I’m back today on this chilly Monday! Sorry I missed last week, but strep throat and a sinus infection kept me pretty much down and out.
So much to tell. Saturday was the book launch for According to Jane by Marilyn Brant. It was at the Borders on Deerfield, so if you are in the area, pick up a signed copy. It was wonderful to share the excitement with a fellow Chicago North Member!
Also, busy, busy, busy with Spring Fling 2010! Yes, it’s right around the corner. Registration opens November 1st and we have quite a line up.
Headliners are Cherry Adair and Julia Quinn!
And if that is not enough to persuade you to come to Spring Fling, how about the following agents/editors who are slated to take pitches and give presentations:
Diana Fox, Fox Literary Agency
Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, Nancy Coffey Literary and Media
Laurie McLean, Larsen Pomada Literary Agency
Paige Wheeler, Folio Literary Management
Amanda Bergeron, Avon Books
Kat O'Shea, Wild Rose Press/Leap Books
Lindsey Faber, Samhain Publishing
If you want to keep up with what’s new for Spring Fling 2010, check back next week when I will give an update of the presenters. (yep, I’m giving you a little tease to get you to come back!)
Also, check the website: http://www.chicagospringfling.com/ for updates and to register November 1st.
Have a great week!
June
www.junesproat.com
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Happily Ever After
Romance is a great genre to read and write. Every book you read guarantees a happy ending. The hero and heroine ride into the sunset and share a life of bliss from that day forward. Millions of people read romance for that very reason (Well, that and the steamy love scenes! - let's be honest!). I write romance for that reason...taking a couple who separately have hardship and difficulty and sometimes face insurmountable odds to being together. But in the end, everything works out. They find love despite of, or maybe because of, the conflicts they face. They get their happy ending. The author makes sure of it.
In real life those happily ever afters aren't as easy to guarantee. If you don't believe me, just look at the divorce rate or read the tabloids about Hollywood's exploits.
This past week I have had the privilege of being surrounding by real-life happy endings. Last week my mom and dad celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary. Yesterday I attended a party for my aunt and uncle who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. On Friday I mailed out invitations for my in-laws' 50th anniversary party next month. Today we'll head over to my sister-in-law's to scan pictures for putting a DVD together which will highlight the 50 (so far) years of happily-ever-after they've shared. Has it always been easy for these couples? Of course not. Real life isn't a fairy tale. It brings no end of struggles and hardships and things to deal with. But through it all their love has perservered all these years. How amazing is that?
And then I've had my own personal romance author happy endings this week. I got an e-mail from my editor saying the release date for WILD WEDDING WEEKEND has been moved up three weeks! How cool is that? I'll now be able to hold it in my eager little hands on April 23, 2010. And at my aunt and uncle's anniversary party, my number one seller (thanks, Mom) came through again and sold three of my books (THIS TIME FOR ALWAYS) on the spot. We had a fun impromptu autograph party. And I had another friend of the family say she read my first book and couldn't put it down because she was so drawn into the story.
So all in all, it's been a fabulous week. I hope yours was filled with happily-ever-afters as well.
Until next time,
Happy Reading!
Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com
P.S. I was also Nicole McCaffrey's Friday Friend this past week. (There's still time to pop by and say hello over there if you're so inclined.)
In real life those happily ever afters aren't as easy to guarantee. If you don't believe me, just look at the divorce rate or read the tabloids about Hollywood's exploits.
This past week I have had the privilege of being surrounding by real-life happy endings. Last week my mom and dad celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary. Yesterday I attended a party for my aunt and uncle who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. On Friday I mailed out invitations for my in-laws' 50th anniversary party next month. Today we'll head over to my sister-in-law's to scan pictures for putting a DVD together which will highlight the 50 (so far) years of happily-ever-after they've shared. Has it always been easy for these couples? Of course not. Real life isn't a fairy tale. It brings no end of struggles and hardships and things to deal with. But through it all their love has perservered all these years. How amazing is that?
