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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I wanted to blog about writing contests, since we just announced the finalists in our own Orange Rose Contest for unpublished writers.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now in the Romance Writer’s Report, there will be listing after listing of contests you can enter, both published and unpublished.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 But there are inherent dangers to contests for the unpublished.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And the danger to unpublished writers is, I think, that they’ll make every change suggested by the dozen or more judges who’ve read their work, trying to please everybody.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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I Don’t Want To Write A Regency

August 11, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

by Sandra Paul

Regular readers usually have a book or two lying on their coffee tables. Book lovers’ homes tend to feature large shelving units with a cozy couch nearby to cuddle up on while reading.

Bookaholics have couches, too–at least, I think we do. It’s hard to tell with books stacked everywhere. All too often, the only visible seat in our house is in the bathroom.

Which is possibly why my husband blanched when I told him I was going to my friend Angie Ray’s to pick up books she was donating (thank you, Angie!) for OCC’s Back to School Research Book Sale scheduled for our September 8th meeting.

“More books!” My husband clapped his hand to his forehead as if he had an immediate headache. “You’re {insert bad word here}-ing me! We don’t have room in this house for any more books!”

“These aren’t for me,” I reminded him. “They’re research books for the chapter sale.”

“How many books are we talking about?” he demanded.

“I think she said she has one or two books . . .” I wrinkled my brow. “Or was that one or two boxes?”

He got the grim look he always seems to wear whenever we go into bookstores. “Promise me–promise me!–that you won’t decide to keep them all yourself.”

“I wouldn’t do that! Besides, I’m working on a contemporary category with single title and historical western elements. Angie’s research books are mostly for medievals and Regencies. I don’t wanna write a Regency.”

He just stared at me.

I gave a long-suffering sigh. “Okay! I promise.”

“I’ll get the truck.”

He got the truck; and we hauled the books home. All five, nine–no, make that twelve–boxes of them. And I’m not going to keep them–but I figured it couldn’t hurt to scan a few–just to share with my fellow writers.

So I scanned BRITAIN THROUGH AMERICAN EYES by Henry Steele Comager and discovered in Regency England, the way a person knocked on a door denoted his social standing. That a servant, a postman, a milkman, a “half or a whole” gentleman, a very great gentleman, a knight or a nobleman all had distinctive knocks. “A servant is bound to lift the knocker once, whilst the postman knocks twice, very loudly. A milkman knocks once, at the same time, sending forth an artificial noise, not unlike the yell of an American Indian . . .”

I never knew that.

Another book Angie donated (and I just happened to glance over) is CAPTAIN GRONOW: HIS REMINISCENCES OF REGENCY AND VICTORIAN LIFE 1810-60, edited by Christopher Hibbert.

Anyone who loves Georgette Heyer’s work, can’t help but be intrigued by Captain Gronow’s description, written in 1862, of the Crockford Club.

“I have alluded to the high play which took place at White’s and Brookes’s in the olden time,” says Gronow. “In the reign of George IV, a new star rose in the person of Mr. William Crockford; and the old-fashioned games of faro, macao, and lansquenet gave place to the all-devouring thirst for the game of hazard. Crockey, when still a young man, had relinquished the peaceful trade of a fishmonger for a share in a ‘hell,’ where with his partner Gye, he managed to win, after a sitting of twenty-four hours, the enormous sum of ones hundred thousand pounds. With this capital added to his former gains, he built the well-known palace in St. James’ Street–“

Okay. I wanna write a Regency.

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

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