Guest Blogger: Nancy Lynn Jarvis

Welcome Mystery Writer Nancy Lynn Jarvis...

Why would a Realtor turn to a life of murder and chocolate chip cookies?

I’m a real estate agent who is having so much fun killing people that I’ll probably never sell another house. I never planned to kill anyone and never intended to write anything other than enticing advertising copy for my listings, but in 2008 when the real estate market tanked and I couldn’t dispassionately tell clients their homes might not sell for what they owed on their mortgage, I decided to run away from the too-real world of foreclosures and short sales, take a time out, and pretend to be retired.

I quickly got bored and missed all the interesting people I met in real estate. Maybe because of that or maybe because my fallback mode was avoiding reality, as a purely time-filling intellectual exercise, I began to toy with the idea of writing a mystery.

The logic and careful structure of mysteries has fascinated me since the days when I sat in a wicker rocking chair at my grandmother’s house and read Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, sworn to secrecy in case my mother wouldn’t approve of a young girl reading something other than Nancy Drew.

Writing a mystery would be like solving a logic puzzle—Sudoku on steroids— and if that wouldn’t be fun enough, mystery writing would give me an excuse to delve into a world of fascinating but unsettling things like decomposition, accidental mummification, and how ligature strangulation and death by hypothermia work. Researching those topics would be akin to being a four-year-old playing with rubber dinosaurs: the game would be enjoyable, and I could control what might otherwise give me nightmares.


The idea of writing mysteries kept getting more appealing. I could take my twenty-plus years of situations—that’s a polite term for all those things that happen in the world of real estate that makes agents say, “I could write a book”—and use them for background. I could create a real estate agent protagonist named Regan McHenry who could be kind of like me, only younger, thinner, and more daring, and get back in touch with my favorite agents, clients, and associates by using them as inspiration for characters.


The murders in my books are made up, but the real estate stories are real—yes, Realtors do come across bodies in the course of doing business—so a Realtor who solves mysteries isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem.

And the cookies? Well, Realtors often bake cookies at open houses to entice buyers. It’s an old trick-of- the-trade. In the first book I wrote, The Death Contingency, Regan baked homemade cookies at an almost lethal open house. In Backyard Bones she baked cookies to take as comfort food to a client accused of murder. After Regan’s cookies appeared in two books, there had to be a recipe. When people visit my website they can not only read the beginnings of the books, they can also pick up a free recipe for “Mysterious Chocolate Chip Cookies.” The cookies make a cameo appearance in Buying Murder, the third book in the series, and will be in all future books.

Website: http://www.goodreadmysteries.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ReganMcHenryRealEstateMysteries

Nancy Lynn Jarvis

* * * * * * * * * *

Thanks Nancy--I'm so glad we had a chance to find out about your books. I love mysteries, especially cozy ones, and these sound just like my cup of tea!
Amy Corwin

Tarot with Tina Whittle

I'm so honored today to have Tina Whittle as a guest. Tina is a brilliant mystery writer, as well as a professional tarot reader! Please welcome her and leave comments--I'm sure you'll find her as fascinating as I do...

Mystery Writer Tina Whittle and Reading Tarot
Mystery writing is not my only paying gig. I’m also a mother (although the paycheck doesn’t come in dollars), a freelance journalist, and a professional tarot reader. That last one may seem out-of-place, but it’s really the linchpin that holds the other two together, for while reading tarot for strangers enriches the pocket, reading for myself enriches my creative potential. After all, tarot accesses the subconscious wisdom available to each of us, the wellspring of human creativity, and I can’t think of a more necessary — and more versatile — tool in my writer’s toolkit.


Take the daily reading, for example. Among tarot readers, one way to keep in practice with the cards is to pull one card every morning and ponder it for a bit. I find that as I progress through my day, I notice all the little ways that each card’s special energy affects me. If I’m having a rough time writing — say, wrestling a bloated WIP into submission or pondering a particularly tricky plot point — tarot offers the clean lens of a new perspective.

Take the Seven of Cups, for example (pictured here as illustrated in the classic Rider-Waite-Smith deck). The Seven of Cups depicts a situation any writer can relate to — that dreamy voluptuous reverie when the imagination is allowed free rein. Most of the time this card features a rather dumbstruck individual surrounded by clouds of fantastic images. Some of them look enticing: others appear mysterious, even frightening. None of them are real, however — they’re just the swirling, seductive raw material of the human mind.

As any writer will tell you, such expansive free-flowing exploration is a necessary part in the writing process. It primes the pump and stirs the creative juices. It’s also incredibly fun. For my novel The Dangerous Edge of Things, this meant soaking in the ambiance of Atlanta — sipping mojitos in Little Five Points, meandering the galleries of the High Museum, sinking into the supple leather of a Ferrari coupe. All decadent, but utterly necessary.

Of course, the Seven of Cups sometimes warns that you’re indulging in too much of a good thing. When this card shows up reversed — that is, upside down — I have to consider that it might be time to put down the highball glass and pull up the word processor. Inspiration can only take you so far — the rest requires good old-fashioned perspiration.

Sometimes if my morning card is particularly relevant, I’ll keep it displayed on my desk, as a reminder. One card that always inspires me is The Star (pictured here from Thalia Took’s tarot illustrations, which you can find at http://www.thaliatook.com/ ). A card of hope, optimism and rejuvenation, The Star reminds me to keep my eyes on the horizon. It reassures me that while corrupted files and writer’s block and recalcitrant protagonists are certainly frustrating, this writing life also promises joy. Head up and eyes forward, says this card. And breathe. Breathing would be nice.

For me, tarot isn’t fortunetelling — it is, however, an excellent way to keep me on a productive and fulfilling creative path. The tarot’s symbols and images give my subconscious something to play with, and in return, it rewards me with knowledge that I didn’t know I possessed.

Try tarot for yourself. You don’t have to be a professional to reap the benefits; you just have to be open to your own intuition.

And a Brief Word About Tina...

Tina Whittle is a mystery writer living and working in Southeast Georgia. The Dangerous Edge of Things, her first novel, debuts February 2011 from Poisoned Pen Press. Set in contemporary Atlanta, The Dangerous Edge of Things is the first book in a series featuring gun-shop owner Tai Randolph and corporate security agent Trey Seaver. When not writing or reading, Tina enjoys golf, sushi, and spending time with her family (one husband, one daughter, one neurotic Maltese and three chickens). You can find her at http://www.tinawhittle.com/.

Characterization and Plot

Characterization and Plot

Some of the writing groups I belong to have recently brought up the question of how to prevent the dreaded "sagging middle" in their stories. This is where the book stops being a page-turner and becomes something you read to put you to sleep at night.

Strangely enough, the most common method of trying to correct for this doesn't really work. Often, a writer will  just throw more danger at the hapless heroine or hero. For example, if the hero is fighting with a bunch of bad guys, the author may just add a few more bad guys or one more bigger-and-badder fight.

Other writers hear the advice "upping the ante" and layer on an "Oh, my gosh, they're going to blow up the world!" moment. Which, while logically you would think would make it more exciting because everyone might die, "everyone" is sort of vague and faceless, and frankly, we don't really care. Interestingly, that's why in the Big Disaster Movies, they always focus on the life-or-death of individual characters and their loved ones--in the midst of the world coming to an end. Because it's the individuals we care about, emotionally.

So really, what can you do?

