by Christine | Writing
So, today is the first full day of the Romantic Times Booklovers’ Convention here at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. But I’m going to back up to yesterday.
I attended a BookCamp event that went from 1:30pm to 8pm, so I got to the hotel early in the hopes I wouldn’t be dragging my luggage, my pens, bookmarks, ballgown, faery wings, and venetian mask around.
Luckily, I got in with no problems and by 12:30 was anxiously waiting for my luggage to appear in my room. Which it did about 20 minutes later. GORGEOUS ROOM. Must remember to sneak hubby in at least a couple of nights. Ahem.
So, BookCamp. First off, the people – Angela James was there, as was Miss Smart Bitches herself (but I didn’t get a chance to talk to her – what a hoot! I love her!), and Patrick, the man behind Good Reads – plus lots of readers and authors. The purpose behind it is kind of a non-structured convention – we all came up with ideas to break into small sessions for, and we came up with 16 different topics – everything from “what about libraries?” to contracts, to audio books, to reading groups…we had three 40 minute blocks of time, spread across four different classrooms – and we shared information. No one person stood at the front to talk – we sat in a circle and talked. Shared ideas. And no matter what topic we talked about, everyone was gracious and respectful of each other. Polite discourse. Fascinating!
After it was over, we moved to Borders Grill across the street from the hotel and had a cocktail party, which was part of the event. Lovely drinks and appetizers. Of course, it was very loud in there, and quite disorienting for me, so I bugged out kind of early and wandered the food court in the hotel before going up to my room. A woman in front of me was desperate for a can of coke – when I saw her name tag, I did obeisance. BJ Daniels is all over the Harlequin romance world, and I always love reading her work. So to meet her in person was a thrill! And she said she’d buy my book! Gasp! I’m so excited!
So…what I learned yesterday was go NOWHERE without my bookmarks and pass them out to EVERYONE. (Side note: this Starbucks gets the most eclectic bunch of folks in it that I’ve ever seen…and most of them are wearing some sort of intoxicating colognes or perfumes of some sort.)
ANYway – I am about to put the computer away, and go look for Promo Alley. I’d like to set my stuff up with the SAVVY and the CMP Peeps…we shall see! (Or maybe Promo Alley is in Club RT…hmmm….)
I don’t know why – but it seems easier to talk to other writers here than it does at RWA. Maybe because there are fewer of us here? I just don’t know. But I’m looking forward to today!
by Christine | Writing
Tynga is hosting Crescent Moon Press debut authors this week! Drop by and leave a comment on my interview and you could win a free copy of DEMON SOUL!
Click here…
See you there!
P.S. The drawing ends April 6th, so there’s time!
by Christine | Writing
Every writer’s first time with an editor attached to a publishing house is different, because every writer and every editor is different. However, I learned five really nifty things that I’d like to pass on.
#1. Crutch Words Every writer has them, some more than others. Mine varied. In the first iteration, my editor teased me about everyone mumbling, muttering, or murmuring – and always under their breath. A few painful hours and 101 m-words later, I realized that by ripping those words out I had to dig deeper, which made my writing stronger. (The second iteration involved nodding, nodded, nod; everyone became a bobble head. Another learning opportunity!)
#2 Clarity This is something we all hear and know, but never think it happens to us. We believe our manuscripts are easy to follow. Well, maybe in the first draft they were – but that was 8 or 9 drafts ago, and the thought process now doesn’t track. There were times when my beloved editor would ask a question about something, and I would pull my hair out – it was very clearly stated in chapter 12! This was chapter 13 – my readers would figure it out!
Um, no, they wouldn’t figure it out, because between chapter 12 and chapter 13, I’d eliminated a chapter that explained a lot of stuff. So much rewriting had to go on in some spots just to clarify the story and keep the ball rolling along.
#3 Sentence Structure I’m a pretty smart cookie. But after getting my first edits back, I wanted to hide in a huge book on grammar and not come out until I’d finished reading it. Except I hate grammar. So after I took a deep breath, I really studied what my editor was telling me. I learned that choppy sentences work really well in tense situations, but not so good in the slower moments.
Plus, at the beginning of the book all my guys sounded like chicks. They talked too much, apologized too fast, etcetera. Yeah, good to know! What an eye-opener. All these things that I’ve learned will go into an edit before any other project gets sent off to an agent or an editor, I assure you!
#4 Edits Take Time Getting the edits done took more time than I had imagined they would. The first pass I did took me two weeks – and I don’t have a day job, folks. Actually, it took me a whole week just to wrap my head around the changes needed (I had some unfortunate POV shifts and had to move them to another characters’ POV – and never the same character, lol!). Every day I’d look at the comments, and every day I stepped away from the computer, not sure how to begin. Six days after first receiving the edits I finally understood and started in on the revisions. Eight days later, they were done. Not only did I change the POV issues, but I added scenes, added a character, and did some continuity work.