And then I've had my own personal romance author happy endings this week. I got an e-mail from my editor saying the release date for WILD WEDDING WEEKEND has been moved up three weeks! How cool is that? I'll now be able to hold it in my eager little hands on April 23, 2010. And at my aunt and uncle's anniversary party, my number one seller (thanks, Mom) came through again and sold three of my books (THIS TIME FOR ALWAYS) on the spot. We had a fun impromptu autograph party. And I had another friend of the family say she read my first book and couldn't put it down because she was so drawn into the story.
So all in all, it's been a fabulous week. I hope yours was filled with happily-ever-afters as well.
Until next time,
Happy Reading!
Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com
P.S. I was also Nicole McCaffrey's Friday Friend this past week. (There's still time to pop by and say hello over there if you're so inclined.)
Saturday, October 10, 2009
And So It Goes by Margot Justes
Does anyone feel like they are continuously behind schedule and there is never enough time to finish everything… this week between work and my personal life, I had a melt down by the time I got home after seven yesterday. My typical weekday starts at 5am, my friend Lillian and I have our 2.67 mile walk, (every fraction counts) then I get ready for work, the job that actually pays the bills; this is by way of an explanation.
I had an appointment to get my hair cut on Wednesday, wrote it down for Thursday, showed up and surprisingly my hair stylist wasn’t there, she was downtown having fun and there I was, expecting to get my hair cut. The nerve.
I apologized profusely, and she was kind enough to squeeze me in Friday, I did show up and on time.
The fridge seemed to be saying feed me, feed me, so I went food shopping; it was getting sparse in there, you can only drink so much old orange juice. By the time I got home I was not a happy camper, it was late, I was hungry and just plain tired.
The computer waited to be turned on. I swear everything seems to be developing a willful personality around me, at any rate, the guilt was there, but not the initiative, nothing got done, I sat in front of the TV, watched Numbers, and promptly dozed off.
Today seems to be going well; I’m productive and even made a pot of barley mushroom soup, wrote this blog and I feel sooo much better now, till next time, and there will be a next time, hopefully not so pronounced.
In the meantime, I asked my web gal if she could add a couple of pages to my website, so that pictures of Bath and Venice could be posted, she said yes, so another project got added on top on everything else, and so it goes…but I promise, I’m working on my stuff from Venice and the Greek Islands.
Till next time,
Margot Justes
http://margotsmuse.blogspot.com
www.mjustes.com
A Hotel in Paris ISBN 978-1-59080-534-3
Art brought her to Paris, then a stranger’s death changes her life.
available on amazon.com
I had an appointment to get my hair cut on Wednesday, wrote it down for Thursday, showed up and surprisingly my hair stylist wasn’t there, she was downtown having fun and there I was, expecting to get my hair cut. The nerve.
I apologized profusely, and she was kind enough to squeeze me in Friday, I did show up and on time.
The fridge seemed to be saying feed me, feed me, so I went food shopping; it was getting sparse in there, you can only drink so much old orange juice. By the time I got home I was not a happy camper, it was late, I was hungry and just plain tired.
The computer waited to be turned on. I swear everything seems to be developing a willful personality around me, at any rate, the guilt was there, but not the initiative, nothing got done, I sat in front of the TV, watched Numbers, and promptly dozed off.
Today seems to be going well; I’m productive and even made a pot of barley mushroom soup, wrote this blog and I feel sooo much better now, till next time, and there will be a next time, hopefully not so pronounced.
In the meantime, I asked my web gal if she could add a couple of pages to my website, so that pictures of Bath and Venice could be posted, she said yes, so another project got added on top on everything else, and so it goes…but I promise, I’m working on my stuff from Venice and the Greek Islands.
Till next time,
Margot Justes
http://margotsmuse.blogspot.com
www.mjustes.com
A Hotel in Paris ISBN 978-1-59080-534-3
Art brought her to Paris, then a stranger’s death changes her life.
available on amazon.com
Friday, October 9, 2009
10 Bloody Great Solutions to Writing Problems and Bugaboos by Robert W. Walker
#1. Edit out as many prepositional phrases as possible; where you have two prepositions back to back as in OFF OF, strike one of them….for example “look down deep into…make look into. Simplify to clarify. No one needs read the word UP ever in your story. He stood up becomes he stood. He spoke up becomes he spoke.
#2 . The number one sin in writing is being unclear. Prepositions are directional words; stringing too many together at once is confusing and so not good. Example: In the wake of the sternwheeler at the break of day before anyone aboard had eaten breakfast in the galley…etc. It makes no sense but it is an impressive string of prepositions.
