Archive for January, 2011

How We Write Wednesday: Dare to Create

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

As promised last Wednesday, Jenni’s charging ahead with our “tag you’re it” How We Write Wednesday blog experiment over on her site, talking about the creative side of writing and how the two of us often challenge (and annoy the heck out of) each other the times we get a chance to brainstorm and revise.

the creative process

I’ve covered the basics of what we’re trying to do with this thread already–see here (I promise I’m done with the links now…almost).From there, consider us an experiment in progress challenging ourselves to share some the meatier, more in-depth stuff that happens once you’re writing on contract and on deadline and trying to score that next contract and grow your “published” creative process more with each book. Because once you’re published, it ALL makes sense, right?

Uh, no.

Not by a long shot.

Over the next few months, once a week on alternating blogs, we’ll cover the stuff beyond line editing and proof reading.The stuff you don’t hear about every day that just might help your journey to publishing fiction and beyond not be as bumpy as ours. Well, probably not. It’s all bumpy, each of us in our own “special” way. But maybe it’ll be nice to know, when you get there, that you’re not losing your mind once you experience for yourself that the reality of being published is worlds different than you thought it would be.

So, dive in over at Jenni’s. Let us know what you think, here or there. Then come back next Wednesday for more…here…because we’re trading back and forth, you see…the way brainstorming and revision works…just to beat the obvious symbolism to death a bit more ;o)

Oh, and I’m posting December contest winners in just a bit (thanks everyone who’s emailed to say you’re keeping an eye out) as well as new January chances to win. So come back here, too, to see if you’re one of the lucky ducks who’ll be receiving books or gift certificates in the mail soon!

1.11.11: Starting Over

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

We talked about the power of “1″ on the first. You know, on 1.1.11. Then I began asking myself, how is 1.11.11 different? We are even more overwhelmed with the little buggers today.

numbers

Delving into even more thrills and chills and parapsychology this year than last (actually, at the moment I’m researching theoretical physics and super string theory as ways to explain the improbable but not impossible psychic powers and phenomenon I’m writing about), makes ia GREAT time to look a little deeper at the “1″ and the numerology behind it, so here goes! (more…)

When we hate…

Monday, January 10th, 2011

tuscon

When we hate, a piece of us dies with each thought.
When we hate, the good in other’s souls leaks from our hearts.

When we throw disgust around,
words like deadly bullets,
like knives,
we kill
with each stinging syllable.

Don’t hate.

Dream Research

Friday, January 7th, 2011

Dog willing, the second book in my, currently, dream-theory based Legacy paranormal series from Dorchester (Secret Legacy) will hit shelves in May (Yay! Had a conference call with the PR team yesterday, and what they’re planning for the digital and trade release is really exciting!).

So, more dreams are coming your way than ever before. More fantasy (in fact, they’ll be shelving it in sci-fi/fantasy, since this time around we all agree that I haven’t, from the very start, been writing romance, even though Sarah and Richard’s relationship will blow you away in this Dark Legacy sequel). More of the rich, paranormal world I knitted together in the first book and got to wallow in while I wrote the second.

Which means, while I’m researching parapsychological gifts for a new “legacy” family to have to conquer in a three-book continuation of the series beyond this new release, I’m getting back to regular Dream Theories posts.Back -logged questions will be answered. More spooky, chilling, cool dream stuff to-be-spotlighted.

And to start–some pics that answer better than words can describe the question so many of you asked about how I came up with the dream dimensions I’ve drawn around the Temple Twins contemporary world.

I’ve  cleaned off my office shelves to make room for th thrity or so new research books I’ve bought as I contemplate new proposals. And before I boxed them up, I snapped some images of the early non-fiction reading that made Dark Legacy and Secret Legacy possible.

Dream Research 1

 Some basic “dreaming for dummies” books started me off. (more…)

Tulips in January

Friday, January 7th, 2011

You have no idea the grief I’ve taken for not posting shoes since August. And I had no idea how much footwear was other people’s addiction, just like mine. More than the dream posts. More than the teenager and writing posts. More than the monthly contests (which I need to post winners for this weekend ;o). People WANT MORE SHOES!

So, in the spirit of there supposedly being more snow coming to north Georgia weekend (and the white Christmas we had for the first time in a century), I give you Tullips in January!

Prada Tullips

Some of our darlings are works of art. We can’t help but love them a little bit more, can we? Even if it means jealousy and discord in the closet, some of our shoe boxes (You keep all your shoes in their boxes, too, right? To protect them from dust and creasing and so forth. Especially suede ones like these. I know you do. Don’t make me come to your house and do an intervention!)…

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Some of our boxes hold gems that from the moment we first bring them home, we know we’ll cherish above all the rest.

My Prada pink suede strappy sandals are my babies. (more…)

Clowns To The Left of Me…

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Jokers to the right…

Some classic music becomes the poetry of your now. Like the Steelers Wheel’s Stuck in the Middle With You lyrics.

steelers wheel

Spend a year feeling stuck in the middle, and you’ll see what I mean.

Publishing exploded last year. And it too often felt like all I could do is watch from the sidelines. People were talking writing and publishing and book deals (or the lack there of), and I didn’t have the energy to chime in.

The hardest part?

