Friday's Feast

Gosh, today’s Feast seems harder than usual. Or maybe it’s just been a really, really long week! OK, here we go…

Appetizer: Name something you would not want to own. An SUV: they make sightlines on the road unbearable, and they guzzle way too much gas.

Soup: Describe your hair (texture, color, length, etc.). Ooh, funny one, since I just got a new cut and color yesterday! Mmm…shoulder length, medium brown with blonder highlights than I would like, and straight. Most of the time.

Salad: Finish this sentence: I’ll never forget ___________. Oh, gosh, I’m the queen of remembering magical moments. In fact, I probably dwell in the past more than I should. That’s why I write, to recreate those incidents/days/people who changed me.

Main Course: Which famous person would you like to be for one day? Why? President of the United States (the office, not the guy who currently holds it). I’d like to know how exhilarating and terrifying the power of that role is.

Dessert: Write one sentence about yourself that includes one thing that is true and another thing that is not. OK, this will be easy for most of my regular readers to figure out: besides signing a publishing contract, 2 of my greatest accomplishments in the last 18 months were buying a new house and quitting smoking.

More Dialogue Tips, and a Love Affair with Shakespeare

"It's not enough to speak, but to speak true."
~Wm. Shakespeare

Congratulations to Ceri, the winner of yesterday’s Writers’ Wednesday drawing for a $5 Amazon gift certificate! Ceri, email me at allieb@allieboniface.com and let me know which email address to send it to.

Thanks to everyone for your great comments, by the way. A couple of good dialogue tips that I left out but others mentioned:

1. Avoid using adverbs in your taglines. Really, there’s no reason to write “he said softly” or “she called annoyingly.” Take the action and put it right into your dialogue (thanks for the tip, Fred Charles!)

2. Spend some time at the mall eavesdropping if you want to develop an ear for true dialogue. Good writers pay attention to the way people speak, with all their hems and haws and starts and restarts. Then they learn how to leave in just enough of those awkward moments to keep the dialogue realistic (thanks for the tip, bunnygirl!)

3. Infuse enough dialect to show a character’s nationality, but not so much that it overtakes the meaning of the words themselves. You want to show some flavor in word choice and pronunciation, but you don’t want to lose your reader either (thanks for the tip, Carolan Ivey!)

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Yesterday in class (I’m doing Shakespeare‘s Othello with my seniors), two students confessed they’d “read ahead” to find out the ending of the play. Another asked if colleges offered Shakespeare courses for non-English majors (she’s going pre-med), and just when I thought I’d keel over from pure happiness, another looked up at me and said, wide-eyed, “You know, Shakespeare’s a good writer.”

I replied, “Yeah, he’s okay.” Wink. Smile.

She went on. “No, really. Like, how does he know how to keep adding suspense, and make it so you have to keep on reading? Every time you turn the page, something else happens, and you catch your breath ‘cause you can‘t believe it.” Sigh. “I could never be a writer.”

Writers' Wednesday: Working With Dialogue

"Words are the voice of the heart."
~Confuscius

Welcome to Writers' Wednesday! Remember, everyone who leaves a comment on today's post is automatically entered into a drawing for a $5 Amazon Gift Certificate (if you comment on my post at The Wild Rose Press blog, also up today, you'll be entered twice...)! And today, we are talking about...

Dialogue.

It’s a tricky thing, getting it right, getting it realistic, getting it paced and tagged in just the right way. And yet it can be one of the most powerful elements of writing. It can deliver character, conflict, backstory, emotion, all in the span of a few short exchanges and utterances.

So how do you get it right? Well, I’m not claiming expertise, by any means, but today I’m offering 5 tips that I try to keep in mind when writing dialogue in my own stories. It’s pretty much a compilation of what I’ve learned over the last decade or so of writing. Some of it may be more applicable to novice writers, but I hope you find some use for yourself, no matter where you are in the writing or publishing journey.

And by all means, leave me some of your best tips and advice as well!

1. Don’t over-tag. If you have 2 people talking in a scene, you can get away with a back and forth exchange that doesn’t require you to tag every comment:

“So what happened to you last night?” Jenna asked.

Paul shrugged. “Missed my flight.”

“How?”

“Weather. Taxis were all tied up. Couldn‘t find one that would come out to the hotel.”

“Uh huh. So how did Marty manage to make it home on time?”

“Dunno. Why don’t you ask him?”