#3. Another killer of clarity that feeds a reader’s confusion is the simple pronoun…be it he, she, they, it etc., it can quickly become confusing as to what it is or who he is or who they are if these simple substitutes for nouns and names are overly relied upon. Example: There were two of them, a cop and a lawyer, and when he said to him that he didn’t known anything about the law…well, I as a reader had no idea who said what to whom. Pronouns get fuzzy real quickly as to who they are referring to…who or what or what IT stands for anymore. One can always return to name the person, place or thing he/she is referring to.
#4. Another killer of clarity is when a pronoun gets all tangled up with a question as to who is being spoken of as in: Mary told her mother that she was fat and ugly. Now in reading that, we have no idea who told what to whom or why. A big of judicious use of quotations marks makes all the difference as in: Mary shouted, “Mom, I am so fat and ugly!” Or as in: Mary said, “Mon, you are so fat and ugly
#5. The Unintended Result which comes straight away with misplaced modifiers and dangling modifiers as in: The fat lady climbed up on the horse in tight jeans. Or: The professor chased the dog down the street in his underwear. Who or what has the jeans and the underwear on? When prepositional phrases get slapped in the wrong place funny comical things result. In dangling modifiers, the subject of the sentence is left out as in: In the church foyer, the ringing of bells was heard. Ask yourself where is your character in that last sentence? Who is hearing the bells? Don’t drop your character out of your scene.
#6. Another way to lose your reader and cause confusion is to go in and out of verb tenses—past, present, past without real good reasons to do so, and even then transitions better be perfect; you must take the reader by the hand when making major shifts in time, and verb tense is about time—present, past, past of the past, future, etc. Time confusions are a killer, too. At all times in your story, time must flow like a river and be clearly understood. A time clock for the entire story must be running and if you are doing a Quinton Tarantino deal of gong to and from between two time zones or more, it is even more so important that time is working well in your story and is understandable.
#7. Don’t kill or weaken your story to being on life support via qualifying phrases and qualifiers as in such words as vey, often, sometime, mostly, maybe, perhaps which depict a voice that is totally wishy-washy. Instead you use words that are called absolutes. Instead of saying the fog is perhaps lifting, you state the absolute certainty that it IS lifting. She was not very pretty….She was not pretty in the least.
#8. Don’t kill your story by failing to utilize all your five senses in each scene and each page. Filter every person, place, or thing being described through the mind and five senses of your main character. Keep in mind whose story it is at all times—and filter everything via this character. If the scene “belongs” to another character filter all via this character’s mind and senses.
#9 We also kill our story when we fail to nail down whose story it is; when we fail to have a central character. A story and a novel rely on its being truly one person’s story even in a multiple point of view novel. All other characters are there in the web of characters as an ensemble to support the character at the center of the web. When we lose sight of this, the story becomes unwieldy and our readers ask “Whose story is this anyway?” Even in a shared lead, one of the leads leads…so to speak.
#10. When we allow the Voice of the narrative to falter, change, become inconsistent, we confuse the reader. Voice is the culmination of all the various parts and should form a strong, powerful voice that sets a tone and sticks firmly to that one tone throughout…from beginning to end.
See if I live up to the ten avenues to NOT kill your story…the ten avenues to success by picking up a copy of my latest work, DEAD ON. My wife, Miranda’s The WELL MEANING KILLER displays the same positive attributes, the ten ways to success in being clear. A true pinnacle that a writer strives for: being clear and maybe even making it sing a little on every page.
Happy Writing and please feel free to leave a #11 or #12 etc. as a comment. Would love to hear from you.
Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
"Dead On takes the reader's capacity for the imagination of horror to stomach turning depths, and then gives it more twists than a Georgia backroad that paves an Indian trail." - Nash Black
#2 . The number one sin in writing is being unclear. Prepositions are directional words; stringing too many together at once is confusing and so not good. Example: In the wake of the sternwheeler at the break of day before anyone aboard had eaten breakfast in the galley…etc. It makes no sense but it is an impressive string of prepositions.
