Agents?

I've heard this is what an agent's life is like. What do you think?



(Thanks to Rachelle Gardner at WordServe!)

Pushing for words

My main excitement these days is the romance rewrite, so there's not a lot of variety in my life. There isn't room for it when I'm pushing for 3000 words a day around customers, sales dudes, and freight trucks. I admire folks who can work all day and still put out a meaningful set of words regularly in the evening. My brain just shuts down. (My kids used to call 10pm Mommy Pumpkin Time, but I have to admit 9pm isn't much better!)

Looks like I'll be up for teaching a workshop at Forward Motion in May, so I'm mulling over that and will soon have to start doing more than mulling and actually start planning!

In other news, my website redesign is coming along nicely. The old one is still what's showing when you click over, but I'm hoping to launch the new-and-improved version sometime in March. My daughter is doing the design and tech work on WordPress. Adding static pages is my job, and one I've already started. Coming soon to a valeriecomer.com near you!

Winter Walk

It's been a couple years probably since I've posted a photo tour of where I walk daily. This morning it was -15 Celcius (about +5F) and the hoar frost was intensively beautiful. I waited till the sun came up (after 9) to walk Brody and grabbed the camera. We've had only a couple of small snowfalls since the first week of January. Since then, most days have been about the same temperature (cold!) and foggy and/or cloudy. It's nice to see the sun. Here it is peeking through a frost-covered tree at the end of our driveway:


Not far west on our one-mile-long road is what I call The Sentinel. Remind you of anyone you know?



A bit farther west there are trees on both sides of the road:



Our road ends on private property just beyond the irrigation channel, so it's Brody's and my turnaround spot. Here we've just turned back. The neighbors have been enjoying the speedway of the channel!



Here are the neighbor's corrals:



Somebody I know loves the snow and isn't near as tired of the cold as I am!



That same somebody loves to eat rose hips; I'm surprised there are any left on the bushes.



Just about back to our farm.



And when I look south-east again, towards the sun, I see there are still wisps of fog in that direction.



I hope you enjoyed this virtual walk. I'm sure it was warmer for you than it was for me!

Rewriting versus Revising versus Editing

Seems like folks have different definitions for these three terms. Today you get mine.

Editing a novel is the final polish. It's the act of catching typos and clarifying confused sentences and adding in a bit of five-dimensional senses. If your novel is in good enough shape that all it needs is an edit, you can expect to make speedy progress through this draft.

Revising is where most of my second (and sometimes third) drafts live. I need to shift scenes around, rewrite some scenes completely to get more depth, maybe change up the pov character. When I'm revising, I've got the bones of the story pretty well but still need to wrastle it into shape.

Rewriting is more drastic yet, and that's where I am this week with the romance novel. Some scenes in this book needed revising, mostly in depth of character point-of-view. But the scenes that needed replacing really really needed replacing in their entirety. As in, parts of the over all novel plotline worked and parts didn't. This week I'm in the midst of a section that didn't. (The lame part that had me scrawling Seriously???? in the print-out margins...) I've added a complete new subplot and other new bits to amp up this part and help to complete the whole.

Still, to get through the entire 60,000-word novel by the end of March means I need to keep to about 10K a week. This week that 10K has been all new material. Take out a day to intensely revise a one-page synopsis in chat, and suddenly you're looking at 2500-word days instead of 2000. Lose a second day to customers, and you're mighty thankful you got a bit ahead last week. However, I've made 3K each of the last two days and if I can pull off 2K tomorrow, I'm still pretty much on track. Big if, being as it's a half day. Wish me luck!

Book Tour--Cyndere's Midnight--Day3

I'm always interested in a novel's hook. The first few paragraphs go a long way in either enticing me to read more or allowing me to set the book down for *later*. Of course, sometimes later never comes. An author such as Jeffrey Overstreet, whom I've already learned to trust may get a bit more of a break than someone I haven't read before.

Cyndere's Midnight starts with a brief prologue. I'm about as much of a fan of prologues, in general, as I am of omniscient point of view. This prologue reveals Auralia (though not named) working her colorful magic in The Expanse, proving that she is still there but choosing not to be seen.

Chapter one starts with Cyndere (pronounced SIN-der):

Cyndere walked down to the water to make her daily decision--turn and go back into House Bel Amica, or climb Stairway Rock and throw herself into the sea.

