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You Have My Permission

December 15, 2017 by Rebecca Forster in category Writing tagged as cruise, inspiration, journey, permission, Travel, writing

Anyone who knows me knows that I love an adventure. Being asked to speak aboard a ship was definitely on my bucket list, so I jumped at the chance when I was asked to be an onboard lecturer. I prepared five talks that I thought were rather compelling: Peek Behind the Covers, a Look at Publishing, The Caribbean Influence on Popular Literature and Movies, The Five People You Should Meet in the Caribbean, How to Travel like an Author and Everyone has a Story: What’s Yours?.

Since I had sailed on this ship as a passenger, I knew the people coming to listen to me were well traveled, curious, intelligent and fun. On my speaking days, they gathered to hear me in the big theatre to watch my PowerPoint presentations and see me slide hither and yon on the dance floor when the sea got rough. At the end of each of my presentations, I asked if there were questions. There weren’t – at least not questions for public consumption. Instead, many in the audience came to speak to me privately. They wanted to talk about their own writing ambitions. There was a surgeon who wanted to write a children’s book, a woman in her nineties whose own children were asking that she write a memoir. There was a man who had written a business book a decade ago but he had always wanted to write a novel. And there was a composer who, as he listened to me, thought to combine lyrics and a story to create a unique novel.

After listening to every person who spoke to me after my lecture, or caught me on deck, or sat with me in the dining room it finally dawned on me what they were after. They wanted my permission to follow their dreams.

[tweetshare tweet=”@Rebecca_Forster: You have my permission . . .follow your dreams.” username=”A_SliceofOrange”]

Strangely, when it comes to fiction or memoir, many of us believe that our words are not as valuable as the next persons. We convince ourselves that writing with honesty and passion will somehow diminish us in the eyes of the world – or at least those we care about. We offer our writing up with caveats like ‘it is silly’, ‘you probably won’t like it’, and ‘promise not to laugh’.

I heard these things in the voices of the people on that ship, but when we were done talking I heard something else. I heard confidence. I heard the excitement. I heard their brains turning as they planned their books. By taking that first step – admitting they harbored dreams of authorship to someone who was already there – they had given themselves permission to write. When we all parted, I knew exactly where they were going. They were going home to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboards. They had taken more than a cruise, they had taken a journey and I have no doubt that by the end of that journey they will have written their book.

Give yourself permission to do whatever it is you dream of doing. If your dream is to write a book, do it with honesty and passion – and don’t forget to share it with the rest of us.

Rebecca

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Royal Noel: This ain’t your mama’s Little Red Riding Hood by Jina Bacarr

December 11, 2017 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing

Royal Noel: a fairy tale romance with a twist from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.

What if Little Riding Hood had other plans than going to Grandma’s house . . . like a castle with a handsome duke?

It’s Christmas and what could be more fun than a new Twisted Tiara story in my Princesses with a Past series for the Kindle Worlds Royals of Monterra.

ROYAL NOEL is a sweet romance fairy tale with a heroine with a past . . . she’s an international jewel thief called The Princess.

Had so much fun writing this with Gennie and her duke . . . and there’s a royal baby, too!

This is Book 4 in my Twisted Tiaras series featuring the Risconti Family in Sariah Wilson‘s Royals of Monterra KW series.

Royal Noel http://a.co/65GYfHH on Kindle and now Kindle Unlimited!

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My princesses with a past in my Twister Tiaras series for the Royals of Monterra Kindle Worlds stories and how I got started writing them.

This month I have an “off script” interview I did re: how I started with The Royals of Monterra.

Jina’s Chat: How I started writing for the Royals of Monterra from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.

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Time Management Podcasts and Classes

December 9, 2017 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Online Class, podcasts, Write Now Workshop

Write Now Workshop Podcast I’m excited to tell you about a few pretty cool things coming up! First of all, I’m finally starting my podcast! Woohoo!!