Did you have a hard time following who was speaking? Probably not. And yet I only added tags to the first two lines of dialogue. Of course, if you have more than 2 people talking, you’ll have to add tags more frequently. Still, don’t over-tag. Trust that your reader can follow you. A lot of novice writers think they have to spell out every line. Believe me, you don’t.

2. It isn’t necessary for characters to refer to each other by name as they’re speaking. Please take this one seriously. I see many novice writers in my writing groups who include something like this in a scene:

“Emily, please come downstairs. We have something we need to discuss.”

“Mom, I already told you I was doing my homework last night. I wasn’t online. I promise.”

“Then why did Mr. Rooney call me from school today to talk about an IM you sent to Darla Green, Emily?”

“I don’t know, Mom. He must have mixed me up with someone else.”

“Emily, we aren’t finished talking about this. Wait until your father gets home.”

Again, trust that your reader can follow who’s speaking, and to whom. It’s normally not necessary to repeat the name of the person to whom the line is spoken, unless for emphasis.

3. Use beats, or action tags, as often, or more often, than you use regular taglines. I have found this to be one of the most useful guidelines. You don’t need to accent every comment with a “he said/commented/uttered/shouted.” Instead, insert an action. Here’s a great scene from a Jennifer Crusie novel (Tell Me Lies) I’m currently reading:

“You really do feel okay?”

“I feel fine,” Maddie said. “Stop worrying.”

“Then can I spend the night at Mel’s?” Em bit off a corner of her toast. “If you’re not okay, though, I can stay with you. I don’t mind at all.”

“Oh.” Maddie swallowed. “Have I mentioned that you’re the perfect child?”

“Thank you. Can I stay with Mel?”

“Did you ask Aunt Treva?” Maddie bit into her toast carefully and chewed. Her head didn’t come off in pain. So far, so good.

Em shook her head. “No, Mel’s going to. Can I?”

“Call and find out.”

Em scraped her chair back.

“After breakfast.”

Notice how you can insert a great deal of action/character/setting by using action tags instead of dialogue taglines.

4. “Said” is still the best dialogue tag to use. Every once in a while, you can get creative and thumb through the thesaurus, tossing in a “ordered,” “barked,” “pleaded,” and so on. But don’t overdo it. For the most part, you want the reader’s focus to be on the words spoken, not the verb illustrating how they’re spoken.

5. Read your dialogue out loud. This was a great tip I received from a conference presenter early in my career. Written dialogue generally won’t mirror actual conversation. People aren’t too eloquent in real life; they have way too many “ums” and pauses and restarts as they speak. But you can still get a general feel for how authentic dialogue sounds if you read it aloud. Case in point:

“Sara, just watching you pull off that dress is enough to make me lose control,” Duke said as his roommate slipped from her drenched clothing.

Would an adult male, all riled up from a female getting naked close by, really talk that way? None that I know would.

“Jesus, you take that shirt off in front of me, and I’m not making any promises about what does or doesn’t happen next,” Duke said as his roommate slipped from her drenched clothing.

Better, but not great. I still don’t think he’d talk that much.

“Jesus,” Duke said as his roommate slipped from her drenched clothing, “are you trying to kill me?”

Bottom line: play around with your dialogue; try different tags and read it out loud. Have other people read it as well and give you their feedback. Dialogue can be challenging, but it can also be a writer’s best friend.

Good luck!

Thinking About Romance and Other Things

"You find me a woman who isn't interested in romance, and I will show you somebody who isn't alive."
~Nancy Berland

First off, a big thanks to Marianne, who nominated me for "The Best of the Best" Blog Entries, and to everyone who voted for "Why I Harbor Hope"...I ended up winning!

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Just a reminder: today, May 1, kicks off Brenda Novak's 3rd Annual Online Auction to Benefit Diabetes Research. Stop by and check out all the wonderful items she has for you to bid on!

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Finally, a quick look inside the May Romance Writers Report:

First Sales Column: Oh, good! Of the 12 authors listed here, only one claims that she was writing for a mere 18 months before selling her first manuscript. The other range from 5 to 12 years. Women after my own heart!

This one sounds like a winner already: The Secret Life of a Teenage Siren, by Wendy Toliver, published by Simon and Schuster is about "the adventures of a band geek who, on the eve of her 16th birthday, magically transforms into a beautiful Siren...she's irresistable--and deadly-to men everywhere." Ooh la la!

