Blast From The Past

So this week we are discussing nostalgia and the things we miss. It seems to be the topic of the week everywhere.

I'm not sure that I miss things like the Monchichi's, Smurfs, 80's hair bands, or even the cereals that I might have had but can't find. Mostly, because if I look hard enough, I can find them. There is a BonJovi song that is played when I go to hockey games. There are radio stations through statellite radio or Internet radio that play 80's hair band music, or pop rock, or the 60s-70s music that my parents listened to while I was growing up. I think its the boomerang tv channel that plays cartoons from the 70s and 80s.

So, I don't really miss a whole lot from my childhood, because I can still find it. I do, however, miss the variety animation from them. Parachute pants and rolled jeans - not so much.

Simone.

Shakespearean Fail. I haz it.

I'm fairly certain that not only does the Elizabethan Feline see my shenanigans, but you do, too. I tried to re-imagine a scene from one of my books with Shakespearean dialogue, but my brain was having none of it. Which is a shame since I really wanted to work in the phrase "making the two backed beast." However, I do have Shakespearean kittehs for you instead. Hopefully, it will suffice.

Well...

There are times when I look at the upcoming topics and think to myself..."Well fuck." This is one of those times.

We all perceive the topics differently and I think that is part of what makes this blog so much fun, not just to read but to be a part of. I am often tempted to wait until Simone and Mia post and follow what the direction they take a topic. But I am pre-posting this and will have to wing it on my own.

"Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly at your service." (The Tempest)- The night I met Mr. Rebel I was at a concert with a group of friends. I was on the dance floor, drunk and making an ass of myself. I looked up and saw a guy sitting across the room and everything went kind of fuzzy. I grabbed my best friend's arm and pointed at Mr. Rebel asking if my friend knew who he was. My friend replied "Why?" And I said "Because I'm going to marry that guy." 10 years later we are still together, happily married and madly in love.

"All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity." (Hamlet) - I lost my father in November of 2008. It was the single most heart breaking moment of my entire life. I didn't know pain like that existed. I actually watched the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet a few days after my father passed away. There were many tears shed, but I think the movie became sort of cathartic for me. Though Claudius was a murderer and a horrific person, his line that fathers lost their father and they theirs...it resonated that life is a cycle. It sucks, and it's not fair that my dad was taken way too soon, but death is part of life. A crappy part of life, but there is not much we can do about it.

"Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?" (As You Like It) - Shakespeare was quite tricky when he wrote about sex. Lots of lap dying and such. As an erotica author I don't have the luxury of such purple prose. I may call a penis a 'thing' now and then, but that is considered tame. Whereas with this quote Rosalind is quite tarty for referring to a penis at all. Good on her. Even if at the time she was pretending to be a he pretending to be Rosalind. (If you've never read As You Like It I suggest you do. It's a wonderful play full of quick wit and tarty quips.)

"What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?" (Much Ado About Nothing) - This is my very favorite of all of the Bard's plays. The wit and banter between Beatrice and Benedick makes me laugh every time I read it. Being the witty girl I am I can totally appreciate the two finding love through sharp tongues and sarcasm. Beatrice has always been a role model for me. I learned how to hang with the boys early on thanks to this woman. If you can go toe to toe with men the way she does you'll have no problem being invited to boys night out.

So those are just a few of the quotes from plays that I can apply to my own life. There are many, many more, but I will leave it at this for now. Feel free to share your favorite Shakespeare quotes. I could read them all day long.

"Come, come, we are friends: let's have a dance ere
we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts
and our wives' heels."

