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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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Writer on the Verge

August 14, 2007 by in category Writer on the Verge by Kate Carlisle tagged as ,

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?

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THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO MMMRUH!

August 13, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as
Off on a Tangent

By

Geralyn Ruane

So let’s sink another drink

‘Cause it’ll give me time to think . . .

Morning commute, could barely keep my eyes open, but when Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” punched through the car, suddenly, a beam of good cheer more potent than a double shot espresso blasted through me.

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.”

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?

Giants at Eagles, third quarter. Pass goes high, Plaxico Burress stretches to catch. He’s tackled on his descent with such ferocious precision the sound of impact makes me wince. The announcer chuckles. “Dawkins waffles Burress . . .” Suddenly, my eyes fill with tears. I’m no longer watching Sunday football, but I’m a thirteen year-old kid looking at Officer Green, standing on my front porch, hands on hips, holding something in his hand.
“Do you own a brown and white dog?”
I nod.
“It just got waffled down on Layton Road.” Then he hands me Rhoda’s busted collar.
To this day, I cannot hear the word “waffle” used that way without breaking down, without remembering how she was still warm when we went down to get her.
But all these tangents become the threads of life, never snipped off but left to drift and tangle. And if we can recognize and appreciate our own designs and textures, if we can better understand ourselves, can we more insightfully understand others? Can we express ourselves more effectively? Maybe. And in that maybe lies the everlasting mmmruh.

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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