#3. Another killer of clarity that feeds a reader’s confusion is the simple pronoun…be it he, she, they, it etc., it can quickly become confusing as to what it is or who he is or who they are if these simple substitutes for nouns and names are overly relied upon. Example: There were two of them, a cop and a lawyer, and when he said to him that he didn’t known anything about the law…well, I as a reader had no idea who said what to whom. Pronouns get fuzzy real quickly as to who they are referring to…who or what or what IT stands for anymore. One can always return to name the person, place or thing he/she is referring to.
#4. Another killer of clarity is when a pronoun gets all tangled up with a question as to who is being spoken of as in: Mary told her mother that she was fat and ugly. Now in reading that, we have no idea who told what to whom or why. A big of judicious use of quotations marks makes all the difference as in: Mary shouted, “Mom, I am so fat and ugly!” Or as in: Mary said, “Mon, you are so fat and ugly
#5. The Unintended Result which comes straight away with misplaced modifiers and dangling modifiers as in: The fat lady climbed up on the horse in tight jeans. Or: The professor chased the dog down the street in his underwear. Who or what has the jeans and the underwear on? When prepositional phrases get slapped in the wrong place funny comical things result. In dangling modifiers, the subject of the sentence is left out as in: In the church foyer, the ringing of bells was heard. Ask yourself where is your character in that last sentence? Who is hearing the bells? Don’t drop your character out of your scene.
#6. Another way to lose your reader and cause confusion is to go in and out of verb tenses—past, present, past without real good reasons to do so, and even then transitions better be perfect; you must take the reader by the hand when making major shifts in time, and verb tense is about time—present, past, past of the past, future, etc. Time confusions are a killer, too. At all times in your story, time must flow like a river and be clearly understood. A time clock for the entire story must be running and if you are doing a Quinton Tarantino deal of gong to and from between two time zones or more, it is even more so important that time is working well in your story and is understandable.
#7. Don’t kill or weaken your story to being on life support via qualifying phrases and qualifiers as in such words as vey, often, sometime, mostly, maybe, perhaps which depict a voice that is totally wishy-washy. Instead you use words that are called absolutes. Instead of saying the fog is perhaps lifting, you state the absolute certainty that it IS lifting. She was not very pretty….She was not pretty in the least.
#8. Don’t kill your story by failing to utilize all your five senses in each scene and each page. Filter every person, place, or thing being described through the mind and five senses of your main character. Keep in mind whose story it is at all times—and filter everything via this character. If the scene “belongs” to another character filter all via this character’s mind and senses.
#9 We also kill our story when we fail to nail down whose story it is; when we fail to have a central character. A story and a novel rely on its being truly one person’s story even in a multiple point of view novel. All other characters are there in the web of characters as an ensemble to support the character at the center of the web. When we lose sight of this, the story becomes unwieldy and our readers ask “Whose story is this anyway?” Even in a shared lead, one of the leads leads…so to speak.
#10. When we allow the Voice of the narrative to falter, change, become inconsistent, we confuse the reader. Voice is the culmination of all the various parts and should form a strong, powerful voice that sets a tone and sticks firmly to that one tone throughout…from beginning to end.
See if I live up to the ten avenues to NOT kill your story…the ten avenues to success by picking up a copy of my latest work, DEAD ON. My wife, Miranda’s The WELL MEANING KILLER displays the same positive attributes, the ten ways to success in being clear. A true pinnacle that a writer strives for: being clear and maybe even making it sing a little on every page.
Happy Writing and please feel free to leave a #11 or #12 etc. as a comment. Would love to hear from you.
Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
"Dead On takes the reader's capacity for the imagination of horror to stomach turning depths, and then gives it more twists than a Georgia backroad that paves an Indian trail." - Nash Black
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Does It Matter? by DL Larson
The daily news is riddled with disasters and other unsavory occurences that have happened throughout the world. Sometimes we listen, sometimes we express compassion for the hardships of others, and then most of us go about our day. Some of us may wonder how that disaster will affect us, others move on, not extending the energy to worry about the problems of someone they've never met and never will. And many times in our own neighborhoods, our own lives, we mimick the same pattern of doing nothing.
Our compulsion to mind our own business reminds me of the following story. I am not the author, merely the one passing it on ...
'A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.
