Jan 6, 2007
When I first started to write romance, I had stopped reading romance. Something had to be done. So I visited online romance sites, discovered Jenna Petersen’s Passionate Pen, and got myself back to the bookstore. Things sure had changed since Georgette Heyer! And not always for the good.
But I devoured every book of Jo Beverley’s and Loretta Chase’s, and it is their blog, Word Wenches, that I visit without fail. They share it with several other excellent historical writers. Often there are fascinating history “lessonettes” that I read in my pajamas and feel instantly erudite.
And they take questions. I was lucky enough to win the first book of Patricia Rice’s Magic series. Here’s how you do it:
FREE BOOKS
As we said in our previous newsletter, we love to give away free books! Last month, we put out a call for suggestions for future blog topics, and you responded with some great ideas. Please continue doing so. If we use your suggestion, we’ll send you an autographed book. Thanks for your suggestions, and keep them coming! If there’s a topic you’d like to see discussed, e-mail our Whipster, Sherrie, at sholmes@holmesedit.com.
Plus, they have a wonderful blogroll of other insightful sites (I’m still trying to figure out how to do that here so I can link to the people who have linked to me!). So go on over there and win something.
I just looked at my bookmarks. There are almost a dozen blogs to visit, so I’m outta here!
Jan 5, 2007
In sixth grade, I kept a diary. All the boys in the class were listed in kissability preference. #1, Michael Somebody (okay, Michael Cummings) actually kissed me. French kisses. Six times. And after he had his wicked way with me, we broke up. I must have whined about that, but the diary is long-gone.
Diaries are fascinating to me. For several years I worked in a historical society museum, where I did everything from design displays to transfer 100-year-old newspaper clippings onto acid-free paper, sneezing all the way. I came across an anonymous journal of a housewife circa 1902. Every entry started with a weather report, a real concern on the isolated island where she lived. The minister visited. She took a trip down island in her buggy to see a friend who had new kitchen wallpaper. Several weeks and several pages later, she was hanging her own new wallpaper. Homely information, but history nonetheless.
Blogs are twenty-first century diaries. No kissing and wallpaper here. But reading blogs is a great way to avoid my WIP but learn something about writing and writers without feeling too guilty.
How many blogs do you look at regularly? Any favorites? I’ll post mine tomorrow.
Jan 4, 2007
I spent much of my time at Washington Elementary School and Hempstead High School outlining things. Roman numerals, capital letters, numbers, lower case letters—everything orderly and organized (and let’s not even think about the sentence diagramming).
When it comes time to plot my writing, I wish I could travel back in time when everything had its place and space. There’s always a vague idea of how to get to the HEA, but few specifics. When all the pistons are firing and the fingers are flying, it’s great. It’s not so hot when they’re not.
So, I’m a pantser with a desperate need of an outline. I’m short about 25,000 words, unevenly distributed in the middle of my masterpiece. I invested in a cute red Notetote for my handbag so I can scribble down scenarios as they may come. It’s still in pristine condition.
Are you a planner or waiting for the muse? If it’s the latter, send her to my house when you’re done.
Jan 3, 2007
After the infamous Avon writing contest, I did almost anything I could to avoid the large sinkhole that’s in the middle of my WIP (Starting this blog might even be an example!). I admire the people who began and finished books, entered NANO, caught on fire. I wasn’t one of them.
I did, however, enter the Court TV search for “the next great crime writer.” Now I don’t watch TV, Court or otherwise, and don’t write crime. So I stuck a dead husband into a plotline that had been kicking around in a little notebook for a while.
I have not as yet been arrested for murdering my husband. I don’t watch any of the CSIs wherever they’re filmed and don’t know ANYTHING about crime procedure. I have written something I cannot Google my way out of.
We’ve all heard “write what you know.” If we did that, our books would probably put us to sleep as we wrote them. So research is vital, and fun too. But it’s also important to write something you feel comfortable with. I know I can’t go into a courtroom or outer space. Give me a Regency drawing room or a suburban house and I just may have a shot at telling the story.
The dead body has got to go.
Do you find you’ve sometimes written yourself or a character into a corner? Where do you do your research to get out?
Jan 2, 2007
To paraphrase my fabulous The American Heritage Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary, when you sublimate, you’re transforming something into a more socially acceptable form of expression…like changing your frantic rantings into a compelling, coherent query letter.
But sublimation is a scientific concept too. Alas, I am not at all scientific. I stand as a stupefied child at the wonders of the universe. I took the two-year “Science for Dummies” survey course at my college. And I’m not precisely a dummy—I did graduate when I was only nineteen, after all. Although I must say when I reread the English papers I wrote way back when, I don’t understand them anymore!
My son and his wife own an art gallery in Key West, and they use sublimation every day. Here’s what they have to say about it on their web site:
Now… call it art or physics, SUBLIMATION is the art form that we have been specializing in for the last two years.
What is sublimation?
Although the term SUBLIMATION sounds a little daunting, sublimation, as a process, is less intimidating:
It is the method of applying an image onto specially prepared items of ceramics, cloth, metals, and plastics using three primary ingredients: special sublimation inks/pigments, heat and pressure.
Sublimation inks are unique in their ability to convert from a solid to a gas without going through a liquid form (just like dry ice). The conversion is initiated by heat and controlled with pressure.
So what does that mean? It means beautiful colors and high definition images on your ceramic coffee mugs, tiles, murals, mouse pads, puzzles, etc.
I’m jealous. I want those beautiful colors and high definition images. Where is my sublimation equipment, dammit?
What images do you long to see on your pages, as a reader or a writer? And if you write, what steps are you taking to transform yourself from civilian to writer? You know mine. I’m chanting the blog’s title!
