IF WE WRITE THEM, WILL THEY READ
January 19, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as adult romance, maturity, Mona Karel, romance, Second Time AroundMonica Stoner, Member at Large
Fact is, romance doesn’t die at any one specific age though to peruse the Romance section of a book store one might draw the conclusion a heroine over thirty is also over that proverbial hill. At a time when publishing decisions were based on advice from people barely out of college, that might be understandable. But in this very brave and shiny new world of small presses and self publishing, why don’t we see more heroines, well, our age?
Could the lack of mature heroines be caused by habits and standards established in those earlier days of publishing (all of five or so years ago?) Or do we write what we believe people want to read? Do we worry if we were to write about people falling in love at the same time their arches are falling, we won’t find enough of an audience?
Remember the phrase “Love, like youth, is wasted on the young†from that lovely 1960 song “The Second Time Around?â€
Just as wonderful with both feet on the ground
It’s that second time you hear your love song sung
Makes you think, perhaps, that love like youth
Is wasted on the young…â€
Words by Sammy Cahn and Music by Jimmy Van Heusen
-Performed by Bing Crosby in the 1960 film “High Time”,
It’s an intriguing question. Right now the hot age group seems to be teens into twenties, and some of those books are extremely well written. Does this mean we should all be pounding out our own YA or MG books? I admire these authors but teens live in another universe with their very own language from me, and I sincerely doubt I could ever create a book in that genre. Having survived my teens, twenties, thirties, and beyond, I believe I could create a story about those young people many decades later.
What do you think? Is there a need for books about people whose libido didn’t dry up and blow away the day they bought their first pair of support hose?
Monica Stoner writes as Mona Karel in multiple sub genres.
Does Anybody Really Care
December 19, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as blogging, Mona Karel, Swing for the back fence, writingMona Karel
In the iconic cartoon strip ‘Peanuts,’ Lucy van Pelt explains how one needs to be careful to hold the bat with the trademark in a certain position so it’s not damaged by the ball. She maintains that hold on the bat while the pitcher sends one…two…three balls right past her and she’s struck out. As she leaves the plate, she brags to Charlie Brown “See, I held the bat the right way and it’s fine!†Poor Charlie Brown.
How often do we feel like Lucy, being so careful to follow every rule of writing. To Show Not Tell; NEVER Head Hop; ALWAYS identify our speaker. And so on. Only to find a head hopping sloppily written book is burning up the Amazon sales.
Why?
And why isn’t your perfectly written book selling well?
If I knew the answer I’d be busting all those Amazon sales figures myself. We could blame luck. We could blame the fickleness of the reading public. Or we could take a step back and analyze what people read for. Except for writers, how many people actually read to critique the written word? Sure they’ll comment on an author changing their character’s name (or sex!) halfway through the book. But as long as a reader can believe in the requisite HEA the rest is all window dressing.
I’m not suggesting we abandon the rules of grammar. Nor should we blow Point of View out of the water (darnit). But maybe we who worry about every misplaced participle and perfect use of punctuation need to worry first about the worlds we build, and the people who live in them. Then we can paint the fences awesome colors and polish the sidewalks until they gleam.
Maybe we need to swing for a bases loaded home run, and risk cracking the bat.
Mona Karel writes books for Monica Stoner and when no one is looking she roll your eyes back in your head from trying to follow the head hopping.
BTW, there’s still time to participate in the Secret Santa Blog Hop, and who wouldn’t like to find this guy coming down their chimney? Grand Prize is a Kindle Fire, next is an Amazon gift card, plus a lot of other goodies. Many of the participants offer individual prizes on their blog. I’m sharing the secret to home made vanilla extract, complete with pictures, plus other prizes. That’s at Mona’s Final Secret Santa Blog
You need to head to Tabitha Blake’s to gather up lots of chances for those prizes, and that’s here: Blog Hop Central From Tabitha’s blog you can hop out to the other participants, some of whom are OCC members.
3 0 Read moreDoes Book Promo Really Work?
November 19, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as A Question of Honor, Black Opal Books, Mona Karel, My Killer My Love, Teach Me to ForgetMonica Stoner/Member at Large
We’ve all heard the quote “50% of advertising is effective, but no one knows which 50%.” I’d say for books it’s more like 25% and we really don’t know which 75% is just spinning our wheels. In an ideal world we would be able to write the best books ever created, and the world would beat a path to our door. Of course in that same ideal world I could have a bagel smothered in butter every morning and lose five pounds a week.
Yeah, that’s not happening either.
So we blog and Facebook, we Tweet and we join Triberr to help ourselves by helping others. And we sigh in wonder at the success of other writers who don’t seem to be doing anything yet doggonit their Facebook page has 1258 followers.
Some people are a whiz at promotion. I hope you took advantage of Tara Lain when she was there earlier this month. She’s amazing at promo. And the rest of us stagger along.
