A Naughty Victorian Lady travels to Italy as “Bionda Samurai†by Jina Bacarr
May 11, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as blonde samurai, book trailer, Confessions of a Podcast Goddess, England, Japan, Japanese, kimono, lady, naughty, Victorian
Morning sunlight, wiggling through the petit-point pattern on the lacy curtain, hovers over my shoulder to see what I’m writing. A red-breasted robin fluttering about on the window sill holds its breath, pen scratchings fill my ears.
I am beside myself with excitement, spilling blue ink on my gown and smudging the fine rice paper upon which I write with dirty fingerprints, but I know you shall forgive me for word has reached me that my memoir, The Blonde Samurai, has found its way to faraway shores.
To Italy.
A place where–
The romance of carnival and exquisite masks enchants the eye.
The sacred mount of the holy saints restores one’s faith.
The musical language of the arts and literature delights the ear and enriches the soul.
I must recount to you how pleased I am that the story of this Irish-American lass and her samurai has made its way to such a grand place.
Here then is the visual and audio presentation in Italian of the publisher’s synopsis of “Bionda Samurai†(available May 13th). Grazie!
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Postscript: I have also included the English translation for you:
“She is determined to recount her adventures in every detail, from the electrifying moments to the salacious, her life ruled by her insatiable appetite for all things sensual. Her story takes us from London to Japan, where the journey takes you through a maze of raw and vivid eroticism.
“Tantalizing and provocative scenes of sensuality await you in Japan. This is the return of class because Jina Bacarr (author of “The Blonde Geisha†and “Cleopatra’s Perfume“) puts forward with her usual skill a story that is unique and has earned her millions of readers around the world, her themes more endearing and bold with provocative situations raw and sexy but always romantic.”
Anti-Procrastination Month by Kitty Bucholtz
May 9, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty BucholtzAt Routines for Writers, we have declared May to be Anti-Procrastination Month! We all have a pile (mental or physical) of work we’ve been meaning to do, projects we’ve been trying to finish, etc. But when will it ever get done?
This month!
To give you some ideas on what kinds of things you might want to catch up on during May’s Anti-Procrastination Month, I thought I’d share with you my list (in no particular order).
Work on the category romance that I want to finish and send out by August 1. Yeah, the one I’ve barely even looked at since grad school started in March.
Choose which magazine to send the article to that was rejected last week by Writer’s Digest, then get it out in the mail.
Submit a piece to the Christmas anthology that I’ve been meaning to submit to for weeks. (Oh, and actually write the piece!)
Catch up on all the readings that have been assigned this semester for all of my classes.
Read the Margie Lawson “Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors†lecture packet that I started and didn’t finish in January.
Read the other great Margie Lawson lectures I’ve bought and not finished reading yet!
Take the time (what time?!) to work on promotional items for Routines for Writers.
Continue to research for the superheroes book, and the new angels/demons story that I’m writing for class.
Read some more YA books as research for the story I’m writing for class.
That’s the short list – for now! LOL! And it doesn’t include all the “regular†or “household†items that need to be done – like choose and buy an anniversary present for my husband for our 20th anniversary this week! Eek! LOL!
The big question when I make a list is – how in the world am I going to get this all done? Well, I was praying for wisdom this week and what do you know – God really does use email! I subscribe to a daily email from Motivation in a Minute and a recent email had this quote from Amy Jones:
To do twice as much in half the time, you can’t approach your goals haphazardly. A well-thought plan will keep you clearly on track towards your goal; and the methods of planning are as varied as our personalities.
I have a tendency to think that there is plenty of time to get everything done. But experience has taught me that optimism alone is not my friend. I need a plan. One that is too structured will make me crazy and I’ll quit sooner than later. A plan that is nothing more than a To Do list won’t help me stay organized and disciplined enough to get the most important items done first. (And since I’m now convinced I will die with a long To Do list with many items not crossed off, getting the most important ones done is crucial to my emotional well-being!)
Last year at Routines for Writers, I talked about my new routine – My First Five. It’s been working! There are only so many things I can remember to do at once. And when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I need to know what the next thing is that I should do. Just one. So the First Five helps me prioritize. What I need to do now is create a Next Five, and a Next Five after that. I got my First Five done yesterday morning without any problem, then I watched a taped TV program later while I ate lunch and somehow the day just fell apart after that. Today, I did my First Five then looked at my list and put a bullet next to all the things that had to be done today. That didn’t work as well as I’d hoped either. Because I also did several things that didn’t have to be done today. So starting tomorrow, I’m going to organize my To Do List into groups of five items. I’ll let you know if I get more work done.
