THE MOODY MUSES

Guest Muse: Stephanie Queen

2012-01-27T08:00:00.069-05:00

The Throwbacks by Stephanie Queen

Today we're pleased to introduce Stephanie Queen, a friend to the Muses and author of two new contemporary romances, BETWEEN A ROCK AND A MAD WOMAN (love that title!) and THE THROWBACKS.

She's here today to talk about her writing process and her latest book...which recently received 4 and 1/2 stars from RT Bookreviews:

"Resplendent in rich detail, laugh-out-loud moments, a fast-paced plot and spellbinding characters, THE THROWBACKS is a stellar not-to-be-missed standout!" Way to go, Stephanie!

Q&A for Stephanie Queen:

How long have you been writing?

At least ten minutes. Soon I’ll need to jump up from my chair and pace a while. To think. And to wear off some of the chocolate I’ve been eating…while writing. What? I’m a multi-tasker.

Oh, wait… you didn’t mean how long have I been writing today? You were talking about how long since I was born? I don’t have an answer for that. My memory doesn’t go back as far as my writing apparently.

What made you start writing? Did anyone inspire or encourage you to write?

The nuns made me start writing. You could call it inspiration… Sure. Let’s go with that.

Plotter? Pantser? Or something in between?

(I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it sounds too obscene when I try. Especially the in between option.)

Please tell us about your current release.

I love my latest release, The Throwbacks. I’d call it the book of my heart, but it’s more like the book of my funny-bone. No, I can’t really say that either. (You’d think I’d be able to say something about the book, wouldn’t you?)

How about if I let the story speak for itself – here’s an excerpt:

Chapter 1

Grace tip-toed along the brick path, trying not to get her party heels stuck in the cracks. She heard the cab pull away from the curb and looked back. Sophia bounced behind her, wearing sensible party boots.

“Do you realize you gave that taxi driver twenty dollars for a two dollar fare?” her friend said.

“Oh—just like in the song.” She smiled and climbed the steps leading to Mabel’s back door, then stopped. Sophia stopped behind her.

“What?”

“You know. The Harry Chapin song where…”

“Quit stalling, Grace. This is not a surprise birthday party. Open the door.”

“Are we sure about that? Today is my birthday.” Or at least she’d always celebrated her birthday on October fifteenth as a close approximation. No one had ever come up with a more likely date.

“No kidding? Not your thirtieth birthday is it?” Sophia stood on the step below her, making her even shorter than she already was. She looked like an updated version of Lucille Ball with an attitude and a bob. That thought made her smile.

“Wait until you turn thirty and see. You’ll have palpitations too.” Grace turned and pushed through the door into the back hall of Mabel’s Beacon Hill townhouse, willing away that intruder sensation she always got. Mabel was as good as family. She almost said it out loud. Mabel was like the eccentric old aunt she used to dream up for herself back when she used to dream about those things.

As they stepped into the old woman’s kitchen, the powerful aroma of food and familiarity warmed her. Even the clatter of the no-doubt expensive caterers didn’t spoil the homey effect.

“Mabel went all out for this bash. Any idea why she would be hosting this Scotland Yard party?” Sophia followed her through the kitchen

“I don’t know. It’s a big event to kick off their exchange program with the Boston Police Department. And a command performance. I only wish I had a date.” Grace looked down at her friend. “No offense.”

She started to give herself the usual pep talk for going into a party dateless, the one about her soul mate being around the next corner, when her purse rang. Somewhere deep inside her way-big bag her ringing phone hid. Weaving around the catering staff, she crossed the black-and-white tiled kitchen to the swinging doors as she dug inside the bag to find the phone.

“Buck up,” Sophia said. “After all, thirty is the new twenty, right? It‘s not like you’re a spinster.”

The ringing grew louder as Grace pulled the phone out. She stabbed the call button. The party waited on the other side of the doors in front of them. She pushed through, into the room that Mabel called the “grand salon,” and spoke into the phone, using what she hoped was a discreet voice. “Hello.”

“Grace! I’m so glad I got you!” Her friend Theresa Torini’s voice boomed from the other end of the line so that anyone could hear everything.

“There’s been a murder!”

“What? You didn’t say murder?” Grace said. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth and darted her eyes around to see if anyone was paying attention. A few curious glances were thrown her way. Still holding the phone to her ear, not one more word volunteered its way to her mouth.

“Yes! A murder! And you have to help!” Theresa shrieked loud enough for Sophia to hear.

Sophia’s mouth opened to speak, but Grace shook her head furiously. Sophia clamped her mouth shut and clamped a hand on Grace’s arm, her eyes perplexed.

Grace frowned. Murder? Her help? What the heck was she talking about? But even if Theresa was crazy or confused, her hysteria sounded real.

“Take a deep breath, honey—aren’t you at your wedding rehearsal dinner?” Grace asked.

“Yes!”

Grace moved the phone a distance from her head to lessen the effect of her friend’s shocking volume. She moved away from people as best she could with the crowd already in full swing, pulling Sophia, who was still clamped to her arm, with her.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you—Rick’s brother—oh poor Rick—his brother who was supposed to be our best man—has been shot! Murdered! Right here!”

“Oh no! I can’t believe it!” Grace stopped, truly taken aback. She watched Sophia’s face turn from confused to incredulous. Grace looked around. A few people stared, and some raised eyebrows. She put on a reassuring smile.

Sophia stuck to her arm, listening in. “Is she serious?”

Grace wasn’t sure. She shook her head.

“When did this all happen?” Grace asked.

“Just now—that’s why I’m calling you.”

“What do you want me to do? I’ll do whatever you need. Are the police there?” Grace asked. It occurred to her that this was a bad time for a murder across town. All the police were at this party.

“No. We have to keep it a secret…”

“Honey—I hate to tell you this—but you’re making no sense whatsoever and normally I’m right on the same page with you but…”

“We can’t call the police! We don’t want the reporters to know. The Mayor—Dad—insists we keep it hush-hush. No media. So I’m calling you…”

“I’m flattered but…” Grace had no idea what to say. Her friend was hysterical. Worse, the Mayor was insane.

“So you can tell the police, but discreetly,” Theresa said and it finally made sense.

“Oh—I get it. Because I’m here at the police party.”

“Yes! But you have to find Dan O’Keefe—the Chief—and tell him it’s top secret.”

“I don’t know who he is, honey. Why don’t you call him directly?”

“Don’t you think they’ve been trying that? They can’t get through on his personal cell phone and they don’t want to call his official line because then everyone will know.”

“Okay, I’ll try to find him—what does he look like?” Grace leaned down toward Sophia so she could be in on the conversation. She despaired at the generic description Theresa gave them to work with, but she didn’t complain. “Sweetheart, don’t worry—Sophia and I will ask around. We’ll find the Chief. And we promise to keep the murder under our hats. I’ll have him call you as soon as we find him.” She shoved the phone back in her bag.

“Gees, and I thought Mabel’s ‘Welcome Scotland Yard Party’ with the Boston police brass and stuffy British big-shots was going to be as exciting as a Latin mass,” Sophia said.

“This is serious—keep a look out for a tall, middle-aged man,” she said to her friend. But the prospect was daunting. The sounds of crystal and silver clinking like children pounding on xylophones sharpened as Grace drew them further into the crowd, looking around. The high-ceilinged room was bright with chandelier light and warm with the haze of cigars and way too many people.

“You look decorative.” Sophia eyed her. “We have a better chance of the police Chief finding you first with those colors you’re wearing. Why don’t you stand on one of these pedestals and give a shout out?”

Grace squinted at her diminutive friend. She had no room to talk. Sophia wore her typical offbeat outfit. Tonight she looked as if she’d stepped out of a fifties sitcom with a cinch-waisted dress and pearls. Grace surveyed the room, skimming over the guests to linger on the high style of the art deco furnishings that made this her favorite townhouse in all of Boston’s tony Beacon Hill. She sighed.

“I don’t know where to start. All these men look the same to me.”

Then her gaze caught on a tall man in a dark suit out in the entry hall. He’d just walked in on a breeze with dried maple leaves floating to the floor around him. He strode into the room and straight into the clutches of several blue-haired ladies and shiny-headed men. They immediately embraced him with cheek-kissing and backslapping affection. Grace watched as the mystery man withstood the onslaught with aplomb.

“At least you can see them—I should have asked Theresa for a description of his shoes,” Sophia said.

“No whining. I wonder if that man could be the Chief?”

“What man?” Sophia asked, standing on tiptoes.

“The distinguished-looking man. Over there.” Grace pointed as subtly as possible with her brilliant orange fingernails.

“Nice nails,” Sophia said. “Could be the Chief. Or he could be the big-shot from Scotland Yard.”

“What?” Grace said. She only half listened to Sophia. The mystery man had moved, but it was easy to keep track of him by the sound of laughter. He was like a fun island in the middle of an ocean of blue bloods. “We need to start somewhere. Let’s start by asking him.” She took her friend’s arm and steered her in his direction.

Grace got them within two feet of the man and then stopped. She watched the man more carefully as she considered him. “I never met anyone in the crime-fighting field before…” she whispered, trying not to show her simmering excitement.

Sophia rolled her eyes. “Grace, he’s not Batman.”

“But he could be heroic.” She thought the words out loud. She shoved aside the possibility that she might be disappointed, and with a tingle of anticipation, she walked right up to Mr. Distinguished. She figured a man like him, a possible crime-fighting hero, would appreciate a bold approach.

“Hello. I’m Grace Rogers. And I’m hoping you’re Boston’s Chief of Police.” She gave the man her best bold smile.

David turned, and his eyes met a classic Marilyn look-alike with bouncing blond curls, twinkling brown eyes and a single deep dimple. He automatically looked over her colorfully clad va-voom body--out of professional habit. He was proud that he kept his mouth closed and his eyes from popping.

In the year since he’d moved back to the States, he hadn’t felt more adrift and out of sorts than he did at this very moment. What could he possibly say to this ridiculously young and beautiful bombshell? Where’s your father?

“Hello, young lady. Why do you hope that I am the police chief of this city?” He couldn’t wait for this answer as he eyed her dimple and looked into her earnest eyes.

“I need to report a murder.”

Hmmm.

“You look very much alive to me.” Real smooth. Not unlike the one-too-many Scotches he’d been drinking.

But luckily for him she laughed, a full-bodied throaty sound. No half-way little tinkling for this Grace woman. Either she had a refreshing sense of humor or she was putting him on. He wasn’t sure. Not a good sign. Because if there was one thing he was always sure of, it was people.

“That was the last thing I expected you to say. I knew a bold approach would work,” she said. The wattage of her smile increased to a blinding level.

He had to work at regaining his aplomb. After all, he had his reputation to keep up—the professional one. And he’d promised himself and his friend, who was saving his life right now by not letting him sink into the pit of self-pity, that he would slow down with the revolving-door women. He looked her over again—one more time for old time’s sake. He had picked a very inconvenient time to slow down with women. She was exquisite, if flashy, and she beamed with what, he now realized, was a sinfully genuine smile from a shockingly expressive face.

“I very much doubt you could possibly come up with any approach that would be less than superlatively successful, Miss Rogers. You are utterly charming.” David smiled because he actually meant it.

“My, my. You’re not bad in the charm department yourself. I can’t help noticing you have a British accent…are you from England?” She flashed her white teeth. He could feel the waves of admiration emanating from her.

He stood there soaking her in when he realized she’d asked if he was from England. He looked more closely then to make sure she wasn’t putting him on. But no.

“Yes. I’m David Young, semi-retired…”

“You’re not the chief? Oh, no.” She frowned and began looking around, as did her friend. He assumed the small red-bobbed woman was her friend since she was clamped to Grace’s arm.

“You need to find the Chief and fast. He needs to call the Mayor right away. It’s been ten minutes since Theresa called and—” the pixie-like woman said.

“I know, I know.” Grace spun in a slow circle, looking about.

He held himself from laughing. Was it possible?

“Are you serious? Has there been a murder?”

“Of course, that’s what I just told you. I would never make a false police report, especially not to the Chief of…”

“I’m not the Chief, but I …”

“I know. I was hoping I’d guessed right—sorry to have disturbed you. We really need to find Chief O’Keefe …” She looked at him again with those hypnotic brown eyes. The redheaded woman at her side looked at him skeptically.

“Do you know who the Chief is, by any chance?” the pixie-like woman asked.

Grace gave him nothing short of a wistful look. He couldn’t possibly be planning to reform his run as a rake tonight. She was too perfect.

“Actually, yes, I do. I’m here on loan with—” he started to say before he lost his head.

“Perfect! Please, take us to him.” Grace beamed at him and slipped her arm into his. “What field are you in?”

He took a double take at that and looked around at the gigantic banner hanging over the second-story railing behind her, proclaiming “The Scotland Yard–Boston Police Department Exchange Program Inauguration.” He looked back down at her and squinted a closer look. No, she was not putting him on. But…oh well, what the heck.

“Law enforcement.”

“How exciting—that must be how you know the chief.”

He directed his new entourage in the direction of where he’d last seen his childhood friend, known to all as the Chief, but to him he’d always be Dick Tracy. They headed toward the buffet table through the thick crowd.

“Who are you? How long have you been over this side of the pond?” she asked with her wide eyes aimed at him, hinting of interest.

He laughed. It was too difficult to hold it in and play it cool in her presence. And absolutely no point to it in any event. She was completely without guile. Possibly without a clue, but he didn’t think so.

“I’ve been here long enough to get to know these wonderful people from the Boston Police Department, but not long enough to furnish my home.” It was his stock answer to that question for the evening, but he couldn’t wait to hear what her response would be.

“Oh no! But you have to furnish your home or it’s not a home!” She stopped short and looked distressed. Not exactly the response he was anticipating. She dug through her bright purple purse, and he was newly intrigued. She pulled out a card with a flourish.

“You should call a decorator to help you. If ever there was someone in need of decorating help, I can sense it’s you.” She was confident and alarmingly correct in her assessment. She snapped her purse shut.

“I think you could be right about that, Miss Rogers.” He slipped the card in his breast pocket after a quick glance. It was a decorating firm business card. A small amount of disappointment slipped by him.

She smiled and the dimple showed, again only on one side. His heart and his resolve melted another ten degrees in that moment. He smiled at the pixie-woman next to her.

“And you must be Tinkerbell.” He deadpanned it.

Grace treated him to another one of her throaty laughs, making it impossible for him to mind the scowl of her apparent half-pint friend. Which reminded him, he had no idea what happened to his friend and savior, Dick Tracy. They’d reached the buffet and he was nowhere in sight.

Grace heard the phone in her bag ring again—loudly. She reached in quickly and fished it out, smiled at David, fumbled and tried to open it.

“Why don’t you just ignore it?” Sophia asked, “It’s probably Theresa again, all hysterical about what’s taking so long.”

“It could be the sitter,” she whispered, then clicked the phone on and pressed it to her ear.

“What’s going on? Have you told the Chief yet?” Theresa said from the other end.

“We’re still looking for him. But we did find a charming British man who knows…”

“Hurry! And don’t tell anyone else no matter how charming they are! Dad is bursting an artery with worry about the press. Rick is sick with…”

“I get the picture—I’m on it. Got to go.” Grace clicked the phone off and shoved it back in her bag.

“Quite a conversation,” David said.

“That’s Theresa for you.” Grace looked around.

“The Mayor’s daughter. I take it the Mayor won’t be attending this party after all,” David said, with his reassuring calm. “Are you going to tell me about Theresa’s secret murder?”

“You aren’t supposed to know about that. It’s Theresa’s fiancé’s brother who was murdered. The Chief has to call the Mayor. We need to find him as soon as we can in this hopeless crowd of people,” She knew she was rambling and not making a good impression, but she felt desperate.

“He’s right over there.” David gave a slight smile and pointed to the large man looking in their direction. “Let’s introduce you.”

He was so calm it was catchy. “Yes, please,” she said. He put his hand at the small of her back. His hand on her and his calm manner soothed her as he escorted her toward the Chief. She realized that her breathing and heartbeat had normalized and it was all because of him. Then as the warmth of his touch spread through her, she felt a frisson of excitement. “Are you a good friend of his?” she asked in the most normal voice she could muster with that touch of his palm on her back beginning to take up more space in her mind.

“We go way back,” he said. Without interrupting anyone, and smiling at the small group surrounding the Chief, he caught his friend’s attention.

“What’s up, David?”

He motioned Dan aside. “Excuse us, please.” He smiled and the group melted away with deference. “Evidently there’s been a murder and you need to call the Mayor. This is Grace Rogers.”

“What the hell—I mean heck—are you talking about?” Dan asked with a predictably cloudy look. David kept his grin to himself.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much more—Grace, this is Dan O’Keefe, Boston Police Chief. Can you explain the phone call to him?”

“Hi, Chief.” She flashed her dimple. “Rick Racer’s brother was murdered at Rick and Theresa’s rehearsal dinner.”

“Theresa Torini? The Mayor’s daughter? Her wedding rehearsal dinner?” the Chief said in disbelief with his brows raised as he looked at Grace, who vigorously nodded her head. The Chief looked to David for more clues, then he looked back to Grace. “And you are?”

“I’m Grace…”

David decided it was time to do his official duty, and cut her off. “A friend of Theresa Torini’s. Apparently the Mayor didn’t want to make an official call. He wants to keep it out of the media. Instead, Ms. Torini called and asked Ms. Rogers if she would find you here to tell you to call the Mayor—on his private cell phone.” David summed it all up as best he could.

With a frown on his face, Dan plucked the phone from its holster at his waist. “What are you smiling at?” he said to David, who realized he was enjoying himself.

He still had his hand at Grace’s back and he decided he was enjoying that too.

“Why don’t we get some food while the Chief gets to the bottom of this,” David said while he moved her in the direction of the table.

“Don’t go too far.” The Chief punched some numbers into his phone and headed to the front entry hall.

David led Grace and Sophia-the-Pixie to the buffet table. Pixie looked meaningfully at her watch and nodded to Grace. “I hope Theresa’s hysteria is under control because we have to leave soon,” she said.

“It wasn’t pure hysteria. There really was a murder, but we accomplished our mission and gave the case to the Chief.” Grace peeked at the grandfather clock. “One more hour until glass slipper time,” she said with unreasonable disappointment.

“Oh? You have a curfew?” David gave her a mock alarmed look.

“Yes—her mom and pop will be here any minute with their shotguns,” Sophia said to him without a smile and then looked at Grace.

David raised his brow, but he didn’t rise to the bait. He turned to Grace.

“I only have my sitter until midnight,” Grace told him.

At this, Sophia let out a loud whoop of a laugh and David opened his mouth but said nothing. Instead, with a frown, he took her hand in his and examined it.

“What is it, David?” she asked. “What?”

“Grace—he thinks you have a kid, and possibly a husband, and from the looks of it he’s stupefied.”

“You don’t have a child?” David heard the hopefulness in his own voice and reigned himself in mentally.

“No—the sitter is for my puppy.”

“Oh, I see. Forgive my confusion. You can have your hand back now,” he said.

“What did you want with my hand anyway?” She was looking at him and he didn’t know what to say. He looked at Pixie and thought the nickname he gave her suited her petite form, fiery red hair, and flitting mischievous nature perfectly.

“He was checking for a wedding band,” Pixie said.

He coughed to cover his laugh. “Is it common for one to hire a dog-sitter for the evening?” he asked.

“I only hire the dog-sitter when I go out.”

Sophia shook her head and patted David on the back. He held in his laugh this time.

“I don’t know about you, Sherlock, but I need another drink.” Pixie shook her head and walked away. “Let me know if there’s another murder,” she called over her shoulder, causing a few heads to turn. He inwardly cringed and hoped the need for secrecy about the murder had been exaggerated. He’d hear all about it soon enough, he was sure. In the meantime, he felt determined to enjoy Grace’s company before she rushed home to her puppy.

“Gracie, I think you and I should eat something from this enticing buffet. We’ll need our strength to communicate without our translator,” David said.

She laughed. “You read my mind.”

Advice you’d like to share with unpublished or recently published writers?

Do you really think anyone is still reading this? Okay, then. Here’s my advice: Write up a storm and don’t take naysayers seriously. I’m serious. Really.

What’s next for you?

Really? Are you serious?

More books.

Becca's Musing: Sharing Food for Thought

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

I am doing some recycling today, as I am away and have not had the chance to create some original content for my post. I apologize and hope to be back to form next week. For now, I want to leave you with some of the food for thought that has been weighing heavily on my mind since the New Year started:

From Susan Meier's workshop on goal setting: "...I analyzed which of my goals were accomplished and compared them to the goals I had which were not accomplished to see if I could figure out why one goal comes to fruition yet the one right beside it, maybe even one that should have been simpler, doesn’t. And I made an odd discovery.

The goals I accomplished “fit” my life. The goals I did not accomplish did not fit my life... In other words… We will find a way to reach any goal with a compelling “reason” behind it. And that means success or failure in goal setting all boils down to motivation."

