem.

But "Once upon a time" can be a rather frightening phrase, for a writer. . . . "Once upon a time," what? "Once upon a time" there lived a duck. . . an ogre. . . a princess. . . a prince? You are the one left to decide. . . .

The endless possibilities. . . .

The endless indecision. . . .

The never ending banging of the forehead against the wall!

. . . Or so it would seem, should seem. . . . But for Christian writers, what would seem. . . should seem correct, may not always be so. Our stories and tales, our ideas and thoughts all teem from another source, a much better source, a source with:

Endless prospect.

Endless decision.

And never ending stream of enthusiastic ideas!

. . . So it would seem, and so it would be. Except that we writers often choose to take the "banging our forehead against the wall" route to solve our "Once upon a time," problems, instead of going to the source of our story idea, the one who gave us the writing talent, and handed us the idea to write this story in the first place. But if we go to our Heavenly Father, our "source," with our problems, our writer's blocks, then perhaps, perhaps we may once again discover the wonder of the phrase "Once upon a time," and again be able to say with full honesty and passion:

"Once upon a time". . . . Ah! The magic that those words hold! The possibilities of what lies in wait to be spoken, or written, directly following.

The endless wonderment.

The endless enthusiasm.

The never ending intrigue!

God bless.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

HOLIDAY SAVINGS ON "THE SWORD OF TENERAZ"!

Want to buy a copy of "The Sword of Teneraz" this holiday season?? Lulu.com is offering a 25% discount on my book until the 14th of December! All you have to do is use the coupon code BUYMYBOOK305 at the checkout.

This offer is only available at Lulu.com, and has a maximum savings of $50.

ALSO! For this Christmas, I have taken an additional 25% off of the listed price!

Both of these savings will leave you at the low purchase price of $11.22!

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving and merry Christmas!!! :)

God bless.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

I Feel. . . Like a Directress! :)

Wow! It sure has been a long time since I posted on this blog. . . . Life has gotten quite crazy, especially since the end of this month is the deadline for me to send in my short film to the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. . . . I've also this summer heard that the small Christian Community Theatre that I've done quite a few of my plays with around here is branching out and holding their first ever film festival this winter! So I'm planning on entering my film in that festival as well. :) In the meantime. . . my sister came home for about 5 weeks before leaving again, so that was very fun! :)

But, besides all of that, I have some very (and when I say very, I mean jumping up and down screaming my head off "VERY") exciting news. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . {enter drumroll}. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I FINISHED MY SHORT FILM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D Well. . . ok, so that was probably a no brainer, since (as stated in above paragraph) the end of this month IS the deadline, and the month is already more than halfway gone, more like 2/3rds gone. . . . . But hey, give me a break. . . .  It's my first film with any kind of right to even be called a short film. . . . . So frankly I'm rather excited, and proud of myself. :) But in all honesty. . . .  I can't take really take much of the credit for the film. . . . All through the process God's hand was SO obviously at work. From what locations we ended up using, to people that we met during filming who were able to help us, to who acted each part, and on and on the list goes. . . . On production week, no one got hurt, we got everything done that we needed ON TIME (although we did get off schedule during the middle of the week, and I thought for sure that we wouldn't make it, on the final day, we ended right on schedule!)!, the weather ended up being perfect. . . and I could go on for a VERY long time listing off everything that God did!!! :)

Below I've loaded in the official trailer for you to watch.

I hope that you enjoy watching it!!! :) I will be creating two different websites hopefully very, VERY soon! One for The Chronicles of the Sword of the Kings, and the other for SunLight Dance Films and Pirate Treasure, so keep a look out for both of those!!! :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

ANNOUNCING!!!!

The Sword of Teneraz is officially on Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobles.com!

(Legally now. . . . It appears that our little mix up from before has been cleared up. Either Amazon took care of it, or the person, whoever it was, took it off or changed the price. In any case, there is no longer a copy of TSOT on sale for $151.57. :) )

I have placed links on the sidebar that you can follow to the sites. You can find the links beneath the image of my book. But now comes a step that I am kind of nervous to take. . . . I am going to send a copy to one of my all time favorite authors, and someone who I look up to as somewhat of a mentor to me in the writing genre of life; Wayne Thomas Batson.