What Works For Me…

…Might not work for you. Writing is an individual activity, and like finding your own voice, you need to find your own method as well. That said, I find there are some things that are universally helpful for writing quickly (and all the people earlier this week who said they have no clue, probably use them)

1. What’s your point? I was talking to Bronwyn yesterday and I mentioned how easy it is to come by ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen as they say. They can take you through the first few pages of your book, but what then? What’s the overarching point of the book? Whether you write romance or mystery or sci-fi or techno-thrillers, you need to have a point. Sometimes the point is simple, but you have to have it to go forward. What am I talking about? Some examples from my own writing:

In Two Plus One, the whole point of the story was the heroine’s mental recovery of her self-worth. She’d been handicapped in an accident and had let that color her life.

In Forgotten Family, there was a dual point. Healing from the death of a child, but also, moral acceptance of the family’s lifestyle—that the death wasn’t punishment.

In my BDSM books, the whole overarch is the heroines’ need to find strong men who counteract their strong personalities in daily life. Face it, I’ve never written a wilting heroine and it’s unlikely, I ever will.

So…know your point

2. To the same end, know your characters. If you don’t know the basics about your characters, how can you write about them? I don’t do long drawn out sketches, but I do need to know what drives them and their basic personality types. Two wonderful books on this are GMC by Debra Dixon and The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes and Heroines by Tami Cowden, Caro LaFever and Sue Viders. My copy of the second book is literally falling apart.

3. Before you start, make a road map. Before all you pantzers start moaning “I can’t plot!!!” LISTEN. I never said plot. Write a shopping list of the things you need to do before the end of the book. My household shopping lists, always include milk and eggs. My book shopping list always includes the big black moment and the ending of the book. You can’t write effectively, if you don’t know where you’re going.

4. If you’re writing a series, track details as you go. Nothing will slow you down faster than having to go back and check someone’s name or eye color or a pertinent detail that was previously given. I track my characters, their details and plot notes/revelations in OneNote. Save yourself time and make a note…

5. I use a threefold writing method.

First give yourself permission to just write without self-criticism. While I don’t advocate just writing with no direction, I’d advise reading No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty (the founder of NaNoWriMo). There’s wonderful advice enclosed on just doing it.

Second, and this might seem in opposition to what I just wrote, but every thousand words or so, I back up and re-read what I’ve written and tweak it. The reason this works is because I can write fast, getting down action and dialogue, then I can go back and put in emotion and descriptive detail—and correct typos. This gives me the comfort of going forward without feeling squidgy about a ton of reworking and fixing waiting behind me. I don’t like revisions or second drafts. This is how I write clean first drafts.

Third, the next day, before I start writing, I read what I wrote the day before. It’s a good jumpstart into your new day’s work. You can fix small things (there should be nothing major to correct) and be reminded of where you left off and the feeling you had going there. You’re firmly back in the moment and you don’t have to recapture it.

6. Don’t get hung up on being linear. If a scene further on in the book is begging you to write it—God, please let it be my ending (lol)—by all means WRITE IT. Don’t push off the fire and hope it will be there when you get to that point. You might find if you wait and wait until that point in the story that all you have left is ashes.

So find your method. Make diagrams, draw pictures (or rip them from magazines in the doctor’s office), plot if that’s your thing, make lists… But discover what works for you and do it.

There are shortcuts?

I know this is turning into something of a theme this week - all the authors going Fwuh? But, honestly, I'm not sure I have much in the way of shortcuts. I might have some observations, though.

When I first started writing, I'd write whatever scene was the most vivid in my head. It was rarely the beginning...or the end. I'd just sit down and work on whatever was the most exciting at the time. Then I'd Jenga all the scenes together, desperately trying to connect them with other chunks of story. I discovered (the hard way) that for me, this was not the most time efficient method of writing. I admit, I'll sometimes resort to it when I get stuck, but not often. Trying to build the story with those carefully balanced hunks of prose without the whole thing feeling like it was about to collapse was stressful and took me twice as long to write a book than it takes me to write it straight through. So that's kind of a shortcut...I guess. This isn't to say I'm dissing this method of writing. What works for some people doesn't work for others. But some people are brilliant at creating stories this way.

Okay...so other shortcuts...

Um...

Well...