Here's what I do. I ask a really simple question: What's the worst that can happen to the heroine? (Or hero--depending upon your story.) Hint: the answer isn't: she might die. Nope. The worst is what gives that character nightmares. It's probably easiest if I give you a stupid, but fairly concrete example.

You have a heroine who is painfully shy. I mean painfully, agonizingly shy. She stammers when she tries to talk. Stammers horribly. And the sad part is, she's a brilliant biologist, and can write papers that are wonderful, but she just can't talk in public. Or even very well one-on-one. She can't think on her feet. Fortunately, she doesn't have to worry about it, because she gets a fantastic job for an articulate scientist who can present her information and do the glad-handing necessary to get them grants for their research, etc.

So...what's the worst thing that can happen to her?
Her boss comes down with laryngitis right before he has to present their research at a symposium, and their next critical grant depends upon that presentation. If someone doesn't do the presentation, they'll not only lose face at the symposium, but they'll lose the grant and she'll potentially lose her job (and you know she's horrible at job interviews because she is so inarticulate).

And guess what? She's the only one available to do the presentation.

Now THAT's upping the ante and creating tension. And if you really want to be cruel and make the big dark moment even darker--make her flub up that presentation. They think they're going to have to shut down their research. Then give her a sliver of hope that if she and her boss can talk to Mr. Big, they might get enough money to continue. But then, they have to face a worse horror. Something happens to her boss (he has a heart attack? Grabbed by an evil dude?) and it's now up to her to talk their way out of the situation and get the grant--whether that is to get help or talk a bad guy out of killing them...whatever. And what if she's in love with her boss? If she can't talk eloquently enough, she'll lose everything...the grant (her job), and possibly her boss's life.

Guess she'd better get to that speech therapist, after all.

You'll notice with this last twist that it doesn't work if you just have her speaking in front of another large group--even though she may be even more jittery after failing the first time. No. You can't do the same thing a second time. You have to present a different opportunity to fail--an opportunity that is different (and preferrably more personal) than the first challenge.

What you should be picking up from this is that creating tension and that "page turner" quality is all about identifying the worst thing that could happen to a character, and making it happen. And then twisting it to make it worse.

And each of these "opportunities for magnificent failure" has to be different. If it's the same, even if it's rife with bigger-badder-ness, it's going to just feel like more of the same. These challenges must come from unexpected directions. You're looking for that "Where did that come from?" and "I didn't see that one coming" reaction from your reader.

Conversely, in order to have a successful (and happy) ending, you need to know What is the best thing that can happen to this character? What does he or she really, really want? And then figure out how to let her earn that ending.

So all you need when you sit down to write a novel are the answers to these two questions:

1. What is the worst thing that can happen to this character?
2. What is the best thing that can happen to this character?

From those, you'll be able to write a story that grips the reader and keeps her turning pages long into the night.

Just a Quickie

This is just a quick note for those who follow my blog--exciting stuff is on it's way.

October
In October, I'll be participating in Night Owl Reviews web hunt! As part of that, I'm giving away a lovely heart necklace, so be sure to stop by my web site at http://www.amycorwin.com/ for more information.

To thank all my readers, I'm also going to be offering my traditional Regency, Love, The Critic, for FREE! That's right--for one month--you can get an e-book copy of Love, The Critic for free. You can either download it from my website in PDF format or from Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com/) in a bunch of other formats, all for free.

I'm doing this to extend my heartfelt thanks to all my readers. Over the past few years, I've received the most wonderful e-mails from folks who have spent their hard-earned money on my books, and I wanted to do something in return. This is my way of providing a little "something for nothing". I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

Love, The Critic was my "NaNoWriMo" book from 2007--that is, it was written as part of National Novel Writing Month where authors are challenged to write 50,000 words in one month! It's hectic and mindblowing, but a wonderful exercise in just doing it.

So thank you--you guys have been great and you all deserve so much more. I hope you enjoy Love, The Critic and that it at least gives back in enjoyment even a tenth of what you've given me!

This is going to be a short blog, unfortunately. I injured my elbow and it's painful to write, but I did want to tell you all about this.
Best wishes for a wonderful autumn!
Amy Corwin
http://www.amycorwin.com/

Optimism and Great Books

Can Great Books Be Optimisitc?

Literary critics and English professors will no doubt smile smugly and shake their heads at what I’m about to say, but frankly, I don’t care about their opinions. And despite their belief that they know what constitutes great literature and will try to convince anyone within listening distance that they are right (and consequently only their opinions are correct or matter) I know one thing: a great story is about optimism.


Perhaps that’s an Americanism. I know citizens of the good, old U.S. of A. have been accused of that before. As if older cultures have discovered that wisdom is all about the cynical and depressing. Certainly, even a lot of American writers fall into that trap and come to believe it. And they are rewarded—their beliefs are reinforced—by critics who then hail them as the best writers of their generation.


Blah, blah.


Sorry—they’re wrong. Great fiction isn’t about cynicism and pessimism. It isn’t about the “we’re all going to die, horribly and miserably” even if that’s what the literary establishment would have you believe. We all know how difficult life is, how it can grind you down, how it can make you into something you wish you weren’t. Or show you things you wish you’d never seen, like cruelty and all the –isms. Does anyone really need a book to point out man’s inhumanity to man?


I think not. I know life is brutish and short. When I read a book, what I hope to get out of it is a reason to hope. A reason to believe that we can triumph over our difficulties—vanquish evil—even if only for a while.


Why am I thinking about this? Two reasons.


Just finished Duma Key by Stephen King and I’m sort of surprised that it has not received the fame it deserves. In fact, I’ve heard very little about it and that’s very sad to me, because in many ways I think it is one of the best books he’s written. Because while it’s a horror story, it’s a horror story done right. Horror shouldn’t be about how much blood you can spill, how much gore you can spatter, how many gruesome ways you can think of to prove man’s (or evil’s) inhumanity to man. It’s creeping horror about loss, life, recovery, and trying to find the good out of the worst possible circumstances: I can do it. King does what he does best: draws characters you love, you sympathize with, facing terrible adversity. And the very thing that helps them may be the thing that kills them or the ones they love.


But above it all, is the strong, perhaps uniquely American sense of: I can do this. And that is what makes the story great. It’s what makes it a keeper—one to be read again and again. It’s what has made King’s books sell millions and why so many other horror writers never seem to quite “get it”. Probably 90% of other horror writers make their stories about the gore, not about the characters. And most of them kill everyone off by the end. What’s the point in that? What is your reader to get out of that? That life sucks, end it now? Come on, give me a break.


So many novelists believe that in order for a story to be great, everyone must die. What’s great about giving up? About cynicism? About letting evil win? About leaving your characters wrecked and on drugs (a few—L. Block is one who loves to leave characters sinking in the sewer of life). Many writers in both crime and horror genres seem to choose that route—and get lauded for it. But their books are not the sort I want to read again—or at all. They don’t leave me with anything except a feeling that perhaps I ought to find a straight razor and slit my wrists because why not? What’s the use? And who the heck would think it romantic to have one drug addict make a drug addict of their lover to drag him or her down to her level? Not my idea of great fiction or a great story.


So hum-bug and fiddle-sticks. Literature like that is just so much artsy-fartsy junk that weepy-eyed critics and professors love because it confirms their belief that the human species is the worst thing that ever happened to planet earth and we all deserved to be wiped off of it in as many cruel ways as possible.


