Happy Saturday!
Today has been a good day so far! I slept until 7:45 am, got up and had cereal and tea while I goofed around on the internet, then began working on the first clue for a mystery shawl knit-along. Lace knitting and I are not friends, so it took me several tries to get the clue completed. But it’s done now, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
What’s a mystery knit-along? Well, a designer will offer a pattern either at a reduced rate, or for free, and people can sign up to knit it. The designer will send out portions of the pattern (called clues) at weekly intervals. until the whole pattern is done. Last week we got a pattern for a gauge swatch, which included some of the stitch patterns this shawl will use, like double increases and nupps. A nupp is 7 stitches all purled together to create a puffy stitch. it’s tricky, and my nupps look rather inebriated, leaning over to the side instead of sitting neatly on top of the knitting. It’s sad. Here is what I have so far:
Last Saturday I received and R&R for Eddie’s Prize, so I’ve spent the last week in major revisions. Last night I re-submitted it to the publisher. Several scenes have been cut, including a lengthy one between Sky, Rose and others which I will be sending out in my newsletter in the future.
What this means is I have time now to play with yarn and read for fun! (I’m going to totally ignore the cat hair on every surface and the fact that the apartment is in dire need of cleaning) Off now to start Lord’s Fall from Thea Harrison. I LOVE her books!
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
What is an R&R?
An R&R is usually a good thing. It stands for Revise and Re-submit. If you receive an R&R, rejoice! That means someone saw something in your story that they really liked, but they had suggestions for how the story can be improved.
That is what has happened with Eddie’s Prize. I submitted the manuscript on October 24, and last weekend I received a very nice email telling me they really liked the story. They had a list of changes they’d like to see made, however, before they would offer a contract. So, I’m going to be pretty busy for the next week or so, making revisions, cutting some stuff (which will appear later in the newsletter) and hopefully whipping Eddie and Lisa into publishing shape. My goal is to have the revisions completed by this Sunday night. Wish me luck!
Tuesday Truth: I Love My Crit Group
Back at the end of January 2011 I got an email from a woman named Tina Holland, inviting me to join a local critique group here in Fargo, ND. Boy, was I excited! I’d heard of Tina Holland. She was a romance author with Liquid Silver Books. I was going to meet a real, live romance author!
You see, I felt so alone and isolated from other writers. I had tried to join a local crit group a few years before, but sadly, that group was made of people who sneered at the romance genre. They were “real” writers. So I tucked my tail between my legs and went home. This one, I hoped, would be different. After all, Tina Holland was a romance author, too, and with years more experience in the publishing world than I had.
For the first few meetings, we were a little careful with one another. Some of us had never been in a crit group before and weren’t sure how to critique someone’s work. We didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. There were seven of us, and we wrote in a few different genres, including poetry. We decided to call ourselves Word Weavers.
It wasn’t long before we learned how to critique effectively, but there were a few bumps along the way. We lost our leader due to health problems, and another woman left in a huff because she felt unappreciated. I believe she became increasingly unhappy as we learned to give tough critiques. Instead of just saying how much we loved this or that, we also began pointing out where improvements could be made. I don’t think she liked that.
When you’re a writer, you must learn to accept criticism. You may disagree with a critique, and that’s fine. You can say thank you and ignore it. But arguing and insulting the person who is giving the critique isn’t helpful. It’s taken us a little time, but my Word Weavers Crit Group has settled into a respectful and helpful groove. I really appreciate all their helpful advice. They have put up with my whining about Eddie’s Prize and helped me brainstorm through problems. They are sort of like cheerleaders, and sort of like mothers. They tell me I can do it, and they tell me I better do it. 🙂
To have a group of fellow writers to meet with is a great thing. I take my hat off to these ladies, who tell it to me like it is, and give it with a dose of praise.
Word Weavers:
Tina Holland – Erotic Romance Author
Mary Jean Adams – Historical Romance Author
Michelle Kent – Paranormal Romance Writer
Athena Hill Gracyk – Fantasy Writer/Poet
Kat Smith – Flash Fiction Writer/LARP game writer
Simone James – Contemporary Romance Writer
Tuesday Teaser: Eddie’s Prize
This is from when Lisa is coming into Kearney for the first time. She and Carla are in a horse-drawn wagon a day after the plane crash.
Carla leaned toward Lisa. “Are you okay?” she asked with compassion. “Are you thinking about the little boy?”
Lisa nodded jerkily. Unlike some children she had encountered on planes, the four-year-old redhead sitting in the seat in front of her had been a perfect angel, quietly coloring and playing giggling peek-a-boo games with his mother. When the plane had finally come to its metallic screeching stop on the prairie, the mother was dead and the little boy so badly hurt that he could only cry almost soundlessly. Lisa had picked him up and numbly carried him out of the plane, allowing Carla to help her down to the ground, but never letting the boy go. She had hummed to him while he bled and cried and finally died. Lisa didn’t know what his last name had been. His mother had called him Alexander. All she had left of him was his blood on her clothes and the memory of his half-smile when he looked up at her right before he died.