Um...

This is probably going to sound stupid...and also lame and obvious, but knowing how the book ends also helps speed the process along. I'm not a huge plotter. I rarely know more than a few key plot points when I start writing and that usually works just fine. Unless I don't know how the book ends. Then...it's a problem and it takes for-freaking-ever to push through to the end. Guardian's Challenge, I'm looking at you, sitting halfway finished on my hard drive. If I have the horizon in sight, the whole writing process goes so much smoother. And Quicker.

I wish I had more shortcuts for you. You know, actual shortcuts. But apparently I tend to do things the hard way. :)

They make shortcuts? Where can I buy those?

I'm with Simone, I don't know shortcuts. I don't plot out my books, I just get an idea and run with it. Sometimes I write the book in two days and sometimes it takes me six months. I don't have any magic formula to get a book finished. If the story is there and it's fully developed the only trick is to keep my fingers moving as fast as my muse.

I suppose being able to type over a hundred words per minute could be considered a shortcut. But it takes lots of practice.

When I was a kid they used to have these things called "typewriters." My mom could type so fast that she would be done typing with her fingers but the keys would still be going on the paper. I thought this was the coolest thing I'd ever seen and vowed that I would learn to type as fast as my mom.

I don't know if I succeeded or not. I can't find a typewriter to practice on and she didn't know what her wpm count was. So I suppose I'll just have to be satisfied with what I can do and not worry about catching up with her.

Ok, I don't know if that even counts but it's all I've got. Type fast and the book will be done quicker.

XoXoXo
Dakota

Shortcuts and Detours

This is one of those topics where I scratch my head and go f'wah? This is also where I admit I don't know what writing shortcuts there are, so I'm looking forward to what the others have to say this week. I write from beginning to end, leaving lines where I need to put a word or name and don't have it at the moment or want to take time to figure it out. It's ugly and always requires revisions. But, it also works for me because I do a bare minimum of plotting - actually its usually a blurb - and then some character development and then onto the writing.

Shortcuts can take longer, because you get lost or face an unknown detour. Or in this case a known one:

I do, however, have a book coming out today. TEB's cowboy anthology - Saddle Up N Ride. I'm joined by 5 other great writers - JP Bowie, Jambrea Jo Jones, Jan Irving, Em Woods, and Jaime Samms.


Enjoy,

Simone.

Pardon Me While I Change the Sheets

I once wrote for a house that insisted there be sex by page four. I couldn’t stand by this. I’m a rule breaker I guess. Sex happens when it happens. Sometimes there’s a lot in my books. Sometimes there’s less. The thing is, I won’t put in a sex scene if the plot doesn’t call for one.

And that’s the thing… It doesn’t matter how long or short a book is, there must be a plot. Books with no plot and lots of sex go by another name from what I write. They’re called porn. I don’t write porn. I write romance. That means there better be a real story in there.

Being an old married lady (lol) I pull out memories of days past as my measuring stick for the story. Let’s face it, my dating days were similar to what I write. When my husband and I were dating, engaged and newly married, it could have been the all sex all the time channel. Time of day didn’t matter, place didn’t much matter, the amount of time we had didn’t matter… We were young, in love and being together was aphrodisiac enough to land us in bed.

So I think about that as a guide. So yeah, my characters have sex. A lot.

Since I write hot romance, I also have other criteria… The first couple times the participants are together are crucial. They show how the characters mesh sexually and they always have something to do with the story. There are usually underlying worries and issues that are shown and/or addressed. My opinion is that if the scene is just sex and gratuitous at best, it shouldn’t be included.

How much is too much? It depends entirely on the story. Make it mean something, or just skip it.

Was it good for you?

I like sexy, straining bodies and breathless encounters as much as the next romance reader, but I'm also a firm believer in the idea that if a scene doesn't move the plot forward, it doesn't belong in a book. As far as sex scenes go, they should definitely be there for a reason.