So…enough ranting…back to my second reason for thinking about this topic on a bright, Saturday morning (in addition to the fact that thinking about it lets me put off my chores a little longer). My second reason is a book I’m writing that is giving me fits on the editing. I’m having the worst time with the heroine. She’s been through horrific experiences and is now doubting herself. And I started to make her, well, nearly suicidal. Then I read King’s Duma Key and realized what I was doing wrong. Yes, she can have these terrible feelings, doubts, and even guilt, but ultimately, she has to believe in herself. She was kidnapped, brutalized, and then killed her captors to escape. Over the years, she’s starting to wonder if she was wrong to kill them. It’s a terrible moral dilemma for her. But ultimately, her character is strong and she did what she had to do to survive, and she must come to realize that. She must find the courage and strength to move forward.


Because that’s what great literature is. Not that my humble book is great literature or has any pretentions along those lines. It’s pure genre, escapism fiction. But the lessons still hold true: it’s strength of character and her will to succeed, the “I can do it,” that really makes a story great.


So critics…blow it out your collective ears. Call me naïve. Call me anything you want. You’ll still be wrong, and I’ll still be right.


I can do it.

New Book Imminent

This is so exciting, I can hardly stand it! My book, The Necklace, now has a cover and a tentative release date of November, 2010! That's less than 3 months away. The cover is absolutely gorgeous, as you can see. The artist really did an outstanding job. This book, published by Highland Press, is the "pre-quel" to I Bid One American, so by the holidays (I hope) there will be three books out about the various wacky members of the Archer family.

They don't need to be read in any particular order, but if you're driven (like me) to want them in order, here is the list. The books are set in the first half of the 19^th century and include a bit of murder to add spice to the romance.

The Necklace, (tentative Nov 2010) about Oriana Archer and Chilton Dacy and a missing emerald necklace that may be cursed.

I Bid One American, (2008) about Oriana's brother, Nathaniel, who has inherited a dukedom and can't seem to resist an American heiress named Charlotte who is more interested in dead Pharaohs than dukes.

The Bricklayer's Helper, (Aug 2010), Sarah, a niece of the Archers, is disguised as a bricklayer to avoid the murderer searching for her, and she turns to an inquiry agent, William, for help.

I've been working, on and off, on another in this series, involving Oriana's younger sister, Helen. Poor Helen loses the family's emerald necklace and winds up in the company of an earl as she tries to retrieve it without making everyone think she's just another empty-minded blonde. This one doesn't have a title yet, but the first draft is done, so I'm making progress.

And, while there will probably be other books about long-lost members of the Archer family, since I can't resist writing about them, I've also got the first draft written of another historical romantic mystery featuring an inquiry agent from the Second Sons Inquiry Agency. This one is called The Deadliest Rose. It needs editing and polishing, of course, before I submit it to a publisher, but I'm really, really excited by it. I got to use all my gardening information—and even descriptions of old garden roses I grow in my own garden—for this book, and I love it when I can include the roses I adore in one of my books.

So, it's a pretty exciting time with lots of things to celebrate!

Best wishes,
Amy

Guest Blog: Elaine Cantrell, interviewing Elizabeth Lane

I'm thrilled to have a guest blogger today, writer Elaine Cantrell!

WGEN’s Elaine Cantrell Interviews Actress Elizabeth Lane


Elaine: Good morning, LA. If you aren’t up yet, you should be. The weather man’s calling for a beautiful day, and traffic isn’t too bad which is great news for all you commuters. Let’s begin our morning broadcast with an interview with Elizabeth Lane. Not that Elizabeth needs any introduction, but let me remind you of all she’s achieved in the past few years.

She originally hails from a little Mid Western town called Fairfield. When she was twenty one, she and her mother, Frances Lane, moved from Fairfield to Hollywood to give Elizabeth her chance in Tinsel Town. Of course with Elizabeth’s looks and talent she caught the eye of legendary director Marc Bruno who cast her as Gracie in Gone Away. Gone Away became one of the highest grossing films in history and catapulted Elizabeth to stardom. Elizabeth, thanks for coming this morning. I’m sure you’re a busy woman.

Elizabeth: (smiling warmly) You’re welcome, Elaine. I always enjoy the chance to reach out to my fans.

Elaine: Yes, it does seem that way. Most stars are irritated by the press.

Elizabeth: It’s all about dreams. I don’t mind talking to my fans because like them I know a lot about dreams. They really can come true.

Elaine: Oh, they have for you, that’s for sure. What about in the romance department. Have those dreams come true for you as well? I reported on the MS benefit last week and saw you and Alex Crawford together. You’ve been engaged for what: nine months?

Elizabeth: ( squirms a little in her chair and refuses to look the interviewer in the eye) Yes, that’s about right. Alex Crawford is extraordinary! He had a French perfume company create an exclusive fragrance just for me.

Elaine: Wow, the man has a romantic side. I did want to ask you though, about your relationship with Richard Lovinggood, son of California senator Henry Lovinggood.

Elizabeth: (stiffens in her chair, her face closed and blank) There’s nothing to talk about. Let’s move on.

Elaine: Ten years ago when he was only seventeen, the two of you had a relationship which you recently rekindled, and you…

Elizabeth: (voice stern) Move on.

Elaine: Okay, let’s talk about your recent kidnapping. You were rescued by Richard Lovinggood, right? For those of you who don’t know, Richard is an FBI agent.

Elizabeth: (voice cold) That was a painful time in my life, and I don’t want to discuss it.

Elaine: (eyebrows arch) It seems there are a lot of things you don’t want to talk about, and all of them relate to Richard Lovinggood.

Elizabeth: (smiles charmingly) Thank you so much for having me today, Elaine. I’m due on the set, so I have to run. My new movie Paradise Bay came out yesterday. The reviews are great, so don’t miss it.

Elaine: I sure won’t. (She stands up and shakes Elizabeth’s hand.) See you on the silver screen.

Return Engagement is available through Whiskey Creek Press.
You can read an excerpt at the publisher’s site or at my web site http://www.elainecantrell.com

Thank you, Amy for having me today.

My pleasure!

Technology and the Writer

It's that time of year when I bring my tools up to current levels. When I started writing, I used a manual typewriter and sheets of carbon to create carbon copies. Then, I got into the computer field and wrote documentation using a COBOL program to format information on punch cards. A year or two later, I got one of the very first personal computers and WordStar. Technically, all I really needed was a way to print out standard text and even very simple programs could do that.

Now, I have a computer with a terabyte of hard drive space, and my needs are even simpler because I no longer need to print out manuscripts. But that didn't stop me from getting the latest software, Microsoft Office 2010, and loading it last night.

And so far, so good. I actually like it. For one thing, nothing crashed and burned when I installed it, which is a new experience for me because most of the time, while I love technology, it hates me. My only beef is that the email application, Outlook, made a new Inbox structure and took my existing Inbox and turned it into a secondary Personal Folder, including my calendar. So I have two calendars. But I didn't have that much in my calendar, so I intend to move things out of the old one and into the new one. It's an annoyance and I might have been more aggravated if I used my calendar more. I also lost my Google calendar sync because it doesn't sync yet with Outlook 2010. But I expect that to eventually happen so I'm not worried.

A few years ago I talked a bit about software specifically for writing/writers, because I found that most of it is sort of a waste of money. I've kept track of all of that and my opinions on the matter have not changed much. The only product for writing that I still use and will continue to use despite its shortcomings is Anthemion Writer's Café/Storyline because it lets me plot out each storyline in a very nice series of "index card" like snippets that I find invaluable. The shortcomings in my mind have to do with the ability to develop and keep track of characters. I "reused" characters from one story to the next, because they are often connected. For example, my Regency romantic mystery I Bid One American includes members of the Archer family. The Archers make another appearance in my newest Regency romantic mystery The Bricklayer's Helper. It's very difficult (actually impossible) to copy characters from one story framework to another. And I don't like the way character information is handled or displayed because you don't see the whole name and you can't easily establish who is related to whom and how.

