THE JOURNEY

Last fall, eight writers from a variety of backgrounds, genres and locations were thrown together by fate to compete in the American Title V contest sponsored by Dorchester Publishing and ROMANTICTimes magazine. The journey began.

For some the journey spanned months, for some . . . weeks. No matter the duration, all of us learned a great deal, built a readership, relationships and gained some name recognition that will surely benefit our career goals in the future.

All of us thought it would be a good idea to take a look at what we’re doing now that ATV is behind us before bidding this blog farewell. I’d like to say that it’s been a real thrill and a pleasure to be thrown into the mix with such a talented group of writers. Congratulations to all of us, and may we all grab that brass ring very soon!

As for me, I’m concentrating on my newest work in progress. I’ve started entering the contest circuit again, and I’m happy to say I already have two finals under my belt. If anyone is interested in reading the first chapter of LEGEND OF THE DRUID LAIRD, please visit my website:

www.barbaralongley.com

For now, I’ve queried TRUE TO THE HIGHLANDER to a number of agents and plan to begin submitting to editors once my school year ends.

How about the rest of you? What’s new and exciting in your life post American Title V?

Edie Ramer:
Edie Ramer:
It’s been great getting to know the other talented and terrific finalists. This has been an amazing ride, and I’m thrilled to have been a part of it. Though the contest is over, love is still conquering. I finished the first draft of my sci fi romance and I’m going through bouts where I’m ecstatically happy and know it will sell, and bouts where I’m scared that it won’t.

I can’t wait to tackle the revisions. I love revisions — catching plot glitches, adding insights and tension, polishing the writing until it shines. Thanks to classes by C.J. Redwine and Cindy Carroll, I have the query and the logline. Next month I’m going to a conference — and I’m ready! I’m like one of the American Idol contestants who says, “You ain’t seen the last of me.”

Evonne Wareham

It’s sad to say goodbye to something that has been fun – but I hope you haven’t heard the last of any of the writers who have contributed to this blog. Ladies, I salute you – great contestants, great internet friends and here’s to the cyber champagne when the day comes when we have all sold. Maybe we’ll re visit the blog, just for the moment.

What am I doing next?  I have a cosy crime that I am working on, just for fun, a heroine who has her hands full with a portfolio of jobs, three prospective suitors and a serial killer with literary ambitions, set in a fictitious part of London, between the Embankment and the King’s Road in Chelsea. I am having a good time with it and hope that it may eventually have the potential to become a series.  I also have the first outline of a brand new romantic suspense bubbling. I think this one may end up a block buster – a deadly treasure hunt, Victorian paintings, a hero who is trying to remake his life and a heroine who is trying to forget her past. Provisionally titled The Camelot Game. I have a whole lot of research to do before I can even start it – but I love research. It’s the writing that’s the hard part.

Qaey Williams

The last six months or so have been an amazing journey. I’ve learned a lot from these seven ladies and I have no doubt you’ll be hearing from all of us soon. Saying goodbye is hard, but we know where to find each other.

As for what I’m doing–I have my fourth book, Diablo Blanco Club: Under Control, releasing through Loose Id, LLC on May 26th and I’m getting ready for school to end so I can spend the summer researching and writing.

Currently I have two books I have to finish writing (both about 25,000 words long) and two more I’ve had sitting on the back burner waiting for attention.

Wishing you all a happy Mother’s Day and good writing!

Michelle Lauren

Wow! This has been such an incredible journey for me and I’m sad to see it end (or at least take a hiatus). However, I know we will keep in touch and that our futures hold many great writing opportunities.

I have several projects in the works right now, including another novella about a sassy, unlucky-in-love siren who finds love in an expected place. I also have two short stories that are in the revision stage but will [hopefully] be ready to get shopped to a publisher within the next month.

Happy writing to you all!

Marie-Claude Bourque

Yes, what an incredible journey this as been and how honored I have been to have shared it with such talented writers. I can truly say that I have learned from everyone of them, whether from their posts on this blog, or from their success is the writing world.