When I witnessed people who’d never published a piece of fiction suddenly promoting themselves as teachers and experts in writing craft all over social media. You know the ones I’m talking about.The spammers and yammerers and know-it-alls who are going to get you published, except when you look at their credentials, all they’re really qualified to teach you is how to promote yourself as wildly and creatively as they have. (more…)

To Blend or To Bleed…

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

2010 was the year I–

  • blew my first ever publishing deadline
  • pushed finishing a novel off by four months
  • finished the book while sicker than I’ve ever been
  • revised, line edited and copy edited the manuscript less than a month later, over a period of only a few weeks
  • watched said publisher nearly go out of business just a month before the book’s release

And that was just one of my publishers (Dorchester).

With the other (Harlequin), while I had a successful book release in the spring, by the fall (once I was feeling less like death warmed over), I was seriously contemplating switching to a new imprint/line in-house. Which meant even more change. Those proposals went in to the potential new editor in December–hoping to find a home at Harlequin Intrigue, where I’d be thrilled to write!

My point?No matter what was going on in the publishing world at large–and 2010 was  BIG year for digital, small press and ePub authors and publishers, and for the rest of us as these niche markets exploded all over the scene–nothing could compare to the emotional peeks and valleys of my personal little corner of the writing world.

publishing080922_560

The end result? (more…)

Things My Teenager Says: LEGO is SO Over…

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

I’m a pretty aware mom.I know when I’m in denial about the progression of my child no longer wanting to be a child, then straddling that invisible line between childhood and teenager, then lifting his back foot so he’s poised ever-precariously over the threshold of growing up, more ready to race toward his learners permit (which he’s eligible for in just a little over a month) than to look back at the boyhood he’s leaving behind.

I get it. Don’t fight against the current. Nothing but good stuff ahead… That’s been my mantra for some time now. That is, until one fine December day when I’m heading to the outlet mall, Christmas lists in hand, and I notice a glaring omission on my teenager’s lengthy inventory of dream gifts. So I ask, what WAS I thinking, if he’d like to add just one more request.

To which I hear–

“LEGO is so over, Mom.”

lego

You can imagine the horrified expression on my man-child’s face when the tears instantly well in my eyes. (more…)

Really??? Did he really say that?

Sunday, January 2nd, 2011

I embrace clothes and bags and shoes as art.Those who design the creations that become part of my reality as I wear them, are as much artists to me as the painters and sculptors that mesmerize my imagination in museums and galleries. But… Sometimes, the art becomes an excuse to be an ass, and that’s just ugly. And me no like ugly, I don’t care who you are or how gifted your work might be.

tom-ford-0111-5-de

Tom Ford hasn’t worked in women’s fashion in a while. He’s back, to the relief of many. His 2011 collection is amazing. But he’s an ass. Not just smug–that I can deal with.

See his profile in the December issue of Vogue for a flavor of an artist who’s full of himself but talented enough to pull it off (coincidentally, that issue also spotlights the plagued Spider Man musical as “rocking,” meanwhile it’s currently falling apart, literally, as the world watches, so consider the source when you’re turning to Vogue for your current events coverage).

But back to Tom Ford’s world view. Like I said, smug I can handle. Then there’s his January Harper’s Bazaar interview…

(more…)

Revising a Year: 1.1.11

Saturday, January 1st, 2011

2010 was an complex journey for me. Difficult. Scary at times. Then, amazingly, filled with love and support and friendship and the courage of everyone who walked that journey with me.

So many people I know had a troubled year. In a way, sharing that with a few of them somehow made it easier for us all to keep going. I even remember, in late 2009, astrologers predicting ‘10 would be a time of troubling change (and not just because of the prevailing financial and political downturns we could all see coming). How could they know?, I asked myself. Even as I researched the para-psychology that would define new stories in my paranormal/fantasy series, I doubted. Now, looking back, I’m not so sure it was all smoke and mirrors.

new-year-2011-collection1

Which made me wonder as I contemplated the first day of the first month of the eleventh year of this century. What would be ahead in this new beginning?Numerology has always fascinated me, because the of math behind it and how accurate some of the predictions made often turn out to be. Its theories tell us that numbers themselves have power and relationships to our world and to nature, and that they often symbolize shifts in energy and influence and potential in our lives. There are those who believe in the significance of the numbers around us and how they can shape our realities. In fact, a lead character in one of the three books I’m plotting won’t be given a choice. So… Off I went to learn a bit more. And I was hooked!

So, as we continue revising a year out here, and since I’m feeling light years better this January first than I did on this day in 2010, let’s see what the numbers are saying to us on 1.1.11:

  • The number “1″ reflects strong will and positive/pure energy. A new beginning. Physical and mental force and new action that will be rewarded.
  • The number “1″is the most individual of all numbers. Ambitious. Driven. Goal-oriented. Strong. A pioneer, since it’s the first. Unconventional. Inventive. Creative.
  • The number “1″ reveals the unknown. Lighting the way. It burns like fire, searching to ignite in a single point of blazing contact.
  • The number “1″ can also be an indicator of completion. A reminder to refocus. To pay close attention. Concentrate. To search for the highest, truest self you can become, moving forward.

Sigh… I love thinking of my 2011 filling up, thriving, with all of this. Positive energy. Hope. Anticipation. Reflection and new discovery. Bravely striding forward when I haven’t been well enough to be able to, for too much of the last year. And, my friends, I hope the same for all of you in this brand new beginning. Let’s rock this new decade ;o)

Happy 1.1.11, everyone!!!