From a blog interview with Mary Buckham and Dianna Love in which Mary said, "The great news for writers everywhere is they have the choices daily to commit and work toward their goal of publication or not. They have the power. Many times as unpublished writers we think all the power is in the hands of editors or agents, but it’s not. It’s in your hands and the day you decide that nothing will stop you from being published is the day you’ll never turn back. You’ll make different choices as to how you spend your time, who you will associate with, how you will invest in your career. The greatest power to break into fiction publication rests with you and we’re here today to let you know that."

When I listen to the advice given by these really smart, helpful, and amazing writers and ladies, I am reminded that I need to make a greater effort to align my actions with my goals. I spend so much of my day just trying to get through it that I have stopped acting with intention. It feels yucky not to feel like I am making the right choices, taking the right actions, or directing the right efforts that will take me closer to realizing these dreams. I am not sure how to get all those things back on track but it's my new job to figure it out.

Seize the day!
Becca

Katy's Musing: Sources and Tributaries

2012-01-25T05:30:00.000-05:00

When I was 15 years old, I read a novel about Lucy Walter, the first of Charles II of England's many mistresses. The book was called The Child from the Sea and I picked it up because I loved the cover, the paper it was printed on and the typeface used to print it. I read it in great gulps because I loved the way the author, Elizabeth Goudge, wrote. Not just her prose appealed to me; I was also entranced by her clear vision of life and by the liveliness of her characterization. Every person in the story was vivid and real to me.

So real, in fact, that I cried steadily, reading the last 100+ pages of the book. Lucy dies alone and friendless in Paris, a city she hates, betrayed by those she trusted, bereft of her child and of the Welsh countryside that had fed her soul. Even now, thinking of the ending chokes me up.

I knew The Child from the Sea had had a tremendous impact on me, but it took me years to realize that part of what I was doing with my first romance, Prince of Hearts, was rewriting Lucy's sad, sad story, her tragic collision with royalty. I was telling the same story, but this time, it was going to have a happy ending.

It sometimes seems to me that stories are like rivers, gathering force from many sources. Some of those sources are rivers themselves, but others are little creeks and brooks, hardly noticeable in themselves, but changing the rivers they feed. Countless things make impressions on us and all those impressions feed our imaginations. I think part of our jobs as writers is to keep ourselves open to those impressions, to let the little brooks and creeks we don't notice run free. You never know what story you read, what TV show or movie you watch, is the first little trickle of a new story of your own.

Barb's Musing: Greeting the Dragon

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Be kind to dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

According to the Chinese calendar, yesterday marked the beginning of the Year of the Dragon. So Happy New Year (again!)

The dragon has special significance for this blog. Our own Katy C is writing about dragons. And one of my favorite writing lectures of all time is Jane Porter's "Playing Nice with Your Dragon". Jane, incidentally, is a favorite author of several Muses.

In Chinese astrology, the dragon is a symbol of good fortune, mystical and unpredictable. It's year is marked by achievement, wealth, virtue, harmony and longevity. Big things are to come. The 2012 Dragon is called the Black Dragon or Water Dragon. This means that the energy will be continually flowing. Supposedly water calms the Dragon, making it less unpredictable. On the other hand, because the energy is flowing, things will happen quickly, especially at the beginning of the year.

Dragons are also the symbol of creativity. This makes sense. After all, on our best days, our creativity can, like a dragon, be large and awe-inspiring. On the other hand, on a bad days, it can feel like a nasty, fire-breathing creature bent on destruction. As I learned from Jane Porter's talk, writers all have dragons living inside of them. Our dragons must be nurtured so they don't turn into those fire-breathing, evil creatures, but rather spread their wings and fly with the best of them. I suppose this same philosophy applies to the Year of the Dragon. Say big changes are coming - and Lord knows just in our own little industry, changes are happening every day - we can either embrace them or we can let them burn us to a crisp. Unfortunately, I know too many people who choose the latter. Like villagers with pitchforks, they fight with the dragon until he breathes his fire-breath straight at them. Sad thing is, if they'd simply let the dragon be, they'd find the change wasn't so bad. In fact, the very change they dreaded might bring good fortune on the other side.

So happy year of the dragon! I hope you avoid the fire, and embrace the good fortune!

PS: For a terrific summary of Jane Porter's Dragon workshop, click here.

Cathryn’s Musing: Five Great Things

2012-01-20T17:00:00.009-05:00

…about writing away from home:

1) The refrigerator doesn’t beckon

2) Housework, chores, and errands don’t call

3) No Wi-Fi, no distractions

4) All meals are prepared for you, out

5) Heat, which my home currently doesn’t have

Can you add any more?

(Yes, I've been writing all week from a hotel room. I miss the kitty, but not the other distractions of home. Wherever you are next week...Happy Writing!)

Guest Muse - Jane Sevier and the Art of NaNoWriMo

2012-01-19T06:00:00.011-05:00

Today we are so very fortunate to have a special guest join us at the Moody Muses: Jane Sevier, author of Fortune's Fool. Jane wrote this book during one year's NaNoWriMo sprint, fleshed it out, edited it, and rewrote some more . . . and the book went on to reward Jane as a Golden Heart finalist and became her first published book. We know lots of you log those NaNoWriMo words each year, and we are delighted to welcome Jane and her success story to the Muses. So . . . without further adieu, we give you Jane Sevier:

You made it through NaNoWriMo with your 50K or however many words. Then the holidays came along to distract you and let you recover a little while those words lay fallow for six weeks.

So, now what? If you’re like me, you’re itching to look back at what poured out of you in November. Or what you extracted with forceps and one foot braced against the desk. However those words arrived on the page, enough time has passed to give you a fresh perspective.

I spent this last NaNo working on the second book in my Psychic Socialite series that I launched in the fall with Fortune’s Fool. Fool was my first NaNo win and great experience for what faces me now with the new book.

Fool started as just a premise. I knew the protagonist would be a 1930s Memphis socialite whose husband dies and leaves her penniless. She becomes a fortuneteller, only to discover that she has the true sight. I wanted the love interest to be a fake medium who bears a striking resemblance to Simon Baker of “The Mentalist.” And I knew Nell, my socialite, would be faced with providing for a household that included her mother-in-law and her cook and lifelong friend.

That was it. I didn’t know the ending or even the mystery that Nell would have to unravel. Because Fool is the origin story for the series, I trusted that all would be revealed as I felt my way. I’m an organic writer who doesn’t plot much, so I wasn’t uncomfortable with that. It really helped that NaNo is the kind of hell-for-leather, don’t-look-down ride that doesn’t give you time to stop for doubt. And when the time came, the mystery showed up, as did the final scene.

After that NaNo, I put Fortune’s Fool aside for several months while I worked on other projects. When I came back to it for the first read-through to get a feel for the story and what it needed, I was thrilled to find that the bones of a pretty good mystery were definitely there, although in a several places, the thigh bone was not necessarily connected to the hip bone. I had to figure out how to reassemble the skeleton so that it fit together in the best way for the story.

And I had to put flesh on those bones because 50,000 does not a novel make unless you’re writing Young Adult.

The next read-through, I looked for major scenes and turning points and compiled a scene list so I could see what I had and be able to move the pieces around. I also write screenplays, and studying their structure has helped me not plot exactly but organize what I’ve written after it’s on the page. So, I made a chart dividing the story into Act I, Act II-Part I, Midpoint, Act II-Part II, and Act III based loosely on Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat system. It would be some time and several reads before I decided those pieces were in the right place.

The next read was to be sure my characters were distinct, well-motivated individuals. Nell, Joseph Calendar, Miss Bess, and Hattie are so real to me that they practically wrote themselves. Having them as anchors made it easier to motivate the other cast members.

At first, I wanted a sort of uber-villain who would be Moriarty to Nell’s Sherlock throughout the series, but the scene and character-emotion reads told me that wasn’t going to work with the way the story—and ultimately the series—were unfolding. So out with that idea. The mystery that showed up gave me several possibilities for the villain of this particular book. Then I just had to figure out why anyone would do such a thing.

I tend to write dialogue before anything else and lots of it, so once the characters and structure were in place, I went through to be sure that I had action and description to help drive the story and evoke emotion without having a bunch of talking heads on every page.

Then, I read for style, remembering that Mark Twain said that the difference between the right word and almost the right word was the difference between lightening and lightening bug. And I love language so much that it’s fun for me to play with words.

Along the way, I had wonderful beta readers go through the manuscript a couple of times. Their feedback gave me wonderful insights into what worked and what didn’t. A final revision with all the pieces in mind, and I was ready to publish Fortune’s Fool.

This all sounds a lot more organized than it was when I was actually revising Fortune’s Fool. Having muddled through that, though, revising A Billy Sunday Kind of Love should be a piece of cake. Or at least less daunting. Right?

Thank you so much for being here with us today, Jane! We are so happy for the success of Fortune's Fool and are rooting for your next success in A Billy Sunday Kind of Love. We know lots of people out there have these NaNo projects and are not sure where to go from here, so we hope you will ask questions! Jane will be here with us all day to answer them. Thanks again, Jane!

Katy's Musing: Quitting. Again.

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday, standing in the shower, Iquit writing. I gave up. I decided I wasn't going to do this anymore.

Again.

Apparently, I do this with greatregularity. When I told my RWA chapter of my decision,my fellow Muse, Barb Wallace, said, “If you read our blog, you knowKaty quits every week.”

Like all those other times, the quitdidn't take. I figured out a way to get myself out the pickle I'dlanded myself in, and on I went.

However, in the moment of discoveringmy solution, I found another problem, one that I thought my chaptersisters could help me with. So I asked, and was helped.

The one thing I got out of it is that Ithink too much. I have a strong analytical side, one so determinedthat it kicks in even when I need to just roll with it. I keepthinking myself to a standstill; I think myself into my pickles, andthen I can't think my way out.

This is disheartening and boring. I getreally tired of the same old problems. They're not very interesting,plus I can't help wondering why I don't learn. I mean, if I'd learnedanything, I wouldn't make the same mistake, right?

Sadly, it's not that simple for any ofus. Like many flaws, this one is the dark side of a gift. I think myanalytical side helps me develop my stories and build my worlds. Ithink it helps me learn, since it's the part of my mind that findsholes in things and then needs to find out how to fill them.

And it's not as if I'd have no problemsif I didn't have this one. I'd have others, instead. And they mightbe harder to manage. They might actually prevent me writingaltogether, instead of making it an adventure.

I just wish I could stop quitting.

Barb's Musing: Why I'm Not Self-Publishing

2012-01-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

Recently I sold my GH winning manuscript to Entangled Publishing. (Yay me!) As a colleague of mine pointed out, though Harlequin had passed on the story, it had come thisclose to selling. Thus, it was a shame for the manuscript to sit under my bed when it could be read by others. For some time - since RWA National - I'd been kicking around the idea of self-publishing the story, but decided against it. In fact, after much thought, I have realized self-publishing isn't for me.

Let me say straight out - I have nothing against self-publishing. Those people who decide to enter the fray, I wish nothing but luck and good fortune. The following are my reasons and my reasons alone for opting against "doing it myself."

1. I'm not all that good without an editor. Seriously, I need someone to read my work and give me a broad stroke picture of where I went wrong. The books I've published are good because I had a second set of eyes - professional eyes- guiding me. I am not confident enough in my skills - or rather I'm comfortable enough in my lack of skills - to through my work out there without guidance. Now I know, I could invest in a good editor. Leading me to point number 2.

2. I'm cheap. Good self publishing requires that you make an investment. You must invest in a good cover, in good editorial support, in good marketing. The level of professionalism and quality you bring to the market is directly proportional to the amount of money - and time - you are willing to invest. And so we come to point number 3....

3. I loathe promotional work. I would rather have my fingernails pulled out than self-promote. One of the reasons I love writing for Harlequin is because, while they encourage self-promotion, they are quite up front about the fact that the best marketing strategy is to write more quality books. Writing books I can handle. Promoting them....not as much fun.

4. I'm inherently lazy. The women I know who are successful with self-publishing - people like inimitable Marie Force, for example - are powerhouses. They manage to write prolifically while amassing huge followings and spend quality time marketing. It takes a special person to be able to do all that, and frankly, I don't have that much energy. I have enough trouble accomplishing what's on my plate now. To think of the work that is required to market one's self - the advertising, the reviews, the blog tours, not to mention the savvy it takes to do those things correctly....well, I'm tired just thinking of it.

So for all of you brave enough to enter the world of self-publishing - good for you. I wish you luck. I hope you're all the next Amanda Hockings. Meanwhile, I'll be here, on the sidelines, rooting for you and sticking with the traditional press.

Keep writing!

Cathryn’s Musing: A Thank-you

2012-01-13T21:31:00.000-05:00

There are some days in our lives that we want to package into a special, happy memory-box that we keep sacred and never want to forget. Last Saturday was one of those days for me.

Booksigning at Barnes & Noble

My friends completely blew me away...a bigger crowd than I ever expected came to show their support, some from long distances away. Family, friends, neighbors, and most especially, our local writer's group, the New England Chapter of RWA. The Moody Muses were all present too (and I should have arranged for a group photo!).

My wish is that every writer gets to see her dream come true, and then gets to share that dream with the people who've supported her. Life doesn't get any better than that.

I'm grateful for the people who've stood by during all the years it has taken to break into publication. Without them, I couldn't have persevered to the payoff. Thank you!

Becca's Musing - A New Old Adventure

2012-01-12T08:41:00.005-05:00

In this early part of the New Year I have been thinking about how I can do things differently . . . whether it's to write harder, work smarter, plan better, or live slower. I have been reading more of a variety of a books and I have started working on a new book of my own -- something that departs from what I've been writing these past few years, but also something that gets me back to my roots as a writer. I have not given up on the kinds of books that have called to me more recently, but there is something satisfying in coming full circle . . . in jumping back in where I began.

As I get started on this new old adventure, I find myself asking some questions I hadn't asked in a long time. Questions such as:

What am I writing and why am I writing it?

Who is my audience and what do they expect?

Do I even know who I am as a writer and what have I got to say?

I think these questions -- and their answers -- should be more obvious to me but over the years my attentions have been pulled away by so many shiny or emotional distractions, much to my dismay. I think I am coming back to some clarity and to some honest answers to these questions and I am pleased to have had some peaceful time to contemplate them.

In the goal setting exercises I have undertaken in the past few years I often assess the goals themselves, if I made them and why or why not, how can I set smarter, more attainable goals, what is the motivation behind them. But the factor in the equation I have not taken the time to assess is myself. What our physical/emotional/intellectual/spiritual make-up is can be the factor that makes all the difference. I think this new self-awareness is going to help me recognize some things I have forgotten along the way and inform some important decisions as I move forward on this new book and contemplate where my writing might go from here. We'll see!

Seize the day!
Becca

Katy's Musing: Thoughts on Emotion

2012-01-11T20:32:00.000-05:00

I say "emotion lives in the body" all the time when trying to show how to write with more emotional intensity, but when I say it, I truly mean in the body. What do you feel when you're angry? What are the physical sensations? Not, what do you do? For example, it used to be that when I got angry, I got numb. If something fairly dire had happened and I wasn't feeling anything, then I was probably angry. I also think that we call emotions 'feelings' in part because we feel them, physically. Especially the strong, maybe-hard-wired ones. (Such as disgust and anger and fear, the ones that generate such particular facial expressions that we recognize them by sight, regardless of what culture or time the image originated in.)

As far as I can tell, the way emotion is generated in the body is pretty much the same for all humans, the way we're all pretty much the same in how our physical systems operate. However, what trips our emotional triggers varies--for example, snakes disgust you but I think they're beautiful--and what each of us does with our emotions varies as well. We both get angry: you explode and get it out; I stew for days.

This can be very helpful in characterization. What triggers your characters' emotions, if different people have different triggers? How does each character express that emotion? And what emotions does s/he suppress and repress, if any?

That being said, I think there's absolutely a place for the simplicity of, "She stared at him, surprised." For me, the more time I spend on anything in a story, the more importance it has. So if the emotion--sadness or surprise or whatever--was part of the texture of the scene but not hugely important, then I would absolutely go with what you have. There's a phrase I read somewhere, I think to do with cavalry: Get over heavy ground as lightly as possible. Anyway, it comes to mind when I'm trying to figure out whether to go with something like the above, or to get more deeply into it.

Just some thoughts on writing emotion on a gloomy January day.

Barb's Musing: Ducks, Dogs and Self-esteem

2012-01-10T14:44:00.000-05:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking about self-esteem lately, in large part because it's the first of the year and the time seems right for self-assessment, and partly because...well, because I have self-esteem issues and I'm always thinking about self-esteem. Or, rather, ways to better mine.

The topic is especially pertinent this year as I look back at my past two year's resolutions. In 2010, I resolved to feel like less of an impostor. Last year I resolved to "deal" with the changes in my life since achieving my lifelong dream of selling to Harlequin.

How'd I do on these resolutions? With all certainty, I can say "OK." There are more days than not when I feel like I have a real handle on this writing life, and that I actually belong in the writing community.

On the other hand, no matter how many of those days I have, there are still times when I am thrust headlong back into the land of doubt. All it takes is one situation or contact with one negative person, and wham! I'm back to doubting myself, or wondering if I'm thinking too highly of my own skills or being too over confident. Perhaps my success and talent aren't what I think they are. Etc., Etc. Etc.

See, for people with self-esteem issues, the highs - while high - are short-lived, while the lows are exceptionally low. I doubt I have to explain that too much to the writers reading this blog since I'm certain they all understand. (Ten good reviews versus one crappy review? Enough said.)

A couple of days ago, however, I read an interesting article in Psychology Today. (My friends who are serious psychologists are probably shuddering right about now.) In it, the author proposes that self-esteem, low or high, isn't going to change. You are what you are is the theory and, for people like me, part of the problem is trying to change who we basically are. Or as they put it - a duck and a dog both go in the water. A duck doesn't get wet. A dog does and has to shake the water off. The dog can cry about not being duck or he can learn how to become a better dog (and find the best way to shake off the water.) My problem these past few years is that I've been mad at myself for not being a duck.

So now I'm adopting the idea that I'll always have insecure days. When they hit, I'm better off trying to figure out why I'm feeling insecure than kicking myself. Wish I'd known that two years ago because I think I'd have achieved my resolution a whole lot faster.

Quack, quack! Woof, woof!

Becca's Musing - New Year Pep Talk

2012-01-05T09:12:00.006-05:00

I'm not really thinking in terms of resolutions for this New Year, but more about fine tuning my behaviors, attitudes, and outlook to effect the kinds of changes I want to bring about in different aspects of my life. My confidence has sustained a few hard blows over time, and instead of wringing out the wisdom I may have gleaned from these experiences I have somehow let the damaging niggles of doubt creep into the cracks where the knowledge should have taken root. That doubt has been the most harmful and tenacious kind of weed, and the result has been 100% counter-productive to my growth and progress.

This is especially true in my writing life, which to my rational self sounds ridiculous. I have been kicking around this business for nine years and I know I have learned a ton about the craft and business of writing but because I have so much more to learn and I have not achieved the success I had set for myself, I feel like I am lacking that certain credential that would justify me as a learned person on the subject. I don't mind admitting that I may not know everything there is to know, but I don't want to put myself out there and be exposed as a fraud, either. And that scary possibility is what adds to the dent in my confidence and helps hold me back.

But what I have learned over the past year is that there are a ton of people in this business who know less than I do and are putting themselves out there all the time . . . and I am not sure that's good. I sit back and watch some of the goings on and am reminded of the saying, sometimes a little bit of knowledge is a bad thing . . .

I could teach a class on how to find an agent but I wouldn't dare because I haven't landed one myself. I could teach a class on how to pitch your book but I won't do that either because I haven't sold one. And so on. I am coming to terms with my feelings about this - for my comfort level, I believe there are certain qualifications that make people in this business more legitimate than others, but just because I don't yet have those qualifications shouldn't dent my confidence the way it does. All writers are learning and growing all the time so I take solace in knowing that even the best authors are constantly evolving. I think it's about the comfort you find in your own knowledge and experience, and I fully acknowledge that what's comfortable for me won't work for other people. Realizing this fact is helping with my quest to retool my behaviors, attitudes, and outlook and to focus more on what I can do to build that confidence and less on what other people are doing about theirs.

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: Plan for 2012

2012-01-04T19:06:00.002-05:00

At one point or another, somewhere on the internet, I said that I don't make New Year's Resolutions. The way I see it, if I want to do it, I can make that choice at any point. I don't have to wait for the new year to roll around. At the same time, there's something to be said for making plans, for articulating intentions, and doing it at the turn of the year gives an easy-to-remember milestone. A year from now, I won't have to remember when I made my commitment to do X.

