End of the Year Cleanup, Anyone got Spare Change?

New Cover Art 2019

Don't you wish you could have an online blog garage sale?

I am not getting to this. I am not going to do that. I have too much stuff clogging up the system. My virtual closet and under the bed boxes are all filled up. Maybe someone else can use it?

Unfortunately, that is not how it works. So I have been cleaning up my links and reverting to draft areas of my writing path that are on hold until I see if that is where I would like to go in the future.

I want a lean and productive site. What I am working on. What I want to work on.

I feel like a little kid cleaning her room and deciding which toys to keep and what needs go to charity. I am having to make some tough decisions, but good ones to propel me forward. I cannot be bogged down with what could be. I only want what is going to have the most positive and impactful effect. 

My readers and fans have already seen some of the new cover art I have done for 2019. Wait until I get everything said and done. Then I am going have a great New Years... because there will be nothing else to do!

What do you do on your blog or website at the end of the year? 

Have a great and wonderful day!

Support Indie Authors

Vote with your dollar and purchase from Independent Artists and Authors.

Winter Frost Seasonal Reads... Nocturnal Redemption: In the Eye of the Beholder.

Sonoran Dawn Studios Fiction Spotlight on Lulu. 

Seasonal Reads Program Link Ring Submissions

Are you an author with a seasonal read that would fit into Undawnted's reading program?

What Undawnted is looking for: two authors/books for each season.: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Fiction, Nonfiction. Poetry. All good to go.

For example:
Winter... holiday stories, or Valentine's Day love story
Spring... nature, or Celtic Heritage
Summer... novellas action/adventure
Autumn... horror, vampires, werewolves, oh my! 
 

Undawnted wants good quality writings with a PG-13 and less rating, if it were a movie. Good clean fun. Good stories. Fun characters. True love stories (no erotica, please).

Links to other authors blogs and websites are a must so that the link is not broken.

If you believe your creativity fits the bill, then please contact DL Mullan via her Undawnted Facebook page through the Private Mail feature.

     

Want more information? Check out the Winter Frost Seasonal Reads page on the menu to the right. 

Thank you, have a great and wonderful day!  

 

_____

Undawnted has updated our Seasonal Reads program, please visit our Unleashed Materials: Publication Classification page. 

 

We are no longer doing the link-ring to other authors and artists at this time. 

 

Thank you for considering Undawnted for your reading and entertainment needs. 

 

Learn. Grow. Master... with Undawnted. 

DL Mullan will Now Be Available through Library and Subscription Services

Are you a library card holder or a subscriber to a book service?

                                                                                                   

Then you have access to Hode: The Legend Lives Again, if you are a participant of these services:

24 Symbols

OverDrive 

So next time you want to relax and read search for DL Mullan.

More titles are on their way throughout the rest of this year!

Have a great and wonderful day.

Winter is Not Winter without a Good Read

So you say you are bored. You don't know what to do with yourself... Welcome to the solution. 

Undawnted is the online locale for the artist and author: DL Mullan. Here you will discover fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that is unbound. 

No hype. No conspiracy theories. No propaganda. 

Just entertainment that informs and educates while being inventive, unassuming, and unleashed. The imagination should flow freely as it does at Undawnted. The characters come alive and drive the plots and mood. Articles and essays think of better ways to resolve life's challenges while also providing a platform for better living and healthy eating. Rhymes and rhythms grace the pages of chapbooks full of imagery and emotion.

Visit Undawnted's Seasonal Reads: Winter Frost for reads to warm you up! 

If you have a thirst for life as well as knowledge, follow Undawnted on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. 

Buy eBooks (PDFs) from Sonoran Dawn Studios. 

Support an artist and author and creative spirit today!

Thank you and have a great and wonderful day!

January Resolutions

It is the New Year. Have you made your resolutions yet? 

Undawnted has the same forward looking outlook, but with a twist: I am making my resolutions seasonal reads! 

Right now, I am busy creating, writing, and editing upcoming releases. I am working on Hode and Nocturnal Redemption as well as some poetry chapbooks. 

If you would like to see my progress, then visit my Seasonal Reads section on the menu.

What resolutions have you made?

Storytelling: Character Development

When I am in writer's forums and groups, I see concerns about how to write believable characters. 

One of the exercises I like to employ is writing in fanfiction. Every once and awhile, another person's universe intrigues me. I have written for Babylon 5, which is online. It needs a good polishing but I can still live with it. 

In that universe, I can play with characters. I can use the already made universe to stretch my writing muscles without having to do all the heavy lifting. I can see how close I can come to recreating the characters of someone else. 

I make note of my thought processes. What do I need? What am I missing? How close can I get? 

I then take what I learned trying to mimic and apply those lessons to my own creative world building. 

I implement the same brainstorming ideas to develop original characters in a universe I created from scratch.

Writers can use any character out of literature or film they wish to try their hand in character development. 