For a while I have thought that I would take this step, and dreamed out exactly how I would go about doing it. But now that the time has actually come, I am extremely nervous. . . as I suppose you might imagine. I've put off the actual step of writing out a letter and sending it to him with the book because 1) My book wasn't actually for sale any place besides Lulu.com, so I wasn't sure if I should do it quite yet, or wait until it was a little bit further distributed (well, that reason has gone down the drain now. . . .), and 2) Well. . . to be quite honest. . . even with all of that daydreaming and planning out how I would compose a letter, I now find myself at a loss of what to write. . . . Embarrassing, I know. . . especially for a writer. But that never failing old rapscallion Writer's Block has struck hard, and, I imagine, is probably cackling wildly to himself from the depths of his hideously dark and menacing cave over his success once more.

But now I must be off! However, I will be sure to let you know any resulting news or progress as I send my book to Wayne Thomas Batson, and await a response. :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

Beyond the Mask

Well, I have some VERY exciting news!!!!! :D Last night, at 1 o'clock, Burns Family Studios announced their next film project; Beyond the Mask.

Me, being the fanatic fan of their last film–Pendragon: Sword of His Father–that I am, stayed up until the wee hours of the morning for their announcement, and then looking and re-looking over all of the information that they had released. But let me tell you. . . it was worth it. . . completely! I have been looking forward to what their next film would be ever since I watched Pendragon for the first time, and I was not disappointed. Indeed, my expectations were probably surpassed ten times over! For the first full minute after I watched the production trailer, all I could do was sit there, my mouth gaping and eyes bulging while I made garbled little sounds of pleasure that may have been me trying to muffle the scream of pure joy and thrill that was bubbling up inside of me. I've since watched that same production trailer about 5 times. And you can watch it too by clicking right here. . . .

However, to make this film they need lots of people to sponsor. If you follow the same link above, it will lead you to their Kickstarter site where you can donate money to help them fund the film. The deadline for sponsoring is August 31st, and they must have at least $20,000 by then, or else the film won't get funded. Besides their production trailer, there is another short video that shows more of their progress and plans for the film as well as explaining how Kickstarter works.

Even if you aren't able to support them financially, they are looking for volunteers as extras and/or helpers to create sets, props, and costumes. You can sign up for this on their website. I'm planning on helping out in whatever way I possibly can, and I hope that you will do the same. :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

When Life Speeds Up Without Warning. . . .

You know that feeling?? When all of a sudden it feels like you're running at break neck speed just to keep up with yourself. . . . Well, I'm just getting into the downward slope of that feeling right now. I'm thinking that it must have been toward the end of last month that life started speeding up for me. I successfully went through my first ever production week for a short film that I wrote, produced, directed, and am now editing. My hope is that it will get into this up coming San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival (some of you may remember last year when I was an extra in a short film that was a semi-finalist in that same film festival, if you don't, you can find that post here). Making a short film like that was SUCH an amazing experience!!! Even with the stresses that it caused, and even. . . even as we sat there all stuck on the beach that we were filming on, huddled under towels and the few beach umbrellas that we dared have open, trying to keep both ourselves and especially the equipment dry while a big storm was raging over us. . . even then, I could very happily tell myself, that this was where I belonged, this was what God had created me to do, at least at this point in time.

Since that experience of a lifetime, my mind has been overrun with exhilarating thoughts and plans for future films (short AND feature length!), but of course I've had to make myself leave those as mere ideas running around in my head and occasionally over notes to pick up later, so that I could work on completing the editing for this short film. Knowing me, if I started writing a screenplay for one of those others, I would probably never get back to finishing this one. . . . So, they shall just have to wait patiently on the sidelines for the time being. :)

I've been able to work farther on "The Wolves of Langoor" as well, during this time, and the plan is to get myself back into a schedule of writing every single night. If I did that, I think that I should easily be able to make my goal of completing the first draft for TWOL by the end of November 30th (that will take me through NaNoWriMo).