Market Update: NEW RECOGNIZED PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing! Hooray (that's my publisher for One Night in Boston, just in case I hadn't trumpeted it enough here...)!!

Feature Article: "Look Who's Writing Romance": Terrific article highlighting the growing number of professional/college-educated women who are entering the romance-writing world, including Shakespeare professors, developmental psychologists, and Air Force pilots (yes, really!).

Among other observations: that academics know how to do research and stick to a disciplined schedule, making them effective writers, and that the growing numbers of sub-genres in romance demands people with highly specialized areas of expertise, including forensics, high-tech biz, and history.

Maybe there's hope for romance to be taken seriously in the literary world after all. Do you think so?

Didn't Expect It Part 2

"A kind word is like a spring day."
~Russian Proverb

Most of you probably read my blog post last week about the conversation I had with a woman I work with who effectively dismissed my publication news.

I got over it; I know that people have a lot going on in their lives and can’t always be concerned with other people’s successes. Still, I just didn’t expect such a blasé reaction.

Fast forward to yesterday morning, when I ran into a couple in the grocery store that my husband grew up with/is related to. The 4 of us are good friends, though we don’t see each other all that much. They work and live in different circles than we do--she’s college educated but he isn’t; he works for the family business that my husband left 10+ years ago; most of their days revolve around their 2 kids and/or his hunting/fishing/NASCAR-watching hobbies and her up-and-coming business in the nursing field.

The first thing he said to me was, “So when’s your book coming out? I want a copy.”

The first thing she said to me was, “You have two being published, right? I’m so proud of you!”

It’s funny , the expectations you hold of people. Did I expect them to know about my books? Not really. Did I expect them to be excited for me? I can‘t say. And yet they stood there in the middle of the frozen food aisle and asked me all kinds of questions--including when they could hold the books in their hands--for a good five minutes.

Most of the time, I like the way life surprises me.

P.S. - Marianne has nominated me for the "The Best of the Best" Blog Entries (gee, thanks, M) - so if you're so inclined, go and vote!

Three Pieces of Good News

"Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week."
~Joseph Addison

#1: Yesterday I finished the first draft of One Night in Memphis! Actually, it probably shouldn't be called the true first draft, since this novel has been "done" and out to agents in the past, but since I decided to seriously revamp it, it's come out on the other side looking somewhat different than before. It still needs about 4000 more words, and I'm still a little bored in places, but I'm doing as the wise Stephen King recommends and letting it sit in a drawer for a few weeks.

#2: My editor from The Wild Rose Press emailed to tell me she's working on the first edits for Lost in Paradise! Funny that I signed that contract a good 2 months after the one with Samhain, and yet I'll probably get edits on this one first. Not that I really mind, and they're 2 very different-sized publishers, so I'm just soaking in the learning experience. Still, I remember when I first joined a writers' group and was terrified to share my work with anyone, just for a general opinion. How things change...

#3: It's supposed to be 75 and sunny today! Actually, it turned out to be pretty nice yesterday too. So I might actually take a little break from writing and spend most of my time outdoors.

What about you? Any good news to share on a Sunday??

2 Fun Links

First, the Friday Feast, a day late…

Appetizer: How fast can you type?
I think around 60 words/minute, but that’s a guess, since I’m self-taught.

Soup: What is your favorite online game?
Uh oh…Gold Miner. I’m addicted!

Salad: On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 as highest), how intelligent do you think you are?
Wow, that depends on how you define intelligence. IQ? Street smarts? Emotional intelligence? I’ll leave it somewhere between 8 and 9.

Main Course: Name three of your best teachers from your school years.Mrs. Atkinson (2nd grade) ~ kindest woman ever. Mr. Allen (10th and 12th grade English) ~ a brilliant writer and teacher, today a playwright and the reason I enjoy drama as much as I do. Dr. McDonald (my Shakespeare prof from college) ~ taught me to write (academically, anyway) and how to truly appreciate the Bard.

Dessert: What are your plans for this upcoming weekend?
Oh, sleep, please. I’m terribly deprived after the last 2 weeks. And I really want to finish my latest WIP, One Night in Memphis. I only have about 3000 more words to go, so I think I can do it!

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Second, a fun Numerology reading of my birth name (which is not my pen name, by the way, but I’m not sharing). Thanks to Marianne for the link!

Expression: 58 / 13 / 4 You are the builder of the world. With your organized, efficient approach everything gets done right the first time. You emanate security and would sacrifice your own desires for your family and anyone or anything else that you considered a responsibility. You have a relentless eye for value and quality and you have the patience and determination to work for it.