I took the end of my vacation time in the week before Christmas. I'm doing much better on the workout front, and my intention was to go to the gym while I was on vacation. Sadly, I didn't meet that commitment -- life, she intrudes from time to time -- and I struggled with guilt over it. Finally, I reached the point of being tired of the guilt. At the end of the week, I realized my chance to work out was done. There was no way to change the fact that I hadn't made it to the gym. I thought, "It's disappointing, but it's done, so move on."

As soon as I thought that, something inside eased. Contemplating my reaction, I realized that I can apply that thought every time I feel guilty, because the things I feel guilty about are the things I can't change. Yes, I'm disappointed not to have done X but I can't change that, so move on.

I also realized that part of what makes me feel guilty are my relentless standards. I've talked before about how I always expect my absolute best at every moment -- not the best I have to offer at that moment, but the absolute best, the best of my very best moments. When I write it down, I see how ridiculous that is, and I thought how ridiculous it is as I was considering how to leave guilt at the door. I thought, "Relax your standards."

Relax my standards, relax my tight shoulders... As soon as I thought of that in relation to the things I'd been harassing myself about -- about not writing enough, not eating well enough, not wanting to do planks -- I felt a surge of energy. All the things that seemed so monumental shrank in size, and writing, working out, eating properly and attempting minute-long planks seemed possible.

I should have expected that. Recent studies have shown that beating yourself up to get stuff done is counterproductive. If you want to motivate yourself, be kind and supportive. I should also have known from experience. Years ago, I would declare o myself that a given day was a "goof off day"...and then I would get more done than most other days. It took me years to realize it was because I'd relaxed. I was no longer spending energy on anxiety and fear

I will have to remind myself to relax. I will have to remind myself to move on. But I have a plan now, and I'm feeling good about 2012. I wish the same for you.

Yet Another Resolutions Post

2012-01-03T09:43:00.001-05:00

They say (who they are, I have know clue, but apparently I'm listening to them) that the first step in the power of attraction is to put your intentions out into the universe. I don't know if they are right, but I do know that there is something about declaring yourself publicly that helps seal your resolve. Perhaps it's the fear of total embarrassment if you fail. Or perhaps it's garnering support. Either way, I'm joining the long list of bloggers who are publicly declaring their New Year's resolutions. If you follow my Facebook fan page (Barbara Wallace, Author) then you've already read them once.

1. Better time management. I waste a lot of time. I know it, and though I try to make excuses, it's reached the point where I can't ignore my failing anymore. This year I need to create better balance between my writing career and my non-writing life. A lot of things slipped through the cracks last year because I was too distracted to get to them. I also pulled way too many all-nighters for a woman my age. So, this year I pledge to have a better grip on my day-to-day activities, if for no other reason than to make sure my family gets the appreciation and attention they deserve.

2. Get ready for my empty nest. My baby, The Boy, leaves for college in nine months. *Sniff *Sniff. For the first time in eighteen years my husband and I will have the house to ourselves. While there are many benefits to this - like getting our family room back and no longer having to wait up for someone to drive home -- the simple truth is I'm going to miss The Boy terribly. I'm already working on shoring up the other areas on my life so that the emptiness isn't quite as overwhelming.

3. Whine less; Celebrate more. I spent a good chunk of 2011 whining and feeling insecure. So much so I failed to truly appreciate all the fantastic blessings that crossed my path. This is one of the reasons why, instead of continuing my rant about people using the term "romance novel cliche" that I started on Twitter, I chose to write about resoutions. As 2012 unfolds, I'm going to take more time to celebrate my blessings (like the fact I raised a boy with a good head on his shoulders) rather than whine about the things I can't control (like the fact he grew up and left me). By the way, a friend on Facebook suggested this really read "Celebrate with Wine". He has a point.

4. Read at least 50 books. This plays into the time management thing. Last year I was so often frazzled by deadlines that I didn't get to do nearly as much reading as I wanted. I also did a lot more online reading. (Fan fiction, you are my weakness.) This year I want to get back to the pleasures of curling up with a good story. I have a secondary goal as well - if I really do read a book a week, it'll be incredibly easy to justify buying a new Kindle for my birthday in July.

5. Run the Turkey Trot 5K with the Boy this Thanksgiving. The Boy ran his first 5K last Thanksgiving in 32 minutes. I do not intend to match his time. I'm thinking more of doubling it and finishing in about an hour. For me, just finishing will be enough.

6. This one wasn't on my Facebook page, but it is to get a better handle on social media marketing and develop a better web presence. I'm entering the second year of my published career. It's time I start connecting with readers. (And in keeping with Resolution #3 - celebrate the fact that I actually have readers!)

So there you have them - my New Year's resolutions. Far less lofty ones than last year's. (I'm going to talk about that resolution next week, by the way.)What are yours?
____________________________________________________

On a very happy note - today is also a special day here at the Moody Muses. It's the National Debut of Cathryn Parry's Harlequin Super Romance! Something to Prove hits the shelves today! This is a huge moment of celebration. Very few people have worked as hard as Cathryn as to sell to Harlequin. She is to be applauded and admired. By the way, it'll come as no surprise that Romantic Times gave her debut Four Stars. Congrats!

Winners in the Drawing for “Something to Prove”

2012-01-02T10:30:00.000-05:00

Janet (from the 12/24 post), LindaC, and LaReine:

Please use the contact page on my website (www.CathrynParry.com) to send your name and address, and I’ll mail you the prize you won (a signed copy of Something to Prove). Congratulations and Happy New Year!

Cathryn’s Musing: New Year’s Projects

2011-12-31T17:41:00.000-05:00

For the past week, I’ve been musing over the projects I want to tackle in 2012. At the top of the list is a “course correction” in diet habits. Too many sweets and too few vegetables have left me feeling sluggish. My immune system isn’t working so well, and I’m now fighting the first ear infection in years. We won’t even talk about the weight gain; there is no scale in our house but I feel my jeans are getting tight, so I know it’s time for a change.

The first step is to get into the habit of planning meals. Next, I need to shop for ingredients, and finally, to make the commitment to cooking at home again. I realize I’m fortunate to be able to work from home most of the time. Sometimes I can’t, though, and on those days, the best I can do is to either bring something healthy with me, or avoid the foods that get me in trouble. (That would be sweets.)

I also “went on vacation” this week from exercising. The kids are home from school due to the holidays, which makes the area ice skating rinks extremely crowded. I’ll start up my skating and stretching sessions again next week while they’re back in classes, and that will help with the healthier eating (I hope).

Meanwhile, I’m off to shop for vegetables. Beets, peppers, squash, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes… Do you have any dietary goals this season?

I’ll check in next Friday and let you know how my sweets-detox week went. In the meantime, Happy New Year’s Eve!

Becca's Musing: New Year, New Goals

2011-12-29T11:23:00.006-05:00

It's that point in the year when I start to pull together the pieces of my annual report to my writer self -- not only to see what I accomplished over the past year but to also note the things I didn't. It's the things I missed or didn't do that will help inform how I proceed going into this next year. It's a great time for goal setting, and if you haven't started to think about that exercise yet or aren't exactly sure where to start, I must defer to Susan Meier, who has shared her workshop on this very topic on her blog. She has posted the workshop in several installments, so if you scroll down her list of posts you will find the earliest so you can read from there and work your way back up.

One of the things I hope to accomplish in the new year is to be more constructive with my posts on the blog. The emotions that have weighed me down over the past year and a half have rendered my posts less useful than I would like, so one thing I would like to do is to lay out a blog schedule for myself that would make my posts more educational and productive. We'll see how that goes -- resolutions and intentions always seem so fresh and doable when the promise of a clean slate emerges . . . then life happens and we make adjustments and do the best we can. At any rate, the blog is foremost on my mind as I consider the goals I would like to accomplish in 2012.

What about you? Are you embarking on some goal setting these days? Please share! I hope the New Year is your time to make all those goals and dreams come true.

Seize the day!
Becca

Cathryn’s Musing: Happy Holidays!

2011-12-24T08:43:00.001-05:00

Today is Christmas Eve. See our glorious tree? The presents are wrapped, and the dinner list is made. All we have left to do is clean the house and shop for Sunday’s meal.

A tradition in our house on Christmas Eve each year is to re-read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. My mom was an English literature teacher for many years, and the book and movie were staples of our holidays. Do you remember these lines from the famous opening Stave?

“Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—Old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather.”

“Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone. A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as a flint…secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue…”

“The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to wam himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

“A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

“Bah!” said Scrooge. “Humbug!” … “Every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”

I loved Ebenezer Scrooge. When I was young, of all the great books and the great literature my mom kept in our house, I most wanted to be like Charles Dickens and develop the ability to create stories with such memorable characters. I still aspire to be like him.

One wonderful blessing of my 2011 is that an editor in a publishing house saw something in one of my stories that made her decide to publish it. My Harlequin Superromance, “Something to Prove,” is releasing on January 3^rd. For everyone who enters a comment on any of the Moody Muses blog posts from now until the new year, I’ll enter your name in a drawing to mail you an author copy.

Thanks for reading. If you have any Christmas Eve or other holiday traditions in your home, I’d love to hear them.

Happy Holidays!

Becca's Musing: A Gift of Words

2011-12-22T10:42:00.010-05:00

The gift I would love most to receive this holiday season (or any time at all) is, actually, the gift of time. There just never seems to be enough of it to balance what we want to do with what we have to do. Since I can't make adjustments to the space-time continuum, I tried to come up with another gift that might appeal to writers. When I stumbled across Merriam Webster's Top Ten Favorite Quotations About Words, I thought - now that is something worth sharing. I loved them and hope you will, too:

#10: Lightning

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

– Mark Twain, 1888

#9: Rush-Hour Trafic

“For there is no doubt that I have lots of words inside me; but at moments, like rush-hour traffic at the mouth of a tunnel, they jam.”

– John Updike, Self-Consciousness, 1989

#8: Nouns and Verbs

“Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.”

– William Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, 1959

(A variation of this idea: "The road to hell is paved with adverbs." – Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, 2000.)

#7: Clear Language

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

#6: Invisible Ink

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words all being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.”

– Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature, 1980

#5: The Smallest Ideas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.”

– Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Frederick Trevor Hill's Lincoln the Lawyer, 1906

#4: Wit

“Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.”

– Dorothy Parker, interview in Paris Review, 1956

#3: Limits of My Language

“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.”

– Ludwig Wittgenstein,Philosophical Investigations, 1953

#2: Long Words

“'Well,' said Owl, 'the customary procedure in such cases is as follows.'

'What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?'

said Pooh. 'For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.'

'It means the Thing to Do.'

'As long as it means that, I don’t mind,' said Pooh humbly.'”

– A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926

#1: Words Become Superfluous

“A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop speech when words become superfluous.”

– Ingrid Bergman

Again, I cannot take credit for these gems – I lifted them from the Merriam Webster site in order to share them here. (As a librarian who has just helped another semester’s worth of students make it to the end of finals, I know the importance of citation!) I hope there is at least one quote in here that gives you the inspiration, oomph, or contemplation you need to move forward on anything that may have you feeling stuck.

And as for gifts, I hope you get all you’ve wished for this holiday season.

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: In the Land of Obvious?

2011-12-21T16:04:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking for a few days about today's blog post, yet I have nothing to write, nothing that insists on being said. I have any number of mundane writing concerns -- "How on earth did I paint myself into this corner and how on earth am I going to get myself out of it?!?!" -- but none of them seems interesting enough to write about. Aren't we all going through the same stupid things? Why would my experience be anything other than dull reading?

Maybe it is dull reading...but maybe it isn't. I go through this with my fiction, too: the certainty that what I'm writing is boring and stupid and dull, a case study in obviousness. I think, "Oh, people are going to see that coming a mile away." I think I lack subtlety, and fear I'm beating people over the head with my ideas.

But maybe I'm not. Maybe they seem obvious to me because I know they're there. As I work my way through my second (or third -- I can't remember for sure) go round with "Fringe", I find myself wondering if its writers and producers thought things I'm just noticing now were obvious and easy to see, things like Peter telling Olivia, "You're gonna be okay," in "Black Betty." I've seen that episode three times, and I'd never caught that until last night. (It's spoiler-ish to explain the significance. Just trust me that it's important.)

One of the hardest things for me as a writer -- something I know I've mentioned before, here or elsewhere -- is that I can never see my work as other people see it. I can get critiques and feedback from beta readers, but that only tells me how other people receive it. I can never see the show from the audience; I'm always backstage, aware of the scaffolding, with the memory of all those rehearsals overlaying the performance. I wish I could see what I do from the audience. I wish I could approach my work with fresh, wondering eyes. I know I can't, but I still wish I could.

And I wonder, am I the only one who wishes this? Is this one of the things we all go through? Or is it something that no one else experiences? I'd love it if you'd let me know, either way.

Barb's Musing: Holiday Wishes

2011-12-20T17:21:00.001-05:00

I'm getting ready to check out for the rest of the year. Things are pretty hectic here at Casa de Wallace. We're getting ready for Christmas, boy is waiting on college acceptances (or rejections - we just don't think about those), my husband is travelling like crazy. Even our newest Wallace - Minion, the Evil One-Eyed Cat has gotten into the hectic spirit. As I type this, he's trying to kill the blinking cursor on the computer screen. All in all - it's general craziness. (And you wonder why I posted cocktail recipes last week!)

Meanwhile, last week I read a blog by indie writer Roger Grubbs regarding Christmas Wishes. His Christmas wish was that everyone this season take one moment to do something nice for someone else. I thought that was a terrific sentiment. As writers we, by necessity, spend so much time by ourselves. Getting out of our heads once in a while feels terrific. I think that's why our industry is often so generous to those in need.

Before I go wrestle the last of the Christmas preparation, I wanted to take a moment to wish all our Moody Muse readers a wonderful, happy and safe holiday season. We love the comments people leave on the blog every week. And we love those of you who visit but don't comment too! We hope you'll continue to visit in 2012. We've got a lot of very exciting plans, including celebrating our own Cathryn Parry's debut with Harlequin Romance.

So, for one last time in 2011, I wish you Happy Writing. Enjoy the holidays, be good to yourselves, and may 2012 bring good fortune, good health and good times.

Barb Wallace

Becca's Musing: Sarah Dessen's Five (And My Own Five Attempt )

2011-12-15T10:00:00.009-05:00

One of my favorite YA authors, Sarah Dessen, frequently puts up a blog called The Five, where she talks about five things that happened/came to mind/popped up over the past week. Every time I've read about her five, I always think how clever she is to notice such things and turn them into a creative blog post. I thought it was such a neat idea and I wanted to give it a try, too. So for my five this week, I started thinking about the holidays and a few things that have happened/come to mind/popped up as I have been getting ready for Christmas.

1. Christmas as a kid was always such a magical experience. Waking up on Christmas morning, seeing that Santa came, dragging my parents out of bed so we could rip open all the presents. I think about families who are struggling financially and I worry about the kids who won't get to have a Christmas or have a warm meal. A few years ago I began donating toys to Toys for Tots and though it breaks my heart that I am not able to give as much as I would like, I still contribute as much as I can to this effort. Each kid should get to open a toy at Christmas.

2. I also can't pass a Salvation Army bell ringer without feeling guilty for not contributing to the red kettle. I haven't been able to add to all the kettles I've passed this year, but when I can I try to remember to tuck a few bills into my pocket so I can slip them in the slot on my way out of the store. I was able to do so last night, and the kind bell ringer said to me, "God bless you. Merry Christmas." It brought tears to my eyes. Sometimes it's something as simple as that to make you feel the spirit of the season.

3. With the addition of the boyfriend to my life, I am working on balancing the needs of two families when it comes to time, expectations, vacations, and holidays. It's been over ten years since I've had to do that and my muscle memory is pretty weak, I must say. I am getting back in the swing of it, planning our two-party holiday system, buying gifts for both sides and now wrapping said gifts. I love to wrap but this year I am having a hard time - my back is so sore from the repetitive motion and hunching over the parcels. Whew! I am out of shape, in more ways than one. It is a nice problem to have, but when I crash into bed at the end of a wrapping session, I am so grateful to be able to relax my body and stretch out all those kinks.

4. The holidays are one of the most demanding times of the year, but, strangely, it is a time when I most crave to write. I am sure it's the result of some sort of inner mind game -- my psyche knowing it's when I am least likely to have the time so it pushes even more to try to get some writing done. This is when I am grateful for any planning, plotting or pre-writing I may have done up to this point. Unfortunately, I have not accomplished much in that department these last few months...

5. I don't know where I would be without the people I love. Yes, the demands of the season are picking at my frayed ends but I still do all I can to spend time with my loved ones. They are the best medicine and make everything worth it.

So those are five random things that have happened/come to mind/popped up so far this season. I am not sure I did Sarah Dessen's concept justice but we all have to start somewhere and come into our own on our own time. Besides, Christmas #1 for us is this weekend and while there will be lots of loved ones around, there is still so much to do!

Wishing you guys the sentiments from one of my favorite holiday songs - a Cool Yule...

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: Don't Fall Down

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

A month ago, I mentioned that I'd joined the gym across the street from my day job. Since then, I've been working out steadily, going 2-3 times a week, and that's made me very pleased with myself

Monday, I met with a trainer and had my fitness assessed. The results were not at all what I wanted, and that upset me. I worked out regularly for years. I'm working out now. I shouldn't be as out of shape as I am. I wanted to cry when it was all over, and my evening was spent in a fog of disappointment.

When I woke up Tuesday morning, I felt better. Yeah, I'm not in particularly good shape...but I'm in better shape than I would have been had I never worked out. Yeah, I'm not in particularly good shape...but I'm doing something about it.

Life is full of disappointments, including those moments when we let ourselves down. Rejections and bad reviews can make us feel sad and low. There is nothing that can prevent those moments from happening, from knocking us down. All we can do is keep them from holding us down. All we can do is keep getting up.

You might remember Playskool Weebles -- "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down." I was a kid during the original launch and the phrase stuck in my mind. At some point, my sisters and I started quoting it to each other to remind ourselves of our resilience. By refusing to let my disappointment in my current state of fitness flatten me, I'm being a weeble. I'm not falling down. I'm not letting the moment keep me down.

Barb's Musing: Writerly Cocktails

2011-12-13T10:57:00.004-05:00

I thought I'd do something a little different this week. Since it's the holidays and I've (hopefully) finished my last round of revisions, my mind is on celebrating. It dawned on my that while writers are known for having cocktails, very few cocktails have actually been created for them. So I put on my thinking cap (okay, I played on Google) and came up with a few suggestions.

Disclaimer: (Hey - I didn't spend a decade working for a lawyer for nothing): The content below is intended for responsible adults of legal drinking age. It is purely intended for entertainment purposes. If you are over the age of 21 and do drink, please drink responsibly. Do not drink and drive. In other words, these are for fun, don't try them if you're under 18, don't over indulge, and don't do anything stupid. And if you do overindulge, don't blame us because we warned you not to.

THE REJECTION

(If I’ve learned anything from watching Big Bang Theory –bsides the words to Soft Kitty – it’s that when a friend is in distress, youoffer them a hot beverage. What causesmore distress than a rejection? Thislittle toddy will zip those rejection blues way)

1 ½ oz whiskey
6 ounces ounces hot apple cider
Cinnamon stick

½ teaspoon butter (optional)

Heat cider. Add whiskey and garnish with a cinnamon stick. If you want, top with ½ teaspoon of butter tomake the experience at little “smoother”

THE ISBN

Self-publishing took the industry by storm this year. Shouldn’t those taking the plunge get theirown cocktail? Plus, having an ISBN makesyour book official no matter who the publisher is.)

Iced Glass½ ounce
Smirnoff vodka
2 ounces Bailey’s Irish Cream
Nutmeg

Mix Smirnoff and Baileys in an iced glass (a martini glass makes it super official) andtop with a dash of nutmeg.

THE END

Typing those last two words requires a special cocktail to celebrate. This one is chock full of alcohol because let’sface it, we’re celebrating!

1 ½ ouncevodka

½ ounce Chambord
2 ounces pineapple juice

Mix ingredients in a shaker with ice and pour into a fancyglass. After all, you’re celebrating.

THE REVISION

Like the process itself, the revision takes multipleingredients and blends them into a satisfying experience..

4 oz red wine
2 oz lemon-lime soda
2 oz ginger ale

Pour the wine, lemon-lime soda and ginger ale into a highball glass almostfilled with ice cubes. Stir well. Garnish with a twist of lemon and a slice oforange, and serve.

THE DEADLINE

Who are we kidding –the deadline drink is coffee. Lots and Lots of coffee.

Becca's Musing: 12 Writing Prompts to Escape the Holidays

2011-12-08T09:08:00.009-05:00

There was an article that came out through Writer's Digest earlier this week called A 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises. The idea was a take on the 12-Days of Christmas, but instead of those drummers drumming and ladies dancing the article offered some thoughts and prompts to get your writing juices flowing. I admit, I was tempted to just copy and paste the entire article here because the Christmas rush has me spinning and in the interest of time and wanting to offer something interesting I thought the article could give you something better than I could on this day. But since this is a writing blog I decided to indeed try to write something of my own, so here it is: 12 writing prompts you may or may not have already considered trying:

1. What if you ruled the world? Write about the best aspects of your kingdom. What is the most negative thing about your utopia?