So while I use Storyline to develop the plot, all the characters are developed as ideas in my PersonalBrain. This software is outstanding and is sort of a free-form way to keep track of ideas. You can link ideas in any way that makes sense to you, and you can include web links, files, etc. I use it for everything now. If I run into an interesting website, I add the link. If I think of some new concept for a book, I add it. All my characters are in there, each linked to all the books they "live in". Promotion stuff—it's in there. Frankly, I don't know how I kept track of anything before.

At one point, I tried to use OneNote to track information, but it was too confining because I still couldn't create the links I needed to view information in different ways, such as which characters are in which books, what they look like, their personalities, and development across series. I also tried using a database to track characters. Then spreadsheets. None of it worked very well. With PersonalBrain (http://www.thebrain.com) you can make whatever associations you need. I include things like the houses characters live in, with links to who lives in each house and which stories they appear in, so the character who is a butler in one house is still a butler in that house for the next book. It really helps with continuity.

So, I'm pretty happy with Office 2010, Writer's Café, and PersonalBrain as my trio of writing tools.

Then, to really automate my life, I got a DROID. And a handy little app that lets me walk through the kitchen and scan package bar codes to build my shopping list. If I've already thrown away the product, or need something like fresh veggies with no bar code, I just dictate it. It adds it to the list. And I can even get coupons to save some money when I go shopping. Then, as I shop, I simply click off the items as I pick them off the shelves. Sweet.

Not to mention that my DROID also caters to my hobby: birdwatching. It finally got the iBird app, although I'm still waiting for the professional version (I refuse to pay extra to be locked down and controlled by Apple, so no i-whatever electronics will be found in my house). So I'm pretty happy with technology at the moment.

Now that I have all the tools for work and play, I've got to get back to work and actually do some writing…

Reviews Stink

There is no doubt, authors have a love-hate relationship with reviews. Unless you're mega-successful and no longer read reviews, they will slowly, but surely, drive you insane.

Just got the first review for my newly released Regency romantic mystery, The Bricklayer's Helper.

Loves Romances and More Review

It wasn't exactly a stinker, but it was one of those damned with faint praise type reviews. It was enough to make me dread getting any more reviews. For some reason, this book was especially close to my heart (romantic comedy-esque though it is) and since it's been a while since my previous book, I Bid One American, was released, I've grown a little thin-skinned.

Now most authors deal with this with a variety of coping mechanisms including:

• No one pays attentions to reviews
  
• Any publicity is good publicity
  
• It's just one person's opinion
  
• Reviews are so subjective
  

You name the strategy and someone is using it to avoid going postal, or worse, slitting their own wrists—which is clearly non-productive since it's really, really hard to type with all that blood gushing over the keyboard.

I try to cope by using it as a learning experience in the, uh, vein of "what could I do differently in my next book to make it even better?" That usually doesn't work too well, but at least it sounds constructive.

Because I know that readers do pay attention to reviews, no matter what we say about it. Although I suspect my use of reviews to find stuff to read may be odd at best, I can't assume others are oblivious to the number of hearts, stars, or happy faces next to a book's title.

While I never bother to sort for only those books that have the best reviews (I have almost never liked books that got top marks from all other readers) I do make book selections in a process that goes like this:

• Cover: That's the first thing that catches my eye. Does it have an interesting cover? I tend to like humorous ones or scary ones. Or things like a lovely English landscape for mysteries.
  
• Blurb:
  Does it entice me with one of my favorite themes or setups? I can't resist books that include any of the following…
  
  • An old mystery that needs to be solved
    
  • A haunted house
    
  • A masquerade/hidden identity
    
  • Humor, especially wittiness
    
  • Murder (I'm a huge fan of murder mysteries) most English
    
• Reviews: I don't care about the number of stars (or whatever) so much as what the reviewers say. I've got no problem with heroines who are "too stupid to live" so I ignore those comments. Who among us hasn't done incredibly stupid things in real life? Give me even a feeble reason for the heroine to go into the decrepit, haunted house, and I'm good with it. I'm pretty easy when it comes to plot holes, too. As long as it holds my interest and at least makes some sense, it's okay with me.
  
  No, what I'm looking for are mentions of things I know I can't stand: a lot of meaningless and overly descriptive sex scenes; lack of an actual plot; any indication that the story gets second fiddle to fitting in one more explicit love scene; flowery "sensual" language; politics (I'm so sick of Big Government/Big Company bad guys I could puke); use of present tense for more than a few, brief sections (versus the more traditional third person/past tense or first person/past tense). Stuff like that.
  
  So basically, what I'm looking for as a reader is anything other readers might have mentioned that will clue me in about stuff in the book that might drive me bonkers.
  

And that's why reviews are meaningful to me and can really make me wince. I keep wondering what ookie thing mentioned is going to turn off a prospective reader. Or if the reviewer has spotted the fact that I can't write my way out of rain puddle.

But in the end, that very thing that turns off one reader may be what decides another to buy the book. So maybe some authors are right when they say: any publicity is good publicity. Forget the angst and just be glad someone bothered to read it, and more importantly, publish their review.

I certainly hope so.

Writing Careers

Creative Careers


I love writing and plan to have a long, rewarding career as an author. But one of the hardest things to understand and accommodate with a creative career versus almost any other field is the lack of a well defined ladder.


In most fields, you can work your way to the top of the career ladder. As you gain knowledge, expertise, and experience, you climb the rungs, painful rung by painful rung. With luck and perseverance, you can get to the top. "Putting the time in" often gaurantees you'll at least continue to have a job, if not get promotions.


Creative careers, on the other hand, are quite different. While you do gain expertise as you write, you can’t really “work your way up” in the traditional sense of “putting your time in.” Each manuscript stands alone. Each book must sell itself, and you can’t assume your experience and years invested will guarantee a sale.


I’ll never forget an email I read a while back. An author had published several e-books with smaller companies and after a few years, got a contract with one of the smaller New York publishing houses. She thought she “had it made at last to the big time in NY” and could use that as a stepping stone to publication with a large, well-known publishing house. She was disappointed to find that getting her “toe in the door” of the smaller New York house did not guarantee that she would now be able to find an agent and an open door to a “big house”.


What she didn’t realize was that there is no “career path” in the traditional sense. To a large degree, if you are a new author or mid-list author who has not broken into the New York Times Bestsellers list, yet, every single manuscript stands on its own merits. And let's say you have "made it" to a big-time NY publisher and you’ve got a multi-book contract, well, each book of that contract is still treated independently. Each manuscript has to be as good as, or better, than the previous.


You can never relax and assume you’ve finally “learned your job”. You can never rest on your laurels.


In a sense, each manuscript you submit is precisely like your first manuscript. It has to be the best work you’ve ever produced, and it has to have that mysterious “something” that makes people want to buy and read it.


Every submission is a first submission.


The only thing that really changes is the submission process. Once you get an agent and reach that “certain level,” you can bypass the “over the transom” submission process. You can submit an outline, perhaps, or a proposal before you write the book. Which is more of a benefit than it sounds, because it means you can avoid spending a year writing a manuscript that no one subsequently wants because even the basic concept stinks. If the concept is "pre-approved" then you know going into it that an editor is at least interested in the story. If you then write the best book you can, you have a higher probability of selling it.


