My Endless Summer of Reading by Jina Bacarr
May 11, 2018 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as author, books, friend, Library, May, prom, promposal, reading, SummerIt’s the reading month of May!
In case you didn’t know it, May is #GetCaughtReadingMonth, so I decided to challenge myself to do “a graphic a day with someone reading a book.”
I’m a third of my way through the month, and I’m hanging in there. So for this month’s blog, I’m going to post some of them for your viewing and reading pleasure.
First, here’s a graphic I really love because it says so much about how lucky we are to choose what we read.
Which brings me to my own version of the Endless Summer
When I was thirteen, I spent my free time in the old library by the beach with its dusty shelves and cracked, wooden floor. It was the summer I discovered boys and surfing.
And the library’s adult section.
Reading everything I could find there. Romance sagas in hardback, mysteries with provocative covers. Adventure stories girls weren’t supposed to read.
Until a lady wagged her finger at me and told me to go back to the kids’ section.
I didn’t.
Even then I knew I wanted to write, and to write what was in my heart, I needed the freedom to discover all kinds of writing.
Enjoy the freedom to choose what you want to read!
By the way, I didn’t listen to her and kept sticking my Irish nose wherever I smelled a good story…
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So for #GetCaughtReadingMonth, here are some of the graphics I’ve posted so far:
You can find all the #GetCaughtReadingMonth graphics I’ve done so far and check them out all this month of May on Twitter and my Facebook pages:
And finally, since it’s prom month:
Ever wanted to be Prom Queen?
Kaylee is tired of being bullied by the Duchess in Crystal Girl and sells her soul to get thin
Here’s the story of Kaylee and her promposal . . . from a hottie devil!
CRYSTAL GIRL: Kindle & KU: http://a.co/ipzidx8
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Stuck at Home While My Friends are at RT
May 10, 2018 by Tari Jewett in category Charmed Writer by Tari Lynn Jewett, Events, Writing tagged as Ara Grigorian, Charmed Writer, CharmedWriters, Christine Simolke, Elena Dillon, Judi Fennell, Megan Hart, Rebecca Forster, Robin Blakely, Romantic Times Convention, Tari Lynn Jewett, Victoria Vane
There’s a very special group on Facebook, if I do say so myself. The #CharmedWriters group. You may or may not have heard of it. It’s a semisecret group but it has a lot of power, at least within its members and special guests.
It started a couple of years ago at this very time. Many of our local writer friends were getting ready to attend the annual Romantic Times Convention. For those of you not familiar with it, Romantic Times is a magazine for romance readers. Every year they put together an amazing convention that connects romance readers with the authors that they love.
Anyway, many of us were “stuck at home, while our friends were at RT 2016”. And thus, a Facebook event titled Stuck at Home While My Friends are at RT was born. I invited all of my writer friends, at the time mostly romance writers. And they invited some of their friends. About 25 authors participated. It was basically a Butt in Chair event, where our goal was to keep our butts in our desk chairs, and see how many words we could write while our friends were partying at Romantic Times. We had word count challenges, we talked about promo, we had online happy hours for networking. All in all, I think those who attended had a great time, I know I did.
Many of the writers broke their highest daily and weekly word counts that week, individually writing 10, 20 and more than 30,000 words. We got a lot of work done, learned from each other, made new friends, and motivated and inspired each other.
And I gave out charms. Lots and lots of charms. When the week ended, we didn’t want this special week to just fizzle and go away, and the #CharmedWriters group was formed, named for the charms we earned while writing. We continued writing together regularly in what we call Office Hours, and had a few more Butt in Chair events in 2016.
Last year I added speakers to the Stuck at Home event, making it more of an online conference, and the most amazing people stepped up and hosted online Ask an Authors and Workshops, and the event has continued to evolve including not just authors, but industry experts. Members get access to some highly successful and incredibly brilliant people.
Next week we have a special line up of speakers including the wildly talented romance author Megan Hart (I’m a huge fan!). Author, and book coach the inspiring Ara Grigorian. The multi-talented romance author, editor and cover designer Judi Fennell. Award winning YA author, marketing wiz, and my former playgroup friend, Elena Dillon. Romance author and historical fashion designer/seamstress Victoria Vane, I’ve seen her gowns in person and they are amazing! And publicist and career coach Robin Blakely, who works with my friend, author of my favorite legal thrillers, Rebecca Forster…who has previously been a presenter for #CharmedWriters, and if you haven’t read her books you should! Not that she needs me to promo for her, she’s a brilliant writer…and she has Robin Blakely! And you probably know both Rebecca and Robin from right here on Slice of Orange.
Do you wish you were a member now? Keep reading!
A couple of weeks ago we hit 100 members when a friend of mine from middle school, author Christine Simolke, joined the group.
Our membership is made up of authors at various stages in their writing journey, but all are seriously pursuing a writing career. We share our work, give and receive help, share experience and knowledge, help each other promote, and even more. Many of us have become friends, we share a passion that even if our friends and family support us, they don’t always understand. It’s truly a #CharmedPlace.
To be included you need to be invited by a member of the group, and you need to be actively writing. So, if you’re actively writing, and you’d like to be a #CharmedWriter, consider this an invitation! Friend me on Facebook and if we’re already friends just send me a message!