2. Have an annoying boss/co-worker/family member/landlord? Write a comeuppance scene in which they get their just due. (You can actually kill them off in this scene, if you really, really want to.)

3. Winning the lottery is a good thing, right? Imagine the number of people who come out of the woodwork asking that prize winner for money. Create the most outlandish request you can conceive, and consider how the lottery winner feels about becoming every casual acquaintance's new bank of choice.

4. Imagine your perfect day. Write about it in detail. Now jot down action steps you could take to make each of those details come true.

5. Do you have a favorite teacher? How did they get to be that way? Imagine his or her backstory and the life experiences that made him/her into such a great influence.

6. Is there a situation in your life that you wish ended in a different way? Rewrite that situation and give it the ending you wish you got the first time around.

7. What if Laura Ingalls Wilder was the spoiled, obnoxious brat and Nellie Oleson was the adorable, lovable girl in Walnut Grove? How different would life have been on the prairie for Ma and Pa?

8. Almost run off the road by an aggressive driver? Imagine why they're driving so recklessly. Could it be that they're just a bully behind the wheel? A bad day? A medical emergency? The need for a bathroom? Write about what would drive someone to potentially be so dangerous and destructive to themselves and the people around them.

9. Have a favorite song? Imagine it's been used in a movie soundtrack. What scene in the film does the song accompany? Flesh the scene out in detail.

10. Write your acceptance speech for when you win the Oscar/Grammy/Emmy/Rita....

11. Write out instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (If you put five writers in a room and give them the same task, you will get five different takes on how to make a sandwich.)

12. Need a break from the holiday rush? If you just bagged it and went on vacation instead, where would you go and what would you do? What would your version of Skipping Christmas look like? Any repercussions you can think of?

So there you have it. If you're stuck in your writing and are looking for a silly and fun distraction from the holidays to get the juices going in another direction, I hope one or more of the prompts above give you something to play with.

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: Good News, Bad News

2011-12-07T19:28:00.001-05:00

Yesterday on Twitter, I said, "Okay, here are my options: be unhappy because my pants are tight or be happy because I'm once again working out regularly." Today, I told some writing friends that I'm happy I'm back to writing every day, but I'm not happy with my productivity.

This isn't the first time I've done this. It's just the most recent. Clearly, I am a good news/bad news kind of girl.

Why is that? Why do I qualify every good thing by bringing up a bad thing? I don't think it's because I'm more focused on one than the other, nor do I see myself as a negative sort of person. I suspect it has something to do with the way I see more than one interpretation of a given situation or behavior. That is, the situation isn't all good or all bad, it's a little of both.

That's a useful ability to have as a writer. If I can see a situation in more than one way, even a situation I made up, I can give varying interpretations of the situation to my characters. If a situation lends itself to more than one interpretation, what will come of it is less obvious.

I'm glad to have this ability (the good news), but sometimes I wish it let me just enjoy a good moment (the bad news).

Saying Goodbye to Characters

2011-12-06T10:56:00.001-05:00

It's always hard for me when a story is finished. The week before my book is due, I'm usually completely immersed, to the point where these two people's lives are all I think about. Typing The End then is a little like saying goodbye forever. It takes a day or two of mourning before I can jump into the next project.

So today I'm taking a break, drinking coffee and immersing myself in someone else's characters. I cannot tell you waht a joy it is to be reading again! Tomorrow I officially start the Christmas season with cookies, music and decorations.

I'm curious - what do you all do when ending a major project or story? Do you have any rituals to help you say goodbye and get ready for the next group of characters? Please share!

Cathryn's Musing: Holiday Pampering

2011-12-02T21:57:00.011-05:00

Do you do anything special to pamper yourself during the sometimes-stressful holiday season?

My Flylady group recently shared a list of member ideas for short pampering sessions. The goal is to choose one every day in order to help relieve stress and to honor yourself, because you deserve it! (FLY = Finally Loving Yourself.)

Some of my favorite missions (on the physical side) are:

- Put on an exfoliating mask while you take a hot, relaxing bath.

- Massage your hands with nice lotion or oil for 5 minutes.
- Use a sugar scrub on your feet and elbows:

Homemade Sugar Scrub
4 T Olive Oil
Enough sugar to make it pasty
Your favorite fragrance (Lemon Juice, Favorite Perfume, etc.)
Apply all over. After soaping and rinsing, the sugar will exfoliate and the olive oil will moisturize.

- Give yourself a pedicure.
- Paint your fingernails with your favorite color!

And on the spiritual side:

- Spend 5 minutes writing in your gratitude journal.
- Watch your favorite movie! Get out the hankies.
- Put on some relaxing music and listen quietly.
- Sit down with a nice cup of something warm to drink and read a favorite magazine or book.

Here are some ideas that I came up with:

- Take a long walk in a park, near a pond or lake if possible
- Burn natural-scented holiday candles while you work
- Put up a holiday wreath or other favorite decoration (especially one that smells nice) in your office

The point is to try thinking of one special thing to do for yourself every day. It might only take 5 minutes, but it does make a difference in your outlook.

* * *

On a personal note, my debut book is available this month (on eHarlequin) and starting January 3^rd on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and in some Walmart stores. This has been an amazing journey—a lifelong dream met!—but at the same time, I’ve found that the worries and fears over “doing it right” have been sometimes overwhelming. It took me many, many years of writing and learning to get to this point of breaking into the industry, and I don’t want to sabotage myself by neglecting to do all that I can do to promote the book. The hard part, I am finding, is to implement my plan while still retaining my sanity and my ability to work on the next stories. Taking time out for myself is sometimes hard to schedule, but it does help calm me.

Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your ideas!

Becca's Musing: Re-imagining

2011-12-01T06:00:00.002-05:00

Sometimes the universe sends us gentle nudges to urge us in a certain direction. When we fail to pay attention or acknowledge the nudges, the universe can get more insistent. And still, if we don't pick up on the signs the universe will eventually make herself known, often pushing us into a corner and requiring us to act in some way that will force the decisive action that we were reluctant to take, or even shed an awareness on the fact that the action needed taking in the first place.

I am in such a position - recently learning I will need to find a new place to live, knowing that I should have moved before now . . . all the while hoping that the timing in other parts of my life would have come together in a much more cooperative way so that a sort of synergy would have fueled the changes I hope to make in my work life, home life, and love life. Alas, sometimes the pieces don't come together the way we hope or plan. Sometimes there is a larger plan we can't even begin to know or understand. Sometimes things don't work out the way we want. And sometimes things work out even better.

I am trying to be calm and patient, but I don't deal well with upheaval and certain unknowns. If I push myself to focus and compartmentalize, I do start to feel excited about the possibilities, which is something that has eluded me these past few months. I feel the energy from those possibilities, re-imagining my present circumstances and the places I can go from here. I find myself opening my writing up to different possibilities as well. A few weeks back I posted a blog about writing a variety of lists about the people, places, things, memories, etc., that I love and have loved throughout my life. I am still working on and adding to that list, but some things have emerged that are prompting me to think a little differently about my writing.

All these balls in the air are a little scary for me, but I want to embrace these changes and turn these unknowns into exciting, productive, and happy endings. I know they are just the latest stretches on the journey for me, and I hope they will be good ones! After just completing my daily notes of gratitude as part of a month of thanks, I know I have a lot to be grateful for. I just have to work on not sweating the small stuff.

Seize the day!
Becca

Katy's Musing: On the Fringe

2011-11-30T20:14:00.001-05:00

For the past couple of months, my sister and I have been binge-watching the TV series Fringe. We watched DVDs of the first three seasons, watched the first seven episodes of the current (fourth) season...and started all over again. We've talked about what we love about the series and it seems to boil down to the characters and their relationships (which, without getting all spoilery, are more complicated than one might guess). The writing and acting are excellent, which helps, but in the end it's the characters and their relationships.

This has been a valuable lesson for me, reminding me that it's "the characters, stupid." I suspect, however, that it's not the most valuable lesson.

At the beginning of October, I talked a little bit about the art of storytelling. In the last few days, it's felt as if something is finally gelling for me, something about how I develop stories, something in how I understand them. I'm finding it almost impossible to articulate what I understand, or even access it consciously. But it's there, and it's shaping how I think about what I'm doing. It's shaping how I look at what needs to happen and where to go next. I'm now conscious that I'm creating a whole story, that everything that happens in the story is there to advance the story.

For some reason, I'm convinced that watching Fringe is driving this, especially watching it the way I have, finishing all the available episodes and starting all over again. I'm picking up all the little things the writers and producers did to forward a season-long story, as well as the stories of the individual episodes that made up that season. Every event is a step along the story's road, bringing the reader closer to the destination. Good storytelling makes the journey itself enjoyable, too, but the key is moving forward.

I think.

As I said, I can't articulate this. I just know it's important, and I'm almost certain it's from bingeing on Fringe.

Notes from the Barb Cave (Thanksgiving Edition)

2011-11-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

For those of you new to the Muses – the Barb Cave is whereBarb goes when she has a whole lot of writing to do. As a result, my weekly blog post becomes alist of random observations and thoughts, usually in no coherent order, andwithout any meaningful point.

Black Friday is my least favorite day of the year. I only participate because my mother likes toget all her Christmas shopping done on the day after Thanksgiving. Personally, I prefer to do my Christmas shoppingon Non-Descript Weekday – which is some random day during the week when mostpeople are home and I can find a parking space.
That said, I fervently believe people who stalk for parkingspaces in mall parking lots should automatically be placed on Santa’s Naughtylist.
People who hate shopping and yet still take their mothersshopping on Black Friday are automatically placed on the Nice List.
I am pretty certain Starbucks is leading a vast conspiracyto make me gain back any weight I lost during the year by making their eggnoglattes. Did you know there’s over 300calories in a grande? And that’s with skim milk and no whipped cream. If they are going to make those suckers sofattening, then they really shouldn’t taste as good as they do.
I’m also thinking there should be a special dispensation ofcalories for people who are drinking an eggnog latte while taking their mothersshopping on Black Friday. Hey - Boston politiciansget a dispensation allowing them to eat meat if St. Patrick’s Day falls on aFriday. Why not a calorie-free day? Just sayin’….

Whenever I get my books in the mail, I automatically panicthat there’s some terrible typographical error hidden within the pages. This month’s panic: that I screwed up theQuadratic Equation. The Boy says Idid. But then, he didn’t exactly winprizes in geometry. I’m afraid tolook.

By the way, the reason we’re talking about QuadraticEquations is because my heroine’s son, Andrew, is failing calculus in myupcoming book, Daring to Date the Boss. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
On the plus side, the cover for that book is very cool. (And will be revealed soon!)
Finally, I only recently realized writing my scenes in thefirst person is an excellent way of getting really deep POV. What took me so long to figure that out?

Time now to disappear back into my cave so I can finish the Reluctant Cougar. In the meantime, Happy Writing to you all!

A Thanksgiving Musing

2011-11-24T06:00:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

With best wishes to you and your families from all of us at the Moody Muses for a safe, peaceful, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Becca's Musing: Love Notes

2011-11-17T06:00:00.003-05:00

In May 2010, I attended a seminar being given by the life coach, Jack Canfield. He offers lots of great tools on his web site and has published a number of motivational and self-help books. My favorite one is The Success Principles, but another really good one is The Power of Focus. In preparation for our May 2010 Success Principles workshop, he encouraged us attendees to do some pre-work so that we could really focus on the exercises on the day of the big event.

One of the most valuable of those exercises was the one attached to Principle #3: Decide What You Want. He has created a form that helps you set goals in what he calls the seven major life areas. Filling out the form is supposed to help keep your mind attuned to the goals and focused on the steps needed to achieve them.

He also encourages you to write a list of the 100 goals you'd like to achieve in your lifetime; a list of all the character traits you'd want in a mate . . . essentially we can take any aspect of our lives that we would like to change, create energy around that prospect by making lists and driving both our attention and intention to attract better things to ourselves. (He is a big Law of Attraction guy.)

In my post last week I admitted my continued state of frazzled-ness and later read how Cathryn reported feeling similar. In my comment on Cathryn's post I mentioned wanting to write a different kind of list -- a list noting all the things I love.

I feel so disconnected from my writing right now, as though everything I've learned has rendered me incapable of writing anything good. I know those feelings are in part due to some minor health struggles as well as some other life issues, but I feel like there is more to it, too. I am not sure how to find my way back to a good writing place, so I thought it would be helpful to focus on all that I love -- the people, places, things, memories, and experiences that have stayed with me and brought me such joy. What is it about each that I love so much? I'm going to go Deep POV on myself! (I hope this doesn't sound as naughty as I think it could.) I feel like this exercise would give some root to my writing, steering my stories into directions that are full of this love . . . and hopefully attracting some helpful and restorative energy in this direction. I don't know why I hadn't thought to make this list before, but I think now is as good a time as any to get started. I am interested in seeing how the experiment turns out.

Seize the day!
Becca

Katy's Musing: Know Thyself

2011-11-16T05:30:00.000-05:00

Not surprisingly, my process for writing blog posts is very much like my process for writing fiction: Thought, followed by actual writing. The thought part takes the longest; once I know what I’m going to say, I say it pretty quickly.

Which is a roundabout way of admitting I knew what I was going to talk about today, long before I read Barb’s Tuesday post…and discovered that once again, we were on the same wavelength. I, too, have been thinking about how to accomplish everything I want to accomplish, in the limited amount of time available to me.

As usual, I was thinking about this because I was frustrated. I’ve said before that working out is important to me — I’m with Juvenal, who once said a sound mind in a healthy body was one of the things to desire in life. When I exercise, I’m calmer, happier, more confident. My preferred exercise — weight training — is meditative and calm; focusing on form sends my awareness inward to my body, away from the endless, anxious yapping of my brain. As much as I like exercising, getting to the gym has been difficult for some time. Though I’ve tried, I can’t get myself to go before work — 5:30 is just too early for me — and I’ve been too busy at night to go after work. So what’s a girl to do?

This girl broke down and joined the gym across the street from work, so she can go during her lunch break. The new gym is more expensive than the old gym, and I resisted the additional expense for a long time. Last week, I faced facts. I’m not going to the less expensive gym near my home, so that’s wasted money. My health is important, too important to let an extra $38 a month stand in the way of taking care of myself. I bit the bullet.

The lesson in this is to be honest with myself about my habits and abilities, and to go with the grain of my nature, not against it. I wasted time, money and emotional energy trying to make myself behave in a way that ran contrary to who I am. I know it’s going to be easier to go to the gym on my lunch break than trying to make myself get up really early, or go after a long day at work, when I have other things to do.

The lesson applies to writing as well. I’m most productive late at night, before I go to bed. I keep thinking I’ll work on the bus, I’ll work on my lunch break, I’ll do this, I’ll do that. The reality is, I do none of those things. But if I sit up in bed and open up my notebook, I write. I get the work done. The key now is to make that happen every night, to go with the grain of my nature, so I don’t waste time or effort trying to make myself do things against the grain. I think that’s the best time management tool there is: to recognize who I am and how I work, and work within those bounds, rather than trying to force myself to be something I’m not.

Barb's Musing: A Goal for 2012

2011-11-15T10:09:00.001-05:00

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. ~Ambrose Bierce

I just finished a two-week long revision run, capped off by a manic thirty-six hour sprint over the weekend. I made my deadline. The revisions got done. But at some point during the thirty-six hours (Probably around 2:00AM when I fired up the Keurig) I realized this isn't healthy. I've got a lot of books to write in my writing career, and hopefully a lot of future deadlines. Being on the short-side of fifty, there's no way I can keep pulling all-nighters like a college student. (BTW, I never once pulled an all-nighter in college. Well, there were a couple frat party incidents but those don't count.)

And so I now have a new, high-priority goal for 2012. Better Time Management. I've long said my goal is to be a better writer. Now I'm adding Becoming a More Efficient Writer. I need to learn how to better balance my various writing tasks, how to not waste time - or rather when I can afford to waste time and when I can't, how to balance writing with everything else in my life, and perhaps how to write more than I'm currently writing.

First up: Hiring a Time Management Coach. I figure it's a worthwhile investment in my future.

I'll let you know how it all goes throughout the year. If I learn anything useful, I'll share, of course. In the meantime, I'm off to catch up on all the tasks I missed while sprinting toward my deadline.

Happy writing!

Cathryn's Musing: Present Circumstances

2011-11-14T08:55:00.001-05:00

Becca's last post resonated with me: things have been frantic lately, and I haven't been making all my commitments on time, either. Even this post is several days late!

But then I received this quote from a life coach I know, reminding me to take a deep breath and slow down, and giving me hope:

"Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start."
--Nido Qubein

Today I'll start by writing down everything I want to accomplish this week, and then I'll prioritize the list. This will give me a fresh start.

Becca, I'll be joining you on your gratitude page.

Becca's Musing: A Month of Thanks

2011-11-10T06:00:00.009-05:00

I have been so frazzled for such a long time, more so lately than usual. There's just some weird force in the universe, whether it be the freak weather, the scary economy, or people just doing stupid things and losing their minds. I need a break but I don't foresee that happening any time soon, so I am looking for other ways to court peace and attract harmony into my life. I do think there are things we can do to feel calmer in the storms that rage around us, and there has been one practice going around Facebook this past week that seems like a simple but effective action.

"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily." ~Gerald Good

Some of my friends have taken to Facebook in this month of Thanksgiving to state a daily note of gratitude. In waking up each morning, I try to say five things for which I am grateful and I notice that I feel different and better on the days when I do it as opposed to the days when I don't.

I am a little late in joining in on this month of professing my daily online thanks, but now that I have my power restored I can start. I am at least eager to engage in the experiment and to embrace all the goodness and negate as much of the stormy craziness as I can.

Here's where you can find me on Facebook, in case you want to join me!

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: I've Got the Music in Me

2011-11-09T16:38:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, a writer friend complimented my writing, particularly the apparently effortless way I write lovely description. She said she knows I work at it, but still…

The thing is, I don’t work at it to make it lovely. I work at it to make it…something, but I can’t name what that something is. Every word that comes to mind is off somehow, not exactly what I need.

I do know that it has something to do with music. Family lore has it my great-grandfather had an amazing voice and amazing musical ability, so amazing that he might have made something of himself as an opera singer, if hadn’t been for the booze. My grandparents had an upright piano in their front room, and when I visited, my grandfather would sing “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen,” and “Ave Maria.” To this day, I can’t hear “Ave Maria” without choking up. My father could also sing, and some of my earliest memories involve sitting with him, listening to Johnny Cash and Glenn Campbell. In short, music runs in my family, my blood.

The thing is, I can’t sing. I can’t carry a tune and I can’t stay in key. My childhood was too chaotic for lessons on any instrument. As much as I love music, I can’t make it.

At least not in the traditional sense. I suspect that the musicality that runs in my family expresses itself in my writing, in the way I scrub and polish and tweak prose. A music-mad boyfriend once gave me a refrigerator magnet that said, “Poetry is music in words.” I kept it, because it seemed so true to me. I think I keep at my prose until it’s “right” to find and reveal the music in the language I’m using, especially when it comes to description.

The kicky thing about this is that I hadn’t made the connection until now, in response to my friend’s compliment. I knew I loved the rhythm of language, but I hadn’t realized how much I was trying to express my musical self with prose.

So why does this matter? Why is it more than a mere curiosity? I think anything I do consciously, I do more effectively. Knowing this is something I do means I can start experimenting with it. I can start playing with other kinds of music, expanding the kinds of “sounds” I’m going for, creating different impressions and feelings, reaching for different tones and shadings.

I’m not sure where this new awareness will take me. But, as always, I’m curious to see.

(Note: I still love music and despite compression issues, I love my Sansa Clip+ mp3 player. If you’re on Twitter and wonder what kind of songs delight me, search the hashtag #shufflejoy. I use it to mark tweets about songs that surprise and delight me when they turn up on shuffle.)

Barb's Musing: Celebrating Year #1

2011-11-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

A year ago this week my first Harlequin story, Magic underthe Mistletoe, debuted. Seems hard tobelieve. Some days it feels like Idebuted just yesterday. Other days,maybe because I got the actual call almost two years ago, it feels much longer. Especially when I look at everything that’shappened.