But nothing is assured, and that is the most difficult lesson to learn.


The reality is: every book is a new book on a new day and you cannot trade on past sales to sell future works.


Scary, isn’t it?

The Money Pit – Swamp Edition

Anyone out there old enough to remember the movie "The Money Pit" will remember that this crazy couple bought a house slightly in need of repair and subsequently spent thousands of dollars fixing it up. Yeah, well, they were a lot smarter than we were—at least they didn't live in the middle of a swamp where you can't even get contractors to spend oodles of money on. No. It took someone of our intelligence to buy an old log home at the edge of a swamp. Turns out the original owners built it with their own two hands and a few college students, none of whom apparently knew what a right angle is, or even a ruler. There isn't a straight wall in the place. But the 20 acres it sits on are gorgeous, if you like swamps, and we were dumb enough to fall for the scenery.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we found a gusher in my bathroom. Of course there are no shutoff valves anywhere in the house. But we capped the gusher and pulled up the toilet to find the source. And discovered the floor had rotted out behind the lovely 1970's psychedelic vinyl flooring. And the toilet's plumbing was hanging "loose and free" beneath the floor. Wonderful. You wouldn't want to force plumbing to stay in one place, now, would you?

Over July 4^th, my hubby managed to replace the rotted floorboards and we bought some new vinyl flooring tiles—the ones that can handle wet environments. Then, this weekend, I finally got around to working on the floor. My husband indicated that he thought I would do a better job for some obscure reason. Like physical dexterity. Or maybe just general gullibility. But on the surface, it seemed easy enough, in theory.

I should have remembered that none of the walls meet at right angles or run in anything resembling a straight line. Everything is skewed, not to mention that the floor—once we took up the old vinyl—doesn't actually meet the walls in all places. Well. So we bought this floor leveler and some other gunk to fill holes. My husband did offer to fix the 1 ½" gap between where the floor ended and the wall began, by scooping some of the gunk into the gap. This gap, by the way, starts at one end as a 1 ½" gap and winds up as about a ¼" gap about 3 feet further along the wall.

"Where will that stuff run if the subflooring doesn't meet the wall, either?" I asked, watching him uneasily.

"Behind the wall in the downstairs bathroom." He replied, shoveling in the gooey gray mixture.

I went downstairs and shone a flashlight in the hole we broke into the wall to find out where the leak was coming from when we originally heard the gusher running through the walls.

Nope, no slurpy stuff running down the walls. Whew. That was lucky.

The washing machine dinged and I went into the laundry room on the other side of the wall to move the clothes to the dryer. A stream of gray goo was running down the wall, right into the pile of laundry sorted to be washed. And wait! That's not all! Part of the goo river ran over the curtains and window in the laundry room, too. By the time I got upstairs, my husband had figured out that the gunk wasn't filling the hole and had plugged it up to prevent all of the valuable stuff from running away.

After a break of washing the curtains and clothes with the hose in the yard, I returned to the house. My energetic hubby indicated he now needed to mow the lawn, so the bathroom was ready for me.

Gee. Thanks.

At least I found a use for my old manuscripts. I used the pages to cut out the patterns of all the crazy angles and circles to accommodate the plumbing fixtures and oddly skewed walls. I got most of the area around the toilet more-or-less done, although I noticed that the wall on that side had a skew of about 2 ½".

End of Saturday—too exhausted to cook dinner and discovering that old knees do not like kneeling all day. Hubby bought a pizza. I had a drink.

Day 2 – Sunday

Got up early and spent three hours ripping the last of the old vinyl out. Yes, while I freely admit one is supposed to rip out all the old before putting in the new. I didn't. I'm doing it all in sections. And it didn't make one iota of difference, except to exhaust me today, when I really hoped to finish. Hubby left for a business trip, confident and encouraging me to have it all done by the time he gets back in a week.

Don't let the door slam you on the ass, honey. Wouldn't want you to bruised and all.

One note to the manufacturer, while the new tiles are wonderful and relatively easy to put down, they come with pre-glued edges that overlap. Nice. But here's the problem: you didn't put paper that could be easily peeled off over the glue. No. That would have made it too easy. You had to leave the gluey edged unprotected so that it would be a total pain to try to ensure a piece would fit before actually gluing it to the neighboring piece. And so that when the cats and dogs came to investigate, all their fur and every particle of dirt in the house would collect on the edges….

And while today I smartened up and put on a pair of knee guards I use for gardening, I discovered that they were shedding black rubber everywhere. I hadn't noticed this in the garden since black rubber particles disintegrating over dirt isn't all that noticeable. But it is noticeable when all this black grit collects over the gluey edges of vinyl tiles.

But I'm over that. At least for today.

Suffice to say, I'm writing this blog because my hands are bruised, blistered and aching, as is every other part of me and just about the only thing I can do at the moment is type. And possibly drink, although I did that last night and I'm trying not to make a habit of it. The problem is, I still have about 5 tiles yet to put into place before I finish the bathroom, and each one has to be cut with skewed angles. One piece need to be 8 ½" wide at the bottom and 8" wide at the top. Not sure about lengthwise yet, because I was too tired to measure it.

This week I fully intend to get those final 5 tiles in place. It's not going to be perfect. It should match the rest of the house beautifully.

Then maybe I can get back to my real second job: writing fiction where no one tries to fix up their house with their own two hands. My characters get tortured, but not that much. I'm not that cruel.

Lots of good stuff

There's so much good news I hardly know where to begin! I've been working tons of overtime so I finally put some of it to get use. Our furniture was in pitiful condition. I have this odd idea that furniture is a permanent investment that once made, never has to be made again. Of course, my general cheapskate tendencies have always been strengthened by my family who love to give me their cast-off furniture so I never have to buy anything.

Well, I finally bought some brand, spanking new furniture! Got it delivered, too (instead of hauling it to the house sticking out of the back of our pickup truck). Went whole-hog.

That beauty of a chair my husband so loved, that leaned to the left and had the stuffing come out of it has been replaced. Even though the old chair is still sitting on our porch, waiting for us to haul it away to the "green box mall" (i.e. dumpsters) in the back of our pickup truck.

Yes. We're hicks. Which is an odd confession for someone who writes Regency romances set in the early 1800's in England. And who even went to school for a year at the University of Scotland in Aberdeen (a truly gorgeous place). But whatever. We are what we are.

And here is our NEW furniture! Looks just like the old junk, except the stuffin' has yet to come out. But give it time...

And the new furniture isn't all the "news fit to print" although some of it (the really, really GREAT stuff) will have to wait until it gets confirmed later in the year.

More good news: I've got two, count 'em TWO, new books coming out within the next couple of months!

The Bricklayer's Helper, a Regency romantic mystery, will be out August 6!

Vampire Protector, a contemporary paranormal romance will be out Nov 12!

And over the next few months, I've got all kinds of interviews and blogging dates with all kinds of wonderful people!

I've already got the following dates:

I blog with Romance in the Backseat the first of every month about gardening (another of my hobbies).

On the 3rd of every month, I blog with Voices of the Heart about whatever hits my fancy.

On the 18th of every month, I blog on my publisher's historical site, The Wild Rose Press Historical Authorshttp://twrphistoricalroseline.blogspot.com/, about all things historical.

The wonderful blog at  The LoveStruck Novice will be interviewing me on August 6, just in time for my Regency romance release.

