Sunday, October 31, 2010

Golly!

On Blogger and Twitter I follow author Christine Bell.
I read her book, Pray, which is the first book in her series The wolves of Pray.
Good book. Interesting characters. Hot! 

Christine's second book in the series, Awakening, has just been released. Will be reading that one very soon. 

She has been giving a couple interviews...


...and they were interesting and well done. 

For fun Christine Bell was giving away a 10 page critique of your manuscript if you left your 'best line' on the blog. Even though I broke the rules and entered 2 lines instead of one, (and only 2 other people left their best lines), I managed to win! YEAH!!!

My thanks go to Melinda B. Pierce and Christine Bell.

Here is the line-s:

Jack from Maguire's Corner.
 

Closing the door he found her laundered underwear hanging from a hook to dry. Impure thoughts of her wearing the tiny satin black garments were outdone only by the thought that she currently wasn’t wearing them under his borrowed t-shirt. 


Now I have been invited to send my 10 pages to Christine Bell and I'm freakin' out!  I will have to triple check those pages in the morning and maybe again in the afternoon (and maybe once more) before I get the nerve to send it to her. 

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Tiptoeing through the sex.

The fine line I walk writing a love scene.

I teeter between too flowery, too generic, too clinical, too graphic.

I've said before, I don't mind graphic. I like to read it, I just don't think I want to write it. 

I'm a little old school.

So the dance continues and kept me up last night. One something in the morning and I'm sitting on my couch deciding how he is going to touch her and how she will react to being touched.


It's like I'm spying on them.
I'm a voyeur. 
Watching, waiting. 

Deciding.


To be completely honest, I like it.

I like watching.
I like deciding.
I like being in charge.
I like causing their joy.
I like causing them pain.

So, who knew I was so twisted?

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Oh! Now I remember! She has Ka-Razma!

It occurred to me this morning, as I was staring at the blank white computer screen, that I am not Maggie, my lead female character of my current book.

I am not Maggie and Maggie is soooooo not me.

Maggie is hip and hot.
Smart and sassy. 
Cute and funny.

Maggie is young and beautiful.

She doesn't have a bunch of hang-ups.
She doesn't have body size issues.
She doesn't have trunk sized emotional baggage.

If Maggie wants something, she gets it.
And she wants Jack.

God, I'm stupid.

Maybe I need a sticky note on my monitor reminding me of who I am supposed to writing as so I don't get stuck again for however many weeks it's been.

I haven't finished the scene yet, they seem to take longer to write than to ... never mind.

But I have been able to get them started and that was the biggest speed bump.

Very pleased with that and I will be even more pleased if I can finish this scene this week. 

See that, I gave myself a goal.

I wanted to thank everyone again for coming to my blog the other day to read my short story blogfest entry and leaving comments.
It was fun to write.
It was supposed to be 500 words and I did go over by a few but I thought it was necessary. 

It was nice to be over for a change!

The theme of the comments was the word 'creepy'. I hadn't intended it to be creepy when I wrote it. I was going for suspenseful or dramatic. But creepy is pretty cool too.

It might be a while before I try that again. There are so many blogfests out there you could almost make a full time job out of it. I'm not always the best at coming up with instant ideas. 

Go figure.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Cinderella's Shoe Blogfest Entry

Cinderella's Shoe Blogfest


   “Hello?” she called out, walking through the back door of the lecture hall.
There was no reply. The place was empty except for the man she could see sitting on the corner of a desk down by the blackboard at the front of the room. He was reading something by the light of his desk lamp.
She cautiously walked down the steps toward him. The lighting in the aisle was dim and she didn’t want to trip on her way down.
That was certainly an impression she wanted to avoid making.
Being a librarian at a university people constantly assumed that she would fit some stereotype.
Melinda was definitely not a bookworm, bun wearing, square heeled, two left feet having, no fun girl.
Except for the bookworm part.
The teacher had yet to notice her. But she was noticing all sorts of things about him. Since he was sitting she couldn’t gauge his height but it appeared he had very wide shoulders and long legs. His hair was a soft brown color and neatly styled. He wore jeans, sneakers and a button down denim shirt.
She was only a few feet away. Before she was able to announce herself again the man let out a huge bark of laughter and scared her causing the book she was carrying to almost slip from her grasp.
     “Hi!” he said when he saw her. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Sometimes the students write the funniest material I’ve ever read.”
     “Funny? Aren’t you a criminology teacher?” she asked, her heartbeat just beginning to settle.
     “Crime can be hilarious,” he said with a smile.
Melinda smiled in return enjoying the view of his moss green eyes behind his trendy eyeglass frames.
     “I’m returning this. I found it in the book drop,” she said.
He stood and closed the distance between them to take the book and then looked at the cover.
     “Intro to Criminology. Excellent book.”
     “So, what was so funny?” she asked.
Melinda had to admit she found this man attractive and didn’t want to go back to the stuffy library just yet.
     “The students submitted papers on committing the perfect murder for a writing contest. Some of their techniques are genius. A few of their methods of body disposal are really comical.”
     “That sounds interesting.”
     “It is.”
     “Perhaps I should be nervous working in a place where there is a class full of potential murderers,” she joked.
     “Anyone can be a murderer but you have to pick the right victim. For instance, Melinda, you walked right into this classroom without a thought to your own safety. You live alone, you aren’t close with your family and you wouldn’t be missed for several days.”
     “What? I mean - how did - how do you know all that?” she asked, confusion clear in her voice.
     “It’s my job to know.”
     “You aren’t Professor Doyle,” Melinda said in comprehension.
     “No, I’m not.”
Melinda’s frozen feet finally started to move her backwards. She wondered, for the first time in her young life, how fast she could run.
    “Who are you?” she asked.
    “I’m the contest winner.”

