Countdown to movies

There are some ways in which I'm a teenage boy at heart. I'll admit to loving horror movies, big blow 'em up visual extravaganzas, even dumb comedies. Even thinking about The Other Guys makes me giggle. Will Ferrell cracks me up every time.

So summer movie season was made for me. And now with the summer movie season inching closer to March, the season is longer. And it starts with John Carter, which not only has Taylor Kitch in basically a loin cloth, (those of you who watched FNL will understand why I'm excited for the movie) but visual effects and monsters. Perfect! even though the trailor does look pretty dumb.

And then the end of March has Hunger Games!!!!! which yes, at the thought I turn into a teenage girl, squeals included. The trailor for this looks incredible.

And then over the summer we have the final installment of the Batman series, which looks as fantastic as the other two that came before, Snow White and the Huntsmen, which, based on the trailor, looks spectacular and in case John Carter wasn't enough Taylor Kitsch, Battleship, yes, the movie based on the boardgame. For all the subtlety and depth you would expect based on a "you sunk my battleship" statement. It looks really dumb and even that isn't enough to turn me away.

The fall season is when the smart, creative, well thought out and character driven movies come out. Summer season is when things go boom, and after watching some really wonderful, character driven movies over the past few months, I'm ready for boom.

I'm Back to New Girl

Okay – I know I’m gushing about this show but truly this is ranking up there with Modern Family for me. And what I love about it is that it doesn’t hold any punches. There is a “real” factor which just seems so refreshingly honest to me.

We have a situation where Jess (Zoey) and Nick are clearly bonding more than the other roommates. It’s your classic TV relationship set up. But this is season one, so nothing is going nowhere for a while. And I’m fine with that. The story starts with the two of them getting out of long term relationships so we’re okay with him dating his rebound girl and her dating her rebound guy.

But the key here – we the audience really liked rebound guy. (He’s already gone.) And I’m liking rebound girl for Nick. They are not pulling out cookie cutter “bad” guys that the audience has to hate because we really want the main couple to be together.

And then what I LOVED is that Jess and Rebound Girl (Julia I think) didn’t like each other. Jess is a sweet school teacher. Julia is a hardcore lawyer. And for once they really did an exchange between two different women which had nothing to do with the guy involved, but everything to do with why sometimes women aren’t friends.

I'm paraphrasing but we get lines like...

Julia thinks Jess is zaney and spacey and bakes things and makes people blankets and walks around like little birds might start flying out of her skirt. And if Julia talked like Jess at her office people wouldn’t respect her.

Jess thinks Julia talks too much like Murphy Brown and should where more ribbons on her suits because they are not cute at all. And maybe she does talk a certain way but it’s because she’s an elementary teacher and she talks to kids all day long. And she ends this great scene with, it doesn’t mean she’s not smart and strong. Then she follows that with how she has to write out a check for a parking ticket and her checks have baby farm animals on them… BITCH!

I saw this scene and I was like YES. Finally. This is real. And maybe while people aren’t that openly confrontational sometimes that’s what they are really thinking. And they didn’t magically become friends. Yes there is grudging acceptance but still the differences are there and they are real.

To me the writers of this show are brilliant. I have absolutely no idea where they are taking me but I know I'm going to get the unexpected.

Also Schmidt is a flat out show stealer. Look for him to be up for supporting awards soon.

Writing Resources

From computerclipart.com

Molly and I had our "Romance 101" workshop accepted for the 2012 RWA National conference. It's going to be fun (and interesting to figure out how to squeeze what was originally a six hour workshop into one hour...)

I need to turn in the final draft of the handout today. Nothing like leaving things to the last minute.

Help a girl out. Does anyone have either a) a great resource to recommend for beginner writers (online or a book), or b) an example of something (jargon, craft concept, publishing term) they didn't understand when they first got started.

Oh, I am a lazy blogger today. And a lazy handout preparer. But I did do a rather long post on my own blog earlier in the week if you're interested in more meat.

Writing Retreat Report

I had a weekend with no kid's soccer, only one prior social engagement (and that was on Sunday afternoon) and two friends who needed to get some work done. So the fabulous, funny, smart Catriona McPherson and the witty, beautiful and soulful Spring Warren and I skipped town on Friday afternoon, made a quick stop at Costco and checked ourselves into a hotel in Petaluma. The result?

Forty pages. Pretty close to 10,000 words.

I was really hoping to get closer to 70 pages written, but even at 40 it makes me deadline totally reachable. I cannot tell you how relieved I am.

I also probably gained five pounds because of what we bought at Costco:



We laughed. We helped each other with plot problems and titles. We barely ever left the room. It was fantastic. I'm already trying to figure out when we can do it again.

My son is six years old today

I can't seem to think past the fact that Mick has been around for six years. It's one of those weird time splits - seems like it's been about five minutes while at the same time it feels like he's been around forever.

I'm literally up to my eyeballs in Lego.

It's so strange how my career started to work just as he was born. I started writing consistently for Superromance with the amazing Wanda Ottewell. His iron clad schedule made my life doable and I think having only nap times to write, gave me an urgency that frankly I could use right now.

It also freed me from the idea that I had to do everything. And I think that's served me well as our family and my career has grown. I don't bake. I don't clean. I don't do my own website. I don't make bookmarks and in an exciting development - I hired a publicist.

That's right - soon, I will be branded. Which I'm pretty excited about, to tell you the truth.

But that's really all I've got this morning. Lego and branding and my boy is six.

I should really lose that baby weight....

Luther and the tortured hero

I was trying to think of a cage match but right now my brain can only think in two directions at once. One direction is The Vampire Diaries and how every week it has a twist I do not see coming and the other direction is Luther, a BBC tv drama I've been watching over the past few months.

Luther is in some ways a procedural, but given the first season is 6 episodes long and the second season 4 episodes, it's not as if it's presenting 24 different cases to be solved. The other thing it does is make everyone, police and criminals deeply flawed and some of the time not that different from each other.

What is deeply compelling about the show is the main character, who actually is, truly, a tortured hero. It helps that he's played by Idris Elba, a really compelling actor, but it also helps that the writers committed to the character being not entirely likeable all the time, and also, morally flawed.

The writers balance this by making him truly excellent at his job, and so like a lot of flawed heroes out there, the balance exits between the good he does in stopping future crimes and the chaos he creates in his personal life and his career. But in this case, there is no redemption, at least personally for him.

(Spoiler Alert) Stop reading here if you plan to see the series.

In the first episode we see Luther make the choice to let a pedophile drop through a ceiling to his death and we also see, how years of chasing the worst criminals has eroded his soul and his ability to make the right decision. He just wants the man dead and gives into the impulse and doesn't regret it.

He has this fascinating relationship with a sociopathic woman who killed her parents, and he knows she did it, and still gets drawn in, because I think, he's fascinated with the idea that she feels no remorse or regret and deeply envies that about her and wishes he could be more like her, while she falls in love with him, partly because he's brilliant, but also because she is fascinated by his conflicting emotions.

He turns a blind eye to a cop that's making money illegally on the side, because they're friends and the end justifies the means.

He's truly a man that needs, for his well-being, to not be a cop, but he doesn't know how to do anything else, and by the beginning of the second season, he's weary and resigned, and almost suicidal and figures he'll do this until it kills him which might be soon, and he's OK with it.

I love this show, because it exists entirely in the grey zone between good and bad in a way the best HBO shows do. It's really hard to find, but if you can I think it's one of the best portrayal of a tortured hero I've seen in a really long time.

Ode to Barnes and Noble

The other day my friend and I were killing time before dinner and decided to go into the B&N next door to the restaurant. I’ve gone on about my love of the eReader but I should have mentioned that as much as I don’t read paper books any more I miss bookstores.

I really miss them. I don’t think I realized how much.

Walking through the doors I was struck again by the colors of all the covers, the excitement of seeing author’s names who I didn’t realize had a new release out. Old books, classic books, all the books I haven’t read. Books arranged in neat rows. Special stand alone shelves and racks calling my attention to covers and authors I might not have picked up otherwise.

Then there was the smell of coffee and treats. And the sight of people alone reading while they ate a sandwich and had a cup of coffee and maybe saved room for a black and white cookie. See at the B&N it’s okay to be out in public by yourself reading a book. No one thinks that’s strange.

I browsed the new releases. I checked out all the staff recommendations. I went to the romance section and it was like visiting a this place I hadn’t been to in so long… I had forgotten how much I loved just standing in front of it.

So this blog is dedicated to you… the brick and mortar store. May you always be there with your sections and your special racks and your coffee and your display of all delicious things I really shouldn’t be eating.

I forgot that in so many ways Barnes & Noble is like my church and if felt comforting to be inside those four walls once again.

Twilight vs Vampire Diaries

Since we seem to be on a cage match theme....