The WRITE NOW! Workshop Podcast is expected to launch on Thursday, December 21, 2017. This will be an opportunity for me to share things I’ve learned with you and anyone in the world who tunes in to listen! I’ll post the link back here when it launches, and in my January 9th post. You’ll be able to listen using the Podcast app on your phone via iTunes, or other apps like Stitcher, or you can listen directly on the website. I’ll even have some of the interviews up on my YouTube channel!

The podcast will have three shorter episodes a week instead of one longer one. (If you listen to Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula Podcast or The Creative Penn Podcast, my two faves, they are both generally around an hour.) On Tuesdays, I’ll present a short teaching topic on something you can use in your writing right away. On Thursdays, I’ll interview a writer or editor or someone helpful to you in the publishing industry. I’ve already interviewed our own Jacqueline Diamond, James Scott Bell, and several others. Then Sundays will be my Encouraging Words segment. I’m really excited to have an opportunity to share all sorts of encouragement with you. This can be a difficult career, and I love helping people feel like they can make it!

Guest on Self-Publishing Formula Podcast

The other exciting podcast-related news is that I’m going to be a guest on Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula Podcast in January! Woohooo!!! I’m having a little fangirl chair dance right now because I absolutely love this podcast. I’m excited to be able to share tips and tricks from my time and project management class. I’ll let you know the air date when I find out. And when you listen, you’ll be able to download a free tip sheet as well. I hope this helps you as you plan out your 2018 writing goals.

Online Class for Time Management

If you’d like to get even more prepared, I’m re-opening my online class, Going the Distance: Time and Project Management for Writers, on January 15, 2018. In addition to the over 200 pages of lecture notes I’ve prepared in the past, I’m going to host a half-day live online event on Saturday, January 20, where we’ll go through the process of planning your calendar. Students will also get access to a private Facebook group so they can get time management help all year long. If you’ve already taken this class from me (through OCC or another group I’ve taught for), I’ll give you a $50 discount off the $150 price for lifetime access to the class. (I’ll post a link to the page here as soon as it’s ready, and I’ll mention it in my January 9th post as well.)

Speaking at EVA RWA Chapter

Finally, if you’re interested in getting a little time management help, but want it quick and fast and in person, I’ve been invited to speak at the East Valley Authors chapter of RWA in Azusa, CA, on Saturday, January 6, 2018. I’ll help you get prepared for a super productive year – as best I can in an hour! Haha! This is a great group of writers, and I’m sure it will be a fun morning. You should be able to get more information on the meeting on their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/eastvalleyauthorsrwa

So, was I right? A lot of really exciting stuff coming up! I hope I get to see you at some of it. Remember, the podcast is free, so you’ll be able to listen to all the interviews and writing tips and encouragement every week! Whew! I have more work to do, so I better hop to it!

Have a very Merry Christmas, and incredibly Happy Holidays! God bless you in every way! 😀

Kitty Bucholtz author photo 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. She writes romantic comedy and superhero urban fantasy, often with an inspirational element woven in. WRITE NOW! Workshop, her website where she teaches and offers advice on self-publishing and time management, is under renovation. Look for the new website near the end of 2017!

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Veterans Day: a soldier with PTSD finds his way home by way of a Christmas Piano Tree

November 11, 2017 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Army, Christmas, holidays, military romance, PTSD, soldier, tree, veteran, Veterans Day

Veterans Day is for healing…let’s not forget our wounded warriors who suffer not only the physical pains of war, but the mental as well.

PTSD was first talked about during the Civil War by physicians who described it as nostalgia, while others believed it was a disturbance of a soldier’s mental capabilities caused by severe trauma to the brain.

After World War II, John Huston directed a documentary called Let There Be Light, about the care of soldiers with mental disturbances suffered during wartime.

These are wounds you don’t see.

But they are very real to the soldier with PTSD.

In my holiday romance, “The Christmas Piano Tree,” the hero, Sgt. Jared Milano, is a wounded warrior suffering from PTSD from his last mission in Afghanistan:

“His brain went into freefall and he couldn’t stop it. No matter how hard he tried, how much he squeezed his mind, the memory stayed lost in a thick, suffocating fog swirling around in his head.