Saturday, October 23, 2010

When words fail you...edit!

I was getting pretty frustrated with the whole 'I have nothing to write' thing but I'm figuring there is some sort of pattern here and I just need to ride it out.

So, I did some editing instead.

Not quite as satisfying as getting a few pages written but still proactive.

I may know what the problem is.

As I mentioned before I am at the point where my two characters are going to finally get to do more than kiss! YEAH!

In the first book there was so much fiery passion up to this point that it was easy to get them to bed. It was a moral imperative!


This one isn't so clear cut.

They have been a little luke warm with each other and I'm wondering if I have to go back and ramp things up a bit to make it more believable.
I guess I was going for more romantic in this story but I'm not sure I'm up for that. 

Yes, I know it's a 'romance' novel but it doesn't have to be all flowery and gross.

I like the 'throw them up against the wall' kind of thing most of the time.

Not saying there isn't situations that call for sweetness and light, there is, but I don't think this is one of them.

I guess I prefer to write the frantic moments.
When they need each other so bad it's tangible.
When the heat in the room causes furniture to combust.
When the feel of skin on skin causes the world to stop rotating and gravity ceases to exist.


I'm not feeling any of that at this point and I think that might be causing my writing dilemma.


I'll have to go back and see if I can add some spice so that these two characters don't have to wait any longer and I can get back to work.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Your writing ability will be disabled 'til whenever due to maintenance.

How appropriate! I logged on to my blog to bitch about how I still haven't written anything and there was this message from the 'management' about image uploading being disabled for maintenance. 

Too bad I can't upload either!


Wish my brain would just let me know when it was down for maintenance! That would be so helpful.

"Heather, this is that tiny part of your brain that has that need to write fiction stories. I am giving you a 'heads up' to let you know that I am down for maintenance this week. So, don't even bother to try and write at this time. Anything that might come out will be total crap and you will have to delete it. More than likely you will just stare at the screen and absolutely nothing will come to you and you will feel like a pathetic loser for a short time. Don't fret. I'll be back on soon and you will be typing that story (that you have no idea where it's going) in no time at all! See you in a week or so!"


I am way too distracted to write anyway. Volunteer work, job hunting and apparently my child, who I will refer to here as The Spawn, is really bad during school and I am getting notes home all the time about his behavior. This of course, requires me to spend more time asking him 'why?' so I can hear 'I don't know' over and over followed by the 'shrug'!

Lovin' my life.

Hoping my words return very soon.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Stuck...in...molasses...

I haven't written a word in days.
And I can tell already that it's almost that 'time of year'.
The time of year when I've got too much crap to do and not enough time to write.
I've got multiple fundraisers going on, one for October, one for November and one for December. They take up a lot of time with booking and advertising.

If I squint, I can just see the holidays coming up in the distance.
Once Halloween hits, my favorite holiday, it's all down hill from there.

But, there is this one part I look forward to every year.

In our home we do celebrate the commercial version of Christmas.
We decorate the house and trim the tree. We sing songs and have great dinners with our family.
We open presents and watch football.
Done.

The one moment that is all mine. 

Everyone has gone to bed and the house is dark and quiet. I pour one last cup of coffee and curl up on the couch with a fuzzy blanket. Within moments one of the cats is looking for a comfy spot on my lap.
I turn the Christmas tree back on.
The Douglas Fir is filled with small white lights and it makes the whole room shine. Each lovingly remembered ornament sparkles in the soft light.

For me, it's like turning on peace.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Here we go...again...

I emailed Carina Press today. Now we wait.

I read on a blog the other day some tips for smoothing out your manuscript.
She said: Avoid stating the obvious.
For example: stand up and/or sit down.

So, I went through my current project with the 'find' function and HOLY CRAP do I use those a lot!

Before I sent off my first story to Carina I made sure to look for this as well. HOLY CRAP I used them a lot in that one too!


I made some minor adjustments.


She had other great suggestions on her blog but I didn't check for them all.
Maybe I should have.