Sure, lots of teen girls love Twilight, but in terms of the love triangle, why does The Vampire Diaries work so much better than Twilight?



Well, at the SCBWI conference, keynote speaker Cassandra Clare had an explanation that, after I heard it, seemed obvious, although I must admit it hadn't occurred to me before. Huge light bulb moment. Love those.

She was talking about the power of forbidden love as a theme in YA fiction and the popularity of the love triangle. And what she pointed out was that sometimes so-called love triangles aren't triangles at all, but love vees.

If two boys both want one girl, let's say, then that's a vee.

But if the two boys have a relationship that's just as strong as each of their feelings for the girl... then you've got a real triangle -- where each line of the triangle has a strong dynamic.

That's why the Damon, Stefan, Elena triangle is so compelling. (Well, on the TV show, I have to say, for me, it mostly works because of Ian Somerhalder, but I've heard it works in the books too.)

The triangle in The Vampire Diaries is powerful and emotional because Damon and Stefan are brothers who love each other and who've already had a relationship for, well, more than a hundred years before either of them meet and fall in love with Elena. And of course the fact that they've been in other love triangles in the past makes the dynamic even more interesting.

Sadly, I realized listening to her talk that in my upcoming book, Deviants, I've created a vee, not a triangle... But I've put some pretty huge forbidden-love-style obstacles in between the heroine and each boy, and some other twisty twists, so I hope it will be an compelling love vee over the course of the three books in the trilogy.

What are some other love triangles or vees that you think have or haven't worked?

CAGE MATCH: Grimm vs. Once Upon a Time

Somehow there ended up being two fairy tale shows that started this fall, Grimm and Once Upon a Time. It happens. I guess there are two Snow White movies coming out and there was that time with the two volcano movies and that other time with the two asteroid movies. Oh, and remember when Chicago Hope and ER started in the same season?

We figured we'd watch a few episodes of both of them, figure out which one we liked better and dump the other one. We're still watching both. I think we prefer Grimm since we stay caught up on that one more often, but nobody's suggesting dumping OUAT from our DVR lineup.

Grimm is the grittier of the two shows. The main character is a police officer who finds out that he is a Grimm, which is some kind of fairytale creature hunter. We still don't know about the details of that. We also don't know if this police captain (or chief or whatever he is) is evil, not evil or what. We really like the Big Bad Wolf who is trying to lead a more peaceful life by doing Pilates, but it's definitely the creature of the week and a lot of blood and gore. I don't recognize many of the fairytale creatures and they use funny names for them, but yet I'm still watching each week.

OUAT is a gentler show. There hasn't been much blood and gore although the psychological manipulations of the Evil Queen are really dastardly. They're doing a better job of moving the overall story arc along along with the weekly episodes. There's more emotional pull, too, with a woman reconnecting with the child she gave up for adoption. Yet, it's the one that we're more likely to let sit on the DVR.

I was talking to a friend who is also watching both. She's getting frustrated with the lack of answers in the overall story arc of Grimm and is irritated with the length of the eyelashes on the women of OUAT. Personally, I just want them to let Ginnifer Goodwin's hair grow a little.

Anyone else watching both these shows? Any preferences?

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Oh Man - life got in the way of my life last week. My son was home sick with this disgusting hand, foot and mouth disease. Oozy sores everywhere, but he was never really sick. But because he wa so contagious and gross I couldn't take him anywhere. So after one day of endless movies (that owl movie? the Guardians or whatever....WTF? Owls???) it was on to arts and crafts.

So, last week instead of getting any work done I was glueing egg shells back together, covering them with tissue paper and painting them and then gluing googly eyes on them. Hours. Of. This. We have an egg shell army. Or monster squad.

And actually it was pretty fun. But we're back to school today and I can get on with my life!!

Winners of the great ARC giveaway are:

Saly
Tasha
MJ Frederick

send me an email from my website with your addresses and I will get the books to you!!

Why TV shows shouldn't last past three seasons

In writing, we rarely talk about a great book without reference to character and how the main character grew and changed over the course of the book. It's that character arc that takes a book from good to great. At some point the character reaches their end point, they have grown enough to have earned their happy ending and as a reader we close the book with a sense of satisfaction.

TV shows that focus on one character, or even a few, do the same thing, usually over a season, or two. But after three seasons, with the characters still making mistakes, and not growing quickly enough, especially in character driven shows like House, or Grey's Anatomy, I get frustrated.

I'm there right now with 30 Rock, a show I still watch every week, and love, but no longer find as funny as I once did. It's starting to feel like a 'been there, done that." Lemon still has self-confidence issues, Tracey is still an idiot, Jenna completely self absorbed and there's not much new in that.

House I gave up on several seasons ago.

Everything else I'm watching is either at the three seasons, or less. There are some shows that are exempt from the rule, like procedurals where the focus in on the crime of the week, or something like Game Of Thrones where the huge cast of characters and complex plot keep everything moving.

I'm even concerned about my beloved Vampire Diaries. Will I ever get tired of Damon's snark, or Alaric's morality or the brother's competing for Elena's attention? I'd rather it have three seasons than get tired in my memory and lose what I love about the show.

My Kindle Died!!!

Okay – maybe not dead, but for thirty minutes it did not work at all. I’ve been judging my RITA entries so I’ve gone back to reading actual books in paper form and in the three weeks of not charging my Kindle it lost all power. So when I went to pick it up last night and it wouldn’t turn on I let out a cry of despair.

Which makes me realize how much my reading experience has changed. I know some people will say they will always want to read paper books. I know some people will say that they enjoy the feel of the book in their hand. That it’s just not the same on an eReader. And I hear all of you. I thought I was one of you.

Until I became… a Kindle junkie.

Having to read actual physical books again was not fun and in many cases even though I had been given a free book to read I considered putting the money out to download them. Maybe that’s something RWA can consider - having authors provide Amazon/B&N gift cards for the price of the book rather than the book itself. Although I’m sure logistically that would be a nightmare, but you know where I’m going. Some “e” alternative.

All I know is that I hate opening a book to a page and not having it stay where I want it. I hate needing two hands to read a book. I hate stiff trade books that don’t easily fit into my purse. I hate not having my convenient light on my reader case to illuminate the page when I need it. I hate not having the anonymity of people not knowing what I'm reading.

I eat out a lot at restaurants and like to read at the bar as I’m eating my meal. (A Kindle you can rest against a water glass and still read while using two hands to cut your food – genius.) Since my Kindle I could be reading anything and no one can tell. Not that I ever back away from being a hardcore romance reader, but there have been plenty of times when someone (usually a gentleman) will remark that I’m reading, (some see this as highly unusual - not sure why), ask what it is, and then go on about how silly or ridiculous romance novels are. It usually gets awkward when I tell them I write them as well.

Guys, I just want to eat and read my book. I don’t need commentary on my reading choice. Then wouldn't you know it, in my packet of Rita books there was a cover that was… shall we say… racier than most. Now normally I really don’t care, but I realized since having my Kindle how nice it was not worry if people were checking to see what I was reading and not having to hear anything from the peanut gallery.

So that’s it. I’m here to confess it. I no longer care for books. That hurts me just writing that sentence but it's true. I only want my Kindle… fully charged.

Cage Match -- SCBWI and RWA

The mere title of this post amuses me. A smack down rumble between children's writers and romance writers is an unbelievably funny idea to me. But I am a tad twisted.

No, I'm not going to suggest a war, I just thought that, after attending my first big SCBWI conference last weekend, I might talk a little bit about the differences in the organizations and their big conferences, based on what I observed.

Gender

The SCBWI conference was definitely skewed toward women, but there were more men there than at an RWA conference. I'd guess it was close to, or over, 10%. At RWA it's probably less than 1%.

Artists

The I in SCBWI stands for Illustrators. It was kind of cool to be at a conference where some of the workshops/contests/talks were for people who earn their living drawing and painting, rather than writing. And many do both.

Size

If size matters,  RWA has SCBWI beat. There were about 1100 people registered at the SCBWI conference and that's less than half of what's usually at an RWA National Conference.

Chicken Dinners

SCBWI wins here, I'm afraid. Because of the absence of rubber chicken dinners. ;) We only got one "meal" at SCBWI, which was a cocktail party, not a big banquet, but the food was pretty high quality for that kind of thing. They also had bagels and cream cheese and coffee each morning. My only "beef" with the meal thing was only having an hour for lunch, which was a bit of a scramble on our own.

Keynotes

This one is a toss up, but I have to give the slight edge to SCBWI. For such a short conference (1 1/2 days) there were three big keynote speeches and they were all excellent. Four if you count a short one by Henry Winkler. (Yes, Henry Winkler.)

Here's the terrible photo I took of him right after his talk, when I accidentally ended up next to him waiting for the elevator. My apologies to Mr. Winkler.

