Kevin Miller - Kevin Miller's blog

Just Call Me the Road Warrior

10/13/2017

This fall, things are really heating up in terms of writing workshops across Western Canada. I'm excited to be visiting so many places across Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC. See my events page for more details and to book a workshop at your school or conference. But first, a quick trip Down Under to teach a one-week screenwriting class in Brisbane.

Meanwhile, work on The Water War, book three in the Milligan Creek series, is progressing nicely. I'm also laying the groundwork for another stand-alone novel, The Judges, which I'm adapting from my own screenplay of the same name. It's about three friends who accidentally resurrect the most terrifying outlaws ever to to menace the Old West. Stay tuned for more details on these and other books!

Am I at War with Women?

9/25/2017

Today I have been doing some preliminary plotting for The Water War, the next instalment in the Milligan Creek series, and I have just settled on my antagonist, whose name came to me courtesy of my nine-year-old daughter, Lark. I won't share her name yet, but it's a lot of fun to say and unlike any name you've heard before.

The problem is, once again, my antagonist is a woman--in this case, a teenage girl. That's two books in a row. (In Unlimited, the antagonist is Henrietta Blunt.) Is that a problem? Am I secretly at odds with the female half of our species? I don't think so, and I certainly hope not, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this book turns out!

"Unlimited" Book Tour Update

9/25/2017

Things are really heating up on the Unlimited book tour. So far, I am booked to do writing workshops in 13 schools across Saskatchewan and Alberta this fall, including the Young Authors' Conference in Edmonton on Nov. 4. I also have a couple of schools booked for the spring with more waiting in the wings. See the events page for more details. It's exciting to see all the interest, and I can't wait to get out there and get kids reading this book! If you'd like to book me to do a writing workshop at your school or event, just let me know. Go here to see some of the workshops I offer.

I'm now a member of the Canadian Children's Book Centre

9/21/2017

What is the Canadian Children's Book Centre, you ask? It's a national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to encouraging, promoting and supporting the reading, writing, illustrating, and publishing of Canadian books for young readers. You don't have to be a writer or illustrator to join; just someone who loves children's books and wants to promote reading. If you do become a member, you'll get the nifty publications pictured below. You can check out my profile and the workshops I offer here.

Some Press Coverage

9/15/2017

Our local newspaper, the Kimberley Bulletin, was kind enough to do a story on me and my recent books. You can read it here.

FREE Book Giveaway Contest!

9/15/2017

I'm so excited to get people reading Unlimited that I'm willing to give away five signed copies for FREE.

Sound too good to be true? It is. To qualify for a FREE copy, you must:

1. Finder a clever way to work "unlimited" into a sentence and then post that sentence, along with a link to this blog post (http://www.kevinmillerxi.com/blog/free-book-giveaway-contest) and the hashtag #Unlimited, on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram. Each social media platform you post on counts as one entry. Winners will be chosen based on cleverness, but if there's a tie, those extra social media platforms could prove to be the tipping point. :)

2. If you are lucky enough to receive a FREE signed copy (!), all I ask is that you post a brief review on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca after you're done reading it.

Sound simple? Then get to it. Winners will be announced Friday, September 22, 2017.

First "Unlimited" Mini-Tour Booked!

9/13/2017

On October 2-3, I'll be in Herbert and Gladmar, SK, to do writing workshops and promote Unlimited. I'm also talking to several other schools in SK, Alberta, and BC about a tour in November. If you're interested in having me at your school, just hit me up through the contact page on this website. I work with all age groups, and I love doing it, so drop me a line!

What do you do after your book has been published?

9/12/2017

From November 2016 to the end of August 2017, I had one main focus: finish Unlimited and get it published. Immediately, my focused shifted to an entirely new goal: making people aware of the book.

When you don't have a big publishing company behind you, marketing a book falls solely on the author. Therefore, over the past couple of weeks, I've spent countless hours sending thousands of emails to teachers, librarians, and other "gatekeepers" who can alert children about the book (kids are hard to reach directly online). I've also submitted the book to contests, advertised on social media, given out a few free copies in exchange for reviews, reached out to organizations to see if they'll recommend it to their members, sent press releases to newspapers and magazines, and pretty much everything else I can think of to get the book noticed. It's a daunting task, which I've only just begun, and I dare say by the time I'm done, I'll probably have spent more time marketing the book than I did writing it.

Meanwhile, I've also been laying the groundwork for book 3 in the Milligan Creek series, The Water War. It involves a game Matt, Chad, Andrew, and Dean come up with to help get them through a long, hot summer. We even got a chance to test a version of the game at my son's birthday a couple of weeks ago. I've decided I'm going to tackle the narrative structure a bit differently than in previous books, adopting a non-linear approach. I'll experiment with the first few chapters and see how it goes.

In the meantime, dozens of copies of Unlimited have gone out into the world, and I can't wait to start hearing back from readers. Now it's back to the emails . . .

As a Writer, It's Important to Pay Attention to the Little Things

8/27/2017

I can't tell you how many projects I've worked on, that started with something small I noticed many years earlier and then used as the basis for a story. That's what happened with my first film, After . . ., which began with a small article on urban exploring that I read in McLean's magazine in my early twenties. Several years later, I pitched the idea to a director, and it launched my career as a screenwriter.

The same is true for my latest book, Unlimited, the premise of which was inspired by a sign I saw for a radio station at a waterfowl marsh in Saskatchewan many years ago. A question entered my mind almost instantly: what if someone figured out how to hijack the radio signal and used it to launch their own pirate radio station? Originally, I conceived it as a film, but as I was looking for new adventures to include in the Milligan Creek series, it seemed like the perfect fit.

Now that Unlimited has been launched, I've turned my attention to book three in the Milligan Creek series, The Water War, the premise of which was inspired by a newspaper article in the Yorkton Enterprise newspaper that I read when I was in grade eight. That's a scan of the actual article to the left.

All that to say, if you want to be a writer, pay attention, and keep track of ideas. You never know when--or what--they'll grow into one day.

"Unlimited" is now available!

8/26/2017

I am so excited to announce the publication of Unlimited, the second book in the Milligan Creek series. Not only is it my second novel, I feel like I was able to achieve something in my writing on this book that I've never been able to achieve before. I had loads of fun writing it, and I hope you have just as much fun reading it. Available now on this site and soon to be available through Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Chapters/Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Baker and Taylor, Ingram, and everywhere else you can buy books.