Motivation

What motivates you?

For me it all depends on what I'm doing. About a year ago I started an exercise program. I had given working out a couple half hearted tries in the past, never really sticking to any kind of program long enough to see any results. Then last summer I decided I really needed to get serious. I got a used treadmill from my sister-in-law and told myself I would faithfully use it. And I did. I ran three days a week. And while I was definitely getting in to a good routine, it really felt like a chore to hike down the stairs on hop on that thing on workout days. I lacked motivation.

Then around November I picked up a poster of my favorite teen-aged vampire (I think I've mentioned my "Twilight" obsession before?!), and hung it in front of my treadmill. And what do you know? I wanted to head downstairs and run ALL THE TIME. Then not only did I get to stare at the VERY hot Robert Pattinson portraying Edward Cullen, I started to see results. The numbers on the scale started to go down. My clothes were loose. Very motivating. Now, a year later, I've lost weight, toned up, and dropped 4 jean sizes. Not too shabby.

So for me, forget those expensive diet and exercise programs. For me a used treadmill and a five dollar poster did the trick. I also had the support of a good friend who also started running around the same time. We continue to find ways to encourage and motivate each other.

With writing, it's all about finding the right motivation as well. Sometimes it's a picture (like my poster) that is inspiring. Perhaps a magazine picture will bring to mind the look of a certain character. If that happens I clip it out and tack it to the board next to my computer.

Also tacked next to my computer in the cover art for my upcoming release, WILD WEDDING WEEKEND. Seeing that everyday motivates me to get writing so I can hang another cover on my board.

Holding a book I've already written in my hand is extremely motivating. Because I want more of them. I want a whole shelf full of Debra St. John books.

I've mentioned before that music motivates and inspires me. Sometimes there's a story in every song. Sometimes there's a story in just one line. But just in general, music gets me going. It puts a song in my head and a story in my heart.

I belong to a VERY supportive writers' group. Just attending meetings and hearing about fellow members' successes helps keep me motivated.

What really helps me is a deadline. Whether it's one set by my editor or a goal I've set for myself, having a definite time period to work with really helps to get me going. Saying I have all the time in the world to accomplish something is probably the best way to ensure that nothing will get done.

So, my goal for this summer is to finish my WIP, begin promotion for WILD WEDDING WEEKEND, take a serious look at another idea I have spinning around in my head, and of course, to visit Edward downstairs by the treadmill at least five times a week.

And at the moment, I am motivated to accomplish all of that and more. So, we'll see where I'm at with all of this at the end of the summer!

So how about you? If you get the chance, pop in and let me know what motivates you...

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra

www.debrastjohnromance.comcoming soon from The Wild Rose Press
WILD WEDDING WEEKEND

Orinters Row by Margot Justes

This one will be extremly brief, I spent the day at Printers Row, in sandals and capri pants, needless to say I have yet to thaw out, but I sold quite a few books so I'm not complaining. Well, at least not much.

Had a quick bite to eat and friends came over for dessert, now it's time for bed. More about printers Row next week.

Till next time,
Margot Justes
www.mjustes.com
http://margotsmuse.blogspot.com

Dead On Writing - A Book for The Successfully Disorganized, Down & Dirty, Functionally Challenged Fiction Writer in You by Robert W. Walker

Can minor characters remain minor? What’s needed to craft a truly villainous villain? How much is too much detail? When is setting another character and should it be? How are characters created out of the blue? What is a fully-realized character, and what is the opposite – a not fully realized character? Is that like a cardboard character? How long should a writer work at his craft? What is meant by execution? How important is it to get the grammar right? Is spelling still such a big concern? What is an unofficial PhD in Writing and Letters?

And when you’re done with those questions of dialogue, the how and why of it…character building, motivation, use of the five senses, use of the sixth sense, the very metaphysics of writing, what do you do to sell the finished manuscript? How does one go about selling the idea to an agent, an editor, a publisher?

Once the manuscript is sold and a book is made, what can we do to market it to the public? What avenues doe we have online? What should our attitude be? Does anything work?

Up to this point all I have done is list questions. These are the questions that try writers’ souls. To help out best I can, I have “published” for the Kindle Reader at http://www.dtpamazon.com/ -- the Kindle method of publication my how-to on the subject of writing craft, execution, and more…much more. Some of it even funny. Some of it deep. Some of it light. Some of it “sacrilegious” and some of it just truly useful exercises—writing exercises that have been tested and that WORK.

For anyone who does not HAVE a Kindle reader, I understand there’s an option to have the book sent to your Iphone. For anyone who does not have either but would like to get the book, contact me and I’ll see what I can do. As the book is only 2 dollars from Kindle Store…not sure how you can pay me except to say TALK up the book and any of my other titles like my Five Star suspense novel DEAD ON.

