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September 24, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as poetry

I majored in English in collegeâ€”I have always loved stories. I can’t even remember now what my period of interest wasâ€”maybe 19th century English and French literature? That sounds reasonable. I read a fair number of novels, plays and…poetry. Yes, I fondly recall a seminar in French symbolist and surrealist poetry.

Homework was reading poetry, and I remember how first I’d just read an assigned poem. Then I’d go back and look up all the words I didn’t know or understand and translate it. Then I’d read my crude translation to try to understand the sense of the individual words and the vision of the poem. Read it again trying to internalize the meaning of the words as I read them. Read it again out loud to hear the language. It took hours to read a few lines of text on a page!

While I was wrestling with this class, I remember going to some event and chatting to two somewhat inebriated English graduate students and explaining that really, I just didn’t get all the hoopla about poetry. And having them earnestly explain that poetry was it. The pinnacle. The point. The Ultimate in the pantheon of literature….

I didn’t buy it. I figure they just liked to lord it over us lowly undergraduates and needed to pick something obscure and difficult (indeed often impenetrable) and pretend they understood the secret language, and others lacked the refined ear and were not worthy of the key to unlock this treasure. ENC (Emperor’s New Clothes) I thought. Nothing there.

Flash forward several years. Had broken up with my college/post college boyfriend, moved to New York, gotten a job. But I was still connected with our collective friends when I found out from other sources that he was getting married to a woman who had banned all of his former friends (our friends) as a pre-condition. He had to give them all up for her, and he did.

I felt compelled to write to him. It couldn’t be any kind of lengthy explanation of my disappointment in his actions: his willingness to betray long term friends to satisfy an utterly inappropriate perception of threat. To roll over and allow for such bad behavior. To not stand up for himself. To be so utterly lacking in integrity. No. No explanations.

It had to be brief–no more than 3 sentences. Expressive. Dignified. Ruthless.

I wrestled with words. Wrote and rewrote. Crafted my note. Every word had to have resonance, had to have it’s own integrity and then when juxtaposed to another, and another, create a new and nuanced meaning. I flashed back to my conversation on Poetry and realized…

Poetry is it.

It is the challenge of packing the world in a thimble, of making each word do double, triple duty or more. Of creating a multifaceted object that you can turn and turn again, see through it, see yourself in it, see other dimensions within it. Within yourself.

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My Story Is Like The Princess Bride

September 19, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives

Mona Karel, member at large

No, itâ€™s not about to be made into an iconic movie. No, it doesnâ€™t have a classic line, uttered by an actor of impeccable reputation (“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.) And itâ€™s not filled with whimsy and sly references. Nor, alas, was it written by an award winning Hollywood icon

If youâ€™ve read Princess Bride, you know itâ€™s supposedly a book read to a young boy when heâ€™s ill, by his elderly relative. When the boy grows up, he looks for the book to read to his own children and finds that his elderly relative was only reading the good parts to him, and the rest of the book was deadly dull.

My mind has been like that elderly relative, remembering the good parts about this particular book and not the rest of the story. So when I offered it as an “exciting and polished read” I was talking about the book of my weak memory, not reality. I was sure I could do one last quick trip through this book, polishing it to a gleaming brilliance in just a few short hours.

Ummm, not quite. In fact not at all. Iâ€™ve transferred the book to my kindle. Iâ€™ve pulled it up on my desk top and my lap top. Iâ€™ve even printed it out on (gasp) paper. And still the words refuse to reorder themselves into any semblance of rational order.

See, when I first wrote this mass of gibbering, I knew nothing about writing. Not that Iâ€™m any great wealth of writing advice now but at least I have learned not to change point of view three times in one four sentence chapter. So I blithely typed away back then, having the hard bitten hero describe the heroineâ€™s hair as: “It rippled in a shining pony tail down the back of her head and caressed her cheek as she bent to help a young mother arrange bags and a sleeping baby. Chestnut with golden highlights, her hair crowned a proudly held head.” Yeah, right. Heâ€™s going to have those exact thoughts right before he pulls out an Uzi and sprays the room.

Okay, so I have a little bit of a POV problem. I could say I have a characterization issue but itâ€™s most likely a need for DEEP point of view. So maybe I “man up” his observations and make him the rough, gruff grunting type. Nope. Still doesnâ€™t feel right.

Instead Iâ€™m going to try going through the beginning of the book again, and this time force myself to stay in the heroineâ€™s POV for a full scene. I might even go for the gold, and keep it in her voice for, are you ready? One. Complete. Chapter.

Yep, I just might try that thing. And maybe Iâ€™ll even make a real book out of this story, you just wait and see! One day weâ€™ll be quoting lines from this book as ifâ€“sorry, I do get carried away sometimes.

Mona Karel is the writing alter ego of Monica Stoner, who had her first book published after only twenty something years of writing. She has two books out now from Black Opal Books, and if she can ever get this one cleaned up she’ll be on her way to a Romantic Suspense series. For more silliness and some neat recipes, check out her blog: http://mona-karel.com/.

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emaginings: It’s Here!

September 16, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as emaginings, Linda McLaughlin, OCC/RWA anthology, Romancing the Pages

Romancing the Pages, OCC’s anthology of romantic short stories is now available in e-book format from Amazon.com. I’m proud to be one of the editors of the anthology, along with Debra Holland and Louisa Bacio.

