Boosting the Signal Strength

Jacqueline Christensen passed along this message from Parris Afton Bonds, and I'm delighted to share!

I published my 36th novel ~ this one an ebook at Amazon.com/kindle.

Please pop a beer tab or uncork a wine bottle and join me to celebrate Dancing With Wild Woman ~ Janet Lomayestewa, tracker for U.S. Customs (ICE), who must learn to dance in order to find a serial killer and keep our earth in balance as well as her own off-kilter love life. 

Check out this new ebook from one of the romance genre's biggest names!

Writers Groups and Writers--The Ongoing Dilemma

There are so many fabulous blog entries over at Book View Cafe if I linked to all of them, I'd do nothing else but link to them.

But finding a writing group for critique can be a challenge, and Sherwood Smith tackled the subject yesterday.  She links to many different resources, and then there is even more great information in the comments.

Check it out.

A Posse of Princesses  

by Sherwood Smith

Lanetta's Excellent Worldbuilding

Awhile back I posted about worldbuilding and writing and such over at planetpooks. I even threw in a heavy dose of Regency cant at the end. In comments, my friend Lanetta mentioned that she does the worldbuilding for her books in Excel. That intrigued me, and I asked her to blog about her process and I would link to it. She did! And now, a month later, I'm finally linking. This is really interesting to me, because I never considered importing images into Excel.



I'll still be using Scrivener [pooks recommends page] because of the degree of detail I need, but I can definitely see how Excel works, and it is often a program people already have. What are you tricks of the trade? How do you keep your research organized and your worldbuilding at your fingertips? Send pics! Tell me. I love this stuff.

Bloody Coincidence?

Perhaps it is, but I found it interesting that PN Elrod mentioned on Facebook today that she's had a sudden upsurge in sales for her ebooks in the past couple of days.  Perhaps some of you contributed to that uptick? [You might remember her first page--with Ms Vandermore's spangled dress getting ripped, and of course, poor Escott, interrupting to artist at work in The Vampire Files?]

Of course looking up her current books available for Kindle was my lucky break.  I had no idea she'd also written a historical, Jonathan Barrett, Gentleman Vampire.

Yes, I'm downloading again.

First & Third Person pov, examples and discussion...

Good ol' Jenny Crusie. Again, perfect timing with a blog entry that addresses something we've just discussed, but she gets into much greater depth in the mechanics of the technique.

I am not one to argue with a gift horse and this time the gift horse is yours.

Read this great examination of the difference between first and third person, and why you can't write in one pov and just change pronouns to the other (from "I" to "she" as an example) and have it work well.

"Lots of commenters on the previous post said, “Write it in third and then change it back to first.” That doesn’t work for me (I’ve tried), which doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. But for me, it’s two different languages. It’s like saying, “Write it in English, and then translate it into German, and then translate that back into English.” If you’re talking about a page full of dialogue, it doesn’t matter much, but for anything else, I lose a lot in the translation both ways. Here’s a piece from Maybe This Time..."

And she goes on to give the same paragraph in third person, then change to first, then rewrite to first... and it keeps going from there. If you want to see the mechanics played out before your eyes, check out her post!

This may or may not be the start of something.

Which is why I thought it worth mentioning.

"Where do your ideas come from?"

So many answers, so little time.

But sometimes a book may just begin on a morning like this.

Picture this: Jenny Crusie & her collage method

Timing is everything! Today Jenny posted about one of her current works in progress and ended with the beginning of a collage. And for the first time, I'm tempted. Perhaps seeing it in an early stage where it still looks amazing did that.  

Perhaps it was seeing Benedict Cumberbatch on her collage.

No matter. Fact is, tonight we're looking a bit at plotting again and I was going to hand out a card with her URLs on it, and decided to just put them in my sidebar.  Right over there near the bottom in Special Writing Topics.


And because you asked so prettily, I'm sharing her new, barely started, collage.

[Oh, and I might as well. To make it easy for you since we'll also touch on this tonight and tomorrow morning, Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need and its sequel (yes, this cracks me up that the "last book you'll ever need" has a sequel, which is why I had to include the subtitle) Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies: The Screenwriter's Guide to Every Story Ever Told. From where I'm sitting, you really can't use one without the other. Although, everybody is different, yadda, yadda.]

This weekend! If you're writing science fiction/fantasy...

Or aren't sure, but want to explore it.

Or love to read it.

Or... are just interested.

ConDFW is here this weekend, and has a great lineup of sessions for writers, artists and readers, all.  I'm not sure if I will be there, but I will try.  In the meantime, check it out.  It's probably the least expensive convention that includes writers around here. It's too late to pre-register, but you can register at the door, $40 for the 3-day weekend. That is a bargain.

Let me know if you go. I want to hear all about it! (Unless I'm there. If you see me, then say, "Hi!")

If you're going to write a romance novel...

File this in the "you learn something new every day folder."

I found this image of Barbie Romance Novel Collection while looking for an illustration.

If you read or write romance, you are probably familiar with these kinds of thoughts, but it never hurts to refresh your memory.

Author R. Ann Siracusa welcomes you to her blog

Not long ago, I happened to run onto a reader’s comment thread on Amazon.com entitled “Dear Author: Please Don’t…” at the following link.

http://www.amazon.com/forum/romance/ref=cm_cd_dp_rft_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxM42D5QN2YZ1D&cdThread=Tx1U9IFOLVQRGXV

There are 62 pages of interesting reading.  Over 1,500 comments from readers.  I had to restrain myself from writing responses.  While some of them are a little [or a lot] off the wall, many of the readers had something worthwhile to tell us.  Many of the don'ts we’ve heard from agents, editors, and other authors.

As authors, we may not agree, but each comment represents the personal reaction of a reader.  To me, they speak volumes about what people read and what is getting published by today’s industry.

Check it out!

Practical Meerkat’s 52 Bits of Useful Info for Young (and Old) Writers

This is the writing book I've been waiting for!

If you look at the bottom of my sidebar you'll find Practical Meerkat linked from last year, when Laura Anne Gilman--novelist, short story writer, editor, industry pro--wrote a weekly series of advice to writers mined from her experiences and those she's observed.  It's all there still, free for the reading.

What kind of subjects does she tackle?

Writing is a craft. Publishing is a business. Today’s world requires you to understand both.

A year’s worth of first-hand advice from the popular “Practical Meerkat” series, including:

• Knowing When Not to Complain (and how to do it)
• Bar Schmoozing with the Big Dogs (even if you don’t drink)
• Dealing with a Difficult Editor/Agent
• and 49 more!

I'm buying and downloading the ebook so I can have it all together at my fingertips.  I don't buy a lot of writing books any more, but I'm buying this one--and it's only $2.99.