I write erotic romance, so part of that reason is because they're fun to write and (hopefully) fun to read. But story-wise, I think sex scenes should be there to further plot and character development. The reader should learn new things about the plot, the characters or both. If the reader doesn't learn something new, that scene should most likely be deep-sixed.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how hot the sex scenes are - without some kind of emotional connection or discovery from the POV character about him/herself or about the other character(s) the scenes fall flat. Even one or two of scenes like that are too many. But give me a scene of not only sexual intimacy, but also emotional intimacy, and I'm there! So very there.

When I'm writing sex scenes, I try to make sure the scene is moving the book forward, and that someone is learning something. Sex is a great opportunity for vulnerability and revelation. It should affect characters on more than a physical level. If that's not happening, then as much as it pains me to say it, there's probably too much sex.

When you start to chafe...it's too much

I think the amount of sex in an erotic novel should be enough to move the story and not too much that the plot can't develop because the characters are always at it like bunnies.

With some publishers and/or editors, they require a certain amount of sex per book. This can lead to scenes that seem forced, like the author is raping his/her novel. Not an attractive reading experience.

I've also read novels with only one or two scenes in them...and to be honest they left me wanting. Things will wind up and you expect to get a good bodice ripping only to be left on the other side of a closed door like it's a 1970's Romance. No thank you.

Just as in real life, sex in a book should have a natural progression. Your characters are probably attracted to each other, they are(should be) consenting adults, and they have been placed in some kind of perilous/stressful/depressing situation in which booty-tapping is practically required. Sure, you want to ramp up the emotion, between the characters AND the readers, but you can't let everyone down by not sharing the...bow-chicka-bow-wow. If you do that we will be left to wonder "But WHY did she order a pizza if she knew she didn't have any money to pay for it?"

XoXoXo
D

Sex. Want some?

How much sex is too much sex? How do you decide how much to put in there?

I guess this one is a little like, Do you make Joe and Bob (or Joe and Suzie) hit it because it's page 13 and all they did before was oral? Do you tell them that they need to stop fighting for like thirty minutes because right here is where there needs to be sex?

I'm a firm believer in letting it happen where it needs to happen. I also recognize that there are certain expectations of quantity/quality sex when someone picks up an erotic book. I've noticed that most of my books have around two major all out sex scenes with a whole lotta smaller hanky panky moments thrown in. Usually fondling with completion or oral sex or self-gratification sex as punctuation marks between erotic moments of hardcore. Correction, there may be more like three actual acts of intercourse in my short stories. Geez. Now I have to go look and count them.

AGAIN WITH THE MATH?!

All I know is, my guys like sex. A lot. Frequently. Varied. Hard. Soft. Gentle. Blatant. If it feels like the right moment, then much like real life, there's gonna be some play. :)

Happy reading.

Brynn’s Magnificent List of 2011 Goals

I have lots of goals this year and many of them interconnect or coincide with goals I set out late in 2010. But you know what, I’m taking them. If I can continue them, cool. If not…well, you may frown at me. So with no ado, the biggies:

1. I resolve to manage my time more efficiently. This means, I’m going to be more timely. I’m off to a bad start, in some ways, but I’m catching up. In other arenas, I’m doing okay. I have a schedule for myself, much like Bronwyn’s, but with a little less structure. Mine is just to show up every morning at my designated time, in my designated place, and work.

2. I have a lot of plans for 2011, so showing up definitely plays into my next goal. I plan to write 14 books in 2011. At least. I did 11 last year. I’m looking to pick up a new publisher, so I’ll be sending some proposals along with the established writing schedule. So…fourteen plus books. I completed one of them on Monday so I’m well on my way!

3. I resolve to be less critical. Of myself and other people but especially of myself. And before anyone at my day job rejoices, this does not include you. I get paid to be critical.

4. I will stop expecting people to change and stop being annoyed when they behave exactly as they always have. What do I expect anyway? This just causes more stress.