Since November 7, 2010, I have

Seen three other books in print;
Contracted for three more books;
Got my first royalty check;
Had my work published in the UK, New Zealand, Australia,Estonia, Argentina, Greece, Italy, and India;
Gotten to celebrate the first sales of three very close,talented friends – Cathryn Parry, Deborah Monk, and Nina Jade Singer;
Participated in my first RWA National book signing. (Special thanks, by the way, to authorsCathryn Parry, Nina Singer and Denise Eagan who bought my book so I wouldn’tsit through the entire book fair without a sale. You have to love your author friends.);
Survived an editor switch. Saying goodbye to my first editor was a sad experience, but I discoveredI could not only survive, but thrive with a new editor too ( a very patient young woman whom I torment beyond belief with my insecurity);
Given two online workshops;
Spoken at three RWA chapters;
Spoken at two RWA chapter conferences;
Entered and lost the Ritas. (Doesn’t sound like much, but hey – two yearsago I couldn’t enter at all.);
Presented at the Rita/GH ceremony;
Finaled in two regional conferences- the NJ Golden Leaf andthe First Coast Beacon; and
Finished the year off with the news Heart of a Hero is a RomanticTimes Reviewer’s Choice Finalist for Best Harlequin Romance 2011.

All and all – one hell of a year!

My point in listing all these accomplishments isn’t tobrag. It’s to give myself a mental slapaside the head. As my husband haspointed out, too often I focus on the glass being half-empty. I’m so stressed about what’s going on in thehere and now (I have to revise again!) or what isn’t happening in my career (Iwant to be asked to do a continuity) that I forget all the great things thathave happened. I have been incrediblyblessed these past twelve months. I amliving my dream, I have a family who believes in me (thanks Honey!), and every day I receiveanother blessing.
What’s more, I am still growing. Every day I sit at the computer I realizethere is so much more I have to learn as a writer. Our industry is one that is foreverchanging. To be the best I can possiblybe I need to change and learn and work hard every day. After all, my goal isn’t simply to be apublished author. It’s to be the beststoryteller I can possibly be.

Has the whole year been sunshine and roses and happypublishing? No. I would be lying to you if I didn’t say thatmy debut came with thorns. I’ve had torethink how I balance my time, I’ve had to readjust relationships. My family has had to readjust to my newschedule and tendency to tunnel-view the world through my manuscript. But, like I said above, I’m still growing andlearning. It isn’t just my writing thatneeds to grow; it’s my whole approach to life and work. Nevertheless, I’m getting there.

Finally, as I sit here and express my gratitude, I would beremiss if I didn’t take a moment and say thank you to all the mentors andfriends I’ve discovered over the past few months. One of the other blessings I’ve been lucky toreceive is to land in an industry and a genre where there are so many givingpeople. Writers like Donna Alward, whohas become one of my wisest mentors, Judith Arnold, Maisey Yates, who is a rolemodel anyone who wants to be prolific, Aimee Carson, Michelle Drosos, Leah Ashton,Nikki Logan, Wendy Marcus, every single M&B author…. The list goes on and on – too long tocontinue.

Anyway, to everyone I listed – or forgot to list – thanks formaking the past twelve months, memorable and fun.

By the way, if I recall, I promised an epic post with videothis week. Well, an anniversary is sortof epic. And here’s the video. Actually there are four videos, and they willtell you everything you need to know about how to write a romance novel!

Enjoy!

Cathryn's Musing: Photos from the Halloween Snowstorm

2011-11-04T20:00:00.000-04:00

We've never had an October snowstorm in New England during our lifetimes. So when the storm was forecast, we brought in our potted herbs and the outdoor furniture, but we didn’t think much of it. We are Northerners, and we are used to snow.

Until the storm came that night, and we started hearing the branches outside snapping off the trees. This tree had lasted through 20 years of New England winters:

Why did so many trees break? Because the leaves hadn’t fallen off them yet:

Birch trees bend:

We spent the morning shaking snow from the birch trees next to the driveway so the branches would snap back, and we could get the car from the garage.

Still, all in all the results were pretty…

Until we realized that the electricity which went out at 3AM wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

Sunday night felt like camping…candles lit, wearing hats and gloves to bed, listening to the transistor radio in bed.

“Sixty Minutes” broadcasts on AM radio. It’s a different experience listening to TV rather than watching TV.

The Kindle worked just fine. I clipped the book light to the top and read Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s latest.

The next morning…still no electricity. Luckily, our townhouse development has a community room with a generator. We met for coffee, microwave-lunches, and laptop-juicing. I think I met more people in my neighborhood in one afternoon than I’d met in 20 years. So many of us work at home!

So the inconvenience did have a silver lining. And I did get to tell the neighbors about my January book-signing.

The happy ending: we got power back on Monday night, much earlier than many in our neighboring towns. (And Muse Becca!)

Do you have any tips to make surviving power outages easier?

Becca: Crying Uncle

2011-11-03T10:18:00.005-04:00

I am a little late with the blog today because this week has been pretty unusual. Due to the freak snow storm that slammed the northeast over the weekend, I am now on Day 6 without power, heat, or water, but I have been luckier than most -- I have had places to stay thanks to family and friends who either never lost power or got theirs restored already. As of today, our state still has 400,000 people without power, the majority of whom are predicted to get it back late Sunday night. My workplace never lost power and it has been an interesting challenge for the majority of staff -- while the workplace has been clicking on all business-as-usual cylinders all week, most of us have been dealing with disaster zones in our off hours, trying to achieve that elusive balance between work life and life maintenance that is challenging enough under normal circumstances.

And as many of you know, NaNoWriMo kicked off earlier this week and though I had a halfhearted commitment to attempt NaNo this year I still feel thrown off my game from this storm. I have written a little but nothing near the recommended daily word count goals and a part of me feels justified by my circumstances. But a part of me also feels like the show must go on and that perhaps in this part of my work life, I should be expecting myself to be able to click on those all business-as-usual writing cylinders. Life and demands and expectations don't stop just because sh*t happens, and though I am tired and unsettled I still wrestle with thoughts of what I could or should be doing.

For now, while I wish I could be more productive it's all I can do to take care of myself, get myself up in the morning, and figure out where I'll be spending the night.

Anyone else ready to get past these 2011 Mother-Nature-related disasters?

I know the crews are working so hard, and I am so grateful for all they are doing. I don't think they get enough thanks. I hope you and yours are all warm and safe. And if you are still without power, I hope you get it restored soon.

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: Self Denial

2011-11-02T15:17:00.000-04:00

For a while now, I've been telling people that one of the best ways to soak in classic three-act story structure is to watch as many episodes as possible of the original Law & Order. In three-act structure, you have three turning points: one at the end of the first act, one in the middle of the long second act, and one at the beginning of the third act.

With original Law & Order, the second-act midpoint comes when the case moves from the investigation to the prosecution. The end of the first act occurs at the 15-minute mark (if you watch with commercials), when there's some kind of twist in the investigation, and the third starts at around 45 minutes, when there's some kind of surprise with the prosecution.

I've also told people I want to develop a workshop based on that idea. The plan is to explore a single episode, breaking it down and showing the act breaks. I also want to talk about the relationship between character and action, and how character and action informs the plot. I have a lot of ideas, but they haven't quite gelled yet. And although I have the episode I want to explore saved on my DVR, I haven't explored it yet.

Given all that, pulling together a workshop proposal for RWA's 2012 national conference seemed like a stretch, but a doable stretch. All it requires is some focus, to map out what I intend to say and to develop a good handout. I've had a lot going on so I haven't had a chance to settle down to work, but I still thought I could pull something together. I'm one of those odd people who actually likes standing in front of a crowd and talking, so I love giving workshops.

The original deadline for submission was yesterday. Early in the day, I had it in my mind that I would go home, pull together a proposal and send it in. Later, though, I wondered why I was going to do that. While I waited to find out my workshop had been accepted, I would have spent time honing it, time that I might otherwise have spent writing. If it was chosen, I would be committed to presenting it. All in all, it would take a great deal of emotional energy, and I asked myself if that was the best expenditure of that energy. Maybe I could use it in other ways.

Reluctantly, I came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t spend any time working on the proposal, that I should not try to present a workshop at RWA National. The part of me that loves talking about writing, that loves standing in front of a group and explaining a subject I'm passionate about, was deeply disappointed and fought the decision. But I held firm. I even held firm last night, when I learned the deadline had been extended until Friday (even though the stand-up-in-front-of-a-crowd part of me said, "Three more days! I can get it done!").

With only so much time in the day and so much bandwidth in the brain, there will always be trade-offs. If I do X, I can't do Y; if I want to accomplish A, I'm going to have to give up on B, and maybe C and D, too. This can be difficult for me; I always want to do everything, see everything, go to every party, every workshop, be a part of every conversation. But I can't, and when I try, I lose.

This hasn't been an easy decision, but I think it was the right one.

Barb's Musing: Beef & Ale Pie

2011-11-01T09:34:00.000-04:00

A weekend migraine and revisions have me a bit behind the eightball this week so I don't have any deep (or shallow) thoughts to share. I'll be back next week with something. To quote Maisey Yates - it'll be Epic! I promise. Maybe even with video.

Meanwhile, because we've already got snow here in New England - and because I've been under the weather - I've been all about comfort food. This weekend's recipe was Steak and Ale Pie. A lot of people have asked for the recipe so here it is:

1 1/4 stew beef cut into small cubes coated with flour
1 small onion diced
12 oz ale
2 cups diced potato and carrot
3/4 cup diced mushrooms
2 tablespoon Worchestershire Sauce
1 teaspoon flour
1 bayleaf
1 readymade pie crust

Brown beef until just golden. Add onion and ale. Simmer on low for 30 minutes. Add diced potato, carrot, mushrooms, Bayleaf (I crumple mine) and Worcestershire Sauce. Simmer for another 10 minutes or until vegetables can be pierced with a fork.

Mix a small bit of liquid with 1 teaspoon flour and add to pan. Simmer a minute longer until gravy thickens slightly.

Preheat oven to 400.

Take meat mixture and put into a small casserole dish. Top with readymade pie crust. Vent and cook for 30 minutes.

Variations: Use two pie crusts and a nine inch pie plate instead of a casserole dish. Or put meat mixture in ramekins and top with pastry to make individual "pies".

Serve with rustic bread and more hearty ale. (Or Hot Apple Cider)

Enjoy!

Becca's Musing: A Little Bit of Torture

2011-10-27T06:00:00.004-04:00

I have been getting treatment from an acupuncturist for a variety of ailments and part of his philosophy is to get to know his patients so that he can help find possible triggers leading to their aches and pains. When he and I meet we invariably talk about the good things in my life as well as the sources of my stress. Writing falls into both of those categories for me -- it's the path I want to take, the job I want to do, the life I want to lead, the joy I choose . . . which are all things that contribute to the stress of it because I am just not where I wish I was. I am working on it, trying to appreciate the journey, but any progress/learning/success sure is taking longer than I thought it would.

My acupuncturist is really supportive of my want/wish/need to do this and his biggest wish for me is that mine comes true. In the meantime, we both know that I have bills to pay and I need health insurance (though my current plan does not cover acupuncture) so I do have to maintain my day job. It's part of my opportunity cost.

As many of you know I work in a library -- a path I chose because of my love of books (though very little of the job is actually about books) and solving puzzles and helping people. And as my acupuncturist and I talked about this one day, he said he couldn't imagine a worse place for someone like me to be. To want to be a published author and be surrounded by so many published works must be torture. It just must be awful, he said.

His comments stunned me. Truthfully, I had never thought of my situation that way. It's true, I do not like my job but when I have needed a breather from the nonsense I have at times lost myself in the stacks, letting myself get back to being grounded by the books around me.

But like every seed that gets planted, something does take root and start to grow and I do admit to feeling a little more tortured by this odd reality. I think it would be worse in a public library, where I would come into far more frequent contact with the latest and greatest fiction being released. In an academic library, there is far more esoteric work that doesn't pertain to my likes or interests so there is a lesser feeling of being left out of something I am eager to be a part of.

I could take these thoughts and feelings in many different directions, but I am trying to channel them to inspire me to work smarter and harder toward my writing. I don't want to turn bitter, or angry, or let these odds tempt me to quit, all of which can toy with us when things don't go according to our plans. There are lessons to be learned here, for sure, and I want to embrace them even though they can be maddening.

In one of my recent travels, I was waiting in line behind a marine. I know he was a marine because of the T-shirt he wore that said something like, Marines: If it were easy, anyone could do it. It got me thinking how we writers could (and should!) have a similar t-shirt available to us. This journey is tough, a lot tougher than I think a lot of us realize when we are first choosing this path.

And P.S. - I fully appreciate that what marines and writers face are completely different sets of challenges, but I thought the sentiment was too true not to share here.

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: Panera

2011-10-26T19:15:00.001-04:00

You might have noticed today's post is arriving a little bit late. That's entirely attributable to a lack of focus -- somehow today I wasn't able to get my head in the game and figure out what, if anything, I wanted to say. I'm not entirely there even now, but somehow, sitting here in a Panera, I can think.

It's noisy, with music playing and conversations going on all around me. My dinner is on the table in front of me -- a bowl of soup and a baguette. Somehow, all that information coming at me clears my head.

Maybe it's because my dinner will wait for me, and all the commotion around me has nothing to do with me. No one is going to ask me for anything, or wonder why I haven't given them something I owe them; there's no housework staring at me with mournful eyes, guilting me into attending to it.

Whatever it is, I find it easy to get work done in Panera. Once I'm done with this blog post, I'm going to tackle the wip. After all, one needs to strike while the productive iron is hot, one has to take advantage of the moment when it comes.

Barb's Musing: As Requested. How I Write a Synopsis

2011-10-25T17:25:00.000-04:00

There are two things in the writing world that seem tostymie even the best of writers. Queryletters and synopses. I have seenwriters completely in knots over the idea of boiling down their hard-won200-400 page novel into a handful of paragraphs.

Recently as part of a Twitter conversation bemoaning thatvery task, I promised a blog on how to write a synopsis for category romancesubmission. A task easier said than done. Not because I don’t know how to write asynopsis -- I’m actually that annoying writer who doesn’t mind writing them*ducks to avoid flying cabbages* – but becausethere are as many different ways of approaching the task as there are ways towrite a novel.

However, because I promised, here it is. Barbara Wallace’s version of how to write asynopsis.

One of the reasons a category romance synopsis causes somuch angst is because Harlequin (as well as Mills & Boon) asks for thedocument to be no more than two pages. That is, for those of you wondering, two single-spaced pages. Soundsdaunting. But in fact, it isn’t.

First let’s look at what editors will be looking for. Editors are reading the synopsis to learn thefollowing:

The protagonist
The antagonist
The Set Up
The Romantic Conflict
The Black Moment
The Resolution

And that's all. Editorsaren’t looking for a chapter by chapter breakdown of what will happen in the book. (At least in my opinion.) They’ll learn all that from reading yourstory. Keep in mind, that editors are also readers. They like being entertained (and maybe surprised) as the story unfolds. The synopsis simply gives them a snapshot of your story from which they can determine whether youhave all the important elements.

So let’s take a look at how I put those six elementstogether.

The Protagonist and Antagonist

First thing I start with is the Main Protagonist. This is the person who, during the course ofthe story, changes or grows the most before getting their Happy EverAfter. Most likely this is the characterwhose point of view begins the story. Thisis also where you give a brief (a few sentences) describing them, focusing onthe goals and motivations that will play into your upcoming romantic conflict. For example:

All DanielHarrington wants is to be loved for himself. Unfortunately, every woman he has ever known, from his girlfriends tohis own mother, has been more interested in what he could give. As a result, he’s mistrusting and angry atall things female.

Now that we know our heroine and the way she thinks, time tointroduce the Antagonist, the character who is going to force our protagonistto change.

Thisis bad news for Professor Charlotte Doherty who arrives at Daniel’s officeminutes after he’s discovered his latest girlfriend’s betrayal. That’s because Charlottewants something from Daniel as well. Namely, a farm that he intends to turn into high-priced housing. The farm represents Charlotte’s last link tothe mother she never knew and she’ll do anything to get it back.

Thus we’ve written in two paragraphs, we’ve managed to tellthe editor who this story will be about and begun to hint about the conflict

The Set-Up

Let’s move on to the set up. Here is where you explain what’s going tohappen – in broad strokes – why or how these two people are spend the next200-something pages together. Remember,the editor doesn’t need a ton of details, such as the fact Charlotte’s brothersold the farm without her permission or how Daniel was expecting someoneolder. She’ll discover those things uponreading. Keep your summary short, sweetand to the point.

WhenCharlotteenters his office, Daniel can’t help but react to her incredible beauty and theplaintive look in her emerald eyes. Hisreaction angers him. He’s tired ofpeople always wanting something from him and decides that, for once, he’s goingto get something in return. If Charlotte wants herfamily farm, fine, he’ll sell the land back at less than market value. But only if she accompanies him to Nantucket for his mother’s and stepfather’s anniversaryparty.

Thoughshocked, Charlotte agrees. Truth betold, she can’t afford to purchase the land any other way, and her need tomaintain a familial connection is too great for her to refuse. She agrees, but not before reminding him thearrangement is “strictly business.”

The Romantic Conflict

Now we are into the meat of the synopsis, and the place thatconfuses everyone. I can hear you now. “I’ve only got one and a half pagesleft! How am I supposed to explaineverything that happens and the black moment and the resolution in so littlespace? I need to tell them XXXX becausethat’s how YYY happens and without YYY, the black moment won’t make sense. And if I tell them XXXX, then I have to tellthem TTT, UUU, VVV and WWW.”

Take a deep breath. Iunderstand your dilemma. I’ve said thesame thing myself. Many times. But go back to the list I gave earlier. Editors are most interested in THE ROMANTICCONFLICT, not the blow by blow plot. Thereason for this is simple. In a categoryromance, the romance is the most important element of the story. These are stories about how charactersinteract with each other, and how by being together forces them to reexaminetheir goals and fall in love. The actionthat takes place on the page, while important, is far less important than what’shappening to the characters emotionally. Therefore, when summarizing your story, stick to the characters’emotional arcs rather than the plot details.

Keeping things strictly business, however, is easier said thandone. The more time Charlotte spends with Daniel, the more shesees a sensitive, gentle man whose loneliness mirrors her own. There’s a connection between them she can’tignore.

Daniel feels the connection too, every time he looks intoCharlotte’s eyes. The emotions she stirsin him frighten him to the core. Thewomen in his life have always had ulterior motives. It’s hard for him to believe Charlotte’sinterest in sincere and that she doesn’t have a hidden agenda as well. And yet as much as he wants to protecthimself, Daniel finds he can’t stay away from her.

The strong attraction frightens Charlotte as well. She can feel herself falling harder by theminute. Daniel has long had a reputationas a playboy. What if she’s misreading thissensitive side of his? What if it’snothing more than a ploy to entice her into his bed?

By the time the anniversary party takes place, however, thecouple realizes there is no escaping their attraction. Physical desire wins out over common sensefor both of them and the couple spends a romantic night making love in Charlotte's room.

If you notice, nowhere in those paragraphs do I ever mentionwhat happens in the story beyond how the characters are affected. That they take a romantic walk on the beach,that there's a hurricane and a power outage or the fact Daniel suffers from motion sickness – while integral to the action –are not mentioned. Could I mention them? Sure. But I know that the editor is far more interestedin the push-pull part of the story. Thatis, how the romance is developing and how it is affecting our protagonist andantagonist. (Have I flogged that deadhorse enough yet?)

One quick caveat -- I tend to make my synopsis focus on the gentle romantic aspects. That's because I write sweet stories. Sensual, hotter stories might call for more sensual language and more highlighting of the heat between characters. Also, keep in mind this advice is for straight category romance. If you are writing a romantic suspense, then yes, you will have to include some plot details. But only a few. Your main focus will still be on the developing romance.

The Black Moment

The black moment is probably the one place where plot will beimportant. And even then, you don’t needa lot of detail. Simply enough to letthe editor know the characters are reaching the point of no return.

Eventually, however, Daniel's mistrust and fear rears its head when he discovers a research file Charlotte has on him. Although she tries to explain the innocent truth - that a friend gave Charlotte the file to remind her to stay on her guard - Daniel can’t get past his own hurt to listen. He tells Charlotte their weekend, and their agreement,has ended. The walls he built around his heart are once again erected, this time thicker than ever and no matter how hard Charlotte tries to reach out, she can't break them down. Worst of all, she realizes the man she met on their weekend was the real Daniel and that she has hopelessly fallen in love. Unfortunately, she has to let him go and hope that some day he'll learn her motives were true.

The Resolution

Again, there's no need to tell every minute detail of how the characters' get to happily ever after. The editors will find that out when the read for themselves. Simply sum up in the last paragraph that the couple does indeed find their way together.

Ittakes a near-death experience and some tough love talk from his half-brother, but eventually Daniel realizes the depth andsincerity of Charlotte’semotions. At last, he banishes all hisfears and mistrust to declare his love for her. When Charlottereturns the declaration, he believes her with all his heart, and it isn’t longbefore the couple forges a new agreement. One with a forever clause.

And there you have it! A synopsis of the a 200 page novel told in a handful of paragraphs. Granted, it's not the smoothest of synopses. If submitting this story for real, I would be inclined to add a few more details to Daniel's realizations, and possible add a paragraph about what Charlotte learns. But this rough example should give you the basic idea.