That is one exercise, but character development is a more involved process than one exercise. To make three-dimensional characters, a writer has to take the time. Write a description. Give your character some real life quirks. Don't make your characters perfect. 

And, have fun with your characters. Show their sense of humor, pet peeves, phobias. A character should reflect the time and place s/he is being written for. So take different aspects of people and a little of yourself, a character needs to be built for the task at hand... make your character worth the read.

Character development does not have to be a dirty job. Create exercises that appeal to you and brainstorm a new character. When a writer takes the time, characters can virtually write the novel themselves. 

I actually prefer a feisty and spirited protagonist... it makes writing less complicated. 

Have a great and wonderful day!

A Return to Authorsden

With my illness and subsequent disability from it, I had to let go my association with Authorsden many years ago. My page remained up but I could go now further. 

I deleted the old and put up some new ones! I uploaded my three books: a novel, essay, and chapbook. 

I also published two new poems with more still to come.

Dawn L. Mullan on Authorsden.


I hope you stop by and leave a review!

Have a great and wonderful day~ 

On Holiday Schedule for the Rest of the Year

It is time to kick back and relax! 

Oh, who are we kidding? I am busy editing and writing Nocturnal Redemption for a winter release. As well as I have updated Sonoran Dawn Studios, Poetry, and Publishing sites. My personal site has also seen a good scrub. 

With the temperatures decreasing, it is time to bundle up and write! Winter is always a fun time to sit and write. At night, when all the shows are repeats due to the holidays, I have dedicated nights to polish for next year's release. 

2017 appears to be going to the fictional side of writing. 2016 was nonfiction essays and recipes for the most part. This new year should see two new chapbooks as well as one novel plus the second book to In the Name of Blood series. 

By the end of December, I should have a great list of publications ready for their debut. Then Sonoran Dawn's Schedule page will be updated. 

But for now, I will write and create and edit. So I will update the blogs in between this last push of the year. No more releases are expected until 2017. 

As you can see my vacation has been all work and lots of play! 

Have a great and wonderful day! 

Love is in the Eye of the Beholder

When you have written a novel, editing the story into manageable parts can be a challenge. 

I am working on two different novels but I will only publish one this coming February. I haven't decided on which one yet... but I bet you have already guessed it these are loves stories. My stories have plenty of action and drama but Nocturnal Redemption and Gibbous are driven by the relationship of these people instead of a crisis like in book one of In the Name of Blood. 

One is pretty much done for a first book release and to finish the rest of the story episodically in a series instead of all at once. Trouble is the story is under 40K words. I like my novels around 45K words. 

Gibbous is done at 60K words but I want to expand the story so the adventure is smoother and the characters are perfected. 

After worrying all this time about releasing a novella instead of a novel, I remembered: I am the publisher! I can do whatever I want. Then all the stress and worry dissolved. 

I feel much better now.

...but you will have to wait to see which one I publish in February 2017. Is it the vampire, supernatural romance of Nocturnal Redemption? Or the werewolf saga of Gibbous?

Who wants to guess?

Have a great and wonderful day!  

Sights and Smells of Autumn Writing

Cooler weather has come to the Sonoran Desert! Autumn has arrived. 

With the crescent moon in the sky and Mars glowing after sunset, this new season has wowed and wooed the observer. The smell of autumn fills the air with fire pits, mesquite, and marshmallows. 

Writers can use their senses to show the reader. In the above paragraph, the reader is taken on a journey through their senses and engage with the season. Autumn is alive on crisp, cool evenings. 

Reading and writing should never be a passive event. 

Get your autumn into action! Write for the five senses. Engage with the reader. 

And, rejoice in the return to pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, and spices! 

Have a great and wonderful day! 

Welcome, Again

This date is the official start to Undawnted.

I am a creative thinker: artist, poet, writer. I am set to publish original chapbooks, novels, and the lot. I hope you will join me on my quest to discover how imagination is fearless. 

"Undawnted is where imagination is unpredictable, insatiable, and undeniablely ...unleashed."

Let's start this adventure, again ;)

Have a great and wonderful day! 

Alibis and Other Misnomers

I didn't do it!

Who knows for sure? Do you have an alibi? I sure don't unless you count sleeping a room full of cats. I bet the judge would not allow their testimony in court, now would s/he?

I was thinking of a scene for one of my novels and how I would react to a certain situation. Would I be hurt? Defensive? Offensive? How many four letter words would I use in that moment?

Okay, lots... but what would my character do?

When writing from a character's point of view sometimes it is difficult to cut yourself loose from that moment with them. You have created your own little alibi. I was with my character at the time. 

But isn't that the fun of writing?

Have a great and wonderful day!

Word Count

I was perusing the internet about word count.

Talk about confusing, every genre has its own definition of what a novel's word count should be plus no one wants to see a first time author write more than 100,000 words. 

Please, I have some novels way past the 100K mark. Of course those stories are trilogies and such.

I guess it's back to the grind for me.

Happy writing!