Okay, I have to pause here. As first sentences go, that one is an attention grabber. We have a character who has a habit--a habit of choosing every single day whether this is the day she will suicide or not. I don't know about you, but I kept right on reading. What had happened to her to make this sort of despair a part of her routine? And why, if it was so very tempting, hadn't she done it yet? Back to the opening:

It had become a habit. Leaving her chambers early, while the mirror-lined hallways were empty of all but servants, she would traverse many bridges, stairs, and passages and emerge on the shores of the Rushtide Inlet, escaping the gravity of distraction. Today in the autumn bluster, she wore her husband's woolen stormcloak at the water's edge. She brought her anger. She brought her dead.

While the fog erased the wild seascape, waves exploded against the ocean's scattered stone teeth, washed wide swaths of pebbles, and sighed into the sand. They carried her father's whispers from many years past, mornings when he had walked with her along the tide's edge and dreamt aloud. His bristling gray beard smelled of salt, prickling when he rested his chin on her head. He would place one hand on her shoulder and with the other hold a seashell to her ear. "Hear that?" he'd say. "That's your very own far-off country. You will walk on ground no one has ever seen. And I'm going to find it for you when I venture out to map the Mystery Sea."

He had done just that. While Cyndere's mother, Queen Thesera, stayed home to govern her people within House Bel Amica's massive swell of stone, King Helpryn discovered islands, sites for future Bel Amican settlements.

A shipwreck took the king when he tried to cross a stormy span between those islands.

Most all the reading I've done about opening scenes says not to give too much backstory right up front. First the reader needs to care about the character NOW before she gives a rip how the character came to this moment of their lives. Yet after this sordid beginning Overstreet goes on to document, albeit poetically, the demise of Cyndere's brother and husband. How does he keep our attention through what is basically three pages of history? Because of the strength of that opening sentence. Let me repeat it:

Cyndere walked down to the water to make her daily decision--turn and go back into House Bel Amica, or climb Stairway Rock and throw herself into the sea.

In her book Beginnings, Middles & Ends, Nancy Kress provides us with The Swimming Pool Theory:

Structuring fiction is like kicking off from the side of a swimming pool. The stronger and more forceful your opening kick, the longer you can glide through the water. The stronger and more forceful your opening scene, the less your reader will mind a "glide" through nondramatized backfill.

I think Overstreet's opening sentence is strong enough to propel us through three pages that show us what led up to it. Do you?

As near as I can figure out, there are two more strands to Auralia's Thread. Strand 3, Cal-Raven's Ladder, is due out in 2010.

Book Tour--Cyndere's Midnight--Day2

I've spent much of the past week mulling over Cyndere's Midnight. What did I like better than Auralia's Colors? Was there anything that didn't live up to the potential of the first book?

What I liked better, for sure, was the more defined third person point-of-view, getting closer to the characters, getting into their skins, feeling what makes them tick. I also liked that there was more action, and a more discernable plot line. I'd loved the poetic grace of Jeffrey Overstreet's prose in the first book, but I have to say that it wasn't greatly diminished by the faster pace of book two. This is a strong, well-written book.

The Christian Manifesto posted an interview with Overstreet in which they discussed Cyndere's Midnight. Feel free to read the whole thing, but here are a couple of bits I'd like to explore further.

Overstreet says:

I was five years old. I saw an ad for Jaws in the paper. You know the ad—that famous image of the swimmer, and the beast rising up from underneath. That picture still scares me. It made quite an impression on my five-year-old imagination. And for the first time, I coped with my fear by writing a story about it. It was called “The Sea Monster,” 9 or 10 pages of green paper with felt-tip pen drawings, stapled together. I have it in a file somewhere. It was just a story in drawings, but I turned it into an epic battle between a swimmer and a thing with massive jaws. I just had to resolve that tension, that closing gap between the woman and the monster.

Now, Cyndere’s Midnight is in bookstores—and what is it? Well, on one level, it’s a story about a beautiful woman and a monster with big teeth… and that scary space between them.

I have to say I didn't see anything of the movie Jaws in this novel, so I found it intensely interesting that Overstreet sees this novel as his interpretation of the concept.

The interviewer asked again, more specifically, what this book was about. Here is the answer:

After Auralia’s Colors, I wanted to explore what might happen if a beastman came into contact with the same mysterious beauty that Auralia unleashed upon the world. Right away, I realized that this story was a strange variation on “Beauty and the Beast.” But in my version, “beauty” meant something different. Here was a woman broken by grief, and a man broken by a curse. Both were drawn to the same magical, beautiful place. Their shared experience of that beauty became the core of the story.