That memory was too precious and too painful to linger on at this moment. There were other people counting on her and Carla now, those too hurt to go for help themselves, who needed doctors so they could live. The mayor of Kearney, Nebraska would get the crash survivors the help they needed. Even the crazy men from Odessa had done what they could to help by bringing them here. For the two hundredth time, Lisa forced her thoughts away from the crash to focus on the here and now.
She stared past the driver’s shoulder. “Is this an actual town? It looks as dilapidated as some of the abandoned houses we passed on our walk.”
Buildings looked like they had been half torn down and their windows taken away. There was a familiar fast food restaurant to their right, looking like it had been out of business for fifty years, abandoned for the elements to fade and wear away.
“The recession must have hit this area hard,” Carla suggested doubtfully.
Further in, roads became smoother, and it looked like efforts had been made to clean things up. They rolled past walls that separated whole blocks. The road went from dirt to something like cobblestones. The wagon seat bounced like a car with bad shocks. Even Carla, tough as she was, looked a little green. Lisa was afraid her lunch was going to escape. Soon they began seeing people, all men, come out of buildings and take notice of them.
“Women!” shouted one, pointing at the wagon.
Rough Draft of Eddie’s Prize is Done!
Yes, this evening at 8:25 I wrote two of my very favorite words: The End.
I have been working on Eddie’s Prize since last October. It is 104,058 words long right now. But starting sunday I’ll be doing massive revisions, so it will probably be somewhere around 80,000-90,000 words when I submit it. But I’m not even going to begin revisions until Sunday night. Tomorrow I’m going to clean. I have done nothing in the way of cleaning for over a week, and even before that I barely did more than the dishes. All my free time went to writing. My apartment is in a terrible state! So I need to clean the kitchen (excavate the kitchen, is more like it) and the living room at the least. The bathroom is on the list, too. My bedroom … Well, that’s just me, so it can wait. Because I don’t want to spend all my time cleaning, ya know. I also have The Hunger Games dvd to watch. I’m working on a Dr. Who scarf too, as well as Lisa’s After the Crash afghan. And I plan to put my newsletter together, now that I finally have something concrete to say about Eddie’s Prize.
So Congrats to me on typing The End! More updates are coming.
Tuesday Truth: Eddie’s Prize Update
My goal was that I would finish the rough draft of Eddie’s Prize by bed time on Sunday, September 23. Well, I didn’t make it. But I came really, really close. I wrote almost 10,000 words from Friday through Sunday. Tonight I had supper with my mom, and then my Word Weavers Critique meeting (they really liked Chapter 1 of Wolf’s Prize!), so no writing today. I’m back on overtime at the day job (5 hours a week is mandatory, they’d like 10 hours. oy!) However, tomorrow after I work my ten-hour day I’ll have two or three hours to write before bed. Wednesday I might squeeze one hour of writing between work, my SCA fighters practice and bed. Thursday I should have two hours after work, and on Friday I plan to finish it no matter what. So here’s hoping for a completed rough draft by Friday night.
Never surrender!
Eddie’s Prize Teaser
Today I wrote my heart out and completed Chapter 23 of Eddie’s Prize. I really like how the end is coming together. Only one more chapter and I can type “The End” of the rough draft. It’s possible that I will actually finish tomorrow as planned. However, tomorrow is a very busy day (sunday school, church, church annual meeting, knitting with the gals, etc) so I don’t want to absolutely count on it. Still, I’m pretty darned happy. To celebrate, here is a teaser from the chapter I wrote tonight:
Eddie returned to his cold, empty house and pondered Bree’s words. He wanted his wife back. He missed the look of happy pride on her face when he complimented the supper she’d prepared. Every supper she put in front of him had told him she loved him, just as much as the words she murmured to him in bed had. His world was crumbling about him. Without her arms to hold it together, it would shatter.
Alone, between cold sheets on the bed he’d made love to his wife in, he gave in to tears. He needed Lisa. He needed her love even more than he needed his mother’s approval.
Storyteller vs Writer
I’m not sure that’s the best title for this blog post, but it’s all I can think of. What brought this on? Well, I recently finished a romance story by a very successful self-pubbed author. The story was terrific. The characters were interesting. I loved reading how their relationship developed. The tension was good and the climax was well done. In general, I thought it was an excellent story. However, I’ve read several stories by this author, and the heroines are all the same, right down to the dialogue. The author writes dialogue with far too many exclamation points!!! And her heroines trail off in the middle … ohmygod!! … of a thought!!!