Soul Urge: 30 / 3 Your urge is to bring hope, joy and beauty to all you meet. You feel the best when you are in beautiful and comfortable surroundings. You have a creative essence and use your inspiration and imagination to make others happy. You enjoy attention and admiration, and you desire recognition for your talents.

Personality: 28 / 10 / 1 Others see you as a unique individual who always does their "own thing". Independent, capable and pioneering, you seem to take control of the situation and make it run effectively. You are very concerned with your image and always seem to dress in a way that gets noticed.

Whoa...it's scary how accurate this really is...

Didn't Expect It

"A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything..."
~Robert Heinlein

Last night, I was out with a group of girlfriends from work -- we went to a local dinner theater to see "Grease." Very fun, good food, good performances, nice camraderie. But during the conversation, one of the women turned to me and asked, "So I hear you're writing a book?"

I said, "Actually, yes, and I'm really excited because I have two that will be published sometime later this year."

"Really?" She turned away and that was that.

I wasn't really sure how to take that response, though I thought since I actually work and socialize with her on a regular basis, she might have a little more to say. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Disinterest? Jealousy? I dunno. But I didn't expect her to turn her back without another word.

Anyone else have similar responses from non-writers in your world? Are people excited for your successes, or mildly courteous while they change the subject? Do they want to know more, or do they dismiss your "hobby"? It's an interesting dynamic.

To wrap up this train of thought, here's a terrific interview with Stephen King after he won the National Book Award in 2003.

I suppose when it comes down to it, the support of those people most important in our lives is all we really need, right?

So What's With the Weather, Anyway??

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."
~John Ruskin

Congratulations to Rachelle, the winner of an $5 Amazon gift certificate in yesterday's Writers' Wednesday drawing! Rachelle, email me at allieb@allieboniface.com with the email address you want me to send the G.C. to. And thanks for posting!

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We up here in the Northeast USA, after the storms and flooding of 10 days ago, have finally welcomed spring. With temps in the 70s and 80s, and flowers blooming, it got me thinking...

Does weather make a difference in your writing?

No, not the weather outside (though I'm sure that has an effect as well). I mean the weather in your stories.

Do you consciously think about the season in which you'll set your story? Location, of course, can be related to climate, and that will make some difference: a tale in Jamaica has overtones and possibilities that one in the heart of Alaska does not.

But what about seasons? Do you deliberately make a choice about when your story will occur? I've noticed that I tend to set my novels in late spring, which usually means the weather is nice and not much of a factor. But at a recent writers' workshop, I did a brainstorming activity that ended up with my hypothetical H/H falling for each other in the dead of winter. In Montana. Whoa.

Think about your favorite stories, ones you've either read or written. Did weather play any kind of role? Should it? Or is it one of those secondary factors that might/might not make much of a difference?

I'm just curious...

Writers' Wednesday: How To Spice Up Your Writing

"Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour."
~William Cowper

Welcome to the latest edition of Writers' Wednesday!

Special treat today: a fellow writer, Kenn Kasica, has delivered a great piece on how to add spicy details to your work. Please make sure to leave a comment for Kenn...you'll be entered into a drawing to win a $5 Amazon Gift Certificate if you do!

SPICE CABINET 101

Think of your latest writing project as a large pot of chili cooking on a stove.

It is your latest novel, your simple poem, your unfinished song. It may be your love letter, short story or article you hope to send to Allie’s fantastic blog. It is in fact, the chili. The tomatoes are the plot. The beef is its characters. The peppers are its location. The onions are the timeline.

So what happens when your writing needs a certain twist? Welcome to spice cabinet 101.

All words boil in the mind like the chili on a hot stove. Like the chili, our writing needs spice. You make a better chili when you dare to add the chili powder, the jalapeño, and the Caribbean pepper for those like me who like it a few degrees north of insane.

Our stories have spices as well. They are certain words that heighten a description of a character, a place or just about anything. As important, the spices hook the reader. Like the spices in a cooking pot of chili, it keeps the hungry, hanging around. As you write, keep these words in mind.

A few are states, dates, colors, and vehicles:

States. We can find this spice in the smallest of terms. Louisiana Lightning, New York minute, Texas tea is but a few examples. I think state names grab reader’s attention. I have a part in a story I wrote where a man is driving a car and sipping whiskey. I do not refer it as whiskey. I wrote it as, “Brody kept his eyes on the rear view while his lips took in another hit from his bottle of Mississippi sting sauce.”