From this quote I gather that Overstreet's theme for Cyndere's Midnight is that of healing the brokenness. Many people have difficult things in their lives. Some--a few--have been truly broken by deep pain. It is to these that Overstreet extends his story of healing. Tomorrow we'll look at the opening sequence, where you'll get an idea of what pain is found in the midnight Cyndere endures.

Book Tour--Cyndere's Midnight by Jeffrey Overstreet

In the past few years I've had the privilege of reading quite a few speculative fiction releases by various Christian authors through the Christian Science Fiction Fantasy Blog Tour. There have been very few that I simply didn't like, but there have been equally few that I have loved. The Sword of Lyric series by Sharon Hinck are amongst the truly loved...and Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet. Even though it was written in omni.

I talked about Auralia's Colors here and here and here when I read it just over a year ago. I looked forward to the second novel in the series and have recently completed reading it.

Cyndere's Midnight is the second *strand* in The Auralia Thread series. At the end of the first book Auralia herself disappeared. Not in a way that smacked of foul play, just that her initial job was done. So while she doesn't really play an immediate role in this second novel, the mark she left on The Expanse is still growing and still affecting everyone she came in contact with.

About the only thing I didn't love about the first novel was Jeffrey Overstreet's use of omniscient point-of-view. I quickly got sucked into the novel anyway and found it didn't bother me once I was immersed. In Cyndere's Midnight I found that Overstreet used a limited third viewpoint and that it helped me to feel closer to the characters.

There are four major players in this novel, some of whom we knew well from the prequel: the ale boy, who still doesn't have a name; Cal-Raven, now king of the remnant of Abascar; and the beastman, Jordam, whom Auralia's colors had *tamed*. Cyndere is new--I don't remember if she was mentioned in the previous novel or not, but she definitely wasn't a player.

Cyndere and her husband had a dream to help the beastmen to throw off the curse that had brought down their house, but Cyndere's husband was killed by the beastmen while trying to make contact. Devastated, Cyndere swings between severe depression and hints of hope that the dream might yet become a reality. When she and Jordam meet at a mysterious well where Auralia's colors are prevalent, the world of The Expanse is set upon a new course.

Tomorrow we'll have a look at some of the prevalent themes in Cyndere's Midnight, but if you are interested in reading what other bloggers are saying about this book in the meanwhile, check out these links:
Brandon Barr, Keanan Brand, Rachel Briard, Melissa Carswell, Amy Cruson, CSFF Blog Tour, Stacey Dale, D. G. D. Davidson, Shane Deal, Jeff Draper, April Erwin, Karina Fabian, Andrea Graham, Todd Michael Greene, Katie Hart, Timothy Hicks, Jason Isbell, Jason Joyner, Kait, Carol Keen, Magma, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Eve Nielsen, Nissa, Wade Ogletree, John W. Otte, John Ottinger, Steve Rice, Crista Richey, Alice M. Roelke, Chawna Schroeder, James Somers, Rachel Starr Thomson, Robert Treskillard, Steve Trower, Speculative Faith, Fred Warren, Jill Williamson

Multiple Genres

The romance revision is going well. I cleared 12K this week, officially 20% of the rewrite. I've written a couple of all new scenes, ransacked some old ones for usable information, and rewritten some that just needed wording beefed up. Looking ahead at the outline, about the next six or seven scenes are all new material, taking the place of the section I mentioned in a previous post (where the original scenes got Seriously???? scrawled in the margin!) I'm pretty pleased with the results thus far.

So, some may think I'm crazy entering three novels in three different genres into the Genesis contest this year. I may well be. I know the official wisdom is that it's hard enough to make a go of writing in one genre, and that writing in several (unless you're REALLY FAST, like PaperBackWriter) is a ridiculous concept. It confuses your readers (should one be lucky enough to ever get any, lol) and makes focusing your marketing difficult.

Well, that's all true, but at this moment no one is beating down my door offering me any publishing deals, so I'm still experimenting and finding my voice. I love fantasy, but in the process of writing several speculative novels (and having a few more in the wings) I'm finding the types of it that I like to write--and won't bother focusing any more on the ones that don't call me as much. And while I don't read a lot of romance or *women's fiction*, I've met some I really enjoyed a lot. So I'm experimenting.

I guess this means that whichever genre door opens for me (if any) I'll walk through. Maybe at that point I'll try to juggle more than one, maybe I won't. But for now it's a moot point.

