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Wisdom from Writers Rock

August 21, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

Hot August Nights…..and Romance Writers

by Johna Machak

The Dog Days of August is what some people call them. Those long, hot sultry days of summer when all you can manage is resting on the patio with a tall glass of sweet iced tea. It’s too hot to do anything else, even sleep. But maybe these lazy, hazy dog days are a good thing for romance writers. Gets you thinking about stuff. Sitting on the porch during a hot August night, doing nothing but letting your mind wander back to other hot summer evenings. Long days of heat and sunshine, with even longer sweltering nights. The air so thick it’s an effort just to breathe. There’s a restlessness about, a dissatisfaction with everything, a palpable tension.

Use that memory or feeling to help write that first kiss, first love scene, or ratchet up the sexual tension between your hero and heroine. That restlessness may cause your heroine to do something she wouldn’t normally do, or the hero to reveal his true feelings for the heroine. They act or react out of character, and when that happens it starts to get interesting.

As romance writers we know the act of writing is part mechanical, writing or typing words onto that blank white page; part intellectual, creating and plotting our story; and part emotional, making that love story between our hero and heroine come alive and be believable to readers. To write that emotion we need to feel it, or remember it. So, instead of staring at the blank page and stressing out, sit and relax, and let your mind drift during these hot August nights. You may be surprised what comes to mind. And, it’s really too warm to do anything else, or is it?

Hmmm……there’s something about memories of a long hot summer night in a small town, where it’s so quiet you can hear crickets down by the creek, that gets me thinking about a teenage girl sneaking out to meet……

That’s a fact Jack: The Dog Days of August is a phrase coined by the ancient Romans, and referred to the time of year when Sirius, the dog star, rose just before or at sunrise.

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Johna Machak is a member of the “Writers Rock” critique group, along with Barb DeLong, Jann Audiss and Cathy Oliver. She has served on the OCC board as Co-President (1999, 2000), Vice-President (1998), Membership Director (1996, 1997) and Webmaster (2002, 2003)

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President’s Message

August 20, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

Ah, the weary traveler is home from Texas, bowed but unbeaten. In fact, I’m so proud of our chapter, the buttons are popping off my blouse. Conversations were going on in every corner of the hotel. I heard things like “Mention it to Orange County, they’ll come up with a way to make it work” or “If Orange County hasn’t tried it, “then it probably isn’t worth the trouble.”

Now that’s enough to make anyone proud. But don’t get smug. It’s also enough to make one quake in their boots! It means, of course, that we have to stay on our toes. Because I speak for your board when I say our goal is to continue to give our members what they need by way of support of their writing endeavors, and the incentive to keep trying against the odds. We also hope that other chapters will continue to look to us for help, and challenge us to do even better.

Another thing I heard in Dallas was a common line running through the conversations of published writers. It went something like this–“I write every day at the same time for x-number of hours come hell or high water!” Also heard this theme–“I sent that blasted manuscript out 22 times before it sold!” Which tells me that the fifty-some dollars in postage I have invested in one proposal alone is just a drop in the bucket. I’m packaging it up to send it out again and again and again . . .

Things to put on your calendar . . . WRITE! WRITE! BUY RAFLLE TICKETS! START SAVING FOR SEATTLE IN ’88 (site of the National Conference). SUBMIT! SUBMIT! REMEMBER THE HANDS-ON WORKSHOP NOV 14 — IT WILL BE FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED. REMEMBER THE LOU TICE SEMINAR IN JANUARY.

GINI WILSON
C0-President

This was the President’s Message in the September 1987 issue of the Orange County Chapter Newsletter. Twenty years ago, the RWA National Conference was also held in Dallas, TX.

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IN MEMORY OF GINI WILSON

August 19, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

“I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Gini Wilson has passed a way from cancer today 08/17/07. She loved you all very much and thought of you often.

Love
Her Husband
Jim Wilson”

We invite you to post your thoughts and memories of Gini at http://authorginiwilsonmemorial.blogspot.com/

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The Write Way (because there is no ‘right’ way)….

August 17, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as
I wanted to blog about writing contests, since we just announced the finalists in our own Orange Rose Contest for unpublished writers. And mega CONGRATS to all of you who did final!

See, this is contest season in RWA…every month now in the Romance Writer’s Report, there will be listing after listing of contests you can enter, both published and unpublished. Now I’m a big fan of contests. I like winning badge jewelry as much as the next writer. But there are inherent dangers to contests for the unpublished. At least, I think so!