In an attempt to come a bit closer to mainstream I took advantage of a current blog hop/tag, The Next Big Thing blog, which turned out to be a lot of fun, since it’s about our WIP instead of the ones already in print, and aren’t we generally far more enthusiastic about what we’re writing than what we’ve written?
Even better, this hop/tag lets us help promote our fellow writers, so I was able to give a shout out to Lex Valentine, as well as several other exciting authors. You can check it out here: Mona’s Next Big Thing
Yeah, I don’t use Monica when I write, funny story about that. Then again my name has been a funny family story for most of my life and I ended up sharing that on the Black Opal Blog But Who Am I?
And of all things, Skhye Moncrieff invited me to blog about the inspiration for my first book, and it ended up publishing today.
So it looks like I’ve managed to be in four places at one time. Maybe one of these will be the tipping point for my fabulous success at promotion. Just in case I’m going to keep on with my NaNo book.
Miss you all
When You Learn, Teach
October 19, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Helping, Mona Karel, My Killer My Love, New and Old, promotion, Published and Unpublished, Teach Me to ForgetWe sometimes forget as we dash through our days full of deadlines and proposals and promo work what it was like to first put pencil to paper, to first send out a proposal, or meet with an agent at a conference. We might have buried the memory of that first rejection letter, or the second, or the fiftieth except as an anecdote while we share our (current) success story.
When a newbie writer asks a question so basic we feel they should have learned the answer in elementary school, how many of us remember angsting over lines per page and perfect format as if that alone would guarantee acceptance by one of the publishers? Or buying the best quality typing paper we could afford in hopes of recognition. I sure do.
In discussion with authors from chapters across the country, I hear stories of chapters imploding from expectations of unpublished authors who demand help from the published. On the other hand I hear stories from unpublished authors who can’t even get an answer to how to set up a blog. Somewhere in the middle is that healthy place of compromise and share.
Orange County has that great program of “Ask An Author,” but OCC has been innovative in so many ways. But it’s not just the published authors who can step up. Anyone who has attended a GMC talk can tell a neophyte GMC stands for Goal, Motivation, Conflict. NaNo refers to a mad dash to produce a book in a month, at the end of which you either love or hate your characters and it’s a tossup whether your hands or your bottom are more numb, All of us have knowledge to share.
I’m hoping these ideas spread to other chapters, large and small, to keep the chapters and RWA healthy and supportive of romance writing.
Monica Stoner writes as Mona Karel, and has two books available for your perusal
Teach Me To Forget and My Killer My Love
When she’s not blogging about basic promo or low carb cooking Mona’s Blog she’s enjoying life at 6500 feet in New Mexico, surrounded by a bunch of silly skinny dogs. And writing, writing, writing
One More Olympic Observation
August 19, 2012 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Dedication, Mona Karel, Observations, Olympics, SacrificeMonica Stoner
Member at Large
Feel like you’ve had enough Olympics to last at least four years? Had your fill of water cooler discussions about quarter point deductions or spiking the ball? Really tired of references to Olympic goals and ideals, relating to writing? Yeah, me too.
But bear with me, because this one has stuck better than any landing. Actually, it’s not about the Olympics specifically. It’s a commercial.
Surely you saw this commercial, seems like it played at every break. A variety of athletes worked out, and the voice over listed everything they had not done in preparation for the Olympics: no dessert for two years, hadn’t seen the latest movie, and what I really remember was “haven’t read that book everyone’s talking about.” I don’t know about you, but not being able to read seems like cruel and unusual punishment to me.
Obviously not to someone who has a goal in sight and a deadline to meet. Their goal is to be bigger, stronger, faster, better than anyone else in their sport, and to be at their peak at the Olympic Games. To achieve that goal, they’re willing to forego what most of us think of as our inalienable rights: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of the ultimate fried food.
Aren’t we fortunate we only have to give up some of our time to write more? Granted those who don’t work out regularly add inches to their body as well as words to the page. But the analogy is still valid.
Sacrifices need to be made in pursuit of any goal worth achieving. We can’t go to every midnight movie or every holiday sale and sometimes we’re going to miss that neat town event, because we’re chasing dreams and building characters. We try to maintain a good social life but the fact is time we might be spending with our real friends needs to be spent with the friends we create.
Is it worth the effort and sacrifice? After all, only a very small percentage of those who qualify for the Olympics stand on the medal podium. And those people represent a minuscule number of those who tried out and failed, or who didn’t even make the trials. Of the many writers hunched over their keyboards instead of spending a lazy afternoon in the malls, how many will see their names attached to a published book, whether digital or in print?
Well, a lot more than those who gave up their dreams to do something else. And that is the real lesson of the Olympics.
Having gotten back on track with those dreams, Monica Stoner, writing as Mona Karel, has two books published and more on the way.
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