5. I will maintain a Que, Sera Sera attitude. And I guess that’s the biggest one. I’m just gonna stop stressing. At least, try.

~~Brynn

Trying out this resolution thing

As so many things in my life are, New Year's Resolutions are usually synonymous with guilt. Like Mia, I have resolution-fail, but this year, I'm trying something new.

A schedule. (Please feel free to oh and ah as warranted, or just point and laugh.)

After I get home from dropping off the kids at school, I'll:

Handle urgent email
Write
Ignore phone calls and text messages. However, this didn't work so well yesterday since I cleverly ignored two calls from the school nurse telling me to come and pick up my kid because he was barftastic. I am a bad mom.

At noon, I'll:

Edit
Handle non-urgent email
Blog

In the evening, I'll:

Spend time with the fam and do things that I enjoy like reading or sewing or surfing the net for fun.

In conjunction with the schedule, I have the following goals for the year:

Write eight books including the YA project
Keep my office from becoming the Sacred Dumping Ground
Continue to purge excess things from my life
Tackle my TBR piley
Sew a least an 1/8th of the fabric in my office
Take more walks

So far, the newly implemented schedule seems to be going well. Of course, it's all new and shiny right now, so we'll see how I'm doing in depths of February. But I have high hopes.

Let's hope it's better than last year

It's that time of year again...the beginning. So therefore it's time for goals and resolutions. I know everyone always goes into these things with the best of intentions and most of us never follow through. Well not this year. This year we will have accountability for the things we say we want to accomplish. So no pie in the sky goals that we know we can't tackle. Nope, everything I decided to strive for in 2011 is completely doable.

Without further ado:

Simplify – I have a lot of stuff. I mean a LOT of stuff. And I continue to buy stuff as if I don’t have enough. I have closets full of clothes and shoes I’ve never worn. I have shelves of books I will never read again. I have PILES and PILES of notebooks I will never write in because they are far too pretty. I am determined to get this stuff out of my life. Some of it will be sold and a lot of it will be donated. I crave open spaces. To be out of the clutter of my life and clear some counters and my mind is my number one wish for 2011.

Get healthy – Yes, I would love to lose 25 pounds this year. But more than that, I want to be healthy. I am sick of being tired all the time. I’m tired of clothes fitting me badly. The older I get the harder it is for me to commit to this particular goal. I’ve wanted this for years and years and still I eat like a five year old would if they didn’t have parents to make them eat a vegetable. No more. 2011 is my year to get my body back on track. I will eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. I will move more and eat less.

Write more – Shocker huh? Lol. But it’s true. I only wrote two books last year. That is completely unacceptable to me. My goal for this year is five books and five short stories. It’s not outrageous and with some hard work and some luck I will exceed that this year. But for now I can live with five and five.

Carve out some time for me – This one may be the hardest one of everything I want to accomplish. With trying to write more, clean out my house and my head, spending time with my kids and my husband, plus keeping the day job I’m not sure how I will manage to find time to sit and read a book for fun. But I want it. I want it bad.

There are a few miscellaneous things I want to do as well. Like quit smoking and stop watching so much television. Save more money and stop buying stupid shit I know I don’t need. But those are goals I have every year and I’m still smoking and still broke and still have a house full of crap (See #1). But I will push to do all of those things less, even if I can’t curb it all completely.

Here's hoping that we all have a fabulous 2011, full of everything we want and nothing we don't.

XoXoXo
Dakota

Resolutions, how I hate thee.

I hate resolutions. Mostly because I am a walking resolution-fail. I rarely keep them and then the guilt batters at me for letting myself down on something I really thought I wanted to do/needed to do during the year.

