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Writer on the Verge

May 18, 2009 by in category Archives tagged as , ,

By Kate

Blog anxiety. I have it. Do you?

I spend hours worrying about snappy blog topics that will be informative yet fun, breezy yet philosophical.

It’s a dilemma, I tell you. I suffer and fret and never know what I’ll actually end up with.

It’s worse than trying to decide what to order at Starbucks.

Yes, I worry about that, too.
So I ask you, is there anything worse than having to write a blog?
Well, yes, actually there is. How about having to write TWO blogs?

That’s my problem today. I’m scheduled to blog over at the Silhouette Desire Authors blog at the same time I’m scheduled here at A Slice of Orange. So not only did I have to come up with TWO brilliant (ha!) blogs, but now I’m racing back and forth between the two, trying to keep up with comments and greetings. I tell you, it’s crazy!

If you’ve got a solution to blog anxiety, I would appreciate hearing about it.

And if you have the chance, come on over to the the Silhouette Desire Authors blog and say hello. I get anxiety when nobody shows up to comment. But that’s a whole different topic for another blogging day.

Cheers!
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The Write Way……….

May 17, 2009 by in category The Write Way by Maureen Child tagged as , , ,

My turn to blog, so I’m thinking…a little shameless self promotion!
On June 9, my Desire SEDUCED INTO A PAPER MARRIAGE will hit the shelves. This book was a lot of fun to write for a couple of reasons.
First, well I love writing Desires, anyway! But secondly, it’s the final book in the Hudson continuity. In this book, all of the story lines are wrapped up, we see where the whole family is and everybody leaves satisfied. We hope.
The thing about continuities…You get to write a long throughline with five other writers. Silhoutte gives you the ‘bible’–character descriptions, where they all live, what the family is like and what the storylines for each book in the series is. Now there’s a lot of room to play around, but you have to maintain the stories that the editors have come up with for this particular in line series.
Oh, you can change your character’s name, or description. You can even finesse a few other small things, though you’ll have to talk it all over with the editor who wrote that bible. And you for sure have to keep the other authors in the loop.
And the email loops can get crazy as we all define the characters we’ve been given. Is your heroine crabby? A smart aleck? Does she dress well or live in jeans? What’s her dog’s name? All of these tiny things that add up to a living breathing character have to be kept track of–because trust me when I say, readers will call you on any mistakes!
In SEDUCED INTO A PAPER MARRIAGE, Devlin Hudson and his wife Val are already well known by the people who’ve been following the series. Silhouette did something fabulous in this continuity. They had me write four extra scenes–sort of prequel scenes to my book. These scenes have been at the back of all the other books in the series……. So hopefully, everyone will rush right out to see what happens to Val and Dev!
Continuity series are fun AND challenging. And isn’t that why we all wanted to be writers in the first place?
Maureen Child is the author of more than 100 romance novels and novellas. At the moment, she’s trying to break in a brand new computer who doesn’t seem very friendly….
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e-maginings: Kindle DX

May 16, 2009 by in category The Romance Journey by Linda Mclaughlin tagged as , ,


Earlier this month, Amazon announced its new, larger Kindle DX, due out this summer. The DX is magazine-size with a 9.7 inch screen compared to the 6-inch screen of the Kindle 2. The DX has a rotating screen so you can read in either portrait or landscape mode; a built-in PDF reader, no conversion required (a much sought after feature); wireless connection and Amazon’s new, somewhat controversial Read-to-Me text to speech capability.

The new device is designed to enhance reading of newspapers and textbooks, and I can see where the larger size will be helpful in viewing graphics. I’ve had a Kindle for almost a year and a half ago, and one of the few downsides I’ve found is that graphs and photos are often so tiny as to be meaningless. Gadget purists are upset about the lack of a slot for a storage card in the newer models, but Amazon claims the increased memory makes an SD card unnecessary.

The pre-order cost of $489.00 will no doubt chase away some readers, esp. during tough economic times, but I think the Kindle is here to stay. The smaller Kindle 2 is still available for $359.00 and there are some used first generation Kindles available for $250.00 and up.

On the POD front, I found an interesting blog post about the Espresso Book Machine. Personally, I’d love to see one of these in every bookstore.

Linda McLaughlin w/a Lyndi Lamont
http://flightsafancy.blogspot.com/
http://www.lyndilamont.com/

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Remembering Donna Hendricks

May 15, 2009 by in category Archives

From Jackie Hyman

Regrettably, I don’t have any photos of Donna, although I spent a lot of time with her. I doubt she would have willingly allowed herself to be photographed, as she was quite private.