Another story I wrote was about horse racing. This gets interesting, naming horses. I am going to call my winning stallion “Rhode Island Blinking.” Blinking as in, waving bye bye.

Dates. Don’t be afraid to go back in time. Don’t fear the future. You have a car in your story, give it mileage. Give it a year. If there is a significant event in your story, give it a date. Say it is a blizzard. Give the blizzard potency, give it the year it wrecked havoc. Write the blizzard as the great blizzard of 48, or 78, or last years date. The reader most likely will note the storm from the start as a mother of a catastrophe.

Colors. The list is endless. Red October, Blue Hawaii, Yellow Beard, Black rain, White line fever. I like to use a color and attach it to another word. I have a story where one of the characters has a car. Could it be a monza? Hell no. He drove around town in a sweet 73 purple Barracuda. The attachment is its nick name. “The purple popsicle”. It is okay to nick name cars. We in fact, control the pen. Colors are not flavors, they are spices.

A few quick examples. A mystery. The sight of bright blue gun smoke rising through the brighter orange sun light. Horror. Blood, black cherry red was dried and baked on the hood of a 71 cotton white Fleetwood rag top from unforgiving Arizona sun. See what I am getting at? Spices.

This leads me to transportation devices. Again, cars. If you have a car in your writing, give it a life of its own. No, not Christine. How good would Bullet be if McQueen raced around in a Studebaker? Then again, if your character is a nerd, throw him in a muffler-less Astro Van. How about trains? The old blues giants had it all down. They wrote daring to mix all the spices.

“We just blue hobos, me and Kansas Jack.” “We been hitchin the Santa Fe since sixty two out to get our red hens back.

My point to all this is, add spices. I write with an edge hot as our chili. I think you write better with a cold cup of jo than nursing a warm chocolate mocha latte with a straw. It is just my understanding.

Chuck Berry, I think, did it best: “A souped up cherry red 53.” You know it is a car but you really don’t care what type of car it is. It is bad ass. You know it.

Characters and places make or break the best writing. Adding spice in the form of states, dates, colors, and vehicles can add the flare. Write with fluff, write for Dixie Cup. Write with spice, and the world will be waiting for you.

Chili is done. Time to eat!

Two For Tuesday

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."
~Margaret Atwood

Duets today, anyone?

Two sites for you to visit:

My updated Spring Reading Thing post, since I finished The Nanny Diaries last weekend and posted a review there,

and

My brand-new author page at The Wild Rose Press! (It’s not very lengthy, but I figure they’re saving the space at the bottom for all my covers over the next couple of years…)

Two pictures that tell us spring has finally arrived:

Daffodils struggling toward the sun

(we replaced the pool deck steps last summer, not realizing that the previous owners had planted flowers at the foot of the original ones...)

And painted toes ready for sandal season!

One final reminder:

Remember, tomorrow is Writers’ Wednesday, which means when you leave a comment, you’ll be entered into a drawing for an Amazon gift certificate!

See you then!

The P Word

"Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master."
~Philip Kotler

Did you guess what the P word is?

Well, for this fledgling writer, it’s the dirty little secret no one in the publishing biz tells you about until someone offers you a contract:

Promotion.

Ah, yes. We aspiring writers slave away at our keyboards, waiting to be discovered as the next brilliant author, the next best-seller, only to find that we should probably be spending some of that precious time building a name for ourselves.

I know that the big New York houses do it all, in terms of promotion, for their authors--and that’s terrific. But for the rest of us, we’re suddenly thrust into this big sea to flail about and find our fins before the waves drag us and our brand new novel straight down to the bottom without it ever seeing the light.

I never realized how much was involved in getting one’s name out there, and it’s daunting, to say the least. I’m supposed to create a “brand,” a slogan that captures the essence of my writing in a witty phrase that can be splashed onto every business card and bookmark I make.

I’m supposed to find time to join chat groups, post on forums, send out newsletters and sponsor contests, all in the name of letting a few more people know who I am.

It’s exhausting.

And honestly, I’m finding that I simply don’t have the time to do half that stuff. I know I need to promote myself, and I’ll do my best. In fact, I even ordered my first shipment of business cards, from Vista Print. (I’ll let you know how I like them.) And there’s a few sites I’ve found that offer helpful advice without becoming overwhelming: Promo-Ho is one of them.