"What food might this contain?" the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating to the barnyard, the mouse proclaimed this warning: "There's a mousetrap in the house! There's a mousetrap in the hosue!"
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There's a mousetrap in the house!"
The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray ... be assured you are in my prayers."
The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There's a mousetrap in the house! There's a mousetrap in the house!"
The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."
So the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house ... the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.
The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it. It was a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap. The snake bit the farmer's wife.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital. When she returned home she still had a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup. So the farmer took his hatchet to the barnyard for the soup's main ingredient: chicken.
But his wife's sickness continued. Friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. But alas, the farmer's wife did not get well. She died.
So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them for the funeral luncheon.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.
So, please remember the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn't concern you, remember the chicken, the pig and the cow.
When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
Each of us is a vital thread in another person's tapestry. Our lives are woven together for a reason.
Til next time ~
DL Larson
Our compulsion to mind our own business reminds me of the following story. I am not the author, merely the one passing it on ...
'A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.
"What food might this contain?" the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating to the barnyard, the mouse proclaimed this warning: "There's a mousetrap in the house! There's a mousetrap in the hosue!"
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There's a mousetrap in the house!"
The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray ... be assured you are in my prayers."
The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There's a mousetrap in the house! There's a mousetrap in the house!"
The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."
So the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house ... the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.
The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it. It was a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap. The snake bit the farmer's wife.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital. When she returned home she still had a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup. So the farmer took his hatchet to the barnyard for the soup's main ingredient: chicken.
But his wife's sickness continued. Friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. But alas, the farmer's wife did not get well. She died.
So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them for the funeral luncheon.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.
So, please remember the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn't concern you, remember the chicken, the pig and the cow.
When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
Each of us is a vital thread in another person's tapestry. Our lives are woven together for a reason.
Til next time ~
DL Larson
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Eagle River Book Signing & New Blogger Features
Here I am at Book World in Eagle River on Oct. 3. I had a really nice setup, close to where people walk in, so they couldn't miss me. Also, I was in front of the bestsellers, which helped my cause. Outside was nippy, but inside was warm and toasty. Almost everyone who came inside after checking out all the antiques and other offerings in Downtown Eagle River for Cranberry Fest remarked how nice and warm it was in the store. Warmth was definitely a draw. Besides Book World, another attraction was the candy shop next store. Lots of people toted yellow and brown striped bags, which I soon recognized. No, I didn't break down and go next store for candy, but it was tempting. Not only did readers purchase Killer Career, but some also bought Two Wrongs and Girl of My Dreams, so it doesn't hurt to bring along the backlist books, just in case. Next Saturday is Book World in Minocqua, Wisconsin from 11am-1pm.
This is the first time I've used the new Blogger for uploading a photo. It's a nice setup. Once the photo is uploaded, I got to choose the size and spot, and also had the option of changing it to another size and spot. Good idea.
Have you tried any of the new Blogger features? If so, let us know about them.
Morgan Mandel
The Vook Revealed
What will they think of next?
Well, keep asking and we might keep getting new answers. The latest, and maybe not so unexpected is the integration of print and video material. The article that appears in Publisher's Weekly describes it as the following:
"In an experiment testing consumers’ interest in integrated print and video content, Simon & Schuster has partnered with multimedia start-up Vook to create a quartet of titles that melds print and video. The fruits of the partnership are four vooks—titles the West Coast company describes as neither book nor e-book—available as apps via the iTunes store and as web-based editions at both simonandschuster.com/aboutvook and vook.com."
For the complete article go to:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/ and search on Vook.
It almost sounds like something Mr. Spock would have invented.
Well, keep asking and we might keep getting new answers. The latest, and maybe not so unexpected is the integration of print and video material. The article that appears in Publisher's Weekly describes it as the following:
"In an experiment testing consumers’ interest in integrated print and video content, Simon & Schuster has partnered with multimedia start-up Vook to create a quartet of titles that melds print and video. The fruits of the partnership are four vooks—titles the West Coast company describes as neither book nor e-book—available as apps via the iTunes store and as web-based editions at both simonandschuster.com/aboutvook and vook.com."
For the complete article go to:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/ and search on Vook.
It almost sounds like something Mr. Spock would have invented.
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