Because of the absence of rubber chicken dinners, the keynotes weren't delivered over desert and coffee and therefore it was more practical for the keynote speeches to have content vs just inspirational messages. But one, in particular, by Chris Crutcher, was incredibly inspirational. I laughed and cried a lot during his talk. But I actually took notes during the other two keynotes.

One fun tidbit... Cassandra Claire gave one of the keynotes and I think one could argue that she's more of a romance writer than she is a children's writer... But that's the thing with YA: Children's publishers worry less about putting books in genre boxes... But what Claire talked about during her keynote was forbidden love and love triangles -- a talk that would not have been out of place at an RWA conference. And the SCBWI crowd (many of whom I'm sure would scoff at romance as a genre) ate it up.

Workshops and Panels

This is where the two conferences varied the most. It was set up completely differently and both ways have their pros and cons. At the RWA National conference, any member can propose a workshop and during each time slot there are probably 10-15 choices. Some talks will be awesome. Some will suck. Some will be just a chance for fans to fawn.

At the SCBWI conference, there were fewer workshop options, only three "breakout" times, and each workshop was offered during each time slot. That is, the presenters, gave the same talk 3 times to 3 different groups. This meant less choice, but it also meant that the quality of the presenters was much higher.

I was a bit worried, to be honest, when I saw the line up of workshops/speakers. Worried that the workshops would all be super generic and too basic, because almost all of the breakouts for writers were being given by agents or editors. And my experience at conferences (RWA ones and general writing ones) is that the agents and editors who give workshops often don't prepare, and instead wing it, mostly answering questions. And one can't blame them for winging it because they get asked dumb questions so tend to glaze over things, repeating: "Just write a good book," over and over and over. At this conference, no one let them get away with that. In fact, on the big editor and agent panels, which were for the entire 1100 people, not in breakouts, the moderator told them ahead of time that "just write a good book" was not an acceptable answer to any of her questions. :)

But in spite of my worrying, I got a ton out of all 3 of the workshops I attended. One, I admit, was fairly high-level basic information about the YA genre, but was well timed for me, because I'm giving a talk for Toronto Romance Writers on the YA genre in April, so I was taking tons of notes. The other two breakouts I went to were AMAZING.

One was on Thrillers by agent Sarah Davies. Top notch. If I parsed through every word, I think I'd heard most of it before in some form or another, but it was super-well organized and just what I wanted to hear right now.

The other was on revisions, by editor Cheryl Klein. Smart, smart woman. Wow. I've been to at least a half dozen workshops on revising over the years and have read at least two full books on the topic, so I wasn't sure I'd get much out of it, but she was awesome. I think hearing this stuff from an editor (rather than a writer), and from an editor of a fairly literary imprint (Arthur Levine Books) versus a genre fiction editor was amazing. That first part because I think writers tend to bias their talks toward what works for them, their "method", rather than being objective and/or talking about the big picture enough... And the second part because I was glad to hear her say the same things we hear in the genre fiction world: Tighten up your prose. Be clear. Make every scene, every character, every word count. And she mentioned Jennifer Crusie's collage technique and how much she loves her books. :) Her suggestions for the big picture stuff was awesome too. She calls revisions re-visioning.

Workshops for Published Authors

During the core part of the conference, there wasn't really anything specifically aimed at published authors. It clearly was a conference about getting published. But the day before the conference started they had full day "intensives". The one I went to was "Marketing for Professional Writers" and I have to say, it was one of the best learning days I've had at a writers' conference. I thought my head was going to explode. But perhaps that's mostly because I know I need to start thinking about these things for my upcoming release...

The other "intensive" choice for writers was a full day critique session. I didn't go to that, (chose marketing instead), but it also seems like an intense, but awesome experience. Basically participants bring 18 copies of the first 2 pages of their work. Then they are put into two different critique circles of 8-9 people, one of which, each time, is an agent or editor. So, by the end of the day, you've received and given crits from/to about 18 people and at least two agents or editors have seen your writing and had a chance to make a request or not. Intense. Beneficial, I'm sure. And to listen to a professional crit of that many bits of writing. Awesome, I'm sure.

Overall, I don't think I can pick a winner. The organizations seem very different, but on the other hand both are extremely supportive and encouraging.

D'oh! Just what a needed.... Another annual conference to get addicted to!

On that topic... Molly and I had a workshop proposal accepted for RWA in Anaheim this summer! So, guess I'll be going again, even though I arguably haven't written a romance since 2003. :)  RWA, why can't I quit you?

It ain't easy bein' cheesy

I am, in life, a big sentimental fool. I cry at the drop of a hat. One Thanksgiving, the kids took bets not on whether or not I'd cry, but on precisely when. Sadly I didn't even make it to the toast that year.

In front of a TV or a movie screen or reading a book? I am made of much tougher stuff. Sentimental hooey general doesn't get me. So will someone please explain to me why I was reduced to tears at the end of the Terra Nova season finale? A little girl gives the tough as nails commander a hug and tells him to let her know if he needs another one. I'm getting all verklempt here just typing about it. Ridiculous!

But they got me. I suppose part of it is that the commander is my favorite character in the show. Maybe it's an age thing and I feel a little past lusting after Jason O'Mara although he's definitely cute as a bug. Maybe it's the unexpected tenderness he shows to children despite his total tough guy thing. Maybe it's the man's biceps because those are truly things of beauty. Whatever. I love him.

At the end of that finale, he is beyond comfort. He has won, but has lost so much in doing it. He is utterly alone although he is surrounded by people. A little girl hugs him and I'm completely undone. If you had told me it would make me cry, I would have scoffed at you.

So . . . has anything unexpectedly made you cry recently? Or is there something that ALWAYS makes you cry?

FREE COPIES OF CAN'T BUY ME LOVE!!

This is going to be short and sweet, because Sinead fixed my book this weekend and suddenly I have so much work to do! Proof once again Sinead is both a blessing and a curse.

But I'm going to give away three free copies of Can't Buy Me Love to some lucky commentor anytime this week.

Also Bantam is doing a HUGE giveaway on Goodreads

While you're there you can sign up to win a free copy of Cecilia Grant's fabulous debut A Lady Awakened...

So, get some free books!

The same story - vastly different results

Have I mentioned how much I love my kindle. Well, let me repeat it. I do and here is one significant reason. Backlists, a lot of author backlists are now available on kindle at reduced prices. So if I hear even a hint of a good review for an author, I'll check their backlist and buy the book that most appeals to me.
It's a great way of discovering new authors, and finding books that might not be available in my local bookstore or that I missed the first time around.
In doing so, I bought a historical romance with a lower class thief for a heroine and a hero who needs her to act like she's always been nobility. And then Molly handed me a romance by another author with almost that exact same storyline.
The same storyline told by two different authors. Fun, right, to see how voice can affect a story. It's hard not to make direct comparisons, which have not been kind to one of the stories.
One is rich, beautifully detailed, grounded in realistic details and really engrossing. Both the hero and heroine are fascinating, well written and imperfect, with great internal conflict.
The other is cute. The heroine is cute, perfect, gets along with everyone and the hero is a little bland and the story itself is exactly what you expect all the way through. And read by itself it would be fine, but in comparison it's plain white rice next to mushroom risotto.
The difference between the two is characterization and detail. One heroine immediately becomes the perfect lady, almost without effort and with little conflict. The other struggles to find a way to fit into both worlds and the choice is inherent with conflict for both leads. In one every opportunity for conflict is capitalized on and in the other, conflict, what conflict, everyone is so nice.
It's been an interesting experiment. One I might definitely repeat.

Poof Magic

So I was talking to Molly the other day saying how I needed to come up with a bunch of new ideas for my editor. This is new for me. Usually I’m a one idea at a time girl. By the middle of the book I’m working on, I usually come up with what I want to do next. I can honestly say it’s kept me steadily writing for years. But it hasn’t always made me the best category writer.

I wrote comedies, then I felt like doing a suspense, then I felt like doing a golf book, then I decided I wanted to write weird historicals.

This has resulted in a lot of complete books. But not a lot of progress in my career. Now part of this wasn’t always my fault. I had several lines close on me which forced me to change gear, but still I have to own up to the fact that I’m a little bit of a writing wanderer.

However, now for the first time in the 20 years I’ve been writing I’ve been asked to think of a bunch of ideas at once. For moments my brain froze. Multiple ideas didn’t compute. Sure I had vague thoughts of what I wanted to do, but the idea of trying to really pull out concrete stories seemed incredibly daunting.

I could no longer rely on my poof magic just happening out of the blue. I was actually going to have to deliberately call on it like a genie in a bottle.

Let me explain - Poof Magic is my very scientific writing process. I think conceptually about the type of relationship dynamic I want to explore….wait for it and then… Poof, magic. The couple pops into my head. Then they live there for a while simmering and eventually I start to see those movie trailer flashes that lead me to the perimeter of what their story is.