And so, for the most part you are caught up on my life. . . . I'm continuing to work on character development for my role in the short film that the sister of my friend is making (see here for a bit more details on that), so that is always fun. :) The second read through for that is this Saturday, and then Burns Family Studios announces their next film project this Friday!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D So I am very eagerly awaiting the weekend! :D

Amorette 99 (who was just barking rather obnoxiously in a brave "I will defend everyone!" sort of way–as much as a 4 pound puppy can–at a prop still sitting in my bedroom from filming week) greets you all. :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

Amazon, Here We Come!

After that long process which I talked about in my last post, it has finally happened! I've hit the approval button to start the 6-8 week process of getting TSOT onto Amazon and BarnesandNobels.com!!! :D I have also learned that not only will my book go to Amazon and B and N.com (which was enough to sell me. . .), through this distribution package it will also be open for other bookstores to pick up if they request it. This is a very pleasing thought, but one that I realize probably won't be of much use unless I get busy selling my book to the different stores. . . . For me (a very much introvert who completely froze up when trying to get my friendly dentist's office to purchase an advertisement to be put in the program of a play I was in), this is a rather daunting idea. . . daunting may not be the right word; how about catastrophic? But I'm sure, if this is God's will, everything will turn out. :)

In the mean time, some other pretty exciting things have been going on. . . . I got the lead role in a film (:D!!!!!!!!!!!!), and today I'm going with my dad and some people from our church to meet 2 of the people behind an independent Christian film that has been an inspiration of mine since I first saw it almost 2 and a half years ago. (The movie is "Pendragon; Sword of his Father." If you have never seen it, I would encourage you to do so! :) )

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

Sales Rank Hop!

I've found it quite exciting to chart TSOT's sales rank on Lulu.com. Especially when it makes rather big jumps. . . . ;) When it started out, it was somewhere around the late 60,000s or 70,000s (somewhere around then anyway–that was before I discovered that watching numbers was fun) but now, The Sword of Teneraz has hit number 57,863 on the Lulu.com sales rank, as well as being given a 5 star review!!! :D I am VERY thrilled to see what God is doing and going to do with this book! Thank you to everyone who has already bought a copy! :) My total sold now is about 21 I believe (that's counting the 6 plus a download that my family bought *sticks hands in pockets and begins whistling a tune*).

I am also continuing to go through the process of getting TSOT available on Amazon and BarnesandNobles.com, however, it's turned out to be a bit tougher and longer of a process than I had expected at first. . . . So. . . it's going to be longer than I had planned until that happens, but I guarantee, unless some catastrophe happens (like a paint truck running into a telephone pole and sending it smashing into an electricity station which then turns out all of the power in the entire state, and then at the same time a meteorite falls from the sky and lands smack-dab in the middle of the Lulu.com outpost. . . . Or I get a no and a change of directions from God.) it will still happen.

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂. (God guide your words.)

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

THE BOOKS HAVE ARRIVED!!!

(The title's pretty explanatory. . . . :) )

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂. (God guide your words.)

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

I'M PUBLISHED!!!!!!! :D

(Click on image to view a larger version)

When an evil act is done, leaving the kingdom in the hands of a betrayer. . .

When the rightful heir to the throne has gone missing. . .

All those who are still faithful have gathered together to form a rebel group known as the King's Men or the Konungr Ly∂r.

All of their hopes rest on a prophecy: on a sword and its wielder, and a girl and her dragon. All of their hopes rest on finding the rightful heir to the throne. But when they find him, will he accept the challenge of fighting to get back the throne? Or will he himself fall prey to the darkness?

After almost two and a half years it's actually happened. . . . My book is published. My name is in print! I don't think that I can quite grasp the reality of it yet. . . . But that's beside the point. The matter of the fact is that it has really, truly happened! I'm not going to wake up in a moment to find out that this has all been some kind of wacky dream. . . it's real. My book–The Sword of Teneraz–is published and available for purchase at lulu.com. I hope to later have it available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNobles.com, but I have to first figure out all of the details of getting that going. :)

Here's the TSOT book trailer as I promised several posts back. . . .

And of course the confetti that goes with it {throws a handful of bright-colored stringy stuff in the air}. . . and don't forget the popcorn!!! :D {licks lips and reaches for a bag of heavenlyness}

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

(an author)