At first, I knew Donna mainly as the regular volunteer photographer at RWA events. She went out of her way not only to memorialize everyone’s achievements but also to give me prints for my scrapbook, in that pre-digital age.

I feel strongly that fate meant for Donna and me to become friends. After she suffered a stroke at an RWA meeting, she was taken to Brea Community Hospital (which has since been torn down), only about a mile from my home. When I visited her, I discovered that her only family was her stepfather, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. I made a point of stopping in to see her daily, bringing books and offering moral support.

After she returned home, we began meeting for lunch at a Denny’s restaurant between our homes. It was always a joy to see her smiling face and hear about her writing, which she worked on very hard. Unfortunately, she didn’t dare submit it to publishers because, being disabled and dependent on Medicare, she couldn’t afford to earn money that might put her coverage at risk.

Even when she wasn’t well enough to attend RWA meetings, Donna maintained a deep interest in our doings and rooted for our members to succeed with their writing. Our group meant a great deal to her, and her generous spirit will remain with me always.

From Betty Dempsey

Donna and I met at an OC RWA meeting at the Fullerton library. We were both newbies and formed an instant bond.

Before we left that day we were in a critique group with Bronwyn Wolfe, Kay Bryant and Geeta Kakade.

We started meeting weekly at Geeta’s place and Donna and I got to know each other well.

Our claim to fame , as a critique group was that we were all so happy when Bronwyn got published.

Besides the group, Donna and I discovered we were hooked on old movies and TV shows. We always called each other to share a piece of movie/TV trivia.
We shared a love of Chinese food. We were both Pisces with our birthdays just a couple of days apart.

I’m glad I knew Donna.

From Geeta Kakade

I got to know Donna through our critique group.

She was shy but once she got going, she would laugh and laugh…she had a great sense of humor. Writing was close to her heart and she created one of the best villians, I have ever read about. He was funny yet bad and we would all crack up over his latest ‘crimes’, each week.

We lost touch when the critique group stopped meeting. Luckily I got to meet Donna twice while she was in hospital. She kept talking of wanting to get out of the hospital bed and re-write her books and sell them.

I think somewhere in Heaven she’s writing away…each book instantly published as she finishes it. Her halo gleams, her baby blues sparkle with the essence of well being, she giggles as she creates other villians like Toby. In her spare time, she searches for editors for the rest of us down here trying to connect us with our dreams.

It sounds like the beginning of a TV sitcom but that’s the picture I want to hold of Donna in my heart.

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I dreamed a dream…seeing my book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble

May 11, 2009 by in category Archives tagged as

by Jina Bacarr

I’ve been making the rounds of the bookstores in So Cal signing copies of my latest Spice release, Cleopatra’s Perfume, and talking to booksellers. I always get that tingly feeling when I spot my book on the shelf in a bookstore. It’s like running into an old friend you haven’t seen for awhile.

By the time your book is on the shelf, an author hasn’t been “intimate” with her characters for awhile so your emotions run high when you see the finished product in a bookstore. Looking at my gorgeous Cleopatra’s Perfume cover, I couldn’t help but think about the long, winding road it took to get there.

I felt like a talent contest winner when I ran my fingers over the shiny cover and soft silky pages, remembering the endless nights at my computer creating these characters and bringing them to life. The writing process is a complex one. Sometimes it’s like inhaling an exotic perfume and letting the story flow with a richness and luminosity that takes on a life of its own

Other times, it’s a gut-wrenching assault on your senses, wondering if you’ll ever get there. In the end, it was that magical combination of craft and creativity in the pursuit of romance and the mystical that enabled me to tell my story about a woman with an insatiable appetite for sexual adventure in 1939 Europe. “One whiff and every man was her slave.”

Join me as I take you on a video podcast tour of the Barnes & Noble Fashion Island bookstore in beautiful Newport Beach, California, where I signed copies of my Spice release, “Cleopatra’s Perfume.”

Thankz.

Best,
Jina

PS: I’m writing a daily blog for the month of May about my heroine in Cleopatra’s Perfume, Lady Eve Marlowe, and her wild adventures in Berlin in 1928 (my novel opens in 1939).

It’s called: Hot Weimar Berlin: What you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jinabacarr

Jina Bacarr is also the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs, featuring an Indiana Jones in high heels.

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