Revision Outline

As near as I can remember, I am currently working on my sixth novel revision. By the time I'd written my first novel, I'd figured out that an outline would be a huge help. Why did it take me so long to understand that the same thing would be true of revision?

In 2007 I spent most of the year revising one novel, and I'm happy with the result. The process, however, was like pulling hair out by the handful. I worked through from beginning to end, going back and forth as I discovered issues. For instance, realizing something needed to be foreshadowed, then searching out the best place to put in a mention earlier. Realizing I'd dropped a thread, and looking for places to tie them off later on without drawing undue attention. Or should this thread have become more important rather than dwindling? Back and forth, back and forth. Just keeping track of all this (in my head, of course--where else?) was headache inducing and there were days I simply couldn't face the mental gymnastics required.

Holly Lisle talks about a one-pass revision. I thought I was doing this, for the most part. But I was so bogged down I couldn't see the forest for the trees. Many days, I couldn't see the trees for the twigs and leaves in my face.

About a year ago Margaret taught a workshop at Forward Motion about using a revision outline. I could see that this method worked with what Holly had been trying to teach. Since then, I've taken Holly's How to Think Sideways online writing course (highly recommended, by the way!) and feel that the process has clarified for me.

I guess the proof is in the pudding, as they say. I've read through Chloe this past week using techniques learned in the Think Sideways class, and analyzed my scene list with all the insights I've learned since the last big revision. Today I deleted scenes (in outline form) that were either weak or misleading or pointless, and replaced them with ideas that add greater conflict and move the story forward more forcefully. I've still got about the last 20% of the outline to rework. There are several really lame scenes coming up that need to be reworked, but I think I've got the underpinnings in place to deal with it.

This is all going in Scrivener. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this program for Macs? One thing Holly teaches is something she calls The Sentence Lite, in which one tries to get to the central kernel of the conflict of the individual scene. This Sentence Lite is what goes on the front of my Scrivener notecards, but, being as they're virtual notecards, there's plenty of room on the *back* for additional details, such as what subplots are carried in this scene, what additional characters are present, etc.

This is giving me the best of both worlds. I used to simply write *about* the scene on the notecards, and then wonder why the scene, when written, fell flat. Well, some of them weren't really scenes, didn't have solid conflict, didn't do any thing that pushed the whole story forward. They had good information in them and were often needed to a degree, yet still fell short of the goal. Spending a bit of extra time to focus on the core conflict of each scene ahead of time helps me to clarify the path through the scene.

At least, that's the goal. I wrote the new first chapter to Chloe's story yesterday, then went back to the re-outlining today with a new sense of purpose. I have a much clearer vision of where this story is going, and what I'd like to accomplish with it. Having this version of an outline is energizing!

How Writing Changes

I wrote a contemporary inspirational romance novel a few years ago, for NaNo 2005. I promptly pushed it off to the side and proceeded on my merry way playing with fantasy novels and ideas again, but the story resurfaced about a year ago when I was chatting with my friend Jean. I snippeted her a few bits and then she read the whole thing. The first draft, scary thought. And said nice things. (Not ONLY nice things, mind, but included them).

Through that the idea of revising and shaping up this story took hold, though certainly not to the exclusion of anything else, lol. I played with it a bit at the time, but soon came to realize the problems were deeper than I'd thought at first and set it aside again.

So, the other day I printed out the whole thing and began to read through, making brief notes on every scene. Along about fifty pages in, the note for one scene was simply a large X and "delete." And for the next scene, I scrawled across the page, "Seriously?" I'd found a few really good bits (the ones I'd first shared with Jean!) but way more dross. A LOT of dross.

I sat back in my chair and thought about the characters, their kids, their issues. She's too nice, I thought. She takes monumental stuff totally in stride. Superwoman! Okay, so it's official. She needs a makeover. I began mulling over *logical* makeovers that would tweak things but not necessitate ALL new scenes!

After a few minutes, I turned my attention to the hero. Also a pretty good guy. Slightly less perfect than the heroine, but nothing that really qualifies as a character flaw. A little case of temper, perhaps, would go a long way. Or maybe...

In just over three years, my writing style has changed a lot. I've learned to characterize much better (even my stupid whiny hero from Tempest has more personal issues than these folks). And I've learned to get much deeper into point-of-view. Quite a bit I've done since then has been in first person, which helps with the deeper, but the potential markets for this romance novel want third.