DEAD ON WRITING is a compilation of useful and pointed advice on writing. I hope you will at very least go to the Kindle Books section on Amazon.com and search for my name to see all my Kindle titles and let me know what you think of the artwork on my DEJA BLUE (psychic detection novel with woo-wooo!), CUBA BLUE (a Qui Aguillar Havana Cuba suspense-thriller), and SNAKE FLESH WARS (science fiction suspense & horror – there’s a monster involved, and spontaneous human combustion is also involved!). I am hoping to put up a book of short stories here. Kind of cool to be my own publisher!

Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

Being Conference Ready! by DL Larson

The Historical Novel Society Conference will be next weekend - June 12-14 at the Hyatt Regency, Woodfield IL. I've been working on several topics in order to be ready. I sent my promotional material to be placed in the attendees packets. I chose pens and flyers. I always struggle deciding if the cost of promo materials is worth the expense of putting my name, DL Larson, out there in front of would-be buyers. And each time I come up with the answer - yes! Promotional materials are tools of our trade.

I'll be a part of the book signings on Saturday, and if I hope to sell books, folks need to know what's available ahead of time. I love impulse buying, but I really enjoy someone coming up who actually searched me out in order to buy my book. I will never tire of that.

The other area I've been working on is ... my pitch. Oh, how I hate pitching! Did I say that outloud????? Ignore that previous sentence, I really, really love talking about my book ~ that's the mind set I need to find. I just don't enjoy trying to shrink a multiple layered book into a tiny little box full of perfect wording that describes my work. Then deliver it with enthusiasm that doesn't sound rehearsed or memorized. I am no good at that!!!! So, I've thrown that concept out the window, went out and stomped it but good, ground it right into the mud and came back in to start a new concept for sharing my ideas, my book with agents and publishers.

I'm a gardender, not an athlete. Maybe that's why I find pitching so difficult. Gardening is many layered, working the ground, digging out the weeds, planting various plants, nurturing the strong ones and pruning out the bad so the rest thrives and becomes stronger. I like the layered idea, like peeling an onion.

My character Francis Frailey is afraid of life. That's a good first layer.
He's emotionally crippled. Okay, are you wondering why?
He has everything - good looks, money, a wife and children who love him. So what's the problem for heavens sake?
His son reminds him of times he'd rather not remember, because remembering breaks the chain he has on his temper. So what happens then?
His wife Christine sneaks through his defenses, leaving him vulnerable. And no one is safe when his rage is unleashed, least of all himself. He's vowed not to turn from the abused into the abuser. He will stop this cruel family tradition, even if he has to end his own life. Good grief, how can this have a happy ending?
Christine shows him love means trust and hope, not betrayal and pain. And Francis learns it is never too late to remake oneself, never too late to start over.

Okay, I can plant a garden. I can peel an onion. I can talk rationally about my book to an editor. It's all about working with the right tools. Pitching doesn't work for me, but gardening does. Plus, I can add a little bling by saying my book, Promises My Love, won 2nd place in a contest. Guess I'm as ready as I'm going to be.

Do you have any secrets that work for you when talking to editors, agents and publishers? Share with us, please.

Til next time ~

DL Larson
PS: DL will have both her books for sale at the HNS Conference:
Memories Trail - $15
Promises To Keep - $15 (Reader's Choice Award winner)

Why do I write crime fiction?

Morgan asked me to fill in for her today, so I thought I'd tell you why I write crime fiction.  Aren't you curious???

When I was ten years old, I started reading detective stories. The first ones were Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle, but I also read the Hardy Boys books, and stories of Encyclopedia Brown and the incomparable Brains Benton. I always envied Brains Benton, and tried to style myself after him as a twelve-year-old, without much success. But my first actual detective work came much later in life and inspired me to write crime fiction.

It was raining that night in the city by the bay.... no, wait a minute, wrong story.

It was a clear, late-spring Wednesday morning, and the first thing I saw as I walked out to my car was the TP carnage. Yes, we’d been hit. Toilet paper was festooned across our cars, across the trees and hedges--everywhere. But there was an added evil dimension: bright orange spray paint ran in jagged lines across the tall arbor vitae that fringed the front of the property, and a malediction had been painted on the paved driveway.  In bright blaze-orange letters, two feet tall, it said:

Penis wrinkle.

Not a common insult, and not one I had heard before. But I was a high-school teacher at the time, and as such had an inherent troop of suspects. Also, on Monday I had reprimanded one of my students severely—a senior with a strong intellect, great potential, but also a great predilection for goofing off in class. He had been very upset at being disciplined, and I was betting he was involved somehow.