But rather than spend hours posting to a chat group or fishing through responses on a forum, I’ll spend my time updating this blog and working on my latest novel.

Because honestly, what good is all that promotion if you don’t have the time to write a book for the faithful fans you’ve created?

Can It Really Be? Is Spring Finally Here??

"April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers."
~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Looks like, for the second year in a row, late winter gave way to a roaring pre-summer, with spring getting the shaft from Mother Nature. While some areas around here are still cleaning out from last week’s flooding, most of us are enjoying temperatures up near the 70’s.

Yesterday I actually sat outside on the deck and read until I got too hot and had to go back inside. The flowers are loving it, as are the local critters, though as I walk around the yard, I see how much needs doing in the way of landscaping and planting. This will be our second summer in this house, and last year was, well, experimental. This year I’m ordering “deer resistant” flowers for just about everywhere I want to plant, though I suspect there really is no such thing.


Anyone know of anything that deer really won’t eat? I’ve had success with marigolds, and one friend said they’ll stay away from geraniums. Any other suggestions?

I’ll admit that I don’t have much of a green thumb (that’s my sister) and to be honest, I’d much rather spend my free time reading or writing than digging in the dirt. Still, I’ll give it a go. Maybe if I’m at all successful, I’ll post some pictures later this summer.

My latest WIP is coming along slowly but surely, with the height of the conflict happening in the most recent chapters. I just have to keep reminding myself that amid all the physical conflict, I have to work on the emotional conflict as well. Darn it. Writing’s hard.

The Spring Reading Thing

Here’s something fun for you:

The Spring Reading Thing!

Challenge yourself to read those books you’ve been meaning to get to but keep putting off…

I’m a little late to the party, since it’s running from March 21 - June 21, but I figure there’s still time to jump in and play. So here’s my list:

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus - A friend just loaned me this book, and since the movie’s coming out soon, I figure I’ll check out the appeal. Update: A quick, entertaining read. I finished it in a weekend! Reminded me of Bridget Jones, with the requisite chick lit 1st person slightly tormented, slightly neurotic, very single-and-struggling-to-find-a-meaningful-job heroine. Still, the 2 authors are spot-on in their satire of Manhattan nanny life. Unfortunately, I know mothers like Mrs. X. You'll like this one--give it a try!

Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult - She’s my latest favorite author. I was going to put down 19 Minutes, her latest release, but it’s about a school shooting, and I’m not sure I’m up for that. This novel’s about a couple torn apart by the assault of their young son and the lengths they go to manipulate the justice system and seek revenge. Still not too promising for a light read, but she tackles tough issues, and I like her for that.

Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield - Believe it or not, my students have been raving about this memoir all year. Guess it’s time I see what’s so terrific about it. Plus, what child of the 80s doesn’t remember the decade of mix tapes? Update: This was a terrific memoir of a writer for Rolling Stone who lost his wife after 5 years of marriage, when they were both only 31. Poignant, well-written, and even humorous in places, it chronicles the couple's courtship through the classic icon of the mix tape. A fast read and one I'd recommend to anyone.

Never the Same by Diane Craver - This one’s an inspirational romance, an e-book that I won from a fellow Samhain author. I promised her a review on my blog, so I need to get going!

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama - With the Presidential campaigns gearing up, I’d like to finish this nonfiction work and find out more about the newcomer from Illinois.

Anything by Jennifer Cruisie - She’s one of the biggest names in the romance genre, so I feel as though I should be familiar with her work, and yet I haven’t found a novel by her I could really get into. Any suggestions? Update: I made my way through Tell Me Lies and really enjoyed it, to my surprise! With a confused but endearing heroine, a sexy-as-hell hero, a murder mystery, a small town, and secrets between friends...how could I lose? My favorite part was reading Crusie's dialogue--great, believable stuff.

That’s probably about all I can manage, with the crunch time of school’s end fast approaching. But I hope there’s a Summer Reading Challenge as well, because I always have a list of books for those hazy days of July and August.

C’mon, join me! What books will be on your spring reading list?

Friday's Feast

"There aren't enough days in the weekend."
~Rob Schmidt

As it has been a long week, today's post is the Friday Feast and nothing more. Want to play along? Leave me your link in a comment!


Appetizer : What is your favorite kind of bread?
My local grocery store has a rosemary olive oil that's to die for!