What am I doing now? Well, I did fall of the face of the earth for a few weeks now after having been so visible in the last months and I feel extremely guilty about it, but it seemed I needed to refueled myself to keep myself going forward, and I usually do this by retreating into myself and journaling. Before I tackle the edits for Ancient Whispers, I am planning to finish the sequel, Ancient Whispers. And lately, I have been having some great brainstorming sessions with friends about a Steampunk Urban Fantasy I have been passionate about for a while. Blogging wise, I am focusing on my group blog Musetracks, geared to newer writers and I have teamed with a bunch of Steampunk writers for a group blog, called Steamed! at http://ageofsteam.wordpress.com/

Wishing everyone much satisfying writing!

Jessica Darago

Like everyone else here, I feel changed by the journey we’ve all been on. It’s been a bumpy but welcome transition back to “normal” life, whatever that means. I’m working hard on research for my next two novels and, to be honest, just putting my feet up and relaxing with some good books — reading them, that is. I’m so grateful for everything I’ve experienced, and especially for the friendship of the seven amazing writers I got to share this time with.

Tamara Hughes

It’s been an honor to take part in the American Title V competition with such wonderful and talented ladies.  I am sure someday we will each have books for sale.

Since the end of this contest, I’ve been focusing on my next book “Bewitching The Beast,” an urban fantasy romance.  I also attended the Romantic Times Booklovers convention in Florida and had a great time.  While there I met readers, booksellers, authors (both aspiring and published), the Romantic Times staff, agents, and editors.  In fact, I had the opportunity to pitch to an editor, and received a request for chapters from my new book.  This was an awesome conference, and I look forward to going again.  www.tamarahughes.com

What Influences Your Writing?

You can’t wait for inspiration.  You have to go after it with a club.  ~Jack London

Creative constipation. AWOL Muses. Inspirational drought. Any way you say it, writer’s block is bad news and – just like robocallers and debt collectors – it always strikes at the worst time.

Like when you’re under a deadline. Or three.

What causes this phenomenon? This article by David Taylor offers some interesting theories. My favorite is this:

Writers are sometimes not ready to write

Perhaps the hardest thing about writing is not knowing what to write…he key to knowing what to write is knowing the format of the thing you’re writing.

Imagine trying to make a chair without any concept of what one looks like or what its purpose is. Yet everyday I work with writers attempting to do just that: to create a how-to article, novel, short story, essay, business letter, or even screenplay without knowing it has a seat, legs and back designed to support the weight placed on it.

Some say the best way to overcome a fear is to face it head on. In my experience, the same goes for writer’s block. When I get stuck on a story, I use these Three Tricks to Woo My Muse:

• Concentrate on the secondary characters.

Secondary characters are lots of fun to write. Not only do they provide comic relief, but they can also provide insight into the main character’s back story. An upside is that well-crafted secondary characters often inspire sequels/series [see below]

• Sharpen the creative focus.
  

Writing a chapter too daunting? Try an interlude. Anything from a passage of dialogue, to an action sequence, to a love scene can work. The purpose is to get back in the habit of writing. Often times, once I’ve finished an interlude, I consider its place in the main plot and continue writing from there. Any pieces that don’t fit can be cleaned up during the revision stage.

• Start a new project.
  

Some stories aren’t ready to be written. Or, perhaps, the story you’re writing isn’t the story you’re meant to write. This was the case with me a year ago. I was ¾ through an urban fantasy when writer’s block struck. Big time.

I simply ran out of plot. But I loved the characters so much that I couldn’t let them go. So I took a minor character – mentioned only briefly in the outset of the story – and decided to write something off the cuff for her. That character was Siren Jones, the unlucky in love harpy from How to Tame a Harpy, which became an American Title V finalist in 2008.

So how do YOU combat writer’s block?

**Find more articles on the craft of writing or the publishing industry HERE. Want to know more about my work? Visit me at www.michellelaurenbooks.com. **

We have a winner!