However, last year was terribly productive despite the fact that I didn't write nearly as much as I intended to. I still managed to put 13 books into publication (That number actually surprises me, since I thought I did far fewer). I divorced the slob that made it his job to make me feel like feces (see, I can keep it clean sometimes). I moved away from a toxic environment to a lad land (OMG, unintentional but funny typo!) of bliss (otherwise known as Michigan), and attended a rock-awesome conference (Authors After Dark), which I'll do again this year. All in all, a pretty descent year despite the general fallout.

This year, I have plans. I refuse to call the resolutions because those always manage to backfire. I plan:

1. To write at least 14 books before August. I have 16 planned at the moment, but not all of them are set in stone.

2. To bathe every day and brush my teeth (this I KNOW I can do, since I already do this. I have great teeth. I'm just sayin'. Also, if you litter your "plans" with things you already accomplish, it's an extra check mark of awesome you get to look at later. "See? I brushed my teeth and showered this year! Yay me!")

3. To not commit manslaughter against my ex, no matter how much he continually deserves it (A challenge, yes, but I shall press onward to my sainthood).

4. Hug and kiss and tell my nieces every single day how much I love them (again, free check mark. Go me!)

5. Look outside my little bubble and find a way to help my community.

6. Make money that pirates don't steal from me. I mean really, I can hardly make less than I make now even with the shady side of 30 books out there. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to know people would rather cheat me and mine out of heat in the winter or groceries in the fridge than to pay for a book out of their excess income (I fucking hate pirates!)

7. To meet my writing goals (this is sneaky because it plays right into number one. If I hit number one, then this become another of those bonus check marks. I'm a thinker.)

8. I'm gonna learn to love me a little more. For all the jokes and jibes directed at my faux inflated ego, I have a hard time with this one. Hence the joking.

9. Nope. Got nuthin. I think I'm done.

Anyway, for all you daredevils that still make resolutions, best of luck to ya. I'm gonna skip and whistle my way through this year. Happy New Year, folks!

~Mia

This Year I Promise To....

At the beginning every year for as long as I can remember people, mostly adults, make anywhere from one to a whole lot more of promises to themselves of things that they are going to do. Most of the time it has to do with self-improvement of some kind. Other times though it's a promise to do something new. Or some combination of those. This time though there is a slight twist. Every quarter or so - I don't remember exactly when, but it'll pop up on the handy-dandy side bar to remind us.

So, what do I promise to do in 2011....

1. Write a 1000 words a day. (From today forward although I have written at least 500 words since January 1st. )
2. Get my writing plan together (This way I know what I need to be working on next and whether I need to concentrate on one project or if I can play with two or three at the same time.)
3. Blog regularly (I'm hoping for regular posting on M, W, F - mostly because I can remember those easy enough in addition to wherever else I'm scheduled to be.)

That doesn't seem like a lot, but I guess it'll do. I mean I have personal monthly goals like finishing so many chapters or submitting this story or that one, but over all, writing wise, I'm thinking these are good. Which considering the last time I wrote down goals it was a huge laundry list, this is probably doable.

I also do have the requisite personal, non-writing goals, which are equally important.

1. Lifestyle change - start a DOABLE exercise program that will get me to where I want to be
2. Meet new people - I'm the sorta shy one - I actually have no problem talking to people or meeting new people for the most part, but because of one minor glich, I'm actually nervous about it.
3. Learn ASL (American Sign Language)
4. Finish a quilt, and two quilt tops.

Oh, and most important:
Get batteries and card reader for my camera so that when my 4 month old kitten is doing something either adorable or unbelievable I can show everyone. Because explaining that my kitten is sitting - well kind of laying on the banister with her tail and butt hanging off one side and her head and front paws hanging off the other so she can play with her tail is not nearly as much fun as seeing it. Just as when she is hanging upside down from my sewing basket that she has made into her bed so she can play with the tail end of a piece of elastic that fell over the side when she jumped down last night. Or when she tried to remove the rubber band from around a stack of old manuscript pages.

So, now you know my goals, and because they're public, I actually have to follow through with them - and be accountable. What are yours?

Happy New Year.

Simone.