February Online Class: “Fast Draft and Revision Hell” with Candace Havens
January 26, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives********** permission to forward **********
Hi everyone! Check out the exciting online classes offered by the
Orange County Chapter of RWA!
“Fast Draft and Revision Hell”
with Candace Havens
February 15 – March 13, 2010
Enrollment Information at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassFeb10.html
COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members
If you have specific questions, email occrwaonlineclass@yahoo.com
ABOUT THE CLASS:
Fast Draft: It’s easy to come up with excuses why you can’t finish your manuscript. You’re busy, life is crazy, there is always something. The truth is there are no real excuses. If you want to sell a book, you have to finish. There’s no time like the present. Author Candace Havens has developed a step-by-step process to help you finish your work in progress in just two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, you’ll have your first draft.
Revision Hell: It can be daunting going back in and editing, tightening and cleaning up your manuscript. That’s why author Candace Havens developed a system to help get through that process step-by-step. In two weeks you’ll have a polished manuscript that is ready to sell.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Candace “Candy” Havens is a bestselling and award-winning author. Her novels include “Charmed & Dangerous”, “Charmed & Ready”, “Charmed & Deadly”, “Like A Charm” and “The Demon King and I”. She is known for writing strong female characters, who save the world, but aren’t exactly perfect. She is a two-time RITA, Write Touch Reader and Holt Medallion finalist. She is also the winner of the Barbara Wilson award, and the 2009 Pro Mentor of the Year. Candy is a nationally syndicated entertainment columnist for FYI Television. A veteran journalist she has interviewed just about everyone in Hollywood from George Clooney and Orlando Bloom to Nicole Kidman and Kate Beckinsale. You can hear Candy weekly on 96.3 KSCS in the Dallas Fort Worth Area. Her popular online Writer’s Workshop has more than 1300 students and provides free classes to professional and aspiring writers.
Enrollment Information at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassFeb10.html
COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members
Coming in March 2010–
“The Regency Women†with Nancy Mayer
This workshop will focus on Regency woman and their roles, expectations, rights, and power. Including common myths and mistakes writers make in their stories. (Like can or how do woman obtain financial independence, and can they maintain it in marriage.)
http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclasses.html. Check out our full list of workshops.
Want to be notified personally two weeks before each class? Be sure
you’re signed up for our Online Class Notices Yahoo Group! Sign up at
the bottom of http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclasses.html or send a blank
email to OCCRWAOnlineClassNotices-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
********** permission to forward **********
Some of Harlequin Editor-at-Large Leslie Wainger’s Pets–presented by Isabel Swift
January 24, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Harlequin. Pets, Leslie WaingerIn response to the classic “Wassup?” Harlequin’s Editor-at-Large Leslie Wainger had this to say:
“I’m mostly being surrounded by pets. I still have cats (three), and attached are pics of my puppy, Kaiya:
and my sugar gliders, Bug and Gobo:
There are definite advantages to working from home!”
And I said…WHAT are sugar gliders? Aside of the cutest things ever! Kaiya is pretty adorable too—looks smaller than a Chow—just young or something different?
And Leslie said, “Sugar gliders are tiny Australian possums. They’re marsupials, like our possums, but otherwise very different. They glide (like flying squirrels) and have been kept as pets over here for about 15 years. In this picture you can see the gliding membrane folded up along their sides.
And Kaiya’s a Shiba Inu (a Japanese breed). She’s 10 months old and small for a female, but not by a lot. The perfect female is 14″ at the shoulder and around 17 lbs., so they’re a bit like very mini Akitas. They have big-dog attitude, though. She has no idea how small she is.
…And I think—yes, it’s all about attitude. On the other hand, cuteness does count!
Romance in A Time of Tragedy by Monica Stoner Member at Large
January 19, 2010 by Marianne H. Donley in category Archives tagged as Member At Large, Monica StonerHow many of us wonder, as we’re pounding out the lives of our hero and heroine, if there can be justification for Romance writing such times as terrorist attacks in war zones the tsunami in the Indian Ocean or the earthquake in Haiti. Can we justify spending so much time at our keyboards with, to be honest, very little hope of remuneration? Shouldn’t we be doing something?
The same questions come up for anyone deeply involved in what some might call a non productive hobby or career or avocation. And we who feel deeply worry the most about our place in the world. We each do what we can in our own way.