Soup: When was the last time you bought a new pillow?
Decorative or functional? Probably 2 months for the former and 12 months for the latter.

Salad: Approximately how many hours per week do you spend surfing the ‘net?
Does "surfing" imply just looking around at various links, killing time 'cause it's better than cleaning the house, or having a purpose while you're there and looking for specific information? Hmm...I'll say somewhere from 10 minutes to a couple of hours a day and leave it at that.

Main Course : What’s the highest you remember your temperature being?
Can't say I recall...probably sometime when I was a kid it was up around 101. Nothing too scary, that I can remember.

Dessert: Fill in the blanks: When I ____________, I _____________.
When I am stressed, I eat more chocolate than I should.

Happy Friday!

Why I Harbor Hope

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."
~Dale Carnegie

Congratulations to Marianne, the winner of yesterday’s drawing for an Amazon gift certificate!

And thank to everyone who stopped by this blog and/or the one over at TWRP (if you didn’t read that one, you can still swing by there when you get a chance).

Today, I wanted to share something that reminds me why I teach, why I write happy endings, and why there is still great hope for people in the world despite the sadness of the last few days.

I keep in touch with many of my former students, and one young woman who’s now a senior in college stopped by to visit about a month ago with the exciting news that she had made her decision about graduate school. She wants to pursue Higher Education Administration, and she plans on going to Virginia Tech.

Yes, Virginia Tech.

So, after the news broke earlier this week, I dropped her an email:

Are you OK?? Virginia Tech is where you'd decided to go to graduate school, right? Imagine you're pretty shell-shocked with the news right now. Hope you're doing all right.

Her response?

I'm okay. But it's really scary to hear about it. And there is nothing I can really do at this time about it. It's a time of mourning for the campus, and it will affect the lives of all of us in the years to come. It will be very prevalent in my time there because I will be there in a year for the anniversary of it.

What this event really makes me do is want to make sure it doesn't happen somewhere else. I'm going to Tech for a reason. And I'm going to get a degree in the field of Higher Education. Part of my job in the future is to make sure this doesn't happen again. It's a tragedy that's also a wake up call to administrators and personnel. The real tragedy will be if this is allowed to happen again. We can't change what happened, but through education we can try to ensure it doesn't happen again.

As scary as it is, it could really happen anywhere. I'm just blessed that I wasn't there when it did. And from my experiences at the campus, I would have never imagined it to happen there. It's such a warm and welcoming community that this event is very atypical. And even in this time of horror, I still feel Tech is where I'm supposed to be. I think this event may play a huge role in my education and possibly shape my career.

Some people say the answers are metal detectors and stricter gun laws, but I don't think that's it. People react this way because of how they are treated. And they also show warning signs before they actually commit the act. The friends or co-workers of these people need to be given the confidence to stand up and talk to law enforcement or talk to the person and say "this is wrong." Students need to be educated on the warning signs and given mentors or adults that they can turn to when things seem amiss. The answer is education. And that is my future.

Thank you for your concern. I really appreciate it. But I am continuing my apartment search and still planning to attend there. I am going to email one of the professors in my program and see if there is anything in our program about violence on a collegiate level. And if there is nothing about it, then I want to know how can we integrate it into the curriculum.

Talk to you soon…

God bless the idealistic 21-year olds in the world who can remind us of the power of believing in the future, hmm?

OK, I’m off to write! Making good progress on One Night in Memphis, thankfully. And I just heard from my Wild Rose Press editor that she'll be starting the edits on Lost in Paradise next week. Exciting!

How has your week been, anyway?

Writers' Wednesday: How To Stay Motivated

“I have not failed [at inventing the light bulb] 700 times. I have proven 700 ways it will not work.”
~Thomas Edison


Welcome to another Writers' Wednesday! Remember, if you leave a comment on today's post, you'll be entered into a random drawing to win a $5 Amazon gift certificate. Thanks for stopping by!

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Sometimes it seems as though the effort of writing just isn’t worth it. You want to find an agent, and all you get are “Thanks but not right for us” letters. Or you desperately want to get published but can’t convince a publisher to request anything more than a partial. Or you really wish you could finish a darn story, but you can’t find the time or the words just won’t come.

It’s easy to give up on days like these. It’s easier to find other things to do, to just say, “Well, it isn’t meant to be."

But here, in no particular order, are 10 reasons you shouldn’t:

#1. Einstein was 4 years old before he could speak and 7 years old before he could read.