Even in third, this main character thinks too much! So the first thing is to bring someone directly into that opening paragraph/scene so she can TALK about stuff instead of THINK about it. The meeting with the hero later in the scene is reasonably okay as is. She shouldn't tell him all this stuff yet. But she needs a new best friend to bounce issues off of.

I've set aside the month of February to hit this novel and bring it into line. I'd like to think I could do it all in one month--after all, I wrote the entire 52K in one November!--but I'm thinking it may take a little longer. Hopefully not a lot longer, though. Maybe six weeks? Two months tops.

I'm reworking character profiles as we speak, and I still need to mine the previous manuscript for more good stuff to carry over. It's in there. The bones are decent, and worth rebuilding from.

If you're wondering why I'm not writing either Tempest or Dottie these days, the answer simply is that I'm not. Though I've been poking at Dottie recently and getting good ideas of how things need to proceed. One thing her story does not suffer from is weak characterization. The novel is populated with true individuals and they agree on very little. Lots of fun sparks. I'm stopping short of calling Tempest dead. But she's on life support, which is sad as it is some of my strongest writing thus far. One day the answers to my questions about her will erupt in my mind and she'll hit the road running again. I hope.

The Book of Names by D. Barkley Briggs -- Day 3

Here it is, the wrap-up day for the blog tour for A Book of Names. It's been interesting to read what various folks have said about it. (Check my Day 1 post for the complete list of tourists.)

Steve Rice doesn't let the fact that he hasn't read a book stop him. Check out his Genuine Fake Review for a few laughs as he reviews the Amazon book reviews.

Becky Miller and Chawna Schroeder expressed concern about the darkness portrayed in some of the scenes, particularly from the villains' pov scenes. To be honest, this level hadn't quite caught my attention, perhaps in part because it's been quite a few years since I've had a young teen in my house and, in general, I tend to read more mainstream fantasy than specifically Christian. So the advice for parents to preview for younger readers may not be a bad idea.

On the other hand, Keanan Brand got the goods from his 10-year-old niece, Jamie, who read the book and agreed to be interviewed about her impressions. Here is the link to the first segment, and here is the link to the second. I'm heading back later today to check for the third installment. After all, Keanan says this (emphasis my own):

I'm still reading the book, and should finish it by tomorrow, in time for my last post for this month's tour. I liked the poem and the map at the beginning, but--I confess--aside from the opening sentence, the first page just didn't grab me. Maybe that's because it wasn't intended to get a grown-up's attention. Jamie, however, devoured the book like a bear raiding picnic baskets at the park, and would have consumed more if the second book had been available.

(Hang in there, Jamie. Book 2, Corus the Champion is available for pre-order now!)

So of course, you know me. I have to post up the opening bit of the novel for you. Like Keanan, I wasn't smitten with the poem (too long, too cryptic), so I'll just head straight into Chapter 1:

The day was gray and cold, mildly damp. Perfect for magic. Strange clouds overhead teased the senses with a fragrance of storm, wind, and lightning, and the faint, clean smell of ozone. Invisible energy sparkled like morning dew on blades of grass.

Standing alone in an empty field on the back end of their new acreage, Hadyn Barlow only saw the clouds. By definition, you can’t see what’s invisible, and as for smelling magic? Well, let’s just say, unlikely. Hadyn saw what was obvious for late November, rural Missouri: leafless trees, dead grass, winter coming on strong. Most of all he saw (and despised) the humongous briar patch in front of him, feeling anew each and every blister and callus earned hacking through its branches.

Making room for cattle next spring, or so he was told; this, even though his dad had never owned a cow in his life. He was a history teacher, for crying out loud. A college professor. Hadyn’s shoulders slumped. It didn’t matter. Everything was different now.

Mr. Barlow didn’t let his boys curse, but low under his breath, Hadyn did, mildly, just to prove the point. Life stunk. That was the brutal truth.

All true for the most part. Yet standing alone in the field, bundled in flannel, something else prickled his skin--something hidden in the rhythm of the day, at its core--and it wasn’t just the chill wind. He couldn’t shake it. A sense of something. Out-of-placeness. Faced with a friendless sophomore year, Hadyn knew that feeling all too well. It attacked him every morning, right before school.

But this was something more, more than the usual nervousness and name-calling stuff. His intuition was maddeningly vague. Hadyn sniffed the air, eyeing the field. A fox scampered in the distance. Bobwhites whistled softly. This had been his routine for weeks. Go to school, come home, do chores. Today was no different. Except for the clouds.