It’s official – Marie Claude is the winner of the last American Title contest, with her paranormal romance Ancient Whispers.  Eight have us have journeyed together since last October, knowing there could only be one winner. We’ve had a great time along the way and now it’s time to say congratulations MC from everyone here at Love Conquers. The art work is stunning and the book will be on the shelves early in 2010.

The whole thing was made possible by Dorchester Publishing and Romantic Times magazine. Thanks to them for a fabulous contest. We all had a ball.

The Art of Spam

Quick reminder: The contest to win a copy of my urban fantasy Starstruck: Hunter (Available from Liquid Silver Books) ends next Thursday. If you haven’t entered yet, please take a moment to comment on THIS post, telling me what you love about urban fantasies. Make sure to include a valid email address so I can contact you if you win.

Okay, on to today’s topic: The Art of Spam.

No, I don’t mean the mystery meat. I mean spam.

Webster’s Online Dictionary defines it as:

“Unsolicited, usually commercial, e-mail sent to a large number of addresses.”

In layman’s terms, spam is the junk clogging up your Inbox every morning, offering you free Viagra; the chance to bail out a previously unknown but very rich relative in Nigeria; or, in my case this morning, the chance to find “age-appropriate lingerie.” Huh? What exactly is age-inappropriate lingerie?

While spam isn’t a new thing, I’ve noticed an increase in the strangeness of the spam messages landing in my Inbox lately. Ironically — or, perhaps, diabolically — most of the spam seems targeted toward men with certain body image issues. So I searched the internet and found some links to hilarious spam emails:

http://www.spamhumor.com/page/Penis+Enlargement+SPAM?t=anon

http://www.brianbaute.com/?p=1015

After viewing the subject lines in the second link, the subtlety used by these spammers continues to astound me. (Yes, that was sarcasm. But I had to laugh out loud at the subject “What she REALLY wants for Christmas.”

What are some of the weirdest spam emails you’ve received?

Cosmic Timing

by Marie-Claude Bourque

Since I am frantically packing for RT today, ready to join Tamara who is already there, I decided to refer you to another blog instead of writing my own.
Like most, I was awed and brough to tears by the Susan Boyle video but I never realized that she did have a shot at success 10 years ago and never made it then. And now, somehow planets align themselves right and she will probably have her dream realized.
And since I hear so many rejection stories these days, including my own, the post this week by Toni McGee Causey really striked a chord in me. Yes, there is a certain cosmic element in all success, yes great talents (like Ms Boyle or many aspiring writers out there) can be overlooked.
So if we are rejected, it may just be that the timing wasn’t right.
Persistence however can pay off. There is no guarentee, but a lot more chance to make it happen than if one quits!

So take heart and read “How do You Know When to Quit” by Toni McGee Causey

The real reason dust bunnies are taking over…

By Tamara Hughes

Just days ago, I saw the movie Yes Man. If you haven’t seen it, the story is about a man who attends a seminar that convinces him he should say yes to every offer that comes his way.  With Jim Carrey as the star, we’re led through some pretty wacky offers that he says Yes to.  From what I understand, the movie concept is based on a book by a real man who decided to say yes to everything for a year and wrote about it.  The idea made for a silly movie, but got me thinking.

For many of us, our lives are crowded with activities.  Each day we can barely catch our breaths from the pressures and deadlines we have on our shoulders.  And yet, even with all those activities filling up our lives, how often do we hear or even feel that we never get to do what we want to do?  We say no to many opportunities because, well, we don’t have time.  In essence, like in the movie, our lives are so busy, we don’t live life, we just exist.  Okay this is a pretty depressing viewpoint, and a little dramatic, but stick with me here.

When I saw the scene in the movie where the Yes Man guru is determined to convince Jim Carrey (Carl) to join the world of Yes, I was reminded of a course I took - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  Stephen Covey (the creator of this concept) actually even looks like the guru in the movie.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Anyway, there’s a habit in this course (#3 Put First Things First) that encourages you to categorize those activities that take up your time.