A Couple More Things to Remember

A synopsis won't make or break your submission. For example, if your synopsis winds up two and a half pages instead of two, you won't be tossed out of the slush pile. What matters to the editor, ultimately will be your voice and how you tell the actual story - something she'll only learn from reading the manuscript. Eventually the editor will decide based on your voice and ability to tell a story.

Finally, like I said at the beginning of this post, this is only my way of doing a synopsis. Read another blog and you'll find another suggestion - possibly a better one. As with all advice, take what you can use from this, and toss away the rest.

If you have questions, feel free to contact me through my website - www.barbarawallace.com

And as always - happy writing!

Becca's Musing: Ideas and Execution

2011-10-20T06:00:00.006-04:00

I am a huge fan of Project Runway and have been enjoying this current season a lot. We are nearing the end and the really exciting episodes as the final contestants build their collections and plan for their runway shows at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. I get so excited for them because they have this really big chance to chase their dream, and showing at Fashion Week is a huge stop on the journey for them.

As I watched through this season, an interesting dynamic emerged for me that, again, made me think about some of the situations I've encountered in my writing journey.

In last week's episode, the remaining five designers had a pretty demanding final challenge -- to create three looks based on inspiration derived from Fire Island. To help them with this challenge, the show brought back the five most recently dismissed designers to serve as their assistants. Each remaining designer got to choose their assistant and, for once, everyone was paired well.

The first assistant chosen was a girl who probably sewed the best out of anyone the whole season. She was accurate, fast, and produced really quality work but she was voted off the show because her designs had a more muted flair than the designers who came after her. (She was often criticized for her aesthetic by some of the other designers but, boy, her sewing ability was amazing!) She was a master at her sewing craft.

On the flip side, the winner of the challenge and a heavy favorite to win the whole season has a great design aesthetic -- she is fashion forward, designs beautiful, wearable garments, and has an eye for mixing patterns and adding cool details. The problem is she has only been sewing for four months and, according to the other designers, this is a real weakness of hers. She has great ideas that hook the judges, but her execution lacks a master of the craft.

So . . . as a writer, which would you rather have?

I have a writing friend whose books have been up for major awards but she was a mid-list author and her publishing house did not offer her another contract when her last one ended. She knows her craft and writes really fantastic books. She has since signed with a new agent, a good agent at a great agency, and I know my friend is really psyched to be there. As I watch her career unfold though, I feel like this agent is not right for her. While her craft is still really good, I don't believe that the ideas her agent encourages her to pursue are the ones that will help land her a good deal at a new house.

I am worried for her, but I don't feel like I can pipe in and say something because I feel like my words of concern will do more harm than good. I've never been published (yet). I haven't been able to land an agent (yet). I have very limited experience in this area so far be it for me to say but I can't help thinking of that master seamstress who got dismissed from Project Runway because of the ideas she chose to execute weren't as good as the designers around her.

I feel like I am batting around the opposite problem. I have a good idea that lacks proper execution. Will I be able to make a success out of it? I don't know. I think I am going to have to do more work on my craft before I can start shipping it out and trying again. It is a true Make It Work moment for me!

I think for us writers, we have to execute each time we send something down our respective runways and it is far better to have the idea plus the mastered craft rather than one or the other. We will see how things have evolved for our designers during that final runway show, too!

Seize the day!
Becca

Katy's Musing: On the Road Again

2011-10-19T06:29:00.000-04:00

By the time you read this, I will be on my way to the Novelists, Inc. (Ninc) conference, being held in St. Pete Beach, FL. To be candid, I'm a little nervous. I've never been to a Ninc conference and I don't quite know what to expect. Friends who went to last year's conference came away energized and excited, so energized and excited I really wanted to attend as soon as I possibly could.

The business side of writing overwhelms me. It can make me feel helpless, because I do not have the time or energy to do everything you're "supposed" to do. Ninc is very business focused, so much so that I have my moments of wondering why I re-joined.

But then I remember those friends who came back feeling as if they had some control over their careers after all. These are wild days in publishing, and that may turn out to be a good thing. I read a tweet today that said all that's needed are writers and readers, the implication being that publishers aren't necessary. I think they're still necessary, but the Big Six are no longer the only game in town. There are small publishers and e-only publishers available that weren't available before, and self-publishing is losing some of its negative vibe.

Why does that matter to me? I sometimes think the dragon story is neither fish nor fowl, the romance subplot too strong for fantasy, the fantasy plot too front and center for romance. Ten years ago, five years ago, that might have been the kiss of death, enough to make the book absolutely unpublishable. That's less true now. I believe I'm more likely to find a home for this book when I finish it than I would have five years ago.

Hunh.

I haven't even made it to St. Pete Beach, and I'm already feeling more energized. I wonder how fizzy I'll be, come Sunday morning.

Barb's Musing: Battling the Blues

2011-10-18T10:13:00.000-04:00

Warning. TMI time.

I've got the blues today. No surprise, it's gray and raw outside, and I'm prone to feeling blue anyway. In fact, I've long suffered from clinical depression and have taken medication to combat its symptoms for years.Again, that fact shouldn't be a huge surprise. Health Magazine recently listed ten careers with high depression rates and "writer" was right up there. In fact, at one point it was estimated that writers were ten times more likely to suffer from some form of depression (Scientific American 1995).

Our job is tailor made for becoming depressed. Think about it.

We spend the bulk of our time alone and isolated, living in our heads with imaginary people and imaginary scenarios. There's no person sitting in the cubicle next to us. Sure, there's email and social networking, but great as they are, they too come with issues. (If you've ever clicked Send/Receive every five minutes waiting for a response, you know what I mean.)
We are dependent upon other people's approval and acceptance. Even after we sell, we must then place our finished work in the hands of reviewers and readers, both of whom can be quite fickle.We are by nature, sensitive, emotionally-driven people. While such qualities make story telling easier, they are not well suited for rejection and criticism - two things rampant in our industry.
We work in an industry that is driven not by story telling but by numbers and marketing concepts.To that end, we are forced to spend time on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc, which for many of us is akin to being thrown back into high school where cliques and popularity still rule the day. (Who among us hasn't had a "nobody likes me" Twitter day?)
Finally, we work at a job that has been romanticized and is largely misunderstood by others, meaning we can't very well talk work or work gossip with our neighbors. (Ever try to explain writer's block or a "good rejection" letter to someone?)

Throw all these elements into a Petrie dish and you've got an environment ripe for insecurity, anxiety, and depression. No wonder the doubting crows (you know, those loud obnoxious birds trumpeting your shortcomings) make regular visits to our shoulders.

So what do we do? We can stay aware of depression. We can make a point of getting out of our heads now and then by seeing other people. (Not so easy a task if you suffer from social anxiety or are a complete introvert. But that's another topic for another day.)

But most of all, we can share our sadness. I don't mean whine. No one likes a whiner. But we don't have to pretend everything is always roses and sunshine. We can remind our colleagues they aren't alone. We can let them know that we all suffer from those awful, doubting crow, left out, my-editor-hates-me days. And we can be a shoulder for people who are feeling down.

And on that rather not-so-happy note, I wish you all happy writing.

PS: If anyone knows the origin of the phrase "Doubting Crow" let me know. Far as I can tell, it comes from the crows in Dumbo saying they'd never seen an elephant fly. Oh, and the photo? Girl's got to cheer herself up somehow.

Becca's Musing: Strange Truths

2011-10-13T09:42:00.007-04:00

For a few of my books I have written about some circumstances in my life I wish had turned out in a different way, and taking these initial ideas, fictionalizing them, then writing about them gives me the chance to create the situations and outcomes I wished for at the time. I like being able to write a happier and more satisfying ending to these stories -- for me, it's like "writing what I know" with a happy twist.

Since pieces of these stories stem from things that actually happened to me, invariably kernels of truth creep their way into the telling of the book. They are details I couldn't make up if I tried and the ironic thing is that readers nitpick these details more than any other. That could never happen. That would never happen. No one would react like this. It's just not realistic. And I want to shout but it could because it did!

Ugh. These reactions frustrate me so much, but I know I need to heed them because if these readers knee-jerk in this way other readers will, too, and if I am in a position where I can tweak or outright change these details then I owe it to the story to do what I can to improve it. Even if I am not thrilled about having to reexamine what I think are such important and true details. After all, truth is stranger than fiction and readers do come to stories with their own truths and knowledge that inform their perceptions of things. And if I can't get them to suspend their beliefs with my storytelling abilities, then I am not doing it right and the details deserve another pass.

One last word in my defense - these details aren't super farfetched. It's not like in the book, Angels and Demons, for example, when Robert Langdon launches himself out of a sky-high helicopter with nothing but a tarp that he somehow fashions into a rescue parachute as he hurtles towards the Tiber where he lands without a scratch on him and proceeds to save all of Christendom. (A scene that had actually been tamed in the movie version because even Hollywood wouldn't go that far. Hollywood, king of the over-the-top blockbuster!!)

I guess it's all in what beliefs a reader is willing to suspend when they pick up a book . . . and the abilities or star power of the writer writing it. Sigh.

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: In the Beginning

2011-10-12T18:10:00.000-04:00

Night before last, I stayed up late finishing Alex Bledsoe's The Hum and the Shiver. It opens quietly but it's clear from the beginning that trouble has started. Chloe Hyatt keeps seeing death omens and a haint has appeared, clearly waiting the return of Chloe's daughter, Bronwyn, to the valley where both were raised. The omens and the haint raise questions that are answered over the course of the story.

This is what a beginning is supposed to do. 'Start where the trouble starts' doesn't always mean having a giant, noisy bad thing happen. In fact, if your story isn't really about giant bad things, you don't want to start with one. All you really want to do is give the reader a sense of what bad thing is coming down the pike, or has arrived, and you want to do it at a volume that's in keeping with the rest of the story.

I have a friend who doesn't really sweat how she opens the story until she's finished the whole thing. The way she sees it, she can't know how to start it until she knows how it ends. Although she's a pantster, I think this would hold true, to some degree, for plotters, too. From everything I've gathered, the story can still surprise even the most rigorous plotter, and those surprising elements might make it necessary to tweak the beginning.

I'd like to say I don't sweat the beginning of my stories, but if I did, I'd be...stretching the truth.I do sweat them, even knowing I might have to change them once the story's done. It's part of my process, one of those frustrating, "well, this is stupid" things you can't get away from. The thing is, I know what I do, the kinds of stories I write. So even if I can't get the details right, I can get the feeling, the Katy-ness, of the story right. Reading The Hum and the Shiver has shown me that's worth doing.

Barb's Musing: 1K1HR

2011-10-11T09:08:00.001-04:00

Hey Kids! Have you tried the coolest writing trend on Twitter? It's called #1K1HR. That hashtag announces when you, the writer, are about to start a writing push. Technically, it means you are going to write for one hour and one thousand words. For most of us, it's a spurt where we pledge to write as much as possible in one hour.All right, so it's not entirely a new concept. Writers have been setting timers to write by for years. What is terrific about #1K1HR on Twitter is that you can usually find friends to join in. Let's face it, alone, even with a timer, it's easy to get sidetracked by a need to research or (if you're me) a pair of heavy eyelids. But with friends there's an accountability. You report in your word count after the hour is up. You may not always hit one thousand words, but you will write a great deal. And, if you do two or three #1K1HR sessions in a row, your daily output begins adding up.For me, #1K1HR was invaluable as I struggled to write my entire manuscript between Labor Day and October 3. (Note to self - chucking a proposal with one month left is not the best idea, even if the story is better for it.) By logging on to Twitter and participating with fellow authors (both published and unpublished) I found myself churning out close to 2-3000 words a day! I never would have gotten that much done otherwise.So how do you do #1K1HR? Easy. Simply search for the hashtag. There is always someone looking for people to join in the game. Try it. You'll be amazed at how much your output increases.BTW, if you want to follow the Muses on Twitter - our addresses are to the right. I'm taking a brief break between drafts, but I'll be back to #1K1HR in a few days. You can always join me. As for my productivity, I'd like to thank Donna Alward and Mira Lynn Kelly - they were the ones who got me started. I never would have finished without them.Happy Writing!

Cathryn’s Musing: The Debut Cover

2011-10-07T23:02:00.001-04:00

Last Monday, Muse Barbara sent me a text message with a link to an Amazon.com page. The page had my name on it, my book title, and…the book cover!

I’m thrilled beyond belief with the cover that the publisher’s artists designed. The colors just pop, and the scene depicts the story well. The heroine looks so much like I imagined her that I had to do a double-take.

October 3^rd was a day I’ll never forget. Thanks for sharing in my happiness.

Becca's Musing: Faith and Happy Accidents

2011-10-06T06:00:00.005-04:00

A few weeks back I saw an interview with Jane Lynch where she was promoting her new book, "Happy Accidents." I just happened to stumble upon it while channel surfing, not that I know much about the book (though I have always thought she was a hoot and I am so happy for her and her success).

I wanted to share the interview here but when I went searching for it I could not find the right video clip. It's quite possible that I imagined what I heard, therefore making my post today less relevant than I thought. But since I found what I thought she said to be particularly helpful, I want to paraphrase what I thought she shared:

'As a kid in Illinois, I knew I always wanted to be an actor but I just couldn't see what path I could take to get there. I didn't know what to do or how to get to where I wanted to go. I just knew I wanted to get there. What I didn't know at the time was that every step I took and every person I met helped get me closer to my goal. You may not know it at the time, but if you keep going you will get there.'

I admit, this is LOOSELY paraphrased and could be completely made up, but on that day, during that interview, when I thought I heard her say something to this effect, the words were incredibly helpful to me. So often I just can't see how I'm going to get to where I want to go, and it seems so futile to keep doing what I'm doing since I don't seem to be getting anywhere. It's so easy to get stuck in this narrow focus and lose sight of the bigger picture so her words - real or imagined - were of great help to me that day and in the weeks since.

In searching for this video clip, I did come across some other articles and interview transcripts, and I found a response from her that was somewhat similar. In an interview with Just Out, she says:

If I could go back in time and talk to my twenty-year-old self, the first thing I would say is: “Lose the perm.” Secondly I would say: “Relax. Really. Just relax. Don’t sweat it.” I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t anxious and fearful that the parade would pass me by. And I was sure there was someone or something outside of myself with all the answers. I had a driving, anxiety-filled ambition. I wanted to be a working actor so badly. I wanted to belong and feel like I was valued and seen. Well, now I am a working actor, and I guarantee you it’s not because I suffered or worried over it. As I look back, the road to where I am today has been a series of happy accidents I was either smart or stupid enough to take advantage of. I thought I had to have a plan, a strategy. Turns out I just had to be ready and willing to take chances, look at what’s right in front of me, and put my heart into everything I do. All that anxiety and fear didn’t help, nor did it fuel anything useful. My final piece of advice to twenty-year-old me: Be easy on your sweet self. And don’t drink Miller Lite tall boys in the morning.

My big takeaway from her interviews is to keep working hard, maintain your focus, and have faith. I do believe that, but sometimes lose sight of it. It was a happy accident for me to stumble upon that interview, even though I can't seem to find it to share with you all here. Perhaps it was some whispered and much-needed otherworldly message brought on by divine intervention? Whatever the case, I found it timely and helpful. Next goal on my list? Stop sweating the small stuff and cut down on the anxiety and irrational obstacles I throw in my way.

Seize the day!

Becca

Katy's Musing: The Art of Storytelling

2011-10-05T14:40:00.000-04:00

I've been around for a bit, so you would think serendipity would no longer surprise me. Yet it does. The other thing that shouldn't surprise me but does is when the obvious becomes revelatory. Last week, two things converged that surprised me for both reasons.

The first was a tweet pointing out a post at Jane Friedman's blog. The post, What Is a Story, is excerpted from Philip Martin's How to Write Your Best Story. It impressed me so much I ordered the book from Amazon.

The second thing was reading a couple of partials -- the first three chapters of as yet unpublished books. Both partials had the same issue, problems with storytelling. Neither author had shaped his or her material to make the most of his or her story.

Thinking about the blog post, thinking about those partials, made me realize that everything we do, everything we work to learn -- plot, characterization, setting, dialogue, the things we reveal and the things we leave unspoken -- is done to make the most of the stories we're telling. That's what it's all for.

I have a strong suspicion we're hardwired for narrative in some form. We all tell stories, whatever era or culture we come from. Some of us are more driven than others to tell stories; some of us even make stories up. But we still tell them.

I'm not entirely sure how, but this is going to change the way I approach my writing. It already feels different in my head, in the way I think about the scenes I'm writing, about the story as a whole. I think it's a good change, but it's also surprising -- the third thing to surprise me that shouldn't -- to know my approach can change even after all this time.

Barb's Musing: Crowning Myself

2011-10-04T08:35:00.003-04:00

My writer friends and I have a tradition. Whenever one of us makes our first sale, the newly crowned author is presented with our official "published" crown to wear for several weeks as a way of proclaiming her new "royal" status. Historical author Denise Eagan began the tradition. Blaze author Karen Foley wore it. I wore it. As Denise so accurately pointed out, tasks like vacuuming and doing the dishes take on new meaning when wearing a tiara.

That tiara has moved on since my royal tenure. Several other members of my group - including the fabulous Cathryn Parry and last week's guest Muse Nina Singer - have gone on to sell.

Last week I decided to by myself a new crown. Not to celebrate being published, but to remind myself I don't suck. I thought the sparkly rhinestones might keep the doubt crows away. Kind of like a really pretty scarecrow. I wore my crown the entire weekend while I finished my manuscript. After awhile I forgot I was wearing it, which was a good thing because it meant I was deep into my writing flow. (Although it was a bad thing when I wore it walking the dog.)

I think I'm going to wear the crown every time I write. It can become part of my writing persona. Although doing so at Starbucks might be an issue. Okay, I'll wear it at home and wear a mental tiara at Starbucks. Maybe I'll turn my sunglasses into the mental tiara. That might work as well.

What's the point of all this rambling? Believe it or not there is one. Something Cathryn Parry said earlier this week. She said "I think we all need tiaras whether we're published or not, because writing is hard!" Amen, Cathryn. Amen. We do all need crowns. We all need to keep those crows at bay. We all need reminding that we are awesome simply because we're willing to sit down at the keyboard day after day and risk rejection.

I am a big fan of Kathy Kinney's and Cindy Ratzlaff's blog, Queen of the Rest of Your Life. They too recommend the crown as a way to remind yourself how great you are. They even have a crowning ceremony. This Friday I'm bringing tiaras to my critique group, and I'm going to recommend we have our own crowning celebration.

In fact, why don't we all have a crowning ceremony? You don't need an actual crown (although Dee's right - it is way cool to wear one around the house). But let's all take a moment to remind ourselves that writing is a tough industry, and the simple fact we're still plugging away makes us pretty damn regal.

Happy Writing!

Guest Muse: Author Nina Jade Singer

2011-09-30T09:00:00.014-04:00

Please welcome our friend Nina Jade Singer, whose first book, SECRETS OF THE KNIGHT, is now available.

First Time – Nina Jade Singer

I experienced my first time recently. Not that first time. I mean the publication and release of my first book. And let me tell you, to call it a venture into uncharted territory is a vast understatement.

As with most initial experiences, it’s been an interesting journey. Some things I expected, many others … well, not so much. Quite a few things took me by surprise. I expected to be excited, thrilled and a little apprehensive. What I didn’t see coming were the moments of sheer terror. Everything about the experience narrowed into one nagging, plaguing question.

What if no one liked my book?

My neighbors were pre-ordering it. Family members were asking about it. Friends of friends (some of them people I wouldn’t recognize on the street) would ask me about it. Someone they knew had written a book!

For the most part, I had faith in my story. After all, I wrote it. I think my characters are interesting and likeable. My critique partners assured me they loved the plot.

But now it was out there. Complete strangers were about to read my novel. Even scarier, folks I knew well were about to read it. No matter how often I told myself that I wasn’t going to please everybody, the familiar knot in the pit of my stomach refused to ease.

I felt naked in the middle of the town square.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, my anxiety began to ease. My heart pounded a little less when I was asked to talk about what I had written. You see, something magical started happening: I began to hear from readers. Not only had they read my book, they were taking the time to tell me they enjoyed it. Some of them even asked when the next one would be released.

I’ll be a little better prepared for that book when it comes out. And I’ll know to appreciate the process, in ways I didn’t allow myself to this time around. But I also know it won’t be the same. There’s nothing like that first time.

Nina Jade Singer www.ninasinger.com
Secrets of the Knight
from Crescent Moon Press

Becca's Musing: Starting From Scratch

2011-09-29T06:00:00.001-04:00

So I have been working on my new book. Working/thinking, working/thinking, and only writing a little. I have a lot of confusion when it comes to pulling this book together, trying to decide which elements to bring in and how to actually convey what I want to say and to show it rather than tell it.