And I promise there will be a lot more! Pretty exciting stuff.
I also have a third book coming out soon, a Regency romance entitled, The Necklace, from Highland Press. It's been a little delayed, but I still have hopes that it will come out this year. It is actually the "prequel" to I Bid One American. Once it gets released, I'll have three books in the Archer family series:
The Necklace
I Bid One American
The Bricklayer's Helper

Although they don't have to be read in any particular order, it does give a better "feel" for the family's history and interlocking stories if they are read (at some point) in that order.

Right now, I'm editing another Archer family book (it's gone through several titles, none of which I adore, but at the moment, I'm tentatively calling it: The Adventurers) as well as writing a contemporary mystery.

Things are moving right along, although they'd move a little more swiftly if I wasn't working all this overtime. :-) But I can't complain since the overtime did get me brand new furniture.

Finally, I added a picture from our garden, which is blooming with daylillies at the moment. Our veggies are also putting out all kinds of produce, including tomatoes, squash, and eggplants, so I probably need to get a move on and get outside. The weather has been atrocious with very high temperatures, so I'm spending a lot of time watering the plants (as well as the dogs and me).

Just for the heck of it, I also included a picture of the road to the mailbox. Despite the heat, the doggies enjoy romping through the cornfields on our 1/2 of a mile trek to the mailbox. It's not exactly uphill box ways, but that 1/2 of a mile feels like it on a hot day! But walking it does give me a much needed mile of exercise at least once a day.

Enjoy the weather and stay tuned--I'm hoping for more good news this summer, plus a release date for The Necklace!

Characters and their Code

Sometimes in writing contests, writers get lower marks and comments like, “I couldn’t warm up to your hero or heroine.” And although there really aren’t any rules, there are a few (very few) guidelines. Over the past few years, I’ve randomly written about characterization, and this is yet another blog on that topic, albeit with a slightly different spin.

Great characters need to have well-defined motivation that the reader understands and accepts. That’s a given. But sometimes, it’s hard to get “cozy” with a character because you can’t trust the character to do the right thing. That’s not to say heroes and heroines can’t make mistakes, or poor decisions, but they have to have the right reasons. Characters must have weaknesses or they won’t be realistic, however when push comes to shove, those weaknesses can't stop them from doing the right thing.

I always think about Monk (the massively phobic TV detective in the TV show “Monk”) and Becker (the truly obnoxious doctor with the big mouth in the TV show “Becker”) when it comes to great characterization. There is no doubt that given their personalities, they are about as far from “loveable” as you can get. But the odd thing is, you do love them and care about them. Why? Because when push comes to shove, they do the right thing. They may grumble and complain about it until you want to kill them, but they will come through for you.

You can trust them.

Interestingly enough, the comedy in “Becker” mostly consists of him SAYING the wrong thing—something mean and nasty—but immediately following that up by DOING something extraordinarily kind for someone who really needs help. He is a compassionate and caring doctor, even when he spouts the most horrible, mean and nasty drivel. And Monk may be germ-phobic, but he'll go into a sewer to save someone and solve a murder.

And that's the point. The bad qualities don't get in the way of doing the right thing. And in Becker's case, actions speak much louder than words. Becker and Monk will always come through in the end, regardless of their complaints.

The rules? Now, keep in mind these are mostly for romance genres, but they are still mostly true for almost every other form of fiction. Break the rules at your peril and with full knowledge of what you are doing.

1) Heroes and heroines can never cheat on spouses. Ever. And they can't really cheat on their betrothed, either. No cheating. There are ways around this, e.g. she thought her husband was dead, etc, but if you want a hero or heroine to be sympathetic, he or she cannot cheat on his/her partner. Otherwise, you're talking literary genres that are depressing and unromantic.

2) Heroes and heroines must do the right thing. They can grumble about it.

They can moan about it. But in the end, they have to do the right thing.

3) Heroes and heroines must be smart. They can make the wrong decision, but they can't be dumb about it. We all make bad choices because few—if any—of us can see the future or have all the facts. But we think we're making the only possible, and right, decision when we make it. It sounds logical and reasonable, given the available information. The audience must agree with this, even when it turns out horribly. And it must turn out horribly for there to be a story.

4) Heroes and heroines must be willing to sacrifice themselves for others at the critical point. They must be honest and have personal integrity. If they are a crook, they must have a personal code they live by—even if that code is warped. That's why we can love a hitman—because he acts with honor within his code (i.e. he gives back the money if he fails to kill the mark, etc).

Yes—they can have faults, but the reader must know that when the chips are down, the hero and heroine will do the right thing. That makes the character worthy of the reader's trust and sympathy. If the hero or heroine fails to act with integrity, then the reader's trust is broken. The writer must then redouble his efforts to regain that trust and make the hero/heroine still sympathetic. Each time the trust is broken, it will be harder to repair, until no repair is possible.

The real key is giving the character some sort of code, regardless of how warped it is, and making that character stick to it. Think of Mel Gibson in “Payback”. He was bad. Really bad. He did some pretty horrible things and yet…two factors made us go along with him:

• We understood his motivation—after all, they betrayed and tried to kill him 
•  He had his own, consistent code of behavior. He was internally honorable to his code. 

His code was his promise to the audience that he was worthy of our attention and affection.

Personal integrity may be an outdated concept, but it's still key to good fiction.

Special Guest Author: Wynter Daniels

And now for something completely different...as Monty Python used to say. I'm featuring another writer, today.


Biography

Wynter Daniels is the naughty alter ego of contemporary romance author Dara Edmondson She lives in Central Florida with her husband of more than twenty years and their two nearly grown children. They are all the slaves of two very demanding cats. After careers in marketing and the salon industry, Wynter’s wicked prose begged to be set free. You can find her steamy contemporary romances at EllorasCave.com.

Website: http://www.wynterdaniels.com/

Excerpt:

An Excerpt From: TROPICAL EXPOSURE
Copyright © WYNTER DANIELS, 2010
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Chapter One

Marin Shay stared through her barred bedroom window and watched a man dressed all in black get out of a limousine in the circular drive. Over the estate’s high wall she glimpsed a dozen or so tall news van antennae. Backing away from the glass, she let the heavy curtain fall into place.

Those tabloid people with their long-distance lenses never relented. Wasn’t it enough that they’d splashed her dirty laundry over the covers of their newspapers and magazines for years? Did they have to know every minute detail of her life?

Didn’t matter now. Soon enough she’d be on her way to her yearly escape. No paparazzi, no scripts or directors, no cameras flashing in her face. And no entertainment empire to run.

A gentle knock tore her attention to the task at hand. She slipped on a curly blonde wig resembling her natural hair. “Yes?”

Joseph, her newest bodyguard, poked his head into the room. “They’re ready, Miss Shay.”

“Thank you.” She managed a smile, although she suspected Joseph would eventually sell any information he’d glean from working for her. A former maid had fetched a five-figure bounty for a pair of Marin’s panties on eBay just weeks ago. Her last hairdresser had auctioned off clippings of her hair. The obsession with anything and everything she’d ever touched or worn baffled her.

And that was precisely why no one in her employ had all the details of her travel plans. The two weeks of privacy were well worth the four flights, the dozen disguises, the hours she spent making her own arrangements under aliases. She’d even paid two decoys this time, rather than her usual one.

Unable to resist, she teased back the edge of the curtain again and observed a woman who looked amazingly like her slip inside the limo. Minutes later, as the car cleared the gate, most of the news vans hurried after like hungry dogs chasing a scrap of meat.