There are those things that are:

• important and urgent – when the cat scoots his butt across the floorsignifying a glandular problem, you may want to get on that one right away
• important and not urgent – preparing for coming events, planning, working toward goals
• not important and urgent – for me this includes telephone calls (must answer phone…stop ringing!), paying bills (yes, you need to do it, but is it really important to your goals in life?), some email
• not important and not urgent – time wasters – TV, surfing the web, watching YouTube, most email

As you can see above, the most valuable time spent would be on important things that are not urgent.  Of course the key here is that you need to decide what is really important and what’s not.  We need to prioritize how important exercise is to us, our hobbies, that dream to be an Olympic gymnast, and then try to find ways to focus as much of our time as possible on those items.

For writers that means finding a way to make writing a priority in our lives, for readers it’s reading.  In fact, there was a time when I used my valuable reading time to study for a class I was taking.  After a few weeks, I found I was grumpy and downright unhappy.  I forgot the importance of giving myself time to escape in a novel.  I missed it, and it showed.

So when cleaning out the dust bunnies comes up in my life, well what can I say.  I’m trying to prioritize, and I’ve become quite fond of bunnies.

What do you think?  Are you prioritizing your life?

Have a great day!

Tami

Critiquing Conflict

By Jessica Darago

Okay, breathe, this post isn’t about conflict with critiques or critiquers. It’s about two of my partners, each of whom is struggling with conflict in her story.

I attended the Washington Romance Writers annual retreat this weekend (and, on a side note, free copy of Beyond Heaving Bosoms in the goodie bag: *SQUEE!!!*). It was my first time attending, and it was everything I was assured it was — pitching, drinking, and impromptu songfests. Good times. But it was also one of those all-too-rare opportunities to really talk craft in person with people who get it.

One of my critique partners was talking about a breakthrough she had recently. She’s got a great voice and fantastic characters, but she always feels like she struggles with plot. “And then I realized,” she said, “I’ve been confusing conflict with action.” She writes romantic suspense, and she had things blowing up and the world in peril, but she hadn’t given the hero and heroine an interpersonal conflict to overcome.

She gets it now. Awesome! I’m so psyched to see her next draft.

But that also reminded me of a situation in a manuscript from my non-romance, online critique group. This author friend has had some success with poetry and short stories, but she has yet to break out with a novel, and she’s struggling in particular with an epic high fantasy that is truly her “baby.”

(Keep in mind, even though it’s not a romance, the same principles of conflict will apply. Bear with me here.)

Two of the book’s most important secondary characters are the heroine’s best friend (let’s pick a romance-friendly name here and call her Ashley) and the bad guy’s dragon. (No, not a literal dragon; a second-in-command-in-disguise — we’ll call him Tom.) Ashley and Tom and the rest have been thrown together by the main plot. Ashley and Tom have been bickering almost nonstop since they met — and not in a cute sexual tension way. Ashley knows Tom’s up to no good, but the gang needs him to get the job done. And Tom? He’s just a giant douche.

So, bicker bicker bicker, quest quest quest, bicker bicker quest quest bicker … and then, suddenly, the heroine’s life is hanging by a thread, and only a wizard-type can save her.

As it happens, Ashley and Tom are both wizards.

Now, gentle reader, put yourself in the gentle writer’s hands. What happens next?

a) Ashley saves the heroine’s life — all is well.
b) Tom saves the heroine’s life — but now he’s got power over her.
c) Ashley and Tom finally have that gigantic throwdown you’ve been waiting for over who gets to save her. Fists and fireballs fly, but Tom wins, saves the heroine’s life, and how has power over her.

I think we can agree (a) is too lame to even speak of. And I’m obviously leading you a bit, because (c) has fireballs, people. Fireballs. But in her original draft, my writer friend chose option (b).

Now, option (b) is okay. Option (b) may even be the most realistic choice. But what (aside from fireballs!!!) is (c) giving you that’s so much better? The way I see it, the answer is twofold:

1) With option (c), Ashley loses power, rather than simply being powerless.
2) With option (c), the bad guy encounters a barrier to his will, and he gets to prove he’s stronger than the good guys — a worthy foe.