So, being Stuck at Home While My Friends are at RT is no longer such a bad thing! And now you know why I titled my column Charmed Writer. Because I am!!
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Encouragement, Tips, and Interesting Interviews
May 9, 2018 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as Chris Fox, Debra Holland, Jacqueline Diamond, James Scott Bell, Kitty Bucholtz, Laura Drake, Lauraine Snelling, Lisa Cron, podcasts, video podcasts, Write Now Workshop, WRITE NOW!
I’ve always loved encouraging others, especially writers. I love to teach what I know in order to help people get a little further along a path I’ve walked. And I love asking other people about what they do and how they do it – especially writers!
So when I decided to finally make time to create a podcast, something I’ve wanted to do for a few years, I didn’t want to focus on only one of the areas above. In December, 2017, WRITE NOW! Workshop Podcast (named after my classes of the same name) launched with three episodes a week.
On Sundays, I produce a short Encouraging Words episode whose aim is to help writers feel like they’re not alone, and give them some of my trademark sunny encouragement. 😀
Every Tuesday, I teach some writing tip or trick or talk about a writing device that the listener can put into practice right away in their writing.
And each Thursday, I interview someone in the writing industry (or tangentially related) about what they’re doing. I try to make sure there is always some take-away value for the listeners, but I also try to be sure the interview is interesting and fun!
If you want to start listening from the beginning, or jump in at any episode you choose, you can search for WRITE NOW! Workshop Podcast on your favorite podcast app. (There’s probably one on your smart phone.) Either listen to just an episode or two, or hit the Subscribe button so that new episodes automatically download. You can also listen on my website, and most of the episodes are also on video that you can watch on YouTube here.
Episode 000 is a short introduction that tells you what to expect, then all the rest of the episodes have either a “T” or an “I” or an “E” after the number. T means it’s a teaching episode, I is for the Interviews, and E designates the Encouraging Words episodes. See how it forms T-I-E, TIE? I want to help you tie all the parts of your writing life together. Learn what you can do to improve your writing, learn from what others are doing, and get lifted up with some encouragement to keep going! 😀
This month’s interview guests include Bonnie DePue, an occupational therapist suggesting some good stretches and exercises for writers (and others who sit and type all day); Lee Batchler and Janet Scott Batchler, screenwriters sharing tips on screenwriting, story, and collaboration (airs tomorrow, May 10, 2018); Laura Drake, a women’s fiction author who will share her tips on how to make The First Five Pages sing (airs May 17); and Chris Fox, author of the new book, Plot Gardening (airs May 24).
Past guests include Jacqueline Diamond, Lauraine Snelling, James Scott Bell, Debra Holland, Lisa Cron, and so many more! I hope you find some interesting, helpful, and encouraging tips that help you take your writing life to the next level! 😀
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April 25, 2018 by A Slice of Orange in category Writing tagged as Bethlehem Writers Group, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, short story contest, Writing contest
STUMPED
April 15, 2018 by Rebecca Forster in category Writing tagged as Craft, fun, help, mystery, psychology, thriller, writing
The other day I came home to find the men I hired to build my patio sitting in my backyard looking at a stump. This was not a normal stump. This was a giant. Paul Bunyan, Big John kind of stump. I sat down with them and I, too, considered the stump.
“George had to get his chain saw for that sucker,” one of them finally said.
“Took two hours to get it out,” another offered.
“I think it broke George’s saw,” the first chimed in.
“Why didn’t you leave it in the ground,” I asked. “You know, pour the cement around it?”
“We thought about it,” the third said. “It wouldn’t have been right.”
They told me that they had managed to cut it up into the piece we were looking at but that it had been twice as big and buried deep in the ground; a remnant of a primordial tree. Their task had been Herculean. They told me that if they poured the cement over the stump, the darn thing could rot and my steps would fall in, and I would be upset with them because they had poured cement over a stump the size of San Francisco.
“It looks petrified,” I said. “How many years do you think it would take to rot?”
The first guy shrugged, “Twenty. Thirty years.”
I shrugged back. I would probably be dead by the time the stump rotted and my stairs fell in. I guess it was the principal of the thing. They would have known the stump was there.
We sat in the hot sun a while longer. Someone suggested carving the stump into the likeness of the contractor. I liked that idea but no one knew how to carve. I thought we could make it into a table. Eventually, we all stopped looking at the stump. The men moved it out of the way and started work again; I went inside to make dinner.
That stump has now been in my backyard for months. I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. But, like all things that are hard to get rid of, it eventually served a purpose. It taught me a few lessons:
1) Everybody has a stump. It might be in your real backyard, your professional backyard or your personal backyard, but it is undoubtedly there.
2) What you do with your stump will tell you a lot about yourself. Either you will dig it up and deal with it, or you will leave it to rot.
3) If you’re stumped and need help there is always someone willing to work hard with you to take care of it as long as you work as hard as they do.
4) You can never go through a stump but don’t panic. You can go around them, over them and sometimes even under them but that takes the longest.
5) Sometimes stumps are not as big as they look and sometimes they are bigger. Size doesn’t matter. Stumped is stumped.
SECRET RELATIONS, book #3 of the Finn O’Brien Thriller series is available now.
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