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An Evening with Author Sylvia Day

February 4, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , , ,

I was one of 40 lucky people to spend Friday evening with Sylvia Day at Redondo Beach’s Mysterious Galaxy bookstore. Here she answered questions from the audience about the Crossfire Series, how she writes, where her inspiration comes from, and how she does some of her research.

Maria Stefanopoulos and Sylvia Day
Sylvia started the evening by answering the main question on most of the audience’s mind, when is Captivated By You, the next Crossfire book, coming out?  Her answer:  sometime later this year. She wants the remaining two books to come out within weeks of each other, so she needs to finish working on the last book. As I’m sure many of you can relate, Gideon – her hero, doesn’t want her working on any more projects until his is done.
For those of you who missed the event, it was recorded. You can find the entire Q&A session here:
This was a ticketed event that included her new release Spellbound, Little Black Dress wines, and Xocia healthy chocolates.
– Maria Stefanopoulos
OCC/RWA Vice President
Celtic Hearts RWA Author Trip

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When Last We Saw Our Intrepid Heroes

January 19, 2014 by in category Archives

Remember that? The voice over from Rocky and Bullwinkle, starting out another sly, clever cartoon? This might appeal only to what we call “Those of a certain age.” But that’s okay since we’re apparently an important demographic. I wonder if all of use realize how important the “Baby Boomers” are as a buying entity? And in particular I wonder how many other readers are not as enamored of cutesy young heroines as I am? That came out convoluted, didn’t it? Sorry, let me try again.
   We see so many heroines in their early twenties. Perky and cute, of course. With heroes in late twenties to mid thirties, so they’re allowed some maturity though they don’t always act that way. But way too many publisher guidelines require a female lead to be early to mid twenties. Do you think this is because people want to put themselves in the place of the young people when they read? I don’t know about you, I wouldn’t relive my twenties for any inducement up to and including a dragon topiary on my front lawn.
   However, that’s just me. How do you feel about age limits on  your characters?
   Getting back to where I started before I so rudely interrupted myself, the title of this blog was used as a bridge and introduction to the next episode of “Moose and Squirrel.” Which would segue me into a brief where the heck have I been and why am I back? Kind of boring for everyone so I’ll just hit you with where I was in November and where I hope to be going from now. Like so many others I participated in NaNo, which I’ve done in the past with varying degrees of success. This year I got so much more from the event than just a lot of words on the page, and I’m going to share some of that with you.
   I’m remembering a Country song, something like “I’m a Winner” from back when I was in my younger years. Something about “however much I’m hurting the other guy is worse, which is what makes me a winner.” Ummm, here it is: WINNER Yep, as silly now as it was all those years ago
You’re no doubt wondering what this has to do with NaNo, that month of living for the written word. More formally known as National Novel Writing Month, the goal (win) is 50,000 words. Does that mean anyone who writes less than 50,000 is a loser? I saw this terrific meme on FaceBook of a heavy man running, slowly, with the caption of “still beats any couch potato” I’ve been looking for that picture but unfortunately my Google search brought up a lot of mean spirited fat mocking sites. Which is no doubt the subject of a future blog.
   So, winning at NaNo. This year I competed through a team. Starting with six of us, two dropped out immediately, one faded about halfway through. I made it to 39,000 words and stalled. The last two streaked past the finish line early and kept writing. A writer on the FaceBook NaNo page kept us apprised of her progress, achieving word count the second week. Naturally I wished her all the best but it was difficult to focus on my paltry 1,500 words per day in the face of her comet like progress.
   Who were the winners? On the surface, that unbelievably prolific author, and my two team mates won. I could say I lost. Except I got back into writing and I also built on a idea I’d had in the back of my mind ever since Bethany talked about the women’s shelter in California.Teach Me To Forget She mentioned an environmental expert, and at that time I knew I’d be writing her story.
    One day.
    Obviously November 2013 was the start of that day, but I didn’t get all the way to 50,000 words. Loser?
    My extremely clever niece got a good start on NaNo, I think made it halfway and couldn’t decide where she’d go from there. She has a really great story idea and she’s motivated. She even got in some 3,000 word days. Then she hit that wall, and couldn’t write more. Loser?
    We could discuss degrees of winning, but only one runner blasts through the finish line first. Everyone else is merely in the race somewhere. However, writing is not a race with only one winner. Every single person who made the effort to sign up for NaNo was a step or more above fellow writers who only thought about trying.
    One day.
    Even those who dropped off the team after less than a week accomplished something, if only the outline and story beat sheet suggested prior to starting NaNo.  Very possibly those who chose other commitments over finishing in the month continued to work on their story, albeit not at that frenetic pace demanded by the word commitment. Losers?
    So where is this rambling taking us? When it comes to matters of creativity, as long as we are creating, we are winning. Sometimes that creating comes slowly, as in a paragraph a day. Sometimes it floods out, drenching us in images almost too fast to capture them on a page. Creating something from essentially nothing since a writer’s tool of creation is the imagination.
    That makes all of us who deal with the voices in our head by writing down their stories…WINNERS

WINNER!!!

