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Research Book Sale

August 22, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

Have You Read This One?

TOWN AND COUNTRY BY MARK GIROUARD is another of the books donated for OCC’s September meeting’s Research Book Sale–and it’s another book, that it’s going to be hard for me to let go.

I enjoyed several of the chapters in this book, especially Chapter Three, which talked about John Chubb, who “with a sharp eyes, a genial wit and a skilled brush set out to put on to paper, the people of Bridgwater and its neighborhood in the last decades of the eighteenth century.”

Reading about Chubb and his observations was fascinating but what really made me smile are Chubb’s sketches, several of which are shown in this chapter including one of the biggest and liveliest of Chubb’s drawings which, according to Girouard, shows Lord Perceval, eldest son of Lord Egmont, “dressed in the height of fashion and seated at the reins of his phaeton, with a lapdog on his lap and a favour in his hat.” (And doesn’t the dog look like Mindy Neff’s little Harley? 😉

This is a great book. All I can say is if it makes it out of my house to the Research Book Fair, then it will be a testament to my strength of character.

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Sandy Novy-Chvostal (aka Sandra Paul) is a recovering bookaholic, a published author, and 2007 Co-President of OCC/RWA.

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Wisdom from Writers Rock

August 21, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

Hot August Nights…..and Romance Writers

by Johna Machak

The Dog Days of August is what some people call them. Those long, hot sultry days of summer when all you can manage is resting on the patio with a tall glass of sweet iced tea. It’s too hot to do anything else, even sleep. But maybe these lazy, hazy dog days are a good thing for romance writers. Gets you thinking about stuff. Sitting on the porch during a hot August night, doing nothing but letting your mind wander back to other hot summer evenings. Long days of heat and sunshine, with even longer sweltering nights. The air so thick it’s an effort just to breathe. There’s a restlessness about, a dissatisfaction with everything, a palpable tension.

Use that memory or feeling to help write that first kiss, first love scene, or ratchet up the sexual tension between your hero and heroine. That restlessness may cause your heroine to do something she wouldn’t normally do, or the hero to reveal his true feelings for the heroine. They act or react out of character, and when that happens it starts to get interesting.

As romance writers we know the act of writing is part mechanical, writing or typing words onto that blank white page; part intellectual, creating and plotting our story; and part emotional, making that love story between our hero and heroine come alive and be believable to readers. To write that emotion we need to feel it, or remember it. So, instead of staring at the blank page and stressing out, sit and relax, and let your mind drift during these hot August nights. You may be surprised what comes to mind. And, it’s really too warm to do anything else, or is it?

Hmmm……there’s something about memories of a long hot summer night in a small town, where it’s so quiet you can hear crickets down by the creek, that gets me thinking about a teenage girl sneaking out to meet……

That’s a fact Jack: The Dog Days of August is a phrase coined by the ancient Romans, and referred to the time of year when Sirius, the dog star, rose just before or at sunrise.

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Johna Machak is a member of the “Writers Rock” critique group, along with Barb DeLong, Jann Audiss and Cathy Oliver. She has served on the OCC board as Co-President (1999, 2000), Vice-President (1998), Membership Director (1996, 1997) and Webmaster (2002, 2003)

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President’s Message

August 20, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

Ah, the weary traveler is home from Texas, bowed but unbeaten. In fact, I’m so proud of our chapter, the buttons are popping off my blouse. Conversations were going on in every corner of the hotel. I heard things like “Mention it to Orange County, they’ll come up with a way to make it work” or “If Orange County hasn’t tried it, “then it probably isn’t worth the trouble.”

Now that’s enough to make anyone proud. But don’t get smug. It’s also enough to make one quake in their boots! It means, of course, that we have to stay on our toes. Because I speak for your board when I say our goal is to continue to give our members what they need by way of support of their writing endeavors, and the incentive to keep trying against the odds. We also hope that other chapters will continue to look to us for help, and challenge us to do even better.

Another thing I heard in Dallas was a common line running through the conversations of published writers. It went something like this–“I write every day at the same time for x-number of hours come hell or high water!” Also heard this theme–“I sent that blasted manuscript out 22 times before it sold!” Which tells me that the fifty-some dollars in postage I have invested in one proposal alone is just a drop in the bucket. I’m packaging it up to send it out again and again and again . . .

Things to put on your calendar . . . WRITE! WRITE! BUY RAFLLE TICKETS! START SAVING FOR SEATTLE IN ’88 (site of the National Conference). SUBMIT! SUBMIT! REMEMBER THE HANDS-ON WORKSHOP NOV 14 — IT WILL BE FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED. REMEMBER THE LOU TICE SEMINAR IN JANUARY.

GINI WILSON
C0-President

This was the President’s Message in the September 1987 issue of the Orange County Chapter Newsletter. Twenty years ago, the RWA National Conference was also held in Dallas, TX.

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IN MEMORY OF GINI WILSON

August 19, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

“I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Gini Wilson has passed a way from cancer today 08/17/07. She loved you all very much and thought of you often.

Love
Her Husband
Jim Wilson”

We invite you to post your thoughts and memories of Gini at http://authorginiwilsonmemorial.blogspot.com/

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The Write Way (because there is no ‘right’ way)….

August 17, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as
I wanted to blog about writing contests, since we just announced the finalists in our own Orange Rose Contest for unpublished writers. And mega CONGRATS to all of you who did final!

See, this is contest season in RWA…every month now in the Romance Writer’s Report, there will be listing after listing of contests you can enter, both published and unpublished. Now I’m a big fan of contests. I like winning badge jewelry as much as the next writer. But there are inherent dangers to contests for the unpublished. At least, I think so!

The problem with contests is, it’s so subjective. Each writer or reader who will be judging your entries has her own likes and dislikes. Now, naturally, we’d all like to think that we put those prejudices aside and judge the work on its own merit. But hey, the judges are human. A perfect manuscript might get a low score because the judge doesn’t like westerns. Or heros with dark hair. Or heroines who talk too much.

And the danger to unpublished writers is, I think, that they’ll make every change suggested by the dozen or more judges who’ve read their work, trying to please everybody. And in the end, they please nobody because they’ve sucked the life force out of their own words. Of course, there’s a flipside to this, too. There is the occasional writer who thinks all the judges are crazy even if five of them tell her the same thing and she refuses to change any of her ‘pearls’.

So I guess what I’m saying is, once you get your score sheets, step back. Take the suggestions, the advice and let it stew for awhile before you leap in to make changes. Look at your scoresheets, see if all of the judges are remarking on the same thing. If they are, maybe it’s time to do a little tweaking. But bottom line is, the work is yours. You can’t please every reader. What you’re hoping for is to make your story and your writing the best it can be. Polish. Look for typos. Look for plot holes or repetition. Have one trusted reader go over it and then send it out. Let an editor be the real judge…since they’re the ones you have to please in the end……

And I hope you win lots of badge jewelry!!

Maureen Child is a multi published author of more than 90 romance novels. At the moment, she’s flipping through the RWR planning her assault during contest season.
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