Download and read the entire first chapter here.

Even though The Book of Names doesn't have a rapid-fire opening scene, I still found it intriguing. What was different about this day, really? What, in combination, made Hadyn's life stink? Why only mention his father? Why would a man, a history professor, who'd never raised cattle decide he wanted cows at this stage of his life?

I can feel the day, and I can feel Missouri in November. I believe that author D. Barkley Briggs has been there. I'm grounded, rooted, and already feeling the magic in the air that he is certain to spring any minute now.

And he does.

Thanks for touring with me!

The Book of Names by D. Barkley Briggs -- Day 2

D. Barkley Briggs wrote this novel (and the rest of the upcoming series) for his four sons, which is one of the best reasons I can think of for penning a manuscript. I asked Mr. Briggs about the connections between his family situation and the novel. He says:

"The story is very much rooted in my kids' lives and the impact of the last few years on our family. The names are even similar to my kids' real names: Hanson, Hadyn....Evan, Ewan....Gatlin, Garret....Gabe, Gage. I've infused the book with aspects of their personality, and the realities of the loss we suffered when my wife lost her battle with cancer at a young age. Our world turned upside down in every way imaginable. It was like being exiled to a foreign country, and all you really want is to go back home. So while the pain you read is real, the point of the story was to find a way to immerse myself and my boys back into the adventure of life.

"I think it's important for people to realize the magic and thrill of the tale, no strings attached. The average reader will easily lose themselves in the fantasy without feeling the heaviness of what compelled me to write it. For many, it's just going to be a great read, nothing more---and that's exactly what I want. But for others, for kids and parents that have been knocked around a bit, they'll read it with an additional level of empathy. Regardless, I think most teens and preteens will appreciate the honesty with which I've tried to present some of the issues they have to face. Hope so, anyway! As it relates to my boys, I simply wanted to find a voice for the hardship that they could feel was their own, that would enable them (and me) to live again.

"In short...the fantasy is entirely my creation, but the journey is very much theirs."

Knowing the situation does bring a deeper understanding of the story in The Book of Names. Readers not going through a similar grief will still feel the edge of the pain that the characters Hadyn and Ewan (in particular) have gone through, lending depth to the tale.

The main message Mr. Briggs sends his sons--and to those who read the words over his boys' shoulders is summed up in The Calling:



Don't give up. Hang in there. Answer the Call.

The Book of Names by D. Barkley Briggs

It's time for the Christian Science Fiction Fantasy tour for January. I love being introduced to new books, new authors, new series. It seems that most of the fantasy novels coming out in Christian circles are aimed at a Young Adult audience, and this month's pick, A Book of Names, is not the exception.

In this article, debut author D. Barkley Briggs talks about what draws him to fantasy:

This is the power of speculative fiction. This is the power of fantasy: to capture the mind, to both focus and liberate the emotional, imaginative faculties, to form real and symbolic connections, to viscerally associate yourself with a magical, desirable, grand-scaled life.

He goes into greater detail of what he means in a follow-up post.


The Book of Names thrums of the author's dedication to exploring those fantasy connections while never once bopping the reader on the head and saying: "This is what I want you to get."

Here's a brief introduction to the novel:



Here's what other bloggers are saying: Sally Apokedak, Brandon Barr, Keanan Brand, Rachel Briard, Frank Creed, Amy Cruson, CSFF Blog Tour, Stacey Dale, D. G. D. Davidson, Shane Deal, Jeff Draper, April Erwin, Karina Fabian, Andrea Graham, Todd Michael Greene, Timothy Hicks, Joleen Howell, Jason Isbell, Cris Jesse, Jason Joyner, Carol Keen, Magma, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Mirtika, Eve Nielsen, Nissa, Steve Rice, Crista Richey, Alice M. Roelke, Chawna Schroeder, James Somers, Rachel Starr Thomson, Steve Trower, Speculative Faith, Jason Waguespac, Phyllis Wheeler, Timothy Wise

Stand-In Groom by Kaye Dacus

I don't read a lot of straight-up contemporary romance novels. Not because I don't believe in romance--I certainly do!--but because it seems many stories are awkward at finding the right balance. I mean, we all know the plot pattern, right? Boy meets girl, there's some almost insurmountable bumps in the road, it all comes out fine, and the ending is HEA (happily ever after). Because we know that they'll get each other in the end, the wrap-up is never in doubt. We don't read romance for the ending but for the path.