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ART & SOUL

January 15, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , , ,
 I want to be upfront: I borrowed that headline. I saw it in the Los Angeles Times this morning and it started me thinking about how we, as writers, view ourselves. Actually, that’s not quite correct. I’ve been thinking about this ever since I joined a discussion on LinkedIn. It went something like this.
Author #1:How do you title your novel?
Author #2: I like to use lots of words.
Author #3: I like titles that keep people guessing.
Author #4: I hate publishers. They always change my titles.
Author #5: Publishers have no soul. They aren’t creative.
Me: I disagree. Publishers are creative in a different way, a business way. We should appreciate that and learn from it.
While we write, immersing ourselves in our fictional character’s lives and worlds, we are being artistic and creative. When we come up for air, we need to be something else. We need to be publishers: clear-eyed, objective, and strategic.
If it weren’t for traditional publishers taking a chance on me, investing in my art, offering me a platform for the work of my soul, I wouldn’t have grown as a writer. I still have every rejection and acceptance letter I ever received because reading them reminds me of why I failed as much as why I succeeded. I can visualize every editorial letter that came in the mail (pages long and single spaced) which outlined where I could do better: style, grammar, character development, transitional efforts, titles, plot and story. I still remember meetings with sales reps, buyers, distributors and realizing that at every level there was effort and money being spent on my behalf in ways that were corporately creative. I also know that there were administrators doing research I could never tap into regarding an ever-changing marketplace.  Sure there were inequities.  Sure there were things I didn’t agree with. But my interaction with the publishers, more than any writing lesson, taught me the true art of bringing my work to an audience. 
Now that I’m indie, I wear a publisher’s hat. I can hire a freelance editor, a cover designer, and a formatter. I can even hire marketing experts to handle the last, critical part of the publishing puzzle. But if I do not understand and appreciate the creativity of the input these people provide me –  a title that will cut through the ever-growing clutter, a cover image that is arresting even though it appears as a thumbnail, interesting ways to communicate with the marketplace –  then my money is wasted. I will never be able to truly control my own brand. 

So, when your book is finished and it’s time to publish, take off the rose colored glasses of an author and get out your publisher’s magnifying glass to assess the marketability of your work. Ask yourself “what would a publisher do?”. I promise, if you answer that question honestly you will find avenues for success you never dreamed. In my book, that last step qualifies as creativity. That is the Art & Soul of  the business of publishing.
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2014: Why haven’t you finished that book yet? by Jina Bacarr

January 11, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
© | Dreamstime.com

The clock is ticking…

Tick tock…tick tock…

How many words did you write today? Why haven’t you finish that book yet?

We all torment ourselves with these phrases and then blame our lack of productivity on…

Twitter…Facebook…Instagram…kids…family…the Internet…not enough coffee.

It’s all about focus.

And finding that beautiful space in our minds where we can run free and create and write and write and write.

It can be as elusive as a butterfly.

But well worth going after, no matter what gets in our way.

According to experts, interruptions can put a big damper on our concentration and it can take about ten minutes to get the writing flowing again.

So the next time an email pops into your Inbox, or the phone rings, or someone yells, “Hey, Mom, are you busy?” know that it’s not your fault if it takes a few minutes to get back into the moment.

Then let the butterfly in your mind run free…

Best,
Jina

www.jinabacarr.com  
www.facebook.com/JinaBacarr.author
https://twitter.com/JinaBacarr
http://www.pinterest.com/jbacarr

In case you missed it, here is an 11-minute video with an excerpt from Chapter One in my novella, “A Soldier’s Italian Christmas” available on Amazon Kindle.

You can be sure I had a lot of interruptions putting this together, but I finished it!


A Soldier’s Italian Christmas: Excerpt from Chapter One from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.

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Time and Project Management Class Starts Monday

January 9, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , , ,

j0227558Hello my friends! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s. I sure did. I’d planned since last Christmas to take two full weeks off and relax. Right up to the last minute, I was sure I wouldn’t “be able to” do it. But in the end, I did!
My workload piled up during the two weeks off, but I feel so much more relaxed and rested and ready for work! How did I manage to take so much vacation time when life has been battering me for the last couple of years? The primary reason is because last January I laid out a written plan for my year.
Granted, a LOT of things went wrong with the plan. I couldn’t have anticipated six months of unemployment for John. I made more money than I did in 2012, but it wasn’t enough to offset the costs of a few book-selling risks I took that didn’t pay off. Near the end of the year, I had to put my writing business on the back burner and work full-time at a temp job.
Calendar 2013But for the whole year, I could look at my writing plan and my calendar and I could figure out how each of my plans would be affected by the new turn life took. I could move the sticky notes on the calendar to change deadlines. I could cancel things that just couldn’t be accomplished now that the course of life had changed.
And I could do it all with more peace than usual because I had a written, changeable plan.
If you’d like to work with me over the next four weeks to get a plan in place for you this year, please sign up for my online class Going the Distance: Goal Setting and Time Management for the Writer. Due to popular demand, this is the fourth year I’ve taught this class, and there’s always something new to learn and share. I hope you’ll join us!
What do you want to accomplish this year?



Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, came out in 2011. Her new novel, Unexpected Superhero, book one in The Adventures of Lewis & Clarke humorous urban fantasy series, 
is now available in print and ebook format. Superhero in the Making and Love at the Fluff and Fold (book one in The Strays of Loon Lake romantic comedy series) will be released in mid-2014. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats. “Superhero in Disguise” is a free short story at AmazoniTunesSmashwords, and other retail sites.

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