The stories in the anthology are:

All Summer on a Date, by GVR Corcillo

A Valentine for Lily, by Alina K. Field

Melting the Ice, by Rose de Guzman

Purple Orchids, by Erin Satie

A Bit of Romance, by Ottilia Scherschel

Peaceful Transit, by Theresa Moore

Canine Casanova, by Alexis Montgomery

One Weekend, by Elise Scott

The Guy with the Dragon Tattoo, by Barbara DeLong

The Meat of Romance, by Joy Elizabeth Hancock

Heart Strings, by Joyce Ward

A Helping Hand, by Janis Therault

Heart Hound, by FC Amati

Hero in Disguise, by Kitty Bucholtz

Princess Pumpkin, by Alexis Montgomery

The Carnival, by Joyce Ward

The Letter, Marilyn Bates

Jailbait, by Sharon Hampton

The Prosecutor, by Louella Neson

It was a pleasure to work with so many talented OCC members. This was truly a group effort. Our beautiful cover was designed by the talented Lex Valentine, and thanks are owed to Janet Quinn Cornelow for formatting the book.

Thanks, everyone.

Linda McLaughlin aka Lyndi Lamont

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THE NAKED NOVELIST

September 15, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as conferences, Craft, creativity, novelist, published, unpublished

Recently, I spoke at a conference in Massachusetts. My presentation was an hour long. For the other 47 hours I was there I mentored aspiring novelists. On the flight home, I wondered why I had bonded with so many of these amazingly talented, bright and interesting people in a way I never had at conferences before. It was because we shared something. In this brave new world of publishing, we all came naked to the table.

Obviously, I am not being literal. In some ways, a Lady Godiva moment would be preferable to that of the Emperorâ€™s New Clothes. Sitting down with an agent, editor or published author to bare your creative soul is incredibly daunting. The new writer faces rejection of their vision, their dream, and their talent.

Because I started writing on a dare, because I had not dreamed of being a novelist all my life, I didnâ€™t feel that creative vulnerability early in my career. It was only later, after I had published, after I flexed my writer’s voice, after I had touched someone who read my words, after I had seen books with my name covering a wall in a bookstore, when I saw my book on the USA Today best seller list that I craved what those writers did. It was also then that I was stripped bare in front of agents and editors who seemed to accept me as easily as they dismissed me; who thrilled at my successes and went on to someone else when there was a brighter star on the horizon. Because I was a businesswoman before I was a writer, I understood that publishing was a business, agents and editors had bottom lines and that fate, luck and fashion sometimes separated the bestseller from everyone else. It doesnâ€™t make the journey any easier to understand that.

Still, I could not complain. I was making a living as a writer. I was grateful and happy. Then things changed again. I became an indie author: self-published, creatively naked as a jaybird, down the chute after being up the ladder, back to square one.

No great publishing house lays claim to my work, there is no editor validating my vision, no sales force singing my praises to booksellers who will pile my books in a pyramid on a table. There is, in fact, no book to hold or sign. There are only the words I have written and saved to a file, a cover made of pixels and the upload to Amazon and Nook and Smashwords. Now, it’s me and the reader. I am a click away from praise or complaint. I have come naked to the table and I gotta say it is chilly in the chair.

I hope the writers I spoke with at the conference learned something from me. Hereâ€™s what I learned from them:

Published or not, we are brothers and sisters under the skin
Be courageous and present your work with pride
If you are asked for an opinion, give it knowing you have a responsibility to be honest
Our passion for the written word will keep us warm
Help a writer when you can, good things will return to you

So, a salute to the writers I met in Massachusetts. You were an incredibly creative and courageous group. My wish is that you will all be clothed in publication glory sooner than later.

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RWA 2012: Dr. Debra Holland: Creating Fighting or Self-Defense Scenes by Jina Bacarr VIDEO

September 11, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as 2012, Anaheim, Debra Holland, fighting, heroine, karate, Montana, RWA, self-defense, sky, spies, spy, video, wild

Have you ever wandered down a dark street late at night, your high heels clicking loudly on the cobblestones, when you hear a second pair of footsteps behind you?

Is someone following you?

Heart thudding in your chest, you stop.

He stops.

Your pulse racesâ€¦the hair on the back of your neck stands up.

Heâ€™s right behind you.

What do you do?

Run or fight?

If you havenâ€™t experienced this scenario, I bet your heroine has.

“From my experience in the field, I know each fight is different and this enemy has his own agenda. Rape? Robbery? Could be, but I doubt it. They don’t operate this way when they want a woman. They act friendly, use pretty talk to pick up a girl, then knock her off her feet before she knows what’s happening to her.

I pull back, walk toward the rue de la Huchette, one step at a time, like all this is happening in slo-mo. As if the whole scene is a video game and someone else is at the controls, pressing the attack buttons and toggling my polygonal form to do what they want and I have no choice. Enemy contact. Kill’em. Kill’em. These words zap through my brain like a subliminal message from command center.

Keep going back. Left foot, right. My eyes scope out the environment. Stone buildings, windows shuttered. No escape. No one to hear the ruckus, the screams. The punks know that. They talk, egging each other on to see who’ll make the first move. Closer, closer they come, like maggots ready to feast on a warm corpse.

Not mine, you punks.”

I wrote from my first-hand experience when I constructed that scene. A similar incident had happened to me on that same street in Paris and I was lucky enough to get away. But I never forgot that fear pulsating through my veins. The icy chill that goes through you when you make that split decision that can determine whether or not youâ€™re going to survive. Pulling up the emotions I felt that night helped me write the emotions of my heroine.

This scene went through my mind when I attended Dr. Debra Hollandâ€™s Workshop: Creating Fighting or Self-Defense Scenes at the RWA Anaheim 2012 Conference. Dr. Debra presented an outstanding workshop showing how to protect yourself as a woman and also how to put your heroine through her paces. She gave members from the audience the opportunity to experience what it feels like firsthand to be attacked by a stranger.

Hereâ€™s a video I put together from the workshop:

Dr. Debra Holland — www.drdebraholland.com — teaches a karate class at the American Martial Arts Academy located at1027 N. Harbor Blvd, Fullerton, CA 714 871-3898.