Writing was so much easier when I had very little knowledge and no idea what I was doing.

I have been taking classes that are not only giving me information I probably should already know but are glaringly pointing out just how big the holes are in my writing knowledge. It's a bittersweet realization -- that I have come a long way but am not nearly as far along as my little ego thought I was.

I am hitting my craft library, too, and wanted to use my post this week to share one of the best books on my bookshelf: James Scott Bell's Plot and Structure. I suppose if you're a pantser this book would be crippling to your creativity, but for anyone who is stuck in their writing or may be looking for tools, techniques, and helpful words to move your writing forward, I cannot recommend this book enough.

I am off to read the next chapter right now!

Seize the day!
Becca

Katy's Musing: Perfect

2011-09-28T05:30:00.001-04:00

I've been wrestling and wrestling with a scene in the work-in-progress, one that's been pinning me to the mat with fair regularity. Well, actually, it would be pinning me to the mat if I actually worked on it; I've been avoiding it because it's been frustrating me so.

Day before yesterday, it occurred to me that part of the problem was that I'd established certain things earlier that I was now violating. The only way to be certain was to look at what I'd written that took place before.

Hunting through the manuscript for the relevant bits, I stumbled across a scene I haven't looked at in a long time. On the rare occasions I thought about it, I thought it was something I was going to have to fix at some point, since what I had wasn't working. So I was quite surprised to realize it's exactly what it needs to be. It violates any number of rules -- for example, there's no conflict -- but in context, it works. It's perfect as it is, because it does the job I need it to do.

As someone who struggles with perfectionism, this is interesting, this idea that something can be flawed from one perspective and perfect from another. If I'm someone who believes every scene must have conflict, no ifs, ands or buts, then that short scene is broken. If, on the other hand, I want the story to be told as its being told, that scene is just right.

I want to try to remember this, and to see if I can apply it elsewhere. It will be interesting to watch how it all works out.

Congratulations to Our Drawing Winners

2011-09-27T10:13:00.002-04:00

Congratulations to Abbi Cantrell who won Cat Schield's latest release Dare to Win!

Also congrats to our new Muse visitor Sonali who won the Mills & Boon anthology plus the Heart of a Hero in last week's giveaway.

We appreciate all the people who stop in, read and comment. You're why posting is so much fun.

I'm on deadline this week, so alas, there are no words of wisdom. Lots of whining if you'd like, but no wisdom. That will return tomorrow with Katy C.

In the meantime, happy writing!

Guest Muse Q&A: Desire Author Cat Schield (& she's giving away her book!)

2011-09-26T09:41:00.004-04:00

Today's guest muse is Desire Author Cat Schield. Cat took a different approach to selling - she went the contest route, including winning the 2010 Golden Heart!

Welcome Cat! Tell us about your new release; When and where can we get the book?

My next book with Harlequin Desire is called A WIN-WIN PROPOSITION. It hits the shelves October 4th. It's the story of Sebastian Case who relies on his irreplaceable assistant for everything. But when they travel to Vegas for a conference, mousy Missy transforms herself. From ordinary to ravishing. From modest and reserved to bold and sensual. And Sebastian, who’d barely noticed she was a woman, finds himself dazzled by her allure.

Now she’s quitting and Sebastian will do anything to keep her. Including accepting her outrageous bet. One spin of the wheel--black and she’ll stay...red and Sebastian owes her one night of passion. What can he lose, except maybe his heart?

You were a Golden Heart winner in 2010. Can you tell us a little about your journey to publication. How long you were writing, etc?

I’ve been writing toward publication on and off since the early 80s. I got close in the mid-nineties, but it seemed as if the more I improved, the farther from selling I got. In 2006 a sailing buddy of mine, Erik Westgard, pestered me to write an article on our sailing adventure in the British Virgin Islands. He’d been writing for magazines for years, but had his eye on the glossy pages of International Yacht Charters and Vacations. To my shock, they chose my article for their June 2006 issue. I was going to be published.

Despite having tried and failed to sell a book at various times over the previous two decades, this pub credit gave me reason to believe in my chances of become a published author. My voice had matured. My dedication had ballooned. This time around I was going to sell or die trying.

I knew contests were a good way to get feedback and bypass the slush pile. In the fall of 2006 I’d finished two manuscripts and started entering them in contests. A lot of contests. To my delight, I made the finals in the the first two contests I entered. I was on my way. Or not. The next few gave me some eye opening feedback. Undaunted, I fixed my problems and got my first request for a full in the summer of 2007. And my first rejection. Slow pacing and not enough conflict.

I began to study craft and revise. More contests gave me more feedback and more full requests. When I pitched to Kevan Lyon at the 2009 Nationals, I had a book at Harlequin and a two time requested manuscript I’d never submitted. She looked at both. And signed me. The editor who’d asked to see A Case of Meddling, my Silhouette Desire targeted book, had left by this time, but the new associate editor was happy to take a look. And to provide revision notes three weeks later. Believing this might be the one, I quickly turned around a revised manuscript.

To keep myself distracted while I waited to hear something, I entered the Golden Heart. In the past I hadn’t had much luck, but this year proved different. The book that finaled was Fake Fiancee, Real Love. And to my shock, it went on to win the Golden Heart for series contemporary romance (and in June of this year I sold it to Carina Press.)

A month later, Kevan called to tell me we had an offer. A Case of Meddling re-titled Meddling With A Millionaire hit the shelves as a Harlequin Desire in June. Dreams do come true. Sometimes you just have to be patient and believe.

How did you keep yourself motivated before you sold? Was there any particular mantra or lesson that helped you through the “dry spell”?

I stayed motivated by entering contests. And I entered a lot. I created a wall in my house dedicated to my finals and whenever I felt as if I sucked, I’d go stare at the certificates and take heart. I embraced every failure because that’s where I learned what I needed to work on. I learned how to cope with criticism which helps once those reviews start pouring in. And every final put me one step closer to selling.

At the Moody Muses, we talk a lot about our writing ups and downs as we crank out our books. Sometimes the Muse is on board with that plan, sometimes She isn't. Do you have any tricks to make your muse play nicely?

I have a meditation that I listen to in the morning and sometimes at night. It is full of positive affirmations about writing. I try to write every day. Even if it’s only a few minutes. The only way I can stay writing is to keep writing. The second I take a day or more off, I lose my momentum. I’m a huge fan of Julia Cameron’s books. Reading a page or a chapter always lures my Muse back from wherever she’s run off to.

Where do you write your books? Is there a place in particular where your Muse is most productive?

I used to write in bed. Especially in the winter when the wind is howling and the temps drop below zero. This summer, however, I’ve had to get out of the house to be productive and have been hitting the coffee shops.

What is your schedule like?

I work a full-time job and have a 12-year-old with an active after school schedule so I write whenever I can. Mostly in the evenings and on the weekends.

What is your writing process? Do you pants or plot? Or, as Katy C likes to say “puzzle” which is a combination of both.

I’m a combination. I use Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat beats and plot out the story, then a combination of other things to flesh out characters, conflicts, goals and motivations. But when I sit down to write, there’s always great stuff that comes out of the characters that I never saw coming.

Are you working on anything else at the moment, and if so, can you tell us?

I’m working on a couple things right now. The first is my fourth Desire. It’s a friends-to-lovers story about two people, each with solid objections to getting married, who’ve been attracted to each other for a long time, but refuse to act on their passion for fear it will destroy their twenty-year friendship.

The other is a book for Desire’s THE HIGHEST BIDDER continuity coming in 2012. It’s about a family-owned auction house in New York City, a takeover threat, and stolen artifacts. My hero is a billionaire/playboy/adventurer who refuses to be tied down. My heroine is an event planner who has had enough of bad boys and has decided to have a baby on her own. He needs to clean up his playboy reputation and convinces her to act the part of his fiancée until the difficulties threatening the auction house are resolved.

What’s the one lesson you think all writers, published or unpublished need to learn?

Believe in your writing, but embrace the revision process. Don’t get hung up on loving some aspect of your story because that’s when you stop trying to make it better.

Where can we learn more about you and your books? Do you have any online homes where we can visit you?

Yes! I'm on both Twitter and Facebook and I have my own website. Readers can also find me at my group blog Get Lost In a Story.

Any final comments or questions for our Muses?

Thanks so much for inviting me to join you. I’m always looking for ways to be more productive. What techniques work best for you? I’d like to offer a copy of A WIN-WIN PROPOSITION to one commenter.

Cathryn’s Musing: Continuing Education

2011-09-23T21:25:00.000-04:00

I’m taking two writing courses this month from instructors at WriterUniv.com.

“Sex on the Page: Understanding and Crafting Sexual Tension,” by Mary Buckham, has been excellent. I recommend it if you’re looking for both the theory behind sexual tension, and for ways to add sexual tension to your manuscript.

“Creating the Hero’s Fatal Flaw,” by Laurie Schnebly Campbell, is helping me with the characters in my current proposal. Laurie’s courses just “click” with me, and I owe her so much for all she’s taught me about developing believable and sympathetic characters.

Have you taken any good fiction-craft courses lately? I’d love to hear about them.

And P.S., next Friday, our friend and new paranormal intrigue author Nina Jade Singer will be guest-blogging at the Moody Muses. Please stop by to join her!

Becca's Musing: The Power of Observation

2011-09-22T06:00:00.007-04:00

I think the comedienne, Kathy Griffin, is hilarious. I imagine if you are the butt of one her unmerciful jokes, you may not find her so funny but as a layperson hooked on celebrity gossip I can't help but find her commentary amusing. I think what I enjoy most about her stand-up is her power of observation. What makes her delivery so unique is the voice she's honed for sharing it.

As writers I think we can learn from different art forms and comedy is one of the most fertile grounds for learning opportunities. Comedians can take the mundane and put their own comic twist on it -- a gift that not only makes us laugh but gets us laughing because of the comic's ability to focus on and exacerbate the kernel of truth that we all can relate to. There's a reason why the TV show, The Office, works so well -- a lot of us work in environments where crazy, inappropriate, and inconceivable things happen. In some way we all can relate to the straight man contending with the bad boss, slacker co-worker, or incompetent climber. The genius of it is to find the lowest common denominator and relate it in a way we can all understand. To use that commonality to evoke an emotion, in this case resulting in laughter.

As writers, I think this is our challenge -- to determine what our book is about and find the emotional threads that appeal to the basic pieces in all of us. I know this line of thought is nothing new, but I got to thinking about it after watching a re-run of Kathy Griffin's latest comedy special (and feeling a little bit envious of her keen and creative power of observation).

Seize the day!
Becca

Katy's Musing: Imaginary Friends

2011-09-21T05:30:00.002-04:00

The other day, for some reason I no longer remember, I went hunting through my copy of Stephen King's On Writing, looking for the part where he talks about the boys in the basement. As it turns out, he doesn't talk about boys in the basement in On Writing, he talks about them elsewhere, but he does talk about his muse, a guy down in the basement, smoking cigars and admiring his bowling trophies while you do the heavy lifting.

The vividness and specificity of that description made me realize that I have as strong a vision of my muse...only in my case, it's muses, and they're nothing like King's. Instead, I realized they bear striking resemblance to Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch, the witches/Fates/tricksters in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. As the Wikipedia entry on them explains, their identities are "fluid and interchangeable" and "It's more a question of what they are, not who they are."

It's been years since I read the Chronicles -- elves have apparently carried away my omnibus edition -- so I'm going purely on recollection. Still, my muses like to mess with my head, withholding information when I want it, sending me ideas and information I don't know how to use, and insisting I write things that don't, at the moment, make any real sense. They have a sideways approach to things, a wisdom they follow that I can't, and it's only through experience that I've learned to trust them. Don't know why I should keep that scenelet that doesn't seem to have an actual job, but can't bring myself to get rid of it, even though I have the machete in hand and I'm willing to use it? It's the Girls in the Basement: the scene is a present and I'll eventually understand what it's for.

There's a part of me that recognizes that I'm anthropomorphizing my creative process...but here's the thing. When I have a creative problem -- why is my scene jamming, who is this character, how do I fix this, that or the other thing -- I imagine myself in a kitchen, opening the door the basement steps. I take my problem and I throw it down the steps and I ask the Girls to help me fix it. Sometimes they cackle. Sometimes I imagine them rubbing their hands. Sometimes I imagine them sharing glances as they're sitting around the cauldron, spinning wool into yarn. Whatever I imagine, I know that in a day or a week, I will suddenly know what I need to know in order to fix my problem, and that will have come from the Girls.

I guess I still have to do the heavy lifting, but it doesn't seem so heavy when I have my imaginary friends to turn to.

Barb's Musing: Mills & Boon Loves.. Q&A Part 2

2011-09-20T09:08:00.003-04:00

We’re picking up where we left off with Aimee Carson, Maisey Yates and New Voices winner Leas Ashton! Last week, the ladies from Mills & Boon Loves discussed their paths to publication and how they get their Muses to play nice. This week, they discuss work spaces, carving out writing time, and give their advice for aspiring authors.

As a special thank you, we’re offering a Double Giveaway this week. I’ve already promised a winner a week for Heart of the Hero. Visitors this week will have the opportunity to win both Heart of a Hero AND the Mills & Boon Loves Anthology! Just leave a comment. (Remember – you can comment any day this week, not just Tuesday!)

Now back to our interview:

Where do you write your books? Is there a place in particular where your Muse is most productive?

Leah: Previously I've simply written in my home office, but for my latest book I wrote at my local university library. I found this hugely helpful, it's totally silent, and the little desks they have (with a mini wall on three sides) keeps outside distractions far away!

Aimee: I commandeered a walk-in closet as my “office.” But honestly, it’s more about the time of day than the place. I’m most productive in the early morning before the family is awake or I leave for the day job. I don’t do distractions well.

Maisey: I have an office out in our yard (formerly a shop, but now all insulated and painted!) and it's nice and quiet out there. (Hard to find a quiet place with three kids five and under) That's my preferrred work space.

What is your schedule like?

Maisey: *laughs hyseterically* Oh...schedule. *wipes eyes* That's FUNNY. Usually, I work Monday and Tuesday during the day. If I have a deadline approaching I do the same over the weekened. Otherwise I sort of puzzle writing time around my husband's job. Very often that means an hour or so after dinner on non-designated writing days.

Aimee: Hectic, chaotic, and unpredictable—except for the hours between 3am and 7am, which I spend writing.

Leah: I work full time, and I'm quickly learning that I need to put a schedule into place, as I'm finding balancing a demanding job and writing quite challenging. My plan for my next book is to write in big chunks on a few chosen days of the weeks (in the library), rather than trying to dash out 500 or 1000 words each night. I'll see how that goes! When I do write at home, I write late (late!) at night, after my husband has gone to sleep. I like to see him occasionally :) Plus, my muse seems to be a night owl.

What is your writing process? Do you pants or plot? Or, as Katy C likes to say “puzzle” which is a combination of both.

Aimee: Oh, I definitely do both. Plotting gives me the courage to start, and pantsting (new word alert!) gives me the creative freedom to follow the Muse should she choose to do something that catches my fancy. If I’m not impressed with her plans, I beat her into submission (see above).

Leah: I think I'm a puzzler. I need a plot skeleton and a good handle on my characters' back stories, but within a chapter or scene, I let the story take me where it wants to go. Total pantsing makes me freeze!

Maisey: Puzzle! I like that. I'm a puzzler. I plot character arc and conflict, not so much events. But it's important to me to know where my characters are starting, and where they're going. Though...oftentimes that changes.

Are you working on anything else at the moment, and if so, can you tell us?

Aimee: How to Win the Dating War, which I’m extremely pleased was chosen as M&B’s Book of the Month, will have its Riva release this December. Currently I’m finishing up a story with the working title of The Ditchinator. It’s about a darkly intense internet security consultant who creates a break-up app (The Ditchinator) and the feisty, too-sassy-for-her-own-good heroine who vows to get him to pull it off the market.

Leah: I've just handed in my second book, and I'm waiting (read as: huddling in a corner) for my revisions. My second book is, I guess, a friends to lovers story, however it's been more than a decade since my hero and heroine last spoke - and let's just say they don't like each other very much any more!

Secrets & Speed Dating will be released as an individual book in early 2012, but I'm still waiting for release dates. I believe the plan is to release it close to my second book - however I need to wait until second book is (hopefully!) accepted before I'll know much more.

Maisey: I have two books out in September, MARRIAGE MADE ON PAPER in North America, and of course THE PETROV PROPOSAL in MILLS & BOON LOVES. (Petrov Proposal will release in Northa America in Feb 2012) I just turned in a Presents that's going to be part of the One Night In... series (which is of course aboout one night stands that turn into something more!) My hero and heroine are best friends and business partners, who spend One Night in Chiang Mai and find out they might actually be more than friends. ;)

What’s the one lesson you think all writers, published or unpublished need to learn?

Leah: Whoa, that's a bit question to sneak it right at the end! Um, the answer that's popped into my mind is that you're always learning. I may be published now, but I attend as many workshops as I can when I attend conferences, and I also sign up for online workshops and buy far too many craft books! I feel you learn something with every book you write, and likewise you learn something (whether big or small) from every workshop or craft book. Even if it's "that's not for me!".

Sometimes you're also not quite ready to learn something. I find I go through different phases as to what I want to focus on with my writing craft. At the moment it's all about plotting for me, while in the past I was more interested in voice, dialogue - the details of a book, rather than the bigger picture.

Aimee: You really need TWO: persistence and patience.

Maisey: I'm not sure I have it nailed down to one lesson, since I feel I learn something new every day. But I think the biggest thing is that you have to write. There are a lot of things in this business we can't control, but we can control the writing. Just write the best book you can. That's all anyone can ask of you. It's all you can ask of yourself!

Where can we learn more about you and your books? Do you have any online homes where we can visit you?

Maisey: You can visit me at my website www.maiseyyates.com, my group blog at www.sevensassysisters.com and you can follow me on twitter, where I'm often inappropriate @maiseyyates

Leah: I have a shiny new web site and blog that would love some visitors! http://www.leah-ashton.com

I also blog monthly at the Love Cats Downunder blog - a group of 14 Australian authors who write and love category romance: http://lovecatsdownunder.blogspot.com

Aimee: You can find me at http://www.aimeecarson.com. You can also find me on Facebook and twitter @aimeecarsonmb. I also blog about the conjoined twins of guilt and parenting with some writing friends at http://www.4badmommies.com.

Cathryn’s Musing: Apple-picking in Central Massachusetts

2011-09-16T23:43:00.000-04:00

Here are a few photos from our apple picking expedition last weekend. The trees were laden with fruit, and we very quickly filled a half bushel-sized bag:

Our favorite orchard is Nicewicz Family Farm in Bolton, where guests are allowed to pluck the apples from the tree branches, and not just the ground. (I mention this because some orchards nearby don’t allow that.) Check out this apple tree close-up:

The McIntosh variety this year are as big as grapefruits:

We also picked Cortlands to use for baking. Lou made a fabulous pie (with a gluten-free crust, just for me), and we’ve also been chopping them up and mixing them with granola and vanilla yogurt for breakfast. Yum!

I hope you’re enjoying autumn, wherever you live, and the bounty of the season.

Becca's Musing: Online Resources

2011-09-15T06:00:00.003-04:00

As many of you know I spend my days as a librarian (most days spent daydreaming about what it must be like to be able to stay home and write full-time, but I digress...). So many times in my daily interactions I think about the advances in technology, and how rapidly things change, and I am amazed at how far we have come. I can hardly remember how we conducted research before the introduction of computers, the Internet, online databases, and even electronic books. I seem to recall a green periodical guide and, of course, the card catalog but that hulking mass kept everything so local. How did we ever find the information we needed? Then again, just think how much must have been out there that we never even knew existed?

Yesterday morning (during one of my daydreaming excursions) I stumbled across a video Q&A conducted by Dan Blank in which he interviewed YA author Jackson Pearce. And I got to thinking about the way we connect with people in this rapidly changing technology age and how authors did it before we had all these resources at our fingertips.

I wonder what it was like before in trying to connect to other writers. Finding your community . . . sharing your knowledge . . . building your tribe of like-minded people. I know it must have been done, but the technology at our fingertips makes learning and interacting so much wider and more vast. The Jackson Pearce interview was so helpful to me in more than the ways I thought it would be -- sure, I got some great advice from a successful author; I got to thinking about new and different ways to connect with an audience; but I also had the opportunity to seek to fill an information need that pertained directly to me.

It seems silly for a librarian to forget about information seeking 101, but I came up through RWA in the "chapter system," where we come together, meet, socialize, and share information. It is a hard mantle to carry when your group has a large membership consisting of writers from different genres at different stages of their careers. The in-person monthly meeting can't meet everyone's needs every time out, but because that's how I trained my brain to think I somehow overlooked that what I most likely need information-wise won't be found at a meeting but is rather out there on the web somewhere. I needed the reminder today that I can find the answers to my information needs by using the tools I use every day and take for granted. Plus it's always nice to connect with other writers, in-person or in our virtual worlds.