Spinning tales out of mid air is a time honored method of dealing with difficult times. “Tell me a story,” whispers the frightened child, looking for distraction from the sounds in their closet. “Tell us a tale,” commands the King when a new Bard comes to visit. “Make our heroes bigger and braver, our villains more evil, and our princesses even more beautiful.” Tell us a tale, and take us away, if briefly, from our every day world. Give us something else to think about, if only for the next few minutes.
I know I’ve certainly thought this more than once, and said so to someone whose opinion was very important to me. She asked back: “If you stopped writing or showing dogs or riding horses would those tragedies go away?” She did have a great way of cutting an issue down to basics, and also reminding me very few people are so important their actions influence the world. A lot of people might think they are that important but that’s a matter for another time. None of us can stop the ocean or earth from expressing themselves.
Andre Norton wrote of heroes from the unlikeliest backgrounds, mostly what might be considered “throw away” people in the slums left over from horrific intergalactic wars. I wonder if this was her method of dealing with the lost children and lost people after governments have rolled over top of citizens? Certainly her “ordinary people” did extraordinary things, once they recognized their own value. Could some of this also have to do with why some of us create characters who can stop the ocean and who can communicate with the earth to convince her not to shrug so hard, or in such a vulnerable place?
We each do what we can, in our own way, to deal with tragedy. Whatever we do, we also reach out to each other, to the other spinners of tales, for the comfort of at least a few hours of relief from the unrelenting worry. And perhaps our words are read by someone who needed that particular story at that particular time. Hug your loved ones.
Monica Stoner
tsent@ix.netcom.com
e-maginings: Passion, Heat & Ecstasy
January 16, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as e-maginings, erotic romance, Lyndi Lamont, Online ClassNext month, I’ll be teaching an online class on writing erotic romance with Dee Ann Palmer w/a Carolina Valdez. Passion, Heat & Ecstasy: Writing the Erotic Romance is sponsored by the Yosemite chapter of RWA and runs from Feb. 1 to 26. Details are at http://www.yosemiteromancewriters.com/6.html; scroll down to find our class.
I’ve been compiling my section of the bibliography for the class, and decided to pull out a couple of books to recommend here. Both books are available at Amazon.com if you can’t find them in the bookstore.
Passionate Ink: A Guide to Writing Erotic Romance by Angela Knight, Loose Id, LLC, 2007. In my opinion, this is the best book to get if you want to write erotic romance. Knight understands the genre and has some useful tips, like her “romantic conflict†chart.
Knight distinguishes between sensual and erotic romance by looking at what drives the story. In her opionion, what drives sensual romances “isn’t sex, but not having sexâ€. In order to maintain sexual tension between hero and heroine, the writer devises external and internal reasons why going to bed with each other is a bad idea. The actual act of making love often signals a significant drop in sexual tension and the writer then has to find a way to make the conflict kick in again.
Erotic romance is driven by what she calls “romantic tension”, in other words the central conflict that makes the HEA ending seem problematic. This means strong conflict, esp. in a full-length novel.
Conflicting Desires: Notes on the Craft of Writing Erotic Stories by Han Li Thorn, Velluminous Press, 2007. A good how-to book geared to mainstream erotica but not romance. Chapter 4 on The Erotic Promise is particularly useful and there are several appendices, including an Erotic Lexicon.
In the above chapter 4, Thorn posits that writers of erotic literature make three promises to their readers: to arouse, to entertain and to offer something deeper, whether in depth of charaterization, complexity of plot, or eliciting an intellectual or emotional depth. In erotica, the first promise must be kept, but if you can deliver on the other two promises, you work will stand out.
He also states that “erotic conflict is at the heart of erotic storyâ€. Otherwise it’s a spiced-up romance or mystery or whatever, but it doesn’t qualify as “eroticaâ€. This is often easier said than done.
If you’ll forgive a bit of blatant self-promotion, I think my novella Alliance: Cosmic Scandal is a good example of erotic conflict. Here’s the blurb:
When Myrek, heir to the Ziganese throne, becomes ambassador to the planet Mhajav, he hopes to find a cure for his son’s hereditary illness. Then he meets a lovely young geneticist and passion overwhelms his sense of duty. All he can think of is making Khira his own.