The idea of using poof magic for several ideas at once… craziness. I had this very logical and rational fear I would fizzle it out if I over used it.

Surprisingly, poof magic has come through. I need only one more couple to show up and then I plan to just let them all simmer simultaneously. Like four different pots on four different burners all working toward a common goal. Which for me means a little forward career momentum.

I’m sure we’ve all talked about our process before, but I would also love to hear from some lurkers… Another classic writer questios.... Where do your ideas come from?

MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!

I am writing the short story that would not end. Will. Not. End. It's my own fault. I went into it with a premise I liked, but not a lot of structure. It took off on me and I'm having a great time with the characters and the dialogue, but I'm nearing 10,000 words and it's not ending.

My darling Andy pointed out that it might be helpful if I knew how I wanted it to end and I do think that's part of the problem. There's really only one good ending. The bad guy has to die. He's a threat that can never be neutralized. He's driven, he's got nothing to lose and he feels that he's on the side of the angels.

I don't think I can stand to kill him, though. I know what happened to him. I know the horror of it all. I know he's certain that he's out slaying the dragons that threaten all that's good and pure about our world. How can I kill him?

The problem is, how can I not kill him?

And so the story keeps going. Help me. Please.

Why is Brad Pitt always eating?

Husband and I watched Moneyball this weekend - and I do believe Sinead's house did too! It's a great movie, totally engrossing, enlightening and entertaining. Highly recommend. And I have to say as Brad Pitt ages, he's becoming a better actor - or maybe he's getting better roles suited to his strengths (which are not long speeches, stir the troops, or declare the love or explain the mysteries of the universe - no, he's not good at that).

But, he's got pretty great comic timing and he can be still when he needs to be, which is something not a lot of actors can do. He's got great chemistry with men, even Jonah Hill, there were wonderful believable moments in this Mutt and Jeff relationship. And I think his best skill is his physicality. When he's moving, doing something, he's great. Smashing things up with a baseball batt, destroying enemy soliders, twitching and ticking through 12 Monkeys, bare fist brawling with an Irish accent, as a gum-chewing, goofy dancing trainer in Burn After Reading - give him something to do and the guy sings.

Which is why in contemporary movies, the guy is always eating. The Ocean's movies, and now Moneyball. Endless scenes with the busy working of dipping french fires in ketchup or shrimp in cocktail sauce.

Perhaps the argument is - people eat. All the time. At the very least three times a day. Which reminds me of something Wanda Ottewell told me in the very beginning of my career, when I CONSTANTLY had people eating or taking showers. "Because people do it all the time, we don't need to see it." Unless it means something, obviously. But busy work does not make good reading.

And I think it's time Brad Pitt found something else to do with his hands, because it was the only distracting thing in that movie....

Would you rather write one great book, or three good ones?

Long title, but I've been thinking about some of the great books I've been reading lately, or looking forward to reading soon. A lot of these books are first books, where the author had years to polish and revise, or they have been from authors who took a solid year, or even more to get the book to where they are happy with it.

I just finished the Cecilia Grant book and it's exactly how Molly described it, surprising, fun, beautifully written and very different from any other historical on the market. The same with Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races, it's go gorgeous that it's intimidating to other writers out there, and so beautifully crafted, and I've skimmed her blog to find out how long it took her to write it, but can't find out and don't have the time to do any more research, but it reads like it took her three years to write it.

Joanne Bourne takes a year to write a book, Sherry Thomas takes almost as much time and I feel like their books really show this. And they have the luxury of time. I know a lot of authors that need to write more than one book a year, more than two really, especially in romance, where advances are low and building a readership means three books a year on the shelves.

And some authors write amazing books in three months, and I'm intensely jealous of them. A lot though, write competent books in three months. And a lot of readers are probably thrilled with competent. As writers, we get excited about the books that surprise us, give us something new and unexpected, something impeccably crafted. Books that get a lot of buzz in the writing community. Buzz that can push a book's sales, or not.

We all know of authors that were intensely admired by writers and bloggers, who never hit a list.

Or do we just learn to write better in less time?

Downton Abbey and Pacing

Is anyone else watching this show? It’s a Masterpiece theater show that follows the life of an Earl and his family at their family estate, Downton Abbey.

If you are at all a fan of historical romance I highly recommend this show. It’s more soap opera in feel but it’s so spot on the with the details of the period that you get completely lost in it. The clothes are spectacular. The second season is set two years into WWI. And I really hope editors are watching this show (I know my agent loves it) because it’s about time we focus on other periods besides Regency with a dab of Victorian.

This period is so ripe with drama. You’ve got the class structure still in place but there are cracks as socialism is starting to take hold. You’ve got women gaining power and fighting for the right to vote. You’ve got the war and the impact it’s having on the people in England. All of it fabulous!

But forgetting all the juicy story lines that are happening in this show, I took a moment when I was watching it the other night to marvel at the pacing. Ever since I hooked up with DWT I’ve been more focused on craft. I’ve learned that movies, TV and books aren’t just entertainment anymore. They are learning tools. Especially the good ones.

What makes DA so completely enthralling (I think) is the way they move from story line to story line and with each jump something “big” happens. There is always a secret revealed, love is expressed, hate is exposed, a new intrigue is developing. There is not one minute of downtime, or a scene for a scene’s sake, or a scene that explains or recaps another scene. It just goes, constantly, in one direction at full speed.

By the end of an hour your head is spinning and you love it. I’m near the end of my WIP that’s due February 1st. And as I edit I really really want to keep Downton Abbey in mind.

Obsessing

I've been working on my line edits for Deviant and gaining further evidence of my insanity. :)

Those of you who've followed this blog over the years (we have our SIXTH anniversary for Drunk Writer Talk this summer, I think...) Anyway, you may have heard me say before that editing and polishing the words is one of my favorite parts of the writing process. Second only to first drafting when (if) the words and ideas are flowing out of my fingers like magic.

But I'm learning that polishing/fine tuning can be the most angst ridden part, too. Yes, I do already have two books in print, but they were done on a write-for-hire basis, and very quickly and I didn't feel as if I really had final say over the text, even though my name is on the covers.

This new book... This is mine. This is a big deal. This is a book that (I hope) more people will read. This is a book that (I hope) more people will review.

And I have been making myself crazy obsessing over the words.

Does anyone else get like this?

Not a Thought in My Pretty Little Head

I've got nothing. I don't know why. I just don't. I've read a bunch of good books lately. I'm reading John Lescroat's The Hunter right now. It's awesome. Smart. Emotional. I wish I could do setting like he does. I read Catriona MacPherson's After the Armistice Ball. Also great atmosphere. Great dialogue. Oh, and Harlan Coben's Caught. Love his dialogue and pace.

I don't think I have anything to say about any of them, though, except I liked them.

On TV, I'm thrilled with the continuation of The Good Wife. I love the palace intrigue of the law office and the cases they work on. Incredible characters. Great conflicts. Don't have anything to say about it, though. I'm not so sure I like House of Lies. I've only watched the first one and maybe the people will become less reprehensible, but I think not. I'll give it one or two more episodes, but I don't have anything to say about it either.

I watched a funny little indie movie called happythankyoumoreplease. A little sweet. A little charming. But I got nothin'.

I'm writing. It's going fine one some days. Not so fine on others. I need more time without interruptions. I need to be stricter with myself and my friends and my family. That's all I have to say about that, though.

Help me, please. Get me started. Somebody say something.

Unravelling Eileen Cook

Since Molly's on vacation today, I'm going to assume she isn't posting and hijack the blog.

I interviewed the fabulous and honorary drunk writer, Eileen Cook, on another blog today about herself and her fabulous new book UNRAVELING ISOBEL.

Here's a link to the interview:  LINK

A random commenter over there will win a book! It's lonely over there this morning. Stop by and say hi. :)

Making something really familiar feel fresh

It's been a slow start to reading for me in 2012, but I have this sense that it's going to be a great year for books and creatively, so I have nothing but great anticipation going into this year.

The book I'm reading right now is Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and it's flawed. Not every scene is absolutely necessary, it jumps about a little and parts of it feel a little like the author is still learning the nuts and bolts of craft, but it reads completely fresh in the genre and I think that's why it's getting so much buzz.

From the location to the plot points, it does not seem familiar to me and I've read a lot of YA over the past two years. The protagonist is interesting, but it's not her, it's what happens and how and the elements she introduces them and how. I'm guessing on all of this, but it seems as I read this book, that the author hadn't read a lot of YA going into the writing of this book and that's why it seems different.

And truly, I have no idea where she's taking me, which in itself, is exciting. It's not that she's reversing my expectations, it's that the story is progressing in a way that I can't predict and so I don't have any idea where a scene will play out.

Which is fun and I suspect why so many editors and agents love this book.