#5 The Crit Partner You Can’t Say No To During my week of introspection on the first edits, I went through a lot of the same emotions that I’ve gone through in the past with critique partners. Except this time, I couldn’t just ignore the comments on sentence structure, plot holes, continuity, clarity, etcetera – this time I had to face my demons and get the work done. (Never ignore your critique partners’ words of wisdom. Never. Always give them serious consideration.)
I’m not saying you can never say no to an editor, because that’s not true. Yes, you can fight for the big stuff, but hopefully you’ll be able to keep your mind open enough to listen. Editors want to make your book the very best they can be and most of the time, they have WAY more experience than you do. Think of it this way; your editor is making sure you go to the Prom with your fanny decently covered, not hanging out in the wind and inviting evisceration of your character (book).
Thank you, Liz Pelletier, for making sure my fanny was covered!
DEMON SOUL comes out at the end of this month from Crescent Moon Press! Here’s the cover…
by Christine | Writing
You might not remember the Buffy episode where the evil bar guy made beer that turned college kids into cavemen, but I do. One of my favorite lines from that episode (in a series chock full of them) had Buffy saying, “Boys bad. Fire pretty.” It pointed up her extremely limited brain function due to the beer she’d consumed to drown her broken heart.
That’s how I feel right now, after turning in my last pass to my editor. Extremely limited brain function. When I finally stumbled out of bed this morning, my hair standing on end and my jammies awry, my showered, shaved, yummy-smelling and ready-for-the-office husband had the temerity to actually talk to me. This is how our conversation went.
Him: Sorry I didn’t get to the laundry over the weekend. Think you’ll have time today?Me: Laundry bad. Him: I’m running late. Make me a double espresso please? Me: Coffee good. Him: Oh, and sort the bills for me, I won’t have time to do it until Thursday. Me: Bills bad.
My eldest son had to play, too. Son: Can you pick me up from school, Mom? My bike has a flat tire. Me: Bike bad. Son: Oh, and can you pick me up a spare inner tube? Me: Son bad. Son: I love you, Mom. Me: Son pretty.
By the time everyone left the house, my head hurt from having to make such civilized conversation. It’s not just that editing takes a lot out of a writer. Making changes that you know need to be made, and finding every last variation on the word “nod” and changing it up so you don’t have a novel full of bobble-heads is wearying, after all.
But turning in last edits is also an emptying-out of your brain. Kind of like after giving birth – that alien in your body is gone and it’s just you again. Except for writers, there’s usually another alien in your head just waiting to be developed, and that’s where the writer’s brain goes into limited function mode.
The writer’s brain is scared. It’s not sure it has what it takes to write the next book. It’s not even sure it should be reading. The writer’s brain, at this point in the process, is pretty sure it should be relaxing on a tropical beach somewhere with an umbrella drink close by. Either that, or numbing itself in front of the TV, watching episode after episode of any of the “Desperate Housewives of” reality series. Enough hours of that inanity practically ensures your brain will spontaneously hit the refresh button and start spouting out story ideas and concepts, just to get away from the TV screen.
It’s not like I’m starting a new project right now, either. I’ve got a YA that I’ll be going into a workshop with (given by the Andrea Brown Agency – check it out here). I’ve got homework on that one.
I’ve also got a second book due to Crescent Moon Press and, since I’d like that second book to come out this year if possible, I really need to finish it, run it through a crit group, do a second draft and a third pass (to get rid of those nagging “nod”s) and get it to them soon.
But still, the brain stalls. For me, the tropical beach and the umbrella drink is out of the question. I can’t even sit in the sun – it’s too chilly for this girl out there today. The Housewives have no real appeal, either. I guess I’ll hunker down and dig my bedroom out from under the piles of laundry, clean the kitchen, and eventually drive off to pick up my son from college.
Wow, does that sound boring in contrast to dealing with a whip-wielding sorcerer, a tribred hero who just wants to be left alone, and a bunch of demons who look remarkably like badgers washing up dead on the beaches of Santa Monica.
Laundry bad…
by Christine | Writing
Life is SWEET today. I received confirmation that my paranormal romance novel, DEMON SOUL, will release in mid-March 2011 from Crescent Moon Press! This is fantastic. It really fits into my schedule, as I’m hoping to turn in the next book, DEMON HUNT, that same month – so I’ll have a reason to do some partying.
I’ve started the blog tour in motion, and there are some things I need to check on with the publishing house, but all in all I am completely stoked. My husband is, too – he feels he can “finally” celebrate the book since it’s now got a firm publication date.
My second chunk of news is I’ve been accepted to the Henry Miller Writer’s Workshop in early March, put on by the fabulous Andrea Brown Agency. I’ll be working on my YA novel, JESSE ON THE VERGE.
Third chunk of news, I’m actually headed off to the Romantic Times Convention this year! It’s here in Los Angeles, so I’m waaay excited to be saving some money. Between this convention and the workshop, I’ll have used up my workshop money.
I’m really, really looking forward to this year – it has bright-shiny-happy-productive written all over it!