Khira is a rarity, a Mhajavi virgin of 25. A child prodigy, she skipped several grades and was underage when most of her classmates went off to sex camp before attending university. Though hopelessly in love with Myrek, she knows their love is doomed. Under Ziganese law Myrek must wed a virgin, but Mhajavi law forbids virgins from marrying.
An erotic encounter in a brothel leads to a fateful decision that defies the laws of two worlds and causes a cosmic scandal.
In this story, the couple fall in love but are unable to marry because of the respective laws of their worlds. Prince Myrek is legally required to wed a virgin, something prohibited by Kira’s world Mhajav. Their solutions to the problem are creative as well as sensual.
As the title of our class says, erotic romance calls for Passion, Heat and Ecstasy.
Have a good weekend.
Lyndi Lamont
website: http://www.lyndilamont.com/
(Disclaimer: Both writing books recommended in this blog were purchased by me personally, not provided gratis for endorsement. LL)
The People’s Choice Awards by Bobbie Cimo
January 13, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Eye on Hollywood by Bobbie Cimo tagged as Bobbie Cimo, Eye on HollywoodNot so long ago I received an E-mail from the Nokia Theatre, advertising for the People’s Choice Awards. The ad said they were on sale at a 50% discount. The $40.00 tickets were going for $20.00 and the $200.00 orchestra seats were now $100.00.
Surprised by the ad, I blurted out loud in the office, “They’re charging for them now?” It never dawned on me that they were probably always charging for these tickets, only I didn’t know it. For one reason, I think in the back of my mind, I always thought the attendees were invited guests of the celebrities who were receiving the awards. However, I did know who the people in the cheap seats were–the ones in the balcony. They were people like me, who got their tickets for free.
Every year at the end of November a flyer would come around the building at CBS, announcing the possibility of free tickets to the “People’s Choice Awardsâ€. It stated very clearly that the dispensing of tickets depended solely on the availability of the production company. Which meant we wouldn’t know for sure if we had tickets, until somewhere between Christmas and the end of the year. That was cutting it close, considering at that time the event took place on the Sunday following the holiday. We were instructed to limit our request to four tickets per employee and asked to dress as though we were attending a party.
There was one more stipulation. If after making your request, you pulled a no-show, you’d be banned for life from requesting tickets again. Okay, maybe “for life†is a little strong…but the word “forever†was implied when signing the dotted line.
I have to tell you what sometimes seemed like a perfectly wonderful idea at the end of November, doesn’t necessarily seem so terrific by the following January. Especially after you had devoured every fattening type of food imaginable, in the past thirty or so days. So your first obstacle is finding something to wear that isn’t going to be showing every lump and bump you’ve just developed in the last month. And then there’s the shoes. Besides being dressy, they’ll have to be comfortable–keep in mind, you’ll be standing in line for approximately three hours. Did I mention, when you gain weight, your feet get fat, too?
Now if you’re lucky, it’ll be a cool January day, which means you’ll get to cover up your holiday sins with a lovely dress coat. Mine was velvet. Hopefully the day will be dry and you won’t have to worry about lugging around an umbrella or dripping water on anyone around you–or worse, ending up having a really bad hair day. And occasionally, like me, your friends at home will see you on TV. And thanks to the rain, you‘ll be easy to recognize, as you’ll be the one with the frizzy hair.
Anxiety grows as you stand in line, wondering if you’re going to get a good seat or if those annoying teenagers with the high shrieking voices ahead of you will be seated next to you. But as time goes on, you make friends with those around you. Your feet stop hurting, and you bless the person who invented the elastic waistband on your pantsuit.
Then miraculously, once you’re inside you find there are no bad seats. And the excitement of the audience, especially coming from the cheap seats, fills the air as everyone points out to each other the celebrities they’ve spotted below.
When the show was held at the Pasadena Auditorium, after the ceremony, you could actually stand on the proverbially red carpet and mingle with the stars as they waited for their cars. Some, if asked nicely, would even pose for a picture. The superstars like Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, would usually slip out a side exit into a limo. But even then, you could still manage to get up-close and personal and snap a picture or two.
Now, if you had asked me earlier this year if I was sorry that we still don‘t get free tickets to this event, I would have said no, that I had my fill. But that would have been before I knew that Johnny Depp and Hugh Jackman were both attending this year’s ceremony. Trust me, if I had, there’s not a doubt in my mind that I would have found an outfit and happily poured myself into it just for the occasion.