When I checked things in our yard, I found that the miscreants had been in a hurry.  Two rolls were thrown without even being unwrapped. I recognized that the packages were of an institutional variety.

That day at school, I learned that others had suffered similar fates. Another teacher had her lawn rolled and her lawn and mailbox defaced with orange paint. And more seriously, the home and yard of a young lady had been defaced with orange paint, with very unflattering insults spray-painted on stonework and a privacy fence. 

My inner Sherlock Holmes took over.  I asked a few discrete questions.  I discovered that the young lady whose house was vandalized was the ex-girlfriend of the senior I had reprimanded.  I also discovered that he and two other young men had gone out “cruising” together the night before.

The family of one of the other two young men owned a motel on the outskirts of town.  I called them and pretended to be someone who had stayed there a month before, and that I owned a motel in another state.  I was “impressed with the quality” of their toilet tissue, and wondered what brand it was.  She told me over the phone.  It matched the brand of unopened tissue I found in my yard.

I got together with the other teacher, and found that she had also reprimanded two of the three students a couple of days before.  All three were now tied together with motive and/or means, as well as opportunity.

I went to the local sheriff’s office and filed a complaint, with all the evidence neatly presented.  The three lads were brought in for questioning.  There was quite a bit of dollar value of damage, when one considered the stonework and the privacy fence, so it could conceivably have been felony-level charges of destruction of property as well as malicious mischief.

The next day, three shivering seniors sat across a conference table from the other teacher and myself at the local sheriff’s office.  They confessed.  Their excuse was that they had been drinking and made stupid mistakes.

The sheriff’s department had allowed them to spend about eight hours the night before in the jail, as none of them were minors.  They were separated from the other prisoners, but they were alternately propositioned and threatened by some large, homely and lonely guys.

The young men were very, very anxious.  One young man was the president of the local National Honor Society and had been accepted at a prestigious university.  Another of the trio was headed for a full NROTC scholarship at another fine university.  Those two were scared witless that these charges would somehow lose them their places at these schools, while the third was simply scared of spending any more time in jail.

 

In the end, the other teacher and I accepted their confessions and agreed to drop all charges if: 

1. The boys would do a total cleanup and repair, with their own hands.
   
2. They would replace the mailbox they damaged at the other teacher’s house.
   
3. They would resurface my driveway.  
   
4. All of this would be done on Saturday mornings, supervised by their respective fathers.

Nobody lost their place in university, though the Honor Society president had his office stripped from him.  Gilbert and Sullivan had it right: let the punishment fit the crime.  The family of the young lady negotiated their own terms, as her father was too angry at the time of the meeting to sit down with the boys.

I believe the boys learned a valuable lesson about doing stupid things while drinking and I gained a real taste for criminal investigation. After that point, my stories took a turn for the mysterious. 

Digital is all the buzz at BEA

I found the coverage of the Book Expo America (BEA) this year to be very telling. There's much discussion about digital content veruses the traditional book format that most of us grew up with. Perhaps this is a knee-jerk reaction to the drop in sales, but perhaps this is just keeping up with the changing times.

For years, the traditional publishing industry has resisted electronic delivery of books and other written material because it just didn't fit within their business model. I'm beginning to think that this stance is becoming more and more difficult to maintain, especially given the current economic climate. BUT I strongly maintain that the generations coming up are having a profound impact on how writers deliver their stories and other written products to their audiences.

One of the shouts at the BEA to the publishing world is don't be like the music industry. Here's the link to this reference:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6661782.html?industryid=49050

Again, the generations coming up demanded change to how their music is delivered and they have enough buying power to have a voice.

The quesiton is - how well will the publishing industry or those of us who write, listen?

The next few years will be very interesting indeed.

Summer Lovin' on a rainy Monday

It’s been a good week for the Summer Lovin’ anthology. Last time I checked it was ranked as #6 on the top ten YA listing at The Wild Rose Press website.

In case you didn’t get a chance to check it out yet, her is the blurb for the book:

From a rich Southern country club to a Midwest ranch and all the way to the cool beaches of the Pacific Northwest, this sweet collection of summer love stories revels in the magic of first love. You’ll enjoy stories by:
Dara Edmondson, Laurie J. Edwards, Mona Ingram, Kimberlee R. Mendoza, Sydney Shay, and June Sproat

Get ready for some Summer Lovin’.

It’s available right now on digital for only $6. That’s a dollar a story!! Can’t beat that.

I hope you do get a chance to read it and if you are waiting for the print copy, that’s good too. In the meantime, read what this reviewer has to say! You Gotta Read Reviews

Have a great week!

June

www.junesproat.com