The problem with contests is, it’s so subjective. Each writer or reader who will be judging your entries has her own likes and dislikes. Now, naturally, we’d all like to think that we put those prejudices aside and judge the work on its own merit. But hey, the judges are human. A perfect manuscript might get a low score because the judge doesn’t like westerns. Or heros with dark hair. Or heroines who talk too much.

And the danger to unpublished writers is, I think, that they’ll make every change suggested by the dozen or more judges who’ve read their work, trying to please everybody. And in the end, they please nobody because they’ve sucked the life force out of their own words. Of course, there’s a flipside to this, too. There is the occasional writer who thinks all the judges are crazy even if five of them tell her the same thing and she refuses to change any of her ‘pearls’.

So I guess what I’m saying is, once you get your score sheets, step back. Take the suggestions, the advice and let it stew for awhile before you leap in to make changes. Look at your scoresheets, see if all of the judges are remarking on the same thing. If they are, maybe it’s time to do a little tweaking. But bottom line is, the work is yours. You can’t please every reader. What you’re hoping for is to make your story and your writing the best it can be. Polish. Look for typos. Look for plot holes or repetition. Have one trusted reader go over it and then send it out. Let an editor be the real judge…since they’re the ones you have to please in the end……

And I hope you win lots of badge jewelry!!

Maureen Child is a multi published author of more than 90 romance novels. At the moment, she’s flipping through the RWR planning her assault during contest season.
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THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO MMMRUH!

August 13, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as
Off on a Tangent

By

Geralyn Ruane

So let’s sink another drink

‘Cause it’ll give me time to think . . .

Morning commute, could barely keep my eyes open, but when Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” punched through the car, suddenly, a beam of good cheer more potent than a double shot espresso blasted through me.

Huh?

But I don’t even like Billy Idol. I mean, I had some eclectic crushes back in middle school, from Richard Dreyfuss to Tommy Lee to Face Man from the A-Team, but Billy Idol was never one of them. And his music never did anything for me. So why was I suddenly so chipper, getting my groove on to a song I never liked?

After a few minutes, I figured it out.

Spike!

Platinum blonde British rocker Billy Idol reminded me of platinum blonde British vampire Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, seasons two and three of which I watched in marathon stretches with my two best friends. Mmmruh! What fun that was, just hanging out eating Chinese food and popsicles, indulging in and critiquing Joss Whedon and all things Buffy. Just like that, on a few beats of vintage eighties rock, my mind went off on a tangent and instantly made the connection for me.

I’m going off on tangents all the time, in conversation, in life, in home décor. I can never seem to keep myself on a linear path of any kind because, as Katherine Hepburn says to Spencer Tracy in Desk Set, “I associate many things with many things.”

The orange paisley comforter I picked out. My guy stood there in Bed Bath and Beyond looking at me warily. “Really? You want that one?” Heck, yeah! It reminded me of the bedspread I’d had as kid in the seventies, a riot of big orange flowers. Oh, to be six again, to have no reason to get up more pressing than that of watching Deputy Dog. Mmmruh.

Seem silly? Then again, life can come to feel pretty colorless and devoid of meaning if you just live it, getting through day by day, then just forget it all. Remembering, connecting, associating, whether deliberately or viscerally, add vibrancy, hue, flavor, compassion. Tapping into other times, places, feelings, worlds, even right within yourself – mmmruh. Going off on a tangent – a nifty knack for a writer, no?

Giants at Eagles, third quarter. Pass goes high, Plaxico Burress stretches to catch. He’s tackled on his descent with such ferocious precision the sound of impact makes me wince. The announcer chuckles. “Dawkins waffles Burress . . .” Suddenly, my eyes fill with tears. I’m no longer watching Sunday football, but I’m a thirteen year-old kid looking at Officer Green, standing on my front porch, hands on hips, holding something in his hand.
“Do you own a brown and white dog?”
I nod.
“It just got waffled down on Layton Road.” Then he hands me Rhoda’s busted collar.
To this day, I cannot hear the word “waffle” used that way without breaking down, without remembering how she was still warm when we went down to get her.
But all these tangents become the threads of life, never snipped off but left to drift and tangle. And if we can recognize and appreciate our own designs and textures, if we can better understand ourselves, can we more insightfully understand others? Can we express ourselves more effectively? Maybe. And in that maybe lies the everlasting mmmruh.

Geralyn Ruane’s favorite Hardy Boy is whichever one Parker Stevenson played, and these days she writes romance, chick lit and women’s fiction. Last year her short story “Jane Austen Meets the New York Giants” was published in the New York Times Bestselling anthology The Right Words at the Right Time Volume 2.

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