My personal opinion is that it's hard to find believable conflicts to put in the path of these two characters who are obviously going to end up together. Conflicts that are significant enough that it's not some silly misunderstanding that could've been cleared up on page ten and saved us all from thinking "If they only talked to each other!!!" Because I'm a writer myself and have penned one contemporary romance (alongside a pile of fantasy novels), I've brainstormed a lot of conflicts in search of ones that are realistic and workable. It's not as easy as writers like Kaye Dacus make it look. I'd say she nailed the conflict department. The premise of Stand-In Groom?

When professional wedding planner Anne Hawthorne first meets the handsome Englishman George Laurence, she wonders if God has finally answered her prayers for a husband. But when the "best man" for her turns out to be a client--and someone else's to-have-and-to-hold--Anne quickly realizes that planning his wedding will be no honeymoon. Can she remain professional while falling for the groom?

A personal assistant for a wealthy man who wishes to keep his identity--and his engagement--a secret, George Laurence has come to Louisiana to plan his employer's wedding and pose as the groom. Not only is this a challenge to the tenets of his Christian faith, but he can't stand the fact that he's deceiving Anne, the first woman who ever made his heart really sing. Will George ultimately risk his career to keep the woman he loves?

And what will happen when Anne finds out the groom's true identity? Can Anne and George find a way to a happy ending, or will this "I do" ruse destroy their chance at love?

Having an evening with no real plans and no real energy this past week, I read this novel published by Barbour Books in one sitting. And I quite enjoyed it. I'll be happy to read subsequent books in this series.

If you're interested in reading the first chapter, click here.

2009 plans

Well, here it is the 17th day of the new year. You'd think I could post up some goals for it at some point, eh? Perhaps my first goal should be...

1. Blogging more. Aiming for at least once a week might be a good idea.
2. Getting my website completely redone and the blog integrated. Hopefully within the next month.

Most of the things in my life that I have *some* measure of control over are writing related. While many of the highlights of last year (and previous years) are in family areas, those aren't areas where public goals make sense. So here goes on writing ones:

3. Novel Submissions: Keep Majai's Fury in submission. (I've sent queries out twice already this year, and it's been rejected once. So I'm succeeding in this goal, thus far.)

4. Writing: Finish Dottie and Tempest. (It looks like Dottie is going to move forward and be the first for concentration. I'm taking her story through the How to Think Sideways course as we speak.) I'll consider doing NaNo this year, if these are complete and nothing else seems to be more pressing.

5. Contests: I plan to submit at least two entries into the Genesis. Of course I would like to increase my *streak* of finaling and increase my standing. *If* I final again this year, I'd like to try to get to conference in September. But that's not quite a goal.

6. Revising: I'm not sure what will hit the front burner on this one. It depends on how long the writing from Goal 4 takes. At the moment it's a toss-up between Quest to Be Queen and Chloe. I wish I revised faster is the real truth!

7. Critiquing: I'll take on up to four novels this year for crit, though I'm not sure right now which of my partners will have something ready. So this goal is a bit vague.

8. Forward Motion: Continue with moderator duties at FM, including writing and facilitating one new workshop this year. Other things may come up.

9. Book Tours: I'm committed still to touring at least a dozen new books on this blog this year. Maybe it's cheating to stick it in my goals when there will be two next week!

The Store Wars!

Here is Cuke Skywalker: "May the Farm be with you!"

Looking back at 2008

In the spirit of entertainment, I revisited my goals for 2008. In summary, I hoped to:

1. Keep sending out Marks of Repentance (now renamed Majai's Fury). After awhile, analyze whether the novel and/or the query package need another revision.
2. Complete revision of Quest to be Queen, get it out to critters and hopefully into submission in 2008.
3. Revise the opening chapters to Chloe's story (romance) and The Girl Who Cried Squid and submit both to the Genesis contest in April.
4. Revise both novels, send to critters.
5. Write something. Maybe two somethings.
6. Keep critting
7. Keep up with moderator duties at Forward Motion

How did I do?
1. I did keep sending out MF, but not nearly as much as I could/should have.
2. I completed the revision of QtBQ, sent it out to critters, and now have more work to do on it.
3. Of the two openings I planned to enter in Genesis in '08, I only entered one (TGWCS), but I did place third in my category for it.
4. But did not revise it.
5. Did not write two somethings or even one something. I did make reasonable progress on two separate projects, though, so I'll pretend that counts!
6. Critting? Well, that depends on my buddies having novels to swap. This year I critted two of them.
7. Mod duties at FM grew this year with the addition of the highly successful workshop program.