I enjoyed the story. I didn’t enjoy the writing. I checked the standings of this author’s books on Amazon, and all dozen or so of them are quite low (meaning they are selling very well) and it made me wonder just what readers are looking for. For myself, I don’t think I’ll read any more of this author’s work because the typos and grammar errors take me out of the story. But going by the rankings, I must be in a very small minority. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and I notice those errors more. It makes me wonder if she has an editor. I doubt it.
That makes it sound like I think my books don’t have any errors. I know that’s not true. You should see the typos in my rough drafts! Heck, look at 95% of my posts on Facebook! They totally suck. Even though I go over my manuscript before I even submit it, and my editor looks at it multiple times, and the final line editor goes through it before it is even published, I still find errors later. Drives me crazy. I find typos even in the best books from St. Martin’s or Avon. However, there’s a difference between the occasional boo-boo and badly flawed writing mechanics. I expect a book to have sound writing, where the grammar and punctuation follow certain rules.
On the other hand, I once read a book for a book club where the writing was superb. Not just mechanics, but the lyrical use of description was beautiful. It was almost like effortless poetry. The author’s word choices were stunningly perfect. When I read a paragraph, I could see the scenery so clearly I felt like I was there. And I couldn’t have cared less about the characters or their story.
The first author, grammar errors, typos and all, is a gifted storyteller. The second author was a master of the craft of writing. Which is better? Which is more important for the reader? In my mind, clearly the storyteller. But even better would be the author that could blend the two. I think that can be a difficult thing. But there are some authors out there woo do it well. Laura Kinsale is one. Sally Watson is another. (If you haven’t read Sally Watson, I strongly urge you to do so. She writes young adult historicals, and she’s the reason I got a history degree and started writing. I adore Lark and the Hornet’s Nest in particular, but anything she has written is fantastic.) Also, Nalini Singh.
What do you think? Does poor writing take you out of a story, or does it not matter as long as the story itself is good?
Good news on the Writing Front
I have been plugging away at Eddie’s Prize for what seems like ever. I set a goal for its completion, and the day rolls past. (what is that quote? “I love deadlines. Especially the whooshing sound they make as they go by”?) The overtime at work is really kicking my butt. I used to be able to work 10. 5 hours and still have energy enough to write when I got home. I guess I’ve gotten older. And my allergies are out of control. But tonight I feel like I’m actually on track. Tonight I finished writing the big pivotal scene and there are only two chapters (big chapters) left. My most recent goal for finishing the rough draft is September 23. And by golly, I think I have a good shot at making it. Then give me two weeks for the first revision, another week for the beta readers to get through with it, then another week for me to review and polish according to their suggestions and TA- DA! The manuscript will be off to the publisher for their consideration.
See? There is light at the end of the tunnel! A friend promised to take me out for gelato when I finish. Gelato, here I come!
Tuesday Teaser: Wolf’s Prize, Part 2
Here is the next part of the scene from Chapter 1 of Wolf’s Prize. Enjoy!
“Shee-it,” muttered Tim. “We’re in trouble, boss.”
Rye grunted inquiringly. “You know him?”
Tim rubbed his hand over the bristles on his chin. “I know of him. Had a couple dealings with some of his kin.” He swallowed loud enough for Ellie to hear it. It was hard to tell in the dark, but she thought he looked pale. “She’s right, Rye. Nobody wants to mess with those wolves. Last time someone fooled with one of their women, there was hell to pay. Twenty-five men went against Taye Wolfe and his kin. and twenty-five men died.”
“Damn.” Rye ran a hand over his wavy hair. The waves ended in neat half curls. Ellie remembered one of Taye’s men had wavy hair. It was golden brown, rather than Rye’s mahogany, and several inches longer, but the memory of the man popped into her mind now for no reason. She didn’t remember his name, and they had never spoken, but he had stared at her every time they’d seen each other. The curly hair was the only connection between Rye and Taye’s friend. Rye was a hard man. Taye’s friend had been shy.
“This Taye Wolfe cares about you?”
“My cousin loves me,” Ellie replied simply. “I am his only blood female cousin. His entire Clan will come for me, dozens of men.”
“Hm. The Wolfes must be a big family. That doesn’t sound good for us. But like I said, we have a contract with Ellsworth.” Rye slapped his hand on his knee. “Tell you what. I’ll send one of the boys up to Kearney to let your cousin know where you are. He can meet you in Ellsworth and speak to the men there himself. Tim, you know the guy. In the morning, ride north to Kearney as fast as you can. We’ll take our time travelling to give Wolfe a chance to get to Ellsworth before the Bride Fight.”
“Better send someone else, Rye,” Tim said. “I don’t think any of the wolves like me.”
Rye’s brow arched again. “Fine. Jer? Want to take a ride to Kearney?”