And on another note - Game of Thrones Season 2 - starts April 1st. Anyone else excited. Molly, I still have your copy of that...

Why Tim Tebow is a fictional hero...

I don’t know how many of our readers follow American Football – but if you do, Tim Tebow is the America’s newest fascination. If you don’t follow football and you’re wondering what all those strange pictures are of people kneeling in seemingly odd places… that’s the phenomena known as Tebowing.

As a sports nut and a writer – this guy fascinates me.

Here are the facts. He is not a proto-typical quarterback. He runs more than he throws, he misses receivers more than he finds them. He can only throw so far. And he doesn’t have what’s known as “touch” on the ball. Not to mention a very slow throwing motion and bad footwork.

But this is the other fact: he finds ways to win in clutch situations. He’s had I believe four 4th quarter comebacks in his 8 wins. He just won his first playoff game in OT against a team none of the professional analysts said he could beat.

People either love him… and I mean really love him. Or hate him. And I mean really hate him.

Some people don’t like the idea that someone less talented has a job someone else could do. Some people think he’s just lucky. Other’s think God is on his side. He’s very religious and very open about it. That kneeling motion is no joke. But some people think he flaunts his beliefs in their faces.

So why is he such a sudden star?

I think I finally figured it out. Tim Tebow is Luke Skywalker. Tim Tebow is Harry Potter. Sports in my opinion has always been about the drama and this guy has arrived as an unlikely hero and people are rallying behind him.

Of course there are obstacles. Every good hero has them because he needs something to leap over.

His detractors are numerous. Not just the analysts but other professional players have mocked him and his game. A future hall of fame linebacker when asked about Tim said he was a good “running” back – obviously mocking his talent as a quarterback. To that Tim said, “I take any compliment from a future hall of famer as a great honor.” AND HE MEANT IT!

What makes Tim Tebow special is his innate goodness. He’s sincere and real and … really really good. When asked what was the highlight for him of his overtime win against Pittsburg he said, “Bringing joy to a little girl who in her short life has had 73 surgeries. Because that’s what’s important.” AND HE MEANT IT!

In our stories we want to see good triumph over evil. And in a time of a bad economy, where coaching legends turn out to be pedophiles and baseball legends are drug users… on to the stage steps this weird guy who for whatever reason has captured our attention.

Just like any good hero out of any great story.

I will be watching Tim against the Patriots this week. I will be rooting for him with everything I have. I don’t think they stand a chance against Brady and the Patriots… but what if our hero wins again?

It’s going to make for a great story.

What do you all think? Do you know about Tim? Do you secretly Tebow in the shower? Come on… you can tell us.

And just because I haven’t heard anything – Kristin Fischer you were the winner last week. If you want to claim your prize you can reach me at www.stephaniedoyle.net.

Starbuck

No, this isn't a flashback post about one of our favorite topics of years past -- Battlestar Galactica -- it's a post about a great movie I saw last night that I expect very few if any of you have heard of or seen, unless you live in Quebec.

The movie's called Starbuck and I can't remember when I last had such an unexpectedly good time at the movies. After I got out of jury duty this afternoon, I went down to the TIFF building just to see the Grace Kelly exhibit before it closes... and this movie was starting in an hour and I'd remember people raving about it during the festival this year, so thought I'd check it out.

The star is Patrick Huard who's not well known outside of Quebec, although according to the programmer who introduced the film, he's just about the biggest movie star in Quebec TV and film these days. I saw him a few years ago in the Canadian film Bon Cop/Bad Cop, which could have been fabulous, but was just kind of okay... But this post isn't about that movie, one that frankly was trying too hard to be "Canadian". This post is about Starbuck, which wasn't trying to be anything but funny and heartwarming and succeeded at both.

I'm trying to analyze Starbuck from a DWT perspective, but honestly, I think I'd have to see it again. I think there's something to learn about introducing a less than heroic character, but I can't 100% remember how the character was introduced. No, that's a lie. We first see him about 20 years before the story starts, jerking off at a sperm donor clinic... But then I can't remember what came next, (oh, that pun was not intended!), except that I started laughing out loud (really loud) soon after the movie began, and also teared up at least twice near the end. For me, that sums up an perfect comedy movie experience.

The premise is a tad ridiculous and some of the ways in which the story develops aren't plausible, but it's so funny and has so much heart, you don't care. The premise is this affable 40-something screw up who's just learned his girlfriend is pregnant at the same time she breaks up with him for being a screw up (oh, and some loan sharks are beating him up daily for the $80,000 he owes them, and he's trying to start a grow-op, but doesn't have a green thumb and his plants are dying...) Anyway, things are already not going well for this guy when he's visited by a lawyer who tells him that based on all the sperm donations he made back in the late 80's, using only the name "Starbuck", he's fathered 533 children, 148 of whom have filed a class action lawsuit to force the clinic to divulge his identity.

In one of the implausible plot points (which honestly, you just slide) the lawyer hands him an envelope with a profile and photo of each of the 148 young adults he's fathered who want to meet him, and after realizing some of them turned out well (the first is a famous pro-soccer player) he decides to visit (stalk) more of them and be like a guardian angel to as many of them as he can.

Of course, it doesn't go how he plans, but what enfolds is just so funny and so sweet... And Patrick Huard is beyond hot. These photos don't do him justice... You really need to see him in his soccer shorts to fully appreciate the hotness. ;)

Okay, here's a photo I found of him, but not from this movie... Are you getting it now?

The film is in French with subtitles but so worth that tiny bit of extra effort. It's really, really funny. I have no idea how easy it will be to track this one down. imdb.com only lists release dates for France and Belguim right now, later this year... Looks like it screened in Quebec last summer...

But if this one comes to a theater near you that plays foreign language films, it's seriously worth checking out.

If a movie is really funny, I think I can forgive some implausible developments... like court cases happening almost over night... How about you? How many "mistakes" can a movie or book make before you're done with it?

5 Things Not to Say to an Author

I am offering this post as a public service both to authors and the people around them. I am the first to admit that we authors can be a tad on the sensitive side. Honestly, we wouldn't be able to do what we do if we weren't. We feel deeply. While we have no choice but to develop thick skins when it comes to the public in terms of reviews and public commentary, it's not always so easy to toughen up that epidermis in social situations. I am offering a list for any of you out there who know an author and would prefer not to have him or her seething or plunged into despair after an encounter with you.

This came up because of an encounter at a book signing I recently attended. The author is a hugely successful (like fourteen or fifteen times at the top of the NY Times Bestseller list successful) guy who lives in my town. He's also a total sweetheart and very supportive and helpful to other authors. I went to try to be supportive back (not that he needs it, but you know what I mean). The signing was huge. Packed. Bigger than any of his other signings I've attended and I've been to probably all the local ones over the past three or four years. We ran into an acquaintance there who said, "So, Eileen, are your book signings this big?"

I was completely floored. My sweet and somewhat clueless sweetheart launched into something about how well-attended my signings are, but I was really stung. What was I supposed to say? No, I'm not as successful as John and probably never will be. It seemed rude to point it out, especially in front of an audience. My honey contends that it wasn't meant as an insult, but was just a casual and thoughtless remark. It still was hurtful, though. Here's a list of a few more casual remarks that tend to leave me gnashing my teeth.

1) Wow. You're really cranking those books out.

I understand that you're trying to say that I'm prolific, but what you're implying is that I'm like a factory. My books are not widgets. I do not crank them out. I work very hard to produce a book a year and sometimes more. I'm crafting, revising, plotting and thinking. Not cranking.

2) You should send your book to Oprah!

I don't get this one as much anymore as most people realize that Oprah is now off the air, but for Pete's sake, really? Do you think the book isn't sent out for promotion? Don't you realize how many people send books to Oprah or Kelly Ripa or any of those celebrities? Do you honestly think that's a helpful hint that no one's considered?

3) Do a lot of research for those books?

Honestly, I've only gotten this one once, but it really stands out as incredibly offensive since we were at a school function and he said it while staring at my boobs which I realize are magnificent, but really?

4) I'll read your book and then I'll tell you what I think of it.

Then the next day I'll stop by your office and tell you how I think you're doing your job, 'kay?

5) So are your books self-published?

This one is slowly leaving my offensive list with the rise of e-pubbing, but it used to drive me nuts. I would not tell you I was a published author if I was self-published. Why are you assuming that no publishing house would want my work? How about just asking what publishing house(s) I write for?

I know there are more, but these are the ones that I can come up with off the top of my head. Any others out there?

Cage Match: Cecilia Grant's A Lady Awakened vs Joanna Bourne's The Black Hawk

For Christmas this year I gave my son a series of books called "Who Will Win?" It's sort of like a Deadliest Warrior for animals. Like if a Tiger and a Lion would fight, who would win? T-Rex and a Velociraptor? In the only one I've actually read a Polar Bear and a Grizzly Bear duke it out, but it ends up as a tie - the two are too evenly matched.