#2. A newspaper editor once fired Walt Disney because “he had no good ideas.”

#3. Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.”

#4. As a boy, Thomas Edison was told by his schoolteachers he was too stupid to learn anything.

#5. Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college.

#6. Winston Churchill failed 6th grade.

#7. Abraham was defeated for Congress 4 times before being elected President of the United States.

#8. Louis Pasteur was rated “mediocre” in chemistry at Royal College.

#9. Louisa May Alcott was told by an editor she could never write anything that had popular appeal.

#10. Stephen King was told, of his first horror novel Carrie, “We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.”

Print out this page and tape it up somewhere (or heck, stick it in a drawer. I won’t care ;) ). And whenever you’re feeling discouraged, read it over. Everyone has faced challenges and disappointment and a certain level of failure in their pursuits. The truly successful don’t let it kill their spirit.

Write on!

Take a Moment

Today, I was going to blog about my writing progress (decent) and my pleasure with the first stages of working with The Wild Rose Press (good), but in light of the terrible shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday, anything about me seems pretty insignificant.

If I start to write, I’ll go on and on about how such a horrific act reflects on our society, or how so many children don't know how to manage their anger, since they’re surrounded with images of violence from the time they’re born, or how we do our best to instill values in young adults and send them off to universities only to have something devastating end all that potential.

So I’ll only ask that maybe sometime today, you’ll say a prayer or observe a moment of silence or ask the universe to send strength and comfort to all those people who are trying to put together the pieces of their life today.

Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down

"A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning."
~James Dickey

Well, we’re weathering the storm here OK, though we’re seeing lots of local flooding. Could be worse, I suppose. Oh yes, it could be snow! That’s right. I’ll be thankful for small favors.

A member of my local RWA chapter loaned me The Book from last year’s RWA National Conference in Atlanta, and I had a chance to go through it over the weekend. Lots and lots of interesting-looking workshops; I don’t know how I would ever choose which ones to attend! I loved reading the workshop titles, alone. Here are some of my favorites:

50 Ways to (Nearly) Kill Your Lover
A Sagging Middle and What to Do About It
The Care and Feeding of Big Black Moments
Make It Last or Come Too Soon - How To Write Sexual Tension
Real Women Kick Ass
What Are You Feeling and Why Should I Care?

Finally, I received a really funny email clip from a friend over the weekend, which I’ll share with you all:

Lovin' the 80s

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."
~from "When Harry Met Sally"

So one of my favorite radio stations always has a "classic 80s" weekend, when all they play is music from that decade.

And I love it, of course, because I'm a child of the 80s so I can sing along with every lyric, in-between remembering dances in the high school gym and adolescent heartbreak (which happened about every other month, right??)

Anyway, the music got me to thinking about all the great artists out of the 80s, all the great fashions (OK, maybe not :) and all the great movies.

"When Harry Met Sally" remains on my all-time list of Top 5 Movie Favorites, and I'm not sure why except that it's funny and romantic and stars two great actors. Plus there are so many lines that are downright hilarious.

So here, for your lazy Sunday entertainment, are a few quotes and a couple of clips from that classic (including THE restaurant scene). Enjoy the walk down Memory Lane (and for God's sake, if you haven't seen this movie, run out today and rent it. Seriously).

Sally: Well, if you must know, it was because he was very jealous, and I had these days of the week underpants.
Harry: Ehhhh. I'm sorry. I need the judges ruling on this. "Days of the weeks underpants"?
Sally: They had the days of the week on them, and I thought they were sort of funny. And then one day Sheldon says to me, "You never wear Sunday." It was all suspicious. Where was Sunday? And I told him, and he didn't believe me.
Harry: What?
Sally: They don't make Sunday.
Harry: Why not?
Sally: Because of God.

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Harry: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally: Which one am I?
Harry: You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.

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Harry: You know how a year to a person is like seven years to a dog?
Sally: Is one of us supposed to be a DOG in this scenario?
Harry: Yes.
Sally: Who is the dog?
Harry: You are.
Sally: I am? I am the dog? I am the dog?

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Harry: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You say I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I'm saying is they all WANT to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So, you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry: No. You pretty much want to nail 'em too.
Sally: What if THEY don't want to have sex with YOU?
Harry: Doesn't matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally: Well, I guess we're not going to be friends then.
Harry: I guess not.
Sally: That's too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York

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By the way, what's your favorite movie? Can you name it? Quote from it? And how many times have you seen it?