Lost.

Dead and forgotten.

Angry, frustrated, he tried to reach out and grab it, but whatever his buddy said to him before he died remained silent and still in his mind.

When would he remember? When?”

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“The Christmas Piano Tree” is the story of a pretty young war widow who re-discovers the magic of the holiday season with the help of a homeless vet and an old piano.

I’ll never forget the Christmas I spent stationed overseas in a small town in Italy. The hot chocolate and cookies I baked and gave to the soldiers who signed up for my Christmas Eve Midnight Mass tour. Off we went on that wintry night in an old military school bus…

We were a motley group of military and Special Services personnel attending the service in a medieval cathedral that was cold and damp, but filled with song and hope for a better future.

Many of those men had seen the horrors of combat and suffered from PTSD (what we called DSS–delayed-stress syndrome–back then). Their stories as they told them to me have stayed with me always…

Thank you for spending part of your Veterans Day here with me. We thank all those who have served for their courage and bravery in keeping us and our families safe. God bless you.

~Jina

The Christmas Piano Tree is available on Kindle and KindleUnlimited.

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Writers in their Natural Habitat

November 10, 2017 by Tari Jewett in category Charmed Writer by Tari Lynn Jewett, Writing, Writing Conferences tagged as Caitlyn O'Leary, Caraway Carter, CharmedWriters, Chris Lentz, Jenna Barwin, Jeri Bronson, OCC?/RWA, Rebecca Forster, writing

When I think of my favorite authors at work, I think of them toiling away in a darkened room banging out pages on an antique typewriter in total isolation. There may or may not be a cigarette on a long and a bottle of scotch involved, or a fine bottle of wine… It depends on the author. And, the truth is that writing is often a solitary process. But that is changing.

The internet and projects like NaNoWriMo, organizations like Romance Writer’s of America, and changes in the publishing industry itself are bringing writers together in new ways. Writers are reaching out to each other having write ins, offering support, sharing their experiences with traditional and indie publishing, even sharing financial information, things that were unheard of less than ten years ago.

Authors Jenna Barwin and Caitlyn O’Leary

In October, I was part of a panel of women writers at the InD’Scribe Conference in Burbank California. First of all, it was incredible to get to sit on this panel with legal thriller author, Rebecca Forster, Navy Seal Romance author, Caitlyn O’Leary, and paranormal author, Jenna Barwin, after all, my debut novella will not be released until February. But the panel was about mentoring, and both Rebecca Forster and Caitlyn O’Leary have been mentors on my fiction writing journey. And this is what I’m talking about, writers no longer hide in their writing caves darkened and solitary penning pages. They reach out to other authors and offer support, and share their experience. They come together in coffee shops to have write ins and bounce ideas off of each other. Writing has become a social event as well as an individual creative process.

As the Pro Liaison for the Orange County Chapter of Romance Writers of America I had the ability to reach out to successful published authors, editors and agents to ask them to talk to our group online, and almost every one of them said yes, volunteering to share their experience and let us pick their brains.

Charmed Writers live write in, clockwise from left, author Chris Lentz, author Alana Hrabal, my son and chauffeur, Gerrod Garcia, author Caraway Carter, author Jeri Bronson, and author Jenna Barwin

When I stepped down from that position I took the idea to another level and started a little online group called #Charmed Writers where we write together and have mini conferences with authors and industry experts as well as other experts who volunteer to join the group and share their knowledge.

So, the image of a writer has changed. We no longer hide in the dark like vampires, we come out to write in coffee shops and restaurants. We form groups, friendships and working relationships. Some of the mystery may have gone out of the life of a writer, but the magic is still there and maybe stronger than before. If you’re a writer, find your tribe, seek out support, share your journey with other writers and readers.

Where do I write? Usually in my brightly lit family room at my desk, with the curtains open and a view of my orange tree, but sometimes friends join me at my dining room table, or I meet them at a local coffee shop, usually no whiskey, but occasionally there is wine involved. Where do you write? And how do you imagine your favorite authors at work?

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