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OCC Birthday Bash

October 6, 2014 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives

The next OCC meeting will be the Birthday Bash, on October 18. I’ll be there. Will you?

I believe it’ll be an anniversary of sorts for me. I’m fairly sure that I joined OCC 20 years ago! That’s a long time.

It’s also close to the amount of time I’ve been published in novel-length work. I had short stories published before that, but my first novel, a time-travel romance called A GLIMPSE OF FOREVER, was published in 1995.

I’ve always felt that I owe a lot to RWA and OCC for helping me learn what I needed to get, and stay, published. Consequently, I’m delighted to be able to help celebrate OCC’s birthday.

I’m sure I’ll have a delightful time. I’ll even be signing some books there–a few of my most recent releases.

Hope to see you there!

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The Wonders of Hair Clips

September 24, 2014 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives

Well, I can’t offer you 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover or perhaps more appropriately the many (25 or more!) uses for Duct Tape (which, I was amazed to learn, actually started its life being called Duck Tape, as Johnson and Johnson used cotton canvas duck cloth to create it).

But I can share my own enthusiasm for plastic hair clips. Yep, you heard it right.

Plastic Hair Clips, various sizes

They come in different sizes and shapes, but are available at most drug stores in the “Hair Accessories” section.

First, they do hold hair. I can vouch for that. But they hold a lot of other things too, easily, conveniently and fairly cost effectively.

Like tidying up irritating strands of wires, they open in an instant, can be removed, reused or re-done, unlike a lot of other cord controlling options.

They hold things up, get and keep cords off the floor and out of the way. They can conveniently grasp things that you might like having handy, like your charger-which-keeps-sliding-off-the-table. Like holding other hair accessories nearby and accessible:

But one of my favorite uses is to keep my earphones in a tidy and (relatively) untangled ball (one that I can attach to things, perhaps an inside purse zipper pull) if I need those earphones handy. The other is holding yarn ends and beginnings so they not only don’t unravel as I carry them around or store them, but I can also find the #%@&*! end (or beginning) when I need to. They also work holding ribbon.

Many things have more than one purpose. Look at an object’s (or a person’s) skill sets and see what other purposes they might fulfill.

You might give your lover another chance–or you might duct tape the door shut! You have options…

Isabel Swift

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10 Things NEVER TO DO When Writing

September 15, 2014 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Rebecca Forster, the writing process

WHEN YOU’RE WRITING NEVER:

10. Stop Reading: After a long day of reading your own work it the last thing you want to do is pick up someone elseâ€™s but do it! You will stay motivated. I learn something new with each book I read.

9. Rely on Inspiration: Don’t waste a day waiting for inspiration. Sit down, get to work, and inspiration will come calling.

8. Neglect Genre: Itâ€™s tempting to want to walk in between genres. What would be better than a science fiction, erotic, mystery right? But remember, if you want to find passionate and engaged readers, you have to find the genre that you most want to write and stick with it.

7. Get Bored: If youâ€™re bored, chances are your readers will be to. If you find yourself becoming bored, or your main character is skating through the plot with ease, throw some roadblocks in the way. Conflict moves stories.

6. Rely on Pretty People: Men don’t always have to be fearless and women don’t always have to be sexy. Your readers will spend a lot of time with your characters so make sure there is something going on in their heads and their hearts. Readers love characters for their imperfections and shortcomings just as much as their looks.

5. Lose the Through Line:Remember who’s story youâ€™re writing and what the point is. Veer off the path and you lose your readers.

4. Be Afraid to Cut, Cut, Cut: Cut close to the bone. Make the tough choices and take out the things you really love. They may be great but only if they move the story forward.

3. Throw in the Towel: Too many people have half finished books, or books without an ending floating around on their hard drives. The easiest thing in the world is starting a book. The hardest thing is finishing one.

2. Let your Characters Off Easy: Just because you love your characters doesnâ€™t mean you have to go easy on them. Let them struggle and sometimes fail. Anything that you put in your characters’ gives the readers greater insight into their lives. Give them a goal to work towards, make it hard to get and you canâ€™t go wrong.

1. Beat Yourself Up: The book isnâ€™t shaping up the way you want it to? Someone read a chapter and didnâ€™t care for it? Feel like jumping off a cliff? No worries. Those days happen, but remember that every day that youâ€™re thinking, â€œwoe is me,â€ is another day that you could be finishing a chapter or polishing a plot point. You can spend your time beating yourself up or beating your characters up. I do a lot of the former but am trying to stop.

Happy writing.

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Underwear Blues

September 11, 2014 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as bikini, poem, romance, sexy, underwear

Underwear Blues

by Jina Bacarr

Your mama told you once upon a day

Wear clean underwear when youâ€™re away

So you shopped the sales for navy, black, and red

In no granny panties would this girl be caught dead

Pink, persimmon, peach panties are oh so fun

But what really counts is bringing it down to one

For the hot color in undies across the land

Is not sizzling red or desert sand

But a lovely shade of dominant grey

To show off your butt and take his breath away…

=========

Best,
Jina

www.jinabacarr.com

www.facebook.com/JinaBacarr.author

https://twitter.com/JinaBacarr

http://www.pinterest.com/jbacarr

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Learn to Self-Publish Your Book This Month – and Have It On Sale Next Month!

September 10, 2014 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, OCC/RWA Online Class, Online Class, self publishing, self-publishing

Just a quick reminder that I’ll be teaching “Your How-to Guide to Self-Publishing” starting on Monday, September 15, 2014. That’s this upcoming Monday!

It’s a 4-week online course that will help you take your completed manuscript, and format it and upload it so it’s finally for sale. Yay you! Someone asked, if your manuscript is not quite complete, can you take the class anyway and use a test version to go through the steps so you know what to do when you’re ready? Yes, you can!

The class will consist of written lectures with step-by-step instructions for getting your book ready, as well as videos showing you what to do. You may have already read dozens of blogs and books about how this person or that person created their self-published book, so you already know there is more than one way to go about this. I will show you how I do it and, as a class, we’ll all help each other as each person chooses their own tools (software, distributors, etc.).

For only $30 ($20 for OCC members), this class is a great deal! And half of the proceeds go to support the Orange County Chapter of RWA. Tell your friends and sign up today!

Have questions? Email me at Kitty at KittyBucholtz dot com. I hope to see you in class!

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 novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites. Superhero in the Making will be released this year.