In a sense, this second writer made the opposite misstep from the first. The first was all action, no conflict; the second had plenty of conflict, but she forgot about action.

The best option is always using both.

But there’s a second lesson here for romance writers, something I often see editors and critics complain about. In our genre, in its myriad forms, we writers tend to focus on developing the conflict between the hero and heroine (and, if we’re clever, between the villian and the hero or heroine). And we are very, very good at it. But sometimes we forget about everyone else. Secondary characters need GMCs just as much as the main characters do. It gives the plot depth and texture … and if you’re lucky, it gives you an idea for another novel. This weekend, when an editor put me on the spot about sequels, I was able to give her quick-n-dirty pitches for two more novels (one about Gladys, the other about Sophie) that I haven’t fully plotted yet, simply because I gave them GMCs (a desire to better herself socially and a desire to have a purpose beyond marriagability) when writing The Serpent’s Tooth.

And now I’ve got a request to submit the full with two more proposals. And a case of the hives. All thanks to conflict.

Thinking In Chapters

If you get a group of  10 writers together to talk about how they write you can bet there will be 10 different ways of doing it. A conversation this week – which started with a discussion on backing up work, somehow morphed into one on writing and saving work in individual chapters, versus writing the whole thing as stream of consciousness and putting the chapters in later. I don’t quite fit either group as I still write the old fashioned way – with a pen. I type up/edit later and I’ve done that both ways – though lately I tend towards one document as so many editors and agents want electronic submissions these days. You can be sure that when I’m putting things together the other way one of the chapters goes missing – usually around number 33.  Last time it was quite a while before I noticed it.

As far as the first draft is concerned, I just go with the flow – sometimes I know where that important cliff hanger that will end the chapter will come, sometimes not.

So – who thinks in chapters and who put it all down and sorts it out later?

Wouldn’t you know it!!

By Qaey Williams

Here I have to post on Tax Day! For those of you in the United States, you all understand the importance of April 15th. Well, I’ll tell you, I have just completed my taxes and I’m warning you now, if you are an author you will definitely need to start getting organized.

Why do I say this? Because the information you’ll have to have on hand when you do your taxes after you start making a little money on your books will require a lot of careful record keeping. If you have the chance to talk with an accountant, make sure you take notes!

I am not an accountant, but I do know that as an author, I can write off my membership dues for Romance Writers of America (both the national dues and the chapter dues). I can also deduct conference fees, mailing costs, contest fees, mileage to and from meetings, travel expenses for conferences, etc.

Here’s my advice for today– get a notebook and envelopes and begin saving every receipt! Keep a detailed list of information associated with the receipts. Identify all expenditures in your notebook. I’m getting all my paperwork together now for next year (tonight’s 3 hour session to get my federal and state income taxes done was a big wake-up call.)

If any of you have advice for keeping the receipts and information organized and such, I would be most appreciative. Take care all and have a great tax day!

Writing your best damn book

In her blog a couple weeks ago, Erica Orloff said, “given the state of the publishing biz, nearly every writer (including this one) has taken the philosophy that now you need to better your game, you need to bring it. Your best game. Your best writing. Now it the time to go deeper. Write the best damn book you’ve ever written.”

For the last couple years, I’ve been working on adding tension to every page, adding emotion and adding more of my voice in. I think I pretty much have the tension thing nailed. When I don’t have it, I realize it now during revisions.

I’m getting better at adding emotion, too, though it’s something I continue to work at. I love adding my voice, a twist of phrasing and sometimes, if it suits the scene, sardonic humor. I do this as I write, but I also do it during revisions. I think that’s why I love revisions so much. It’s when I add in the special bits and shine up my writing.

What I’m working on now as I write goes back to what Erica said. I’m digging deeper. I’ve been hearing that for awhile, and I’m finally getting it. It’s when a scene goes an extra step, when I add poignancy or I reveal something extra to the reader. It’s hard to explain, but when you do it, you know it. It’s a “Wow! I nailed that!” moment.

What about you? Are you consciously working to improve your writing? So you can to write your best damn book? Or is this something you’ve done in the past?