That's how this cage match is going to go for me, these two books are too evenly matched, but I REALLY want to talk about them.

These books rocked my world. They are totally different, Bourne's is an intricate historical spy novel and Grant's is an intricate historical landowner novel. Not kidding. Landowner.

But as different as these two plots are, in each book the plots are utterly key to the romance. Each character being (or becoming) GOOD at thier jobs was a big part of why the characters fall in love. So, Bourne's book wasn't just a romance with a dangerous espionage suspense plot thrown in - the plot and it's details ware crucial to what keep the leads together and throw them apart. And again, it wasn't vague. It wasn't easy. She's a French spy. He's an English spy. She shoots him, vows to kill him at one point. And we BELIEVE it. We believe she hates him as much as she loves him. Deeeeeeelicious.

Same with Grant - this wasn't a story with a wall paper village life. The character's attatchment and involvment with the land created the turning points that made the love believable. Made the love possible. Cheese, actually makes the love possible.

And because the non-romance plots are so nuanced and detailed and so tied to character growth - the romance is nuanced and detailed and tied to chracter growth.

To some extent this seems like a no-brainer, but in EVERY SINGLE BOOK I WRITE - I get bored writing about the "life stuff" the subplots about jobs and family that create a characters sense of self-worth. I kind of want to yada yada that stuff.

But Grant and Bourne take thier time. They totally commit to these "job" scenes. You can't skim this stuff like so many historical romances.

Grant's book challanges every single expectation, it zigs and zags. Bourne keeps us climbing deliciously upward, ratcheting up tension.

Both are difficult to put down, both are two of the best books I've read this year.

Best supporting characters

One of the new shows I've started watching is Suburgatory. I love that the humour is dry and the main narrator is a snarky teenage girl, a fish out of water type and that her single Dad is drool worthy, but what I love most about the show is the Cheryl Hines character, Dallas.

At first glance she is the typical rich, suburban housewife. Enhanced, clueless and a little batty, but Hines brings such a sweet vulnerability to everything, a real sense that she only wants to be a help to those around her and I'm not sure if the character was written as such, or if Hines brought it to the screen, but she is utterly compelling.

A character that could so easily have been cliche is the best surprise about the show. When Hines fell for the single Dad, with just an expression, we could see her hope, her heartbreak and even a hint of pride, all without dialogue.

I know in the past I've wasted my supporting characters, I haven't thought enough about them, gifted them with surprise elements or taken them past just being support to the main characters or possible heros and heroine's in future books, but going forward, I'm going to try and pull a Suburgatory. Because we should all have a Cheryl Hines in our books, or at least try to.

And I finally got my replacement kindle. So excited about the reading ahead of me. The first is Cecilia Grant.

And the winner is...

Kristin Noel Fischer! Congratulations.

Kristin if you either want to leave your email address in comments or you can contact me through www.stephaniedoyle.net I'll arrange to send you your gift card.

Happy Reading!

Last call for Free Stuff and Chemistry

Just a reminder I’ll be announcing the winner of the $20 Amazon gift card later today. And today’s comments still count so feel free to say anything that moves you. At the end of the day (that’s 5:00 pm est) I’ll put all the non DWT writer comments in a hat and draw. Good luck!

Now onto my thoughts for the day. I’m reading a book now where a reviewer made the comment that she liked both of the characters but didn’t necessarily buy them together. As I’m reading the book this does make sense to me. All the pieces are there but for some reason I’m just not getting that click. And I don’t know why.

As a writer of romance obviously I need to make sure the click happens. Naturally I’m starting to obsess about it. I tried to break it down analytically by reading different stories where for me the chemistry just leapt off the page.

An easy example - kicking it old school - I’ll use Nora Roberts. In her first “In Death” book Eve and Rourke meet and there it is. That magic moment when they are standing at the funeral and you realize he’s found the button off her drab grey suit. As a reader you just know these two want each other. It’s not overdone, it’s not obvious. It’s just there somehow on the page.

I went back and re-read the early chapters of my current WIP and yeah, I really feel this chemistry between my hero and heroine in spades. Somehow it’s just there. Yeah me!

But then I went back and read some of my other stuff and … yeah not so much. Boooo… I suck.

It’s not that the book sucks. The characters, their development, their growth… all that’s there. And yes you get to a point where you can feel the love between them – at least I hope. But that’s not the same thing as chemistry.

Chemistry is the click. It’s the thing that makes you look at a person and decide you want to take your clothes off in front of him. You can write words like lust, and tension, and desire. But for whatever reason sometimes that works and sometimes it just doesn’t. No click.

The editor in me – I obviously wasn’t able to see this flaw. I hope by having this new couple show me the way I’ll be able to recognize it going forward. But I don’t know. Can we ever see the click as we're writing our own stuff?

Is it the characters? Is it the writing? Is it the way we set the couple up? Who knows! What do you all think?

When Flawed is Good Enough

I'm reading a YA novel right now that I shall not name, but it was one of the big anticipated books of 2011 and while I don't think it hit high on any bestseller lists (or as high as it was expected to) it did pretty well.

I can't quite decide what I think about this book. (Am waiting for Sinead to finish it, so we can discuss.) In parts it's amazing and creative. In parts it seems cliched. Parts are graceful and breathtakingly beautiful. Parts are clunky and awkward. Parts I've skimmed. (I'm not a skimmer.) And ultimately I've decided, reading it through writer's eyes, that the author, while clearly very talented, didn't know that much about writing. I'm guessing she didn't go through the "apprenticeship" that many of us go through writing multiple books that gather rejections and criticism through which we learn the craft of writing.

But the book is entertaining. And I keep turning the pages. So like other bestsellers that weren't considered "well written" clearly the story is making up for the muddy POV's, the occasional lazy choices, like repeating the same scene from two different points of view, or adding of a random POV for no reason other than to explain something she couldn't figure out a better way to explain... The things that stand out like sore thumbs to me as a fellow writer.

It almost makes me think I've wasted my time learning all that I have about "good" writing. But then I remember. I actually care. I know not everyone will like or appreciate my style or agree with my choices in storytelling, but no matter what criticism I hear in reviews, I know why I made the decisions I made in my books.

And in contrast, a study in perfection... I saw an absolutely wonderful film tonight that I highly recommend. Do not let the fact that it's a silent film made by a French filmmaker scare you off. It's very commercial and very entertaining and at its core is a really simple and believable and very sweet romance. Of course I'm talking about The Artist. The lead actor, Jean Dujardin, is favored to get an Oscar nomination and if I had a vote I agree. I'd also nominate the jack russell terrier in the movie for best supporting actor. Awesome.

I don't believe in writer's block

I don't. I really don't. I think it's . . .self-indulgent. Yet, I've spent the last two weeks not making any progress on my book.

Oh, there are reasons. Holidays. Kids. Mother. News I didn't like that set me back on my heels a bit. But I've never been this clabbered up for this long. Never.

I tried outlining. I spent quite a few hours looking at my current favorite plot structure craft book. Then I played a bunch of spider solitaire. Let me tell you, it didn't leave me feeling better about myself or my book.

I've now been reduced to just making a list of scenes that need to be written. Usually that gets my juices flowing. I'm still playing solitaire although the juices are starting to trickle.

So I lay it on me people. It's the start of a new year. What are you favorite ways to unstick and unblock yourself? I need info!

A very Kindle Christmas

I am a really nostalgic person. And for me the act of reading a book in my bed is part nostaliga part habit. All love. And when I asked for a Kindle I thought primarily it would be helpful with my critique group so I wouldn't be reading manuscripts on my computer. Because there was no way that a Kindle was better than reading a book.

And it's not. Not really. What it is however is way better than how I usually buy books. Like, hugely better. Like the best thing ever. I never get to book stores - I live in a huge city and love bookstores, but I never get there. SO, for years I've done most of my book shopping on line. And then waited for the books to arrive.

But I am a junkie. A filthy dirty reading junkie. I am Bubbles with books - a heart of gold, yes, but I will do anything to get my next fix.

Having a kindle is like living with a dealer.

Since getting my Kindle the day after Christmas, I have read Cecilia Grant's AMAZING! Truly truly amazing A Lady Awakened (I can't wait to talk about this, so hurry up and read it guys!) Courtney Milan's self-published Novella and novel. I've started Joanna Bournes' Black Hawk. And Stephen King's latest.

And there's no way I'm the only one like this - buying books like crazy. Full-priced, mostly agency books. Those three million Kindle's sold in the weeks before Christmas are an exciting reality. I'm not sure what it will all mean, but for me it means more books, faster. My habit and the habit of at least three million other readers will only get worse. I mean better. Or something.

How about you guys? Kindle Christmas?

