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.
“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.
We invite you to post your thoughts and memories of Gini at http://authorginiwilsonmemorial.blogspot.com/
Research – What Came First, the Plot or the Vacation?
by Kate Carlisle
One of my manuscripts stuck on a shelf deep inside the bedroom closet, never to see the light of day, involves a heroine who must travel from her home in San Francisco to the West Coast of Scotland in order to unravel an ancient mystery. Along the way, of course, she meets a really cute Interpol agent and falls in love with him and settles in the Highlands.
It’s got everything — romance, mystery, a touch of paranormal, and location, location, location.
This is how I like to plot my books—and plan my vacations. My husband has learned to live with it. If I need to see Etruscan pottery at the British Museum, then he’ll need to see the selection of bitters on tap at the Museum Tavern across the street. If I’ve got to pop into the London Transport Museum to look at carriages, I’ll find him later in one of the Covent Garden pubs, researching single malt scotch. It works for us.
My next book will involve a killing in a wine bar on the Ile St. Louis. Our intrepid heroine will track the killer—and the wine shipment—all the way to Castellina in Chianti. She’ll stay in a 17th century stone house overlooking the rolling hills and vineyards of Tuscany. She’ll dine on wild boar and mushroom risotto served with a fine Brunello di Montalcino, and finally trap the killer in an ancient wine cellar. No bottles will be broken, no alcohol spilled, in the pursuit of justice.
Hey, it’s my process!
What’s your process? What comes first? The plot or the characters—or the vacation plans?
Huh?
But I don’t even like Billy Idol. I mean, I had some eclectic crushes back in middle school, from Richard Dreyfuss to Tommy Lee to Face Man from the A-Team, but Billy Idol was never one of them. And his music never did anything for me. So why was I suddenly so chipper, getting my groove on to a song I never liked?
After a few minutes, I figured it out.
Spike!
Platinum blonde British rocker Billy Idol reminded me of platinum blonde British vampire Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, seasons two and three of which I watched in marathon stretches with my two best friends. Mmmruh! What fun that was, just hanging out eating Chinese food and popsicles, indulging in and critiquing Joss Whedon and all things Buffy. Just like that, on a few beats of vintage eighties rock, my mind went off on a tangent and instantly made the connection for me.
I’m going off on tangents all the time, in conversation, in life, in home décor. I can never seem to keep myself on a linear path of any kind because, as Katherine Hepburn says to Spencer Tracy in Desk Set, “I associate many things with many things.â€
The orange paisley comforter I picked out. My guy stood there in Bed Bath and Beyond looking at me warily. “Really? You want that one?†Heck, yeah! It reminded me of the bedspread I’d had as kid in the seventies, a riot of big orange flowers. Oh, to be six again, to have no reason to get up more pressing than that of watching Deputy Dog. Mmmruh.
Seem silly? Then again, life can come to feel pretty colorless and devoid of meaning if you just live it, getting through day by day, then just forget it all. Remembering, connecting, associating, whether deliberately or viscerally, add vibrancy, hue, flavor, compassion. Tapping into other times, places, feelings, worlds, even right within yourself – mmmruh. Going off on a tangent – a nifty knack for a writer, no?
Geralyn Ruane’s favorite Hardy Boy is whichever one Parker Stevenson played, and these days she writes romance, chick lit and women’s fiction. Last year her short story “Jane Austen Meets the New York Giants†was published in the New York Times Bestselling anthology The Right Words at the Right Time Volume 2.
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Bungalow Books comes with more than Cate Wagner bargained for.
More info →Her family secret is stolen by pirates. His business is in jeopardy if he doesn’t find it.
More info →Step through our castle doors into a world of imagination!
More info →A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
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