As I say to the patrons in our library, if we can't find it in-person let's see what we can find online.

Seize the day!
Becca

Katy's Musing: Seeing Anew

2011-09-14T13:34:00.000-04:00

One of the things I love most about writing is also one of the things I find most maddening: I will never master it. No matter how long I work, how hard I study, there will always be something new to learn, some way I can improve.

This comes to mind because I've recently grasped a couple of concepts that, in theory, I ought to have understood years ago. Character goals and plotting are fundamental to storytelling, at least storytelling as I know it. Neither one is new to me, yet up until recently, my comprehension has been almost entirely intellectual. I write by feel, not by thinking, so intellectual knowledge isn't helpful to me when I'm actually writing. Now, however, I get those two things by feel.

So what happened to change things? Basically, I suddenly saw both concepts in terms I could understand, that were meaningful to me, if to no one else. For example, it doesn't resonate when I ask myself what a given character wants. I don't get any sense of the character being driven to achieve his or her goal. However, if I ask myself what the character believes must be done, the thing that makes him or her think, "That needs to be taken care of," the drive to achieve the goal is there. The difference may be semantic, but semantics matter. As Mark Twain famously said, " The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

If there's a lesson in this for me, it's that when faced with something important that doesn't entirely resonate with me, it might be useful to try to reframe it in a way that does. It certainly can't hurt.

Barb's Musing: A Visit with the Mills & Boon Loves Authors!

2011-09-13T08:22:00.005-04:00

This week starts a special two-part Guest Muse Q&A with the members of Mills & Boon Loves, the New Voices Anthology being released by, obviously, Mills & Boon. I have the honor of meeting these ladies this past summer at the RWA National Conference in New York City, and they are very fun group.

What’s most interesting about this interview is it gives you, the reader, a chance to see three varied points of view about the writing process at one time. In this case we’re looking at a woman with nearly grown children and a demanding job outside the home, a woman with three children under five and a newlywed working full time. Reading their answers, I’m amazed at how people’s experiences are different, yet ultimately the same.

Can you tell us a little about your journey to publication. How long you were writing, etc?

Aimee: I had been writing seriously for five years—and was feeling frustrated with my lack of progress—when I decided to stop worrying about getting published and simply write for fun. The very next chapter I wrote was for the M&B Feel the Heat contest, which is now my debut book!

Maisey: I've always fiddled around with writing, but I didn't get serious about it until I discovered the Presents line. It really appealed to me and I felt like it was something I could write. I found out they were running a contest through one of Harlequin's websites (This is the contest the fabulous Lynn Raye Harris won!) and I entered. I didn't get any feedback via the contest, but during judging I started work on a new manuscript, which I then submitted through traditional channels. I was picked up from slush by an amazing editor (an editor Barb and I have in common!) and she took me through three rounds of revisions and eventually...I got The Call!

Leah – a special question for you. You entered the Mills & Boon New Voices competition and that’s how you landed in this anthology. Can you tell us a little bit about why you decided to enter, how you picked the story idea, etc.?

For me, entering New Voices was a no-brainer - as soon as I heard the prize was publication, I was sold! As scared as I was about the public scrutiny the competition involved, the prize made it worth it. However, given I suspected New Voices would be brutal (given the high calibre of entries I expected would be entered) I made a decision to write something totally new. This way I wouldn't be too attached if I crashed and burned :)

The idea for Secrets & Speed Dating came from a series of opinion pieces I read in a newspaper written by women struggling to conceive. The emotional journey those women were on was just incredible, and had me in tears. I started to think about what it would be like to not even have the chance to take that journey. What if you knew from a very young age that you could never have children? How would you handle that? My heroine, Sophie, grew from that idea. (Editor's Note: This year's New Voices competition is now open for entries. www.romanceisnotdead.com)

How did you keep yourself motivated before you sold? Was there any particular mantra or lesson that helped you through the “dry spell”?

Aimee: Well, it all boils down to the fact that I LOVE what I’m doing. Published or not, I’d still be writing these stories.

Leah: I'm a member of Romance Writers of Australia, and the friends I have made through RWA, and the support I've received from the organisation, have definitely kept me motivated. I love sharing in the successes of my fellow RWA members, and the annual RWA conference is brilliant and guaranteed to get me buzzing and excited about my writing.

I don't really have a mantra or lesson; pre-publication I found that focusing on the good feedback I'd previously received from contests and from editors (even from "good" rejections) would help reassure me that I was the world's crappiest writer :) Actually - I still need to do that!

Maisey: I have to admit, my journey went pretty smoothly. *ducks* But there were a lot of long wait times, and what I did in those times was write. Write more and more and more. I'm really glad I did, because with each MS I wrote during waits (most of which I won't ever submit!) I learned something new.

At the Moody Muses, we talk a lot about our writing ups and downs as we crank out our books. Sometimes the Muse is on board with that plan, sometimes She isn't. Do you have any tricks to make your muse play nicely?

Maisey: I think because time is such a precious commodity in my life (I only have two designated writing days...the rest are me stealing bits of time) I've learned to just write anyway. Some days that means I'm a lot slower, or that I hate every word I write. But I commit to powering through it. I try my very best to never let the 'doubt crows' win. What I've found is that over time, those days are easier to deal with, because I've disciplined myself to work through them.

Leah: I'm still very new to writing to contract, but so far I think my only trick is to simply get the words down. It's been said a million times but it's true - you can't fix a blank page. I also find that my story doesn't really get going until I know my characters, and as I'm useless as character interviews and the like, the only way for me to get to know my hero and heroine is to write.

Aimee: I don’t do nice. I beat her into submission

Part two of our interview runs next Tuesday.

In a brief aside - this week's winner of Heart of a Hero is....Ju Dimello! Don't forget, we're giving away a book every week this month. All you need do to enter the drawing is leave comment on a post by one of the Moody Muses (Bex, Katy, Cathryn or Me) during the week.

Becca's Musing: Reality TV Team Challenges

2011-09-08T06:01:00.000-04:00

I watch more Reality TV than I probably should, but there are some shows that actually inspire me and draw me in each week. Some are entrepreneurial at heart, which is something I find myself interested in more and more. How brilliant is it to take something you like to do and establish a business around it? But then there are the other, creative competition type shows that I love because the contestants have to create on demand - some conceive and execute some truly amazing products while others struggle with the challenges. As a writer, I am fascinated and awed by the successes and find myself nodding in sympathy when well-intentioned ideas don't work out the way the contestants had planned.

This week I caught some episodes that featured team challenges, which, as many fans know, are ripe for drama and conflict. The team leader is often held accountable for the success or failure of the team's execution whether it's the leader's fault or not. This got me thinking about writing, as so many things often do, and how the notion of voice comes into play when you have a collaborative project. Invariably on these Reality TV team challenges, someone's voice gets edited out by the stronger, more vocal voices on the team. And it is often the person who loses his/her voice by taking on someone else's vision that bombs the challenge and gets voted off the show.

My writing life feels weird at the moment. I still have a manuscript out to a few agents but have gotten lots of rejections on it so far. Knowing that the agent hunt can be a pretty tough road, I expected the rejections. But I have been struggling with some of the feedback because the agents' comments conflict with one another and while I try to sift through the constructive criticism to try to make improvements I don't want to lose my voice or my story in the process. I want to make the book better but I don't want those conflicting voices to drown out mine. Making sense of all the varied comments will take me some time. But in the meantime I have started a new book and I have this nagging, sinking feeling that I am forging full steam ahead, making the same mistakes in this new book that I made in the last one. I have been fretting over every choice because I just don't want to write it wrong.

So I've been thinking about these reality show team challenges and am trying to soothe my confused muse. Yes, everyone is going to have an opinion about how we should execute our challenges. But those opinions are subjective - they may be right but they could also be wrong. We have each reached this point in our creative journeys because of the investments we have made in training, practice, education, etc., and we cannot discount the body of knowledge we have forged along the way. I think we have to listen to our own voices as best as we can . . . trust our processes, find help in the feedback we've been given but be careful not to let any doubt help erase our voices from the conversation. Writing in some ways is collaborative, but ultimately you're the one who has to stand by the work. It's your story for the telling.

Seize the day!

Becca

2011-09-07T13:17:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about a discussion we had at my RWA chapter meeting, started by the question, "What's your process?"

One aspect of that discussion I didn't mention a couple of weeks ago involved writing longhand. The first drafts of all my scenes are written longhand, preferably using a Pilot Precise V5 rolling ball pen. One of my chapter sisters reacted with humorous horror at the idea of writing longhand -- if memory serves, she said, "Shoot me now." Another chapter sister said she'd be unable to read what she'd written. I can understand the way they feel; longhand does take longer than typing.

So why do I do it? There are a few reasons.

One is because I love the way the pen feels crossing the paper. I also really like the sight of my own handwriting.

Another is that it's completely portable. If I have a pen and a little paper, I can write. I can write almost anywhere. (The bus jounces too much to write longhand...but that's the only place I can think of.)

Third, there's some evidence that the physicality of writing, that pen on paper quality, changes the way we think.

Finally, I think it's the very slowness of writing longhand that makes it work for me. It gives me time to imagine what's happening, to find the words to convey what I'm imagining. There's a part of my imagination I connect to when I write longhand that I don't connect to when I type. I don't know why that is; I just know that it's so.

None of this is meant to argue that writing longhand is in any way superior to typing. In the end, it always comes down to the same thing: Whatever gets the story onto the page is the thing to do.

Barb's Musing: Double Release Day! And I'm Giving Away Books!

2011-09-06T09:25:00.006-04:00

Normally I like to avoid shameless self promotion unless it has a lesson I can share. But I can't help myself today. For the first time in my life I am celebrating two simultaneous novel releases. There were far too many years where I didn't think I'd have one release to announce, let along two in the same month so I'm sure you understand. Chalk today up to perseverance. (Hey! There was a lesson after all.)

Anyway, my third Harlequin Romance The Heart of a Hero makes its North American debut today. I'm especially proud of this book. The hero, Jake Meyers, is a wounded veteran and both my editor and I worked our butts off to do him justice. That Harlequin chose to release this book the same week as the 9/11 anniversary leaves me both humble and nervous. I can only hope my hero is worthy of the real-life heroes risking their lives right now.

Here's a quick excerpt:

Jake’s hip throbbed so much he had to clench his jaw from the pain. A doctor would probably tell him he
was being a stubborn fool. That he was making himself suffer needlessly. Of course, Jake would debate
that last word. Needlessly. He was pretty damn certain his suffering was justified. Though he did feel a
little bad for dragging the Bird Whisperer along.

Speaking of which… He felt her cast another look in his direction, setting his nerves on edge. Since his
discharge he’d gotten all kinds of looks. The discreet. The openly gaping. The disgustingly compassionate.
All of them with some sort of awe, as if he were a freaking hero.

Little Miss Bird-Whisperer’s looks, though… God, but he could feel her pale blue eyes scanning his profile.
His skin prickled with the awareness. Without turning, he could picture them wide and curious. Like
she was trying to see inside him or something. It irritated the hell out of him.

Meanwhile, Mills & Boon has released my first novel The Cinderella Bride as part of its 2011 New Voices Anthology. The anthology - called Mills & Boon Loves... also features work by Harl. Presents author Maisey Yates and first time author Aimee Carson and last years New Voices competition winner Leah Ashton. These three ladies will be visiting the Muses later this month in a special group Q&A which is sure to be entertaining. It's part of our quartet's month long Mills & Boons Love promotion tour.

To celebrate what has to be one of the surreal months of my life, I'm -- what else? Giving away books. One copy of The Heart of the Hero every week. All you need to do is visit our blog and comment on one of our posts. Trust me, given the great insight my fellow Muses provide every week, that won't be hard.

Of course, if you don't want to wait - or you don't feel lucky, you can always buy the book(s). (Hint, hint)

In the meantime, thanks for all your support, and happy writing!

Cathryn’s Musing: A Dream Realized

2011-09-03T14:32:00.000-04:00

My husband brought in the mail this morning, and there on top of the pile was the September Romance Writers Report (RWR), the monthly magazine for the Romance Writers of America, Inc.

My name and my book title are listed on page 6, under First Sales.

I can’t tell you what this means to me. During the years and years I spent in my apprenticeship for fiction publication, I read this magazine and this column every month, daydreaming of the time I would finally make this list. I imagined how it would feel: satisfying, an external validation that all the effort and time and perseverance had been worthwhile.

Now that it’s here, I’m still in awe, deeply grateful that it happened, but at the same time, aware of all the hard work still ahead of me. I have new ideas, new proposals for future stories I’m developing, plus the promotion strategy for the book releasing in January.

It’s very overwhelming at times.

And so, I’m opening this up for advice. Do you have any words of wisdom to share? Suggestions for surviving the road ahead? (Thanks in advance if you do!)

Becca's Musing: A Letter to September

2011-09-01T10:06:00.013-04:00

Dear September,

Nothing personal, but I always have mixed feelings when I see you. I am an August baby, a summer girl, a warm-weather kind of gal, so when I think about you, September, I am reminded how all the things I love about summer are behind us and it saddens me to know I won't see them again for what feels like a long time.

To give you the benefit of the doubt, you are a perfectly lovely month in your own right. I know you will bring us a few last beautiful weather days and even a long, holiday weekend at your start. But you do mark the sign of change and even good change is hard.

Part of that change is the start of a new year. For teachers, students, parents, and academic personnel, we often live not by the calendar year but by the school schedule and your arrival throws us into a new mode as we start fresh and make plans for what the school year will bring. It is a frenetic and tiring start-up. I hope the hush after your launch brings some peace and relaxation and that the months ahead are fruitful and productive.

I like to try to use your arrival as a benchmark for my writing progress -- a chance to assess where I'm at and retool my goals as I work toward the end of the year. In that way I find you helpful -- you give me an opportunity for review before January comes knocking with its resolution pressures. You are a decent quarterly reminder so I want to at least thank you for that.

To everything there is a season and I am striving to find the best in what your arrival ushers in. Football, holidays, nesting, hibernation . . . I do look forward to these things, but I know on their heels come the cold and snow. After last year, I am in no rush to see either of those two accompaniments any time soon. I would be grateful if you could help hold them off for as long as you can (please also share this message with October).

So, September, I struggle with seeing you today. I am grateful to be on the planet and experiencing this day, but I sure do wish we were looking at the start of summer rather than the end of it.

Please take it easy on us summer lovers.

Thank you,

Becca

Katy's Musing: Drop the Fruit, Monkey

2011-08-31T12:36:00.000-04:00

There is a story that you can trap a monkey by putting a piece of fruit in a tied-down basket that has a narrow opening. The opening is big enough to let the monkey put its empty hand in to grab the fruit, but small enough that it can't get its hand out so long as it holds onto the fruit. If it lets go, it's free...but the monkey wants the fruit so badly, it can't let go and is therefore trapped.

I was told this story as an example of attaching to outcomes. So long as I cling to a particular outcome, I'm exactly like the monkey with its hand stuck in the basket because it won't let go of the fruit it's grasping. If I let go of my particular desire, I free myself.

This is the story I think of when I remember, "Worrying about results corrupts the process."

For the last week, I've returned to my old struggling ways. Doubts have come oozing out of the cave where they lurk, undermining my faith in myself, in my ability to work. I open my files or my notebook, look at the blank page or at the words I already have down, and I freeze. The story's garbage, the words are stupid, I'm doing this all wrong, and I don't know how to fix it... It doesn't matter which particular negative message gets hissed at me; the idea is always the same. I'm no good.

Today, I thought about the monkey, and I realized the fruit I've been clinging to is the idea that my story has to be a certain way, that it has to be 'good.' I've been so concerned with the result, I've lost sight of the process; I've attached to the outcome. In fact, all I have is the process, the journey that I make a single step at a time. I need to put my head down and focus on the here-and-now, and stop worrying about what it'll look like when I get to the end of the thousand miles I'm walking. In point of fact, I don't know what my story will look like when it's done. I don't know how much revision it's going to need; I don't know that what I do today won't be good for the story as a whole. All I can do is the best I can, in the moment I'm doing it.

When I remembered all that, I also remembered the lesson my sister and I took from the story, something we repeat to one another from time to time: Drop the fruit, monkey.

I'm dropping the fruit.

Barb's Musing: Sometimes it is a story problem

2011-08-30T09:40:00.002-04:00

As writers, we spend a lot of time bucking ourselves up. With good reason. Writing is a lonely, solitary, frustrating and often discouraging business. We tell ourselves not to give up. We push ourselves to stay motivated, especially when we're knee deep in the process. Keep plugging away, we say. The book doesn't suck, you're just in a bad patch. Everyone goes through the "I hate this book" phase.

Every once in a while, however, we need to tell ourselves the hard truth, and that is that the book isn't working.

I'm in that place today. I've spent the better part of a summer struggling with a proposal that just isn't working. Oh, the bare bones of the idea work, but the set up doesn't. It's taking too long to get to the meat of the romance. The pacing is off. I'm pretty sure much of what I've outlined for Chapters 4-12 are workable, but not if I keep this particular premise.

So in about five minutes, I'm about to send a quick note to my editor - the ever patient Flo - to tell her I'm heading back to square one. Not a note I relish sending but one that will save both of us a lot of editing and rewriting later on.

Because sometimes it really is a story problem....

_____________

On a separate note, the upcoming month of September marks a couple milestones for me. First, my boy starts is final year of high school. I'm officially one year away from becoming an empty nester, with all the excitement and melancholy that comes with the transition.

Second, I have two releases this month. The Heart of a Hero which will be out in North America on September 6 and the Mills & Boon New Voices Anthology which makes it's UK debut on September 13th. I'm planning some fun giveaways in honor of these two books - details will be announced here and on my web page next week. Also, in honor of the New Voices Anthology, the Moody Muses will be hosting a guest group Q&A with Maisey Yates, Aimee Carson and last years New Voices Competition winner Leah Ashton. It should be a fun time.

_____________

That's all! In the meantime, happy writing!

Cathryn’s Musing: The Amazon Kindle—How it’s Changed My Book Purchasing

2011-08-26T17:41:00.004-04:00

The Amazon Kindle has fundamentally changed the way I buy, read, store, and share my genre fiction. It has even increased the frequency of my reading, and thus, the frequency of my buying.

I’m fussier about what I do buy (I sample it first), and I’m fussier about the price that I will pay (I’m now used to paying less for an e-book than I’ve previously paid for paperbacks). In fact, I don’t see myself purchasing fiction paperbacks any more, at any price, period.

All of this has shocked me. I resisted trying the Kindle with all my heart. I love the feel of books in my hands. The joy of browsing bookstores for new stories. I didn’t see how readers could give up paperbacks in favor of electronic print.

But now my reading (and book-buying) life has changed completely, and in just two weeks!

For anyone who doesn’t own an e-reader yet, here are the great things about e-readers, specifically the Kindle. (Note: I blogged about the Color Nook I bought for my husband here, in case you’re interested in the differences.)

Great thing #1: It’s much easier to carry around my reading material in a thin, lightweight e-reader than it is to haul it in book format. With a flick of a button, the e-reader device turns on and brings me right to the page I left off. And if I want to switch to another book, that happens with the flick of another button.

Great thing #2: I control the size of the print. I can’t emphasize how great it is to be able to see the text clearly, and not to have to hunt down my reading glasses.

Great thing #3: Turning the pages is easy and fun. Ergonomically, it feels comfortable to read with an e-reader. It’s also faster and less cumbersome.

Great thing #4: With the click of a button, I can download and read 5% of a book for free before I decide whether I want to buy it or not. And if I do decide to buy it, that process couldn’t be easier—one button, one click. With Wi-Fi, the book downloads in a few seconds and I can read it immediately, no matter the time of day. Wow!

I haven’t even touched on the fact that I can carry around something like 3500 books with me at once, and search, highlight, and clip portions of any of them easily. I can also download PDFs and Word documents from my laptop and have the e-reader read them aloud, which is great for proofreading, but I haven’t tried that feature yet.

I’ve just been reading. And enjoying reading more than I have in a long time. I can’t overstate how much I believe these devices are going to continue to change the market for us genre fiction writers. Our marketing promotions and business practices (booksignings, anyone?) will have to change to reflect the new reality.

Once a reader switches to using e-readers, will they continue to buy genre fiction paperbacks? I don’t know. I know that I won’t. As it is, I don’t want to read the paperbacks I collected at the RWA National Conference in June. Also, when I posted the Amazon link to pre-order my January 2012 debut, a Harlequin Superromance, the first question I got from my Facebook friends was, “When does it come out in Kindle?”

I understand that question now, I really do. I want to give away all my old, falling-apart romance paperbacks, and I want to start again with buying my keeper-shelf electronically. And I know I’m not the only reader who feels this way.

How about you? What do you think about your e-reader? Does it work for you, or do you prefer reading paperbacks?