In Preparation for the New Year...

So every year I make a list of things I want to accomplish in the next year. Usually stupid mundane things, get my carpet’s cleaned, take golf lessons, learn French… that kind of thing. I’m horrible at resolutions so I’ve basically just given those up.

I always want to eat better, drink less, exercise and write more. Since they are a given – I don’t even bother to write them down anymore.

Last year I had one very big goal which I finally accomplished at the end of the year. The Toronto DWT girls will remember my adventurous trip to San Francisco.

For 2012 though I’ve been floundering. This is what I have so far…

1. I want a repeat of my adventures in San Francisco – any city is fine.
2. I want to write 3 books.
3. I want to start a face care regime. Because at 41 let’s face it, every woman needs a face care regime.

That’s it. Seems pretty pathetic. I don’t know if it’s because as I get older I find that I’ve done a lot of things I’ve already wanted to do, or if I’m just particularly unmotivated this year.

I don’t know which is more depressing.

Anyway I figured I would throw it out to all of you – any resolutions or plans for the new year? Any hobbies you find yourself wanting to take up? This way I can steal from all of you.

And don’t forget the chance to win an Amazon $20 gift certificate is still out there. Leave a comment on any blog post from now until January 5th. I plan to just pick a random day, and from there a random comment.

Got Game

In 2003 Annika Sorenstam played in a men's PGA tour event and made history as the first female golfer to play in a men's tournament in over half a century.

I had never watched golf before that, but I watched that tournament and heard some of the commentators speak about her in patronizing terms, some supportive, but no one really thought she could win, and I'm not sure she ever thought she could win and I can't imagine the pressure on her.

But at the time, I remember thinking, it would be cool to read a book about this, but with the ending changed. I even half-heartedly told my fellow drunk writers about the golf book I thought would be great to write, but truly, I would never have done it justice.

But my friend Stephanie has. A golf book where the female golfer not only plays, but believes she can win. And it's awesome. The proper ending to the story that began in 2003. Because hopefully in my lifetime, I'll see a woman playing a major tournament and win.

Stephanie, I'm not sure if I ever asked you, but did you see that tournament, is that what sparked the idea to write this book?

Free Stuff!!!

So is everyone sick of reading about me? I know I am. Turns out I’m not the best at pimping myself. I felt embarrassed if I tweeted more than once a day about my book so I didn’t. And reading all the nice things my fellow bloggers have written about this book and my characters has kept me in a perpetual state of blush….

Or that could be all the red wine I’ve been drinking.

So this is not about Got Game? Or my new website… www.stephaniedoyle.net... Or a shameless effort to get people to come to our website by offering free stuff. (Okay it’s a little about that.)

What it’s really about is finding out what works for readers. We all know advertising is a crapshoot. I can tell you my Goodreads Ad to date is a total failure. 66,000 views, only 18 clicks. So maybe the cover is wrong, or the title isn’t interesting, or my “blurb” sucks. Right now those are intangibles I can’t change – but I can learn from.

But in terms of using social networking I am curious if there may be a trend out there. I can tell you I had an experience where I was following an author who tweeted about her book because the price was reduced along with the link to buy it. From one tweet to the “click here to buy” to my Kindle in seconds. I loved that! Anything that makes buying simpler is a good thing. Anyone else buying books directly from Twitter?

And who doesn’t like free stuff? But would rather have a better chance at a small thing? Like a free book or a gift certificate? Or do you want to take your chances in a big contest like the one the Knight Agency ran where you could win an iPad?

Speak people! To this end I’m offering a $20 gift certificate on Amazon.com. I can’t figure out how to give a free eBook away – but a gift card I can do. And since I’m tired of this being all about me – I’ll be pulling randomly from any comments left from today – all the way through the new year to January 5th.

So for folks busy around the holidays who don’t have time to check the blog and leave a comment you’ll have plenty of time to catch up in the new year.

Stop by, read some other blogs completely unrelated to my book, leave a comment and win a chance at a $20 gift card from Amazon. Or B&N if you are a Nooker and would prefer that.

I have learned there is a way to email a gift card… fabulous. Absolutely fabulous.

Golf and the Long Tail

Gee, that's a strange post title. LOL. But Stephanie's adventure into self-publishing has me thinking about niche markets and the so-called long tail.

I remember several years ago, when Amazon was really picking up as a retailer and e-books were becoming more of a reality, a statistician did a talk at some big publishing event (BEA??) about "the long tail". I wasn't there, just read about it.

I didn't read the material thoroughly but with the help of some flashbacks to stats class, I think I got the basics of what he meant. Think of a bell curve type diagram, with a bulge in the middle and then tapering out to the side. He argued that traditionally publishers could really only publish books they hoped would hit the bulge part of that curve, because they needed to find a lot of readers to make their investment in publishing it back, and also because shelf space in bookstores was so limited (even more limited now) that consumers would have no way of finding books if the number of titles increased exponentially. Even if readers/consumers would be interested in a particular book/product, they'd have no way of finding it.

Then along came retailers like Amazon with unlimited shelf space and search engines got better so that regardless of retailers, we could all find things we were interested in on the internet, with mind-boggling specificity. And then as e-readers became better and cheaper... Well, it all became viable. That is, it became viable to publish books that might be about the long tail, not the bulge. In fact, I believe he was arguing that for the long haul, it's just as good or better to be in the tail than in the bulge. Or that the bulge would smooth out and go away over time? (Need to find the article again. :)

And tons of books that are first deemed "long tail" will end up having tons of commercial appeal. I think Stephanie's Got Game is one of those! But what's really exciting is that she can have success in the long tail.

I think anyone who enjoys a strong heroine, great banter, fabulous characterization, romance, suspense... will love Got Game. And there's absolutely no need to know anything about golf to enjoy this book, but golfers?--especially female golfers--are going to LOVE this book.

I can't wait to see it soar!

Why I Love Steph's Heroines

I'm about 70 pages in to Got Game? and am totally loving it. As always, I can't be content with just enjoying a book. I have to try to figure out why I like it and how the author did what s/he did.

It's probably not the milieu of the story. I don't golf. I live with a golfer which means that I deal with him being gone for hours and hours over the weekend, with him getting up stupid early to get to the golf course, with listening to him obsess about various statistics. I'm happy he has a passion, but seriously, I'm not in love with golf.

It's not the setting. Right now, the heroine is in Nebraska. I grew up in Nebraska. I haven't been back for a very long time. There's a reason.

I'm pretty sure it comes down to Steph's heroines. I'm completely loving Reilly. She's awesome. She's so smart and talented and driven. I want to be like her. But she's vulnerable, too. She's not perfect. Part of what makes her not perfect is the drive and ambition that make her so cool. To make your heroine's vulnerability also be her strength takes a writerly awesomeness that I have to bow down to.

This isn't the first time Steph has done this either. She did it with her book that came out last year. Camille in The Doctor's Deadly Affair? Same dealio. The very thing that makes her a kick ass awesome surgeon is what turns around and bites her squarely in the ass when it comes to her personal life.

Steph did it in the very first book I read by her, too. Talia in The Contestant might actually die because of her fabulous competitive drive, but that's what makes her so completely fabulous.

I'm pretty sure I posted a couple of weeks ago about needing to like someone in a book or a movie or a TV show to want to stick with it. Steph knows how to do that in spades.

I really wanted to come up with a golf metaphor for that last sentence, but hitting a hole in one didn't sound right. Who's got a good golf metaphor for knocking it out of the park?

Stephanie Doyle's GOT GAME!

Well, this is it, release day for GOT GAME! Steph's self-publishing adventure.



I'm hugely envious to tell you the truth. I think this self-publishing model is really only going to be making money for a few select groups of people. 1. Published authors and thier backlist or the manuscript that never got published - Steph's in this group. 2. People who pimp the hell out of thier book - not sure how much Pimping Steph will do, but I imagine it's some. 3. People with niche manuscripts - again, Steph has this one too.

Got Game is a golf romance/women's fiction. It's rich with golf detail, that is relevant and interesting. It's also got Steph's trademark humor and strong female characters.

I'm excited to hear how this works out and I'm sure she'll keep us posted. And, for any of you considering buying it - do it! It's her birthday! She's 25.

PS - winner of Cecilia's book will be announced later today!!!

Cecilia Grant Interview and Book Giveaway

One of my favorite moments from Nationals in recent years was having lunch with Cecilia and our editor Shauna Summers. There was some general chit chat some Friday Night Lights gushing and fine food, but at one moment Shauna started to tell me about Cecilia's book A LADY AWAKENED and she absolutely raved! Raved! And watching Cecilia's face as her editor waxed poetic about her book to another author was utterly priceless. I wish all of us could have a moment like that.