One last thing – I recently heard about a software program called Freedom. It’s sort of a time-lock for your Internet connection. You can set it for any amount of time up to eight hours and during that time you won’t be able to access the Internet or send and receive email. It’s $10 and is available for both Windows and Mac. I think it’s hysterical that I’m actually going to spend money on a program that will force me to focus! (Why can’t I do that by myself??) I’ll let you know how it’s working.
If you do better with a little accountability, stop by Routines for Writers and tell us what you want to get done this month! We’ll encourage you to keep going and find a routine that works for you. Happy Writing!
The Plot Thickens by Linda O. Johnston
May 6, 2010 by Linda O. Johnston in category Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston, Writing tagged as Berkley Prime Crime, Harlequin Nocturne, Linda O. Johnston
I find myself plotting a lot lately.
How about you–how do you plot?
Linda O. Johnston
http://www.lindaojohnston.com/
http://www.killerhobbies.blogspot.com/
Linda O. Johnston is the author of 15 romance novels and several novellas, including a current Nocturne Bites, with 2 more Nocturnes upcoming. She also writes the Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime.
Never Too Late
April 28, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” –George Eliot
This quote was floating arount Twitter today, being tweeted and re-tweeted in every trending writing topic I follow. Every writer out there seemed to be picking it up and passing it along, like the torch in the Olympics. The reason for this? It rings with truth.
By nature, writers are worrywarts. We spend weeks and months pouring our souls into our books, then we send that work off into the world, like a child on the bus on the first day of school. We bite our lips and worry that everything will go all right, but our concerns do not stop us from putting that little one on the bus–or from dropping that manuscript in the mailbox.
But then once it’s gone, you start to fret. Was it polished enough? Had you enclosed a SASE? What if this industry professional does not like it? Maybe you should have changed that line after all. Or held off another day before submitting it, just to go through it one more time. We worry and obsess and twist in the chains of our own anxiety. What if this manuscript gets rejected? What then?
It is never too late to be what you might have been.
Okay, maybe the work gets rejected. Do you stop there? Throw up your hands and declare your writing career at an end? Or do you get back on the horse, read the rejection letter for useful feedback and then make changes to strengthen your work? I hope you do, because if not, that rejection will have been the end of your career…because you gave up.
Persistence is half the battle in the publishing business. The more you do something, the better you get at it. So then isn’t it logical to keep writing, to keep practicing, to keep getting better?
No writer was born a New York Times Bestseller. All of them started somewhere with page one, perhaps not having any idea what they were doing, just driven by the desire to write. What would have happened if Nora Roberts had given up after her first rejection or bad review? The world would be short around 180 books about now, and millions of people would never have had the chance to fall in love with her words. Ask any author, and you will hear stories of writing during breaks at work or longhand in the park or on a lunch hour or while the kids were sleeping. Those writers found time to practice their craft; persistence was the key.
No matter how many rejections you get or how many bad reviews or how many years between sales, the simple truth is that there is always a second chance. Hang in there, learn new things, keep writing, keep submitting. Sooner or later, persistence pays off.
Because it is never too late to be what you might have been.
A Fantasy Life by Janet Quinn Cornelow
April 27, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives
I am working on a new book, untitled as of yet, which is a fantasy romance. It is a parallel universe story where one of the universes is magical.
The biggest problem so far has been to figure out why the evil wizard was sneaking into other universes. What did he need and why is he doing what he is doing? Pax is chasing him in our universe because the wizard is leaving a string of dead bodies. (Okay, dead bodies are not really romantic, but they can be worked in.) The heroine is sexy enough to make up for the bodies.
I was at the last OCC meeting and talking with some others at lunch. My wizard came up in the conversation. Someone must have asked what I was writing. I told them my problem, and several people had ideas. But, the one idea I really liked was that the wizard was stealing small electronics like iPods. He is using, or trying to use, the electronics to boost his magical powers. The problem is that he has to keep replacing them because his universe does not use electricity to power things. As long as he steals items with batteries, he can use them until the batteries die, or he shorts them out.
There even may be a theme in here somewhere. Themes are not my best thing.
I am running a contest on my website, www.janet-quinn.com. Check it out.
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