She couldn’t contain her curiosity at the spectacle in the driveway. The other decoy—cloaked in Marin’s own black designer cape and oversized sunglasses—hurried into an SUV with dark tinted windows. The driver loaded four Louis Vuitton bags into the back. As the sun set the vehicle pulled away and headed toward the gate. The remaining news vans took the bait and sped after it. Perfect.

She sucked in a relieved breath as all the tension evaporated. After removing the wig, she glanced in the mirror and hardly recognized her own reflection. She’d never colored her own hair before, had no idea how easy it was. Flat ironing had taken less than twenty minutes. Her signature blonde curls were gone, replaced by straight brown hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. Dark contacts and wire-rim glasses hid her blue eyes and her complete lack of makeup made her look like a teenager.

She tucked her hair into a cloth turban then slipped a wide-brimmed hat over that, making sure no stray brown locks escaped. The staff didn’t need to know she masqueraded as a brunette. Satisfied with her transformation, she strode from the room and headed to the mansion’s service entrance.

Fifteen hours and four flights later, she climbed out of an ordinary-looking rental car in Roatan,Honduras, with the men she’d hired to be both bodyguards and decoy husband and son. No matter that she and both men were around thirty, or that the bigger one looked at least part African-American. With a little Hollywood magic she’d picked up from her years in the business, they appeared to be a fifty-ish couple with their twenty-ish son.

The place she’d rented appeared exactly as it had in the pictures. Three stories of pastel blue dollhouse directly on the beach with a balcony wrapped around each level. She inhaled a breath scented with saltwater and flowers as she took in the view. More orchids than she’d ever seen grew in flowerbeds near the entrance. Mountains to the north contrasted with the ocean to the south. Several coconut palms flanked one side of the house, providing a little privacy from any telephoto lenses, although no one could possibly guess she was here. Even the bodyguards didn’t know who she was and hopefully had bought her story about being an heiress on vacation in need of privacy. One spoke passable Spanish, which might come in handy if she decided to venture into town, though she probably wouldn’t.

Inside the house, she waited for the men to close all the blinds before taking off the salt-and-pepper wig. The heavy, confining cage of her world fell away. She found her old, easy smile, the one she’d worn before fame had transformed her. The need to scrub herself clean of Hollywood’s poison suddenly overwhelmed her. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m dying for a shower.”

“Me too. But I’ll wait until you’re through in case the water pressure is a problem.” Tony, the man who’d played her son, gave her a wink. Most women would kill to have those thick, dark eyelashes. “The right amount of pressure is important.” His gaze dropped to her breasts, then rose to her eyes.

Awareness hummed through her, hardening her nipples to painful points. Automatically, she folded her arms over her chest. Lifting her chin higher, she pulled in a breath infused with the scent of his spicy cologne and male sweat. She grinned, wondered if he could take what he dished out. “I just hope it’s big enough.” She made a show of staring at the bulge in his pants. “I like big ones.”

That elicited another wink, this one more playful—and more inviting. “I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.”


Buy Link: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-8279-tropical-exposure.aspx

Making Grammar Clear

I’ve been thinking a lot about confusion abounds about passive voice, and I think it may be because of several related topics. These related topics have subtle relationships and because of that, they can cause muddled thinking. As a result, they often cause folks to give muddled advice or request imprecise changes to manuscripts.

This was brought to my attention because another member of a group I belong to, was chastised for using "passive voice" when in fact, she had not used passive voice at all. It occurred to me that often, editors use "passive voice" as a catch-all for several different constructions that may bug them. So I thought I'd make a stab at clarifying this muddy area.


So here are the related items that need to be separated and clarified.



Direct versus Indirect: Sentence Construction Element


Passive voice versus Active Voice: Grammatical Element indicating the object of the action


Passive versus aggressive characters: Human Behavior often exhibited by speech patterns



Direct versus Indirect


This is the one I blame the most for muddled thoughts about passive voice. Most of the time, when an editor, contest judge, or critique partner says your writing is too passive, the real problem may be a propensity to use indirect, rather than direct language.



“I wish you’d stop doing that.” Indirect.


“Stop doing that!” Direct.



Both are active voice. One is not better than the other, because they would be said by entirely different characters.



The first may be the perfect dialog for a generally passive character. You may have noticed that people who tend to have passive personalities often use more indirect language. These people, and characters, may have difficulty asserting themselves. Or they may have been taught that it is rude to make overt demands. And more females than males will speak in an indirect fashion. Females are generally more passive than males. Of course, this is a generality, but think about how women and men express themselves and you will see a general trend in speech that reflects overall behavior patterns.

So you can indicate such a behavior pattern by the use of indirect language, regardless of the sex of the character. 

And you might even need to incorporate passive voice.
And perhaps this is why there may be confusion, because a generally passive personality type is also prone to the use of indirect language. And more prone to the use of passive voice. Because passive voice can be used (indirectly) to say: “This wasn’t my fault, it was done TO ME, rather than ME DOING IT!”

The cry of the eternal victim.


Nonetheless, despite their relationships, these are all very different concepts. And when you write, you need to be conscious of the differences in order to interpret reader, editor, and contest judge comments. Often, readers, editors and contest judges are unable to distinguish between these indirect, passive, simple past tense, and the portrayel of a passive personality. So folks often confuse passive voice with indirect language.

But sometimes, a character really is passive and prone to the use of indirect language. And sometimes that indirect language incorporates the use of passive voice.

So it is not evil.


And in case folks need a quick refresher about passive, it is NOT identified by use of the word "was". That's like saying you can identify grass because it's green.
No everything that is green is grass. Not all grass is green.
Not every sentence containing "was" is passive, and not all passive voice sentences contain "was".

Passive voice is ONLY identified by determining the direction of the action.
If the subject of the sentence does the action, it is active.
If the subject of the sentence is the object/recipient of the action, it is passive.

She was thinking.  Active voice.
She got hit by a bus. Passive voice. Colloquial, but passive.Anyway, I wrote this because it occurred to me that what this hapless writer's editor might have meant when she complained about passive voice, was really an effort to eliminate some indirect language (or wording) rather than specifically “passive voice”. And she just used the phrase “passive voice” as a sort of catch-all.

At least I hope so, because I hate to think that no one knows what passive voice is, anymore. That would make me very sad.

Working Late

Working late tonight watching over some computer rebuilds, so in between the boring bits, I thought I'd update my blog. I've been really bad about that lately…seems like each year goes faster and each day gets shorter and shorter. I'd like to talk to whoever is in charge of time and ask for days to be 36 hours instead of 24. There is just too much to do.

Spring has really exploded around here. The warblers are starting to sift through on their migration north, the first male hummingbird visited the feeder today, I got my vegetable garden started, and the azaleas are beginning to bloom. This year, I bought a white hosta—I didn't even know there were white hostas ('White Feather' to be exact) and that little critter has already sprouted a few leaves! I couldn't be more pleased. If it works out, I'll be putting in a bigger order next year to fill out our shady hosta garden.

We also bought another plum tree, so we have three now. Got that planted, and added two hazelnut trees, as well. In the veggie garden, I've got zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, peppers, and assorted herbs sprouting. And the roses are starting to bloom! Sure, the daffodils are almost done for the year—which makes me sad as I just love them—but the roses will make up the difference for perfume and color. I've got several bushes I need to dig up and move, so I've got to get going on that. They are in bad spots and need to go into more "rose friendly" beds.