Cecilia's moments with this book have just gotten better. Everyone is talking about A LADY AWAKENED. Dear Author, Smart Bitches, Book List - this book is going to be a big deal. And so is Cecilia. And honestly, it couldn't happen to a nicer, smarter woman.
I was thrilled to get a chance to ask her a few questions and the great news - answer Cecilia's questions at the end and you can win a book!

How did the idea for A Lady Awakened come about? Character first? Conflict first? Do you think about things like high concept or hooks? I ask because the premise for A Lady Awakened is deliciously hooky…a great twist on a familiar hook - it's genius!

Sex first! No, seriously, I avoided writing sex for a long time (I was trying to write trad Regencies long after they went out of fashion), and when I made up my mind to do it, I looked for a premise that would require me to do lots of it, so I couldn’t weasel out.

And I didn’t realize, at first, that I had a high concept or hook. Only after I’d entered some pages in a contest, and got feedback that the premise wasn’t original enough, did I realize that this actually was the hook; that what I needed was to embrace the well-worn nature of the premise, acknowledge reader expectations for that premise, and be deliberate about which expectations I’d meet and which I’d try to turn on their heads.

It's obviously working for you. A Lady Awakened is coming out in Jan to some fantastic buzz. Dear Author, Smart Bitches, Eloisa James! First of all - congrats and I am so thrilled for you! Second - how is this messing with your head? Is it? Or do you find you are able to roll with it?

Thank you. It’s funny; the book has not been universally loved by any means (later in my blog tour I’ll be doing a stop at a site whose reviewer DNF’d it), so I’m keenly aware of how lucky I am that it should have found such enthusiastic support in such high places.

And you know what? It does not mess with my head. Not one bit. There is just no downside to getting good reviews.

I suppose I do worry that for a lot of readers the book won’t live up to the hype, and that, for the readers who loved it, my second and third books will prove to be letdowns, but that’s really just a variation on the basic worry of people not liking your book, and that’s a worry I was going to have no matter what. Any way you slice it, “This book sucks; how the heck did it get a star in Booklist?” beats “Booklist was right; this book totally sucks.”

That is absolutely the most mature and sound answer I've ever heard. You must be saving your neurotic writer tickets for something else. You have lamented that you are not a fast writer - what is your process like? If you could change one thing about your process what would it be? You are working on the third book - is this a series? What's next?

If I could change one thing, it would be to excise the perfectionism from my psyche and cast it into the raging fires of Mount Doom.

Have you heard the building-construction writing analogy? You have to put up the building’s skeleton, or whatever it is, before you start fussing over curtains and paint colors? For a perfectionist it’s not like that. Writing is more like building a brick wall: you need to meticulously place each brick, and you need to get it right, if you want the part you’re working on to support the parts to come. Otherwise you eventually have to take it all down and start over.

Enough about my process. Yes, this is a series, centered on family: Martha, of A Lady Awakened, Will, of A Gentleman Undone, and Nick, of A Book Yet Untitled, are all siblings. All tend to excess when it comes to notions of duty, honor, propriety, etc., and all fall for people who turn their worlds inside out.

I don’t know yet what’s next. I’ve tried to stay away from dukes, which maybe means I should tackle one.

You write complicated women, is that something you do on purpose? Or are you just fascinated by the kind of story complicated women create?

Yes and yes. You always hear about these readers who want an essentially transparent heroine, so that they can ignore her and imagine themselves interacting with the vivid-by-comparison hero, but personally I don’t know anyone who reads romance that way. What I want, and what I think most readers want, is a story of two equally flawed, intricate people discovering that they belong together.

And as a writer, I like the challenge of finding my way into characters whose flaws don’t just potentially put readers off, but put me off too. For example, awhile ago I was reading about Byron-mania, specifically about women who’d disguise themselves as chambermaids to get into Byron’s hotel room. My first thought was, “What kind of idiot woman would do that?” And my next thought was, “I need to write a heroine who does that.” Maybe some day.

That's a great way of looking at character construction - what fascinates you as the writer should fascinate readers as well. You are a Friday Night Lights fan - what are you watching now - anything as good as FNL?

Nothing has come along to take the place of Friday Night Lights. I miss it still. Now I have to spend my Friday nights with creepy Keith Morrison on Dateline, and I think it is warping my brain.

I suppose the show I’m enjoying the most these days is the sitcom Parks and Recreation. If you want to see a beautifully executed romance arc, rent Season 3 and watch geeky, over-earnest small-time bureaucrats Ben and Leslie fall for each other. (Bonus: Leslie’s awesome relationship with BFF Ann.)

Okay - cage match: Meredith Duran vs Courtney Milan and then Joanna Bourne vs Sherry Thomas

Oh, you had to go there.

Courtney Milan happens to be better than pretty much anyone at portraying this one specific thing - men yearning for platonic connection with other people - that I have a huge weakness for. (Think of Ash Turner feeling left out of his brothers’ easy camaraderie, or Gareth Carhart remembering his schooldays, when he could never think of the right thing to add to the other boys’ conversations - oh, the angst!)

However, there’s something about Meredith Duran’s books, aside from the beautiful writing, that just absolutely meshes with my sensibilities. I relate to her characters in a slightly different way from the characters of any other romance writer; I always feel like I could sit down and have long conversations with them. So I give her a slight edge.

The second match-up is even worse. In the past five years there have been exactly two romances that I finished, and then immediately started over again: The Spymaster’s Lady, and Not Quite a Husband. I’d say it’s a toss-up... but I’ve just had a Bourne fix with her excellent The Black Hawk, whereas it’s been a year and a half since the last Thomas book, so... no, actually, that doesn’t help me decide. Call it a draw.

Yeah, it's a draw for me too. All right Drunk Writers answer one of the following questions and you could win a book:

name either a) your favorite flawed heroine, b) your favorite duke hero, or c) the tv show you believe could fill the Friday-Night-Lights-shaped hole in my heart, if I gave it a chance.

And thanks so much Cecilia for stopping by!

My christmas list

So Christmas is a few weeks away and while I'm sweating the presents I still need to buy, the tree I still have to decorate and the Christmas cards I'll feel guilty for not having sent out, I'm putting my own Christmas list together. A sort of, if I had the time, here is where I would spend it.

1) Legend, by Marie Lu. This is a fantasy YA that is getting great buzz and while I know nothing about it, the buzz alone makes me want to read it.

2) Daughter of smoke and bone - an urban fantasy YA, again because of the buzz.

3) Girl with the dragon tattoo - because I'm fascinated to see what Fincher does with the material, and having seen the original Swedish movie and enjoyed it, curious to see if they bring something new. Plus, I've almost always enjoyed Fincher's movies and this one has Daniel Craig.

4) The Descendants - because I hear nothing but great things about this movie.

5) Sherlock Holmes - because the first was so much fun and Robert Downey and Jude Law and are my new favourite onscreen couple.

6 Downton Abbey - Because I love British historical TV dramas and this one has gotten great reviews.

7) Luther - I saw the first two episodes of this and loved it, plus Idris Elba in the title role is incredible. I need to get my hands on this.

There you go. I have my fantasy list where Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Sherry Thomas both manage to get books out in time for Christmas, or Karen Marie Moning writes another urban fantasy in the next month, but that's pretty unlikely.

Right now, I'm happy to go with the above. Throw in a glass of wine and I'm in heaven. Anyone else have a Christmas list?

The Unknown...

So next week I’m about to launch (I think) my indie ebook. I’m waiting until everything is online and then I’m going to start my campaign blitz. I found a great golf blog for women that I want to run an advertisement on (thank you Maureen) and I plan to do a Goodreads ad (thank you Molly).

There are all sorts of suggestions and things I need to do to update my Amazon page. I’m actually going to log on to facebook and do stuff there. And finally I will tweet. (My whopping 48 followers I’m sure will race to buy my book.)

Then I just sit back. It’s very odd to have no expectation of what will come. There was an article in the RWR that painted a fairly grim, but probably accurate, picture of what to expect. But then there are those anomalies that make you think why can’t that be me?

When I put out my category work, I know what to expect. I know there are going to be a set number of readers, a basic number of sales. Yes, they certainly do range for authors – but I get the general idea. When the royalty statement comes I know how much to anticipate (or not anticipate in my case.)

But this feels like stepping my toe out into the great unknown. I could sell no books. I could sell many.

I could attract the attention of a Hollywood Producer (in my dream it’s Sandra Bullock) who decides she must turn my story about the first woman to compete with the men in a major golf event into a movie and I’m offered millions. See how creative my fantasies can be?

I absolutely plan to report back on the numbers for anyone reading this blog who is thinking about self-publishing. But I can say regardless what happens with the numbers, this whole experience has been eye opening. It’s made me think more about the business of writing than I ever have before. And it’s made me think about advertising and promotion and social networking more than I ever have before. If nothing else – it’s made me a better business woman.

Anybody out there have any self-publishing stories they want to share?