I was going to send to another e-publisher as well but they state in their submission guidelines that they publish erotic fiction. 

Hmmm. There is sex in my books, but I don't think it's considered 'erotic'.

After trying to look up proper definitions for erotic fiction, and probably getting flagged by the porn police, I am still not sure what makes the jump from romantic sex to erotic sex in books.

My only guess at this point would be wording. I don't use certain words while describing sex. Call me a prude. I don't want my story to sound like Penthouse forum.

These words don't bother me. I've probably used them all. But I think certain words can take the romance right out of the sex scene.


So, for now, I won't be sending to that e-publisher. Maybe next week I'll start a new list of agents/publishers to send to.


I haven't written in a few days. Guess I'm making up for my write-a-thon a few days ago. I have been looking for a 'real' part-time job so that seems to be taking up all my time and energy right now.


My brain also knows that the big love/sex scene is coming up and maybe it's not ready to write it yet. It takes a lot of work to make those scenes sound believable and not silly or clinical.


Tough life, huh?

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Thursday, October 7, 2010

It's all making sense now.

When I was a teenager I had a hard time.
My life was cake compared to some people and worse than others.
I've always been a middle of the road kinda gal.

I hated school. Hated homework. Hated teachers. Hated the other kids. Hated me. Hated my life.

In order to escape my dull, uninteresting, hateful life, I created stories, mostly in my head, but sometimes I wrote them down.

It was usually about me meeting an awesome famous guy and being whisked away to a more glamorous life. 
Rock stars.
Actors.

It didn't matter.

So, it makes sense that when I am feeling low, unloved and bi-polar, that I would write more. In the last 2 days I think I have written almost 15 pages. That may not seem like much, but for me to crank out in 2 days, it's a lot. Granted, most of it is dialogue, and pretty rough, but still very important to the plot.

It's a sucky way to write though. I don't like feeling like that. 
But, what are you gonna do? 
You have to go where the muse takes you I suppose.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Who the hell am I kidding?

I don't know what I am doing.
I can't be serious, really.
I'm not a writer or an author.
No one will publish anything I write.

These are the words that are constantly in my head buffeting around, tearing me up, freakin' me out.


I don't know why.
I don't know how to get them out.

I don't know if they should come out.

Maybe if I didn't have that little voice in my head telling me that I suck I wouldn't tell it to fuck off all the time and write anyway.

I'm feeling bi-polar. Do I sound bi-polar?


Writing is so important to me but at the same time I don't think it's going to get me anywhere.


Maybe I just need a nap.


Mrs. X called me yesterday. So awesome of her to take the time. She didn't have my letter/synopsis but asked me to email it to her. I checked and rechecked my work and then emailed it out. Now we wait.


I got so over-confident that I went through my whole book and took out all the curse words and in my star struck haze I hit save.


Luckily, I had saved it to a jump drive recently so I still have the last copy before I changed it.


Idiot.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Dear Universe, why do I do such stupid things?

The conversation went like this...
ME: Honey, go into your office. I need to write.
HIM: Why don't you get the first one published?
ME: I'm trying. I need to hear back from HQN. I can't send to the e-publisher I want w/o hearing back from them.
HIM: So, call them.
ME: Who? HQN?
HIM: Yeah.
ME: I don't think you're supposed to do that.
HIM: I'll call them. I could be your agent.
ME: I'll call them.


So, I called HQN in NYC.


A human answered on the third ring!


ME: I thought I would get a machine.
HER: How can I help you?
ME: I sent a query w/ synopsis back in June and I was wondering if there was any way I could find out what happened to it?
HER: Attention to?
ME: MRS. X
HER: Her office is in Canada. They probably sent the letter there.
ME: Oh. I got the info right off your website.
HER: Do you want the Canadian phone number?
ME: Yes. Thank you.


So, I called HQN in Canada.


A human answered on the second ring!


ME: Hello. I sent a query w/ synopsis back in June to the NY office address but I had the attention of MRS. X on it and they think they might have forwarded it to Canada.
HER: I'll transfer you to MRS. X.
ME: Really?
HER: Just a moment.


MRS. X's VoiceMail: Please leave me a message.
ME: Hello. I sent a query w/ synopsis back in June to the NY office but I put your name on it and they may have forwarded it to you. I was just wondering if anyone knew what happened to it? Please call or email me if you have the time. Thank you.


I'm such an ASS!


The UNIVERSE only knows what the FRAK happened to my stupid letter! 


STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!


I was so careful. I did my research. I had a database. REALLY!

How the hell did I screw this up?


Maybe, cause they know I'm dumb, they sent it to Istanbul. 


Maybe, for those special letters like mine, they have a huge hole drilled into the Earth's core and they just chuck them down into the fiery hot magma.


Maybe they folded my letter in half and they are using it to keep their desk from wobbling back and forth.