With all that work outside, I haven't had much time to do as much writing as I would like. But I'm making progress. My next Regency romance/mystery, The Bricklayer's Helper, will be out Aug 6, 2010, which will be here soon! I've got one more round of edits for my paranormal book, Vampire Protector, and it's due to be released in the Nov/Dec 2010 timeframe. I love that time of year for paranormals.

There is a long tradition in English literature of ghost stories being published in Nov & Dec, and you have All Hallows Eve (Halloween) and those long, dark nights leading up to mid-winter… What time could be more perfect for the release of a paranormal? I know I'm always dying for a good, creepy story in December. I love to curl up in front of the fire with the lights turned low, a cup of mulled cider, and a chilling ghost story. My favorite book, though, in that category is still The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I've never read a more frightening ghost story, and no matter how many times I re-read it, it never loses that edge.

Right now, I'm working on several stories, including another paranormal based upon one of the characters in Vampire Protector. I'm editing my first draft right now, with hopes of getting it into decent shape for submission to my editor at The Wild Rose Press. I'd like to submit it before the end of summer, but that may be too optimistic, as I'm facing quite a bit of overtime this summer for my day job (watching computers rebuild themselves, ho hum).

I'm also editing another Regency romance/mystery—the first draft is done; and I even have a contemporary mystery that I'm writing. I've only gotten about 4 chapters written, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. It is set on the coast of North Carolina because I just love that area and could not resist. If it was good enough for Blackbeard, it's good enough as a setting for a contemporary mystery!

That's it for now—have to get back to work (grumble, grumble).

Best wishes and sweet dreams!
Amy

Spring Tasks

Now that spring is here, I didn't do much in the way of writing-related tasks this last weekend. However, I did critique three chapters for other writers and revise one of my own chapters for a new mystery I'm working on.

I just couldn't stay inside.

So I planted six hostas in my shade garden, including one white one. I can't wait to see how that new one turns out—it should be gorgeous. They are planted in a bed that borders the woods behind our house, and there are a few dogwoods interspersed with hostas. I'm also thinking of adding some ferns, but we'll see how it looks this summer.

And we are expanding our tiny "orchard" and I added a plum tree, so now we have 3 plum trees. Also added two hazelnut trees. My husband and I love hazelnuts, so we're anxious to see if they prosper in our area.

I also added 3 blueberry bushes, as well as a few more bulbs in our flower garden, including several oriental/Asiatic lily hybrids, and a fuchsia bush. To anchor the end of my herb garden, I added a rosemary to replace the one my husband inadvertently killed last year.

Also got a couple of tomato plants inserted into one of those "upside down" gardens, and planted a pepper plant with some cilantro sticking out of the top.

Last weekend, I started 142 small pots of seeds, including the usual suspects: peppers, squash, tomatoes, various herbs, and cantaloupe. Some of the seeds have already started sprouting, so my next chore will be to hack a way under the huge rose arch that serves as the entrance to the veggie garden. The roses have really taken over, so I've got to open up a path under them, clean out the veggie garden, and get some of those early seeds, like the squash, put to bed.

Finally, I bought a fresh, 5lb bag of sugar because sometime this week, the hummingbirds will show up.

We got a nice rain last night to give all my new plants a good drink. The sun is out now, and I wish I didn't have to get back to work, because the garden is calling to me.

Lots to do out there!

Groups and Conflict

Groups and Group Think

I have had cause to think about group dynamics over the last week or so. Some of what I've learned is usable in the creation of fiction. Oh, it's nothing new or brilliant. And it's nothing that other writers have not used to their advantage.

Nonetheless, it is useful to me to document what I've learned.

If you want to read how other, much more brilliant writers have recognized and used group dynamics in their writings, take a look at Ayn Rand. She was very fond of writing about the implications of being the odd man out who has a brilliant idea that is unacceptable to Society (the group) at large.

Many writers have written about the loner, the odd man out.

This last week, I got to be the "odd man out" and suddenly, understood on a very personal level, what group dynamics really encompass.

I encourage other writers to think about this, as it can be a powerful concept in the hero's journey.

The hero frequently starts the story as someone outside the group, be it Society or just his family. The journey is often his (or her) attempt to rejoin Society. Sometimes s/he is successful, sometimes success comes from recognizing that s/he is doing better outside of the group.

So here is what I have learned, the painful way, about groups and group dynamics.

Groups encourage commonality of thought. At the beginning, the group will strive for consensus. The dominant member(s) will espouse ideas that are adopted by the group, thereby cementing relationships. This allows members to feel they understand each other and are all of a "common mind" which heightens the feeling of cohesion and understanding.

Once this happens, the group's "position" is cemented. They understand and accept each other.

At this point, if new members try to join the group, or members within the group, get a "new idea" or idea that is contrary to "group think", then the group pulls back. They look for a reaction of any long-standing members of the group to accept or refute the new idea, and they will support existing members of the group in order to maintain group cohesion.

If the new ideas do not come from leaders or well-established members, they are perceived as threatening. The person with the idea is reviled and thrust out of the group, because they threaten the stability of the group.

We have seen this time, and time again, throughout history. People with new ideas are ridiculed until the idea becomes commonplace and adopted by the leaders and members of Society, or groups within the Society.

This is where the conflict occurs and where authors can make use of such "natural conflicts" to build their story.

If a hero or heroine honestly knows the difference between fact and theory, and believes in "the truth" then that character may be in serious conflict with their social group or Society at large.

I have recently been in that position—where I was a new member of a group and showed ideas (with proof) that contradicted the established norms within the group. I was reviled and thrust out. And I re-learned what I had read about in Ayn Rand's writings, about the actions of the group versus the individual. You cannot hope to change ideas overnight, even if you have proof.

If you really wish to change group think, then you must convince the leaders that new ideas are THEIR ideas and allow months, if not years, for these new concepts to become accepted by the group at large. Think of how long it took Society to rationally discuss Darwin's theories.

It was a pivotal moment for me, because I realized how powerful group psychology is, and how this conflict can be the driving force in a novel.

Some of us are simply not meant to be members of a group, because we are unwilling to accept "group think" in the face of actual evidence and facts. Some of us will always be outsiders, because we believe in trusting the facts instead of hearsay and "belief". We're not team players unless the rest of the team is willing to test new ideas and accept them when the facts support them. What is interesting is that even scientific groups eventually become resistant to new ideas and can refute facts, although they are, generally, quicker to (eventually) accept new ideas if the evidence and proof is overwhelming.

Theories are theories. Much of what humans "know" falls into the category of theory. A theory is an attempt to explain the data collected through testing, but it is still open to interpretation.

Facts are facts. A fact is indisputable. There are surprisingly few facts. Much of what we *think* we know is actually just a theory that can be overturned if additional data is collected that refutes the theory.

There is a difference between theory and fact. And then there is opinion an all those other things…

So group dynamics can make an incredible source of conflict for your characters. There is a reason why Ayn Rand's books still sell. Whether you agree with her or not, it is still a powerful idea to write about a character that refuses to nod his head and go along with the rest of the sheep, just to be acceptable as a member of the group.

Some of us are not meant to be part of groups, though we always regret it. We want to be a member, but we are too willing to accept review new information and adapt to new ideas that may threaten other members of the group.

This probably makes no sense. But I'm already thinking about a character who, regardless of the pain of rejection, cannot in good conscience allow herself to believe what the rest of the group believes, just because that is the acceptable thing to do.