But in reality, many of the highlights of 2008 for me weren't related to my writing dreams, although some certainly were. The best things about 2008?

1. My hubby getting a local job again after 2.5 years of the nasty commute to his four-on, four-off job at the coal mines.
2. A two-day writing seminar in Couer d'Alene, Idaho, in April with Randy Ingermanson and my two new buddies, Bonne and Viv.
3. A great *Girls* trip to Victoria in May with my daughter and daughter-in-law. Even though the car broke down.
4. My daughter and son-in-law spending four months with us this summer--an unexpected but wonderful interlude.
5. A puppy, Brody. Some days he's not the best thing ever, but some days he is.
6. My walking buddies at Walking to Somewhere, with whom I have (virtually) logged over 1200 miles, and for my husband and the pup, who have been my real companions for many of those miles!
7. As part of the local hikes, we explored a lot of our local area and discovered some of the history with the native pictographs, etc, and got started in geocaching.
8. Placing third in the Genesis contest with the opening pages of my novel, The Girl Who Cried Squid.
9. My in-laws' celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in September, which was a great excuse for a family party and a time to honor them.
10. A great one-week trip to Lake Tahoe with Margaret in December, with lots of hiking and laughing.
11. Spending Christmas in Victoria with our kids and their spouses, spending great family time together. And surviving the nasty roads to and from.
12. No major flare-ups of degenerative disc this entire year!!!

That's a pretty spur-of-the-moment list, but definitely things I've been thankful for this year.

What are the highlights of 2008 in YOUR little worlds? Let me know if you've posted a list or recap!

Blog Tour--Lost Genre Guild

This month's Christian Science Fiction Fantasy blog tour is featuring The Lost Genre Guild. The LGG's goal is to become a hub of biblical speculative fiction online. The website states:

The number-one reason people buy books is because they're recommended by family or friends. Publishers know the market is out there, which is why publishers keep throwing the dice on spec-fic. Publisher's traditional shotgun marketing isn't hitting the target market.

Why?

Christian genre fans gave-up on Christian bookstore shelves. Shotgun marketing aims inside the box, and our readership isn't in the box. Nobody home. According to the 80-20 rule of marketing, 80% of sales comes from 20% of efforts. The trick is identifying and focusing on that 20%.

The site includes forums, a Yahoo group, and a blog. If you're interested in the genre, check out this group! And here's what other bloggers are saying:

Brandon Barr, Justin Boyer, Keanan Brand, Kathy Brasby, Grace Bridges, Courtney, Frank Creed, Amy Cruson, CSFF Blog Tour, Stacey Dale, D. G. D. Davidson, Janey DeMeo, Jeff Draper, April Erwin, Karina Fabian, Andrea Graham, Todd Michael Greene, Katie Hart, Timothy Hicks, Joleen Howell, Jason Isbell, Cris Jesse, Jason Joyner, Kait, Carol Keen, Lost Genre Guild, Mike Lynch, Magma, Margaret, Rachel Marks, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Nissa, John W. Otte, Steve Rice, Crista Richey, Mirtika, Hanna Sandvig, James Somers, Robert Treskillard, Steve Trower, Speculative Faith, Jason Waguespac, Phyllis Wheeler, Timothy Wise

Leaflette-on-Etsy

If you have folks on your gift-list who are young or young-at-heart, may I suggest you stop by my very talented daughter's Etsy shop, Leaflette? She has additional information--more photos and a coupon code--on her blog, Hanna's Life is Cool.

If you're not familiar with her art (not sure how that could've happened, being as you're my friend and all!), let me tell you a bit about it. Hanna has always loved to color and draw since she was big enough to wrap her wee fingers around a crayon. Her daddy and I happily bought her artist sets and paints and sketch books and pencils as birthday and Christmas gifts throughout her childhood as she continued to show both talent and determination. When we bought our first computer in 1993, she even figured out how to use that super basic computer program--was it called Paint? or Paintbrush? Where you dotted the pixels by color? (I always thought a person could use that for designing cross-stitch patterns, but I digress.)

I guess that got her started, because she now does all her artwork digitally, though her programs have gotten more complex and her art has matured as well. She has built a website with her art portfolio on it as well as samples of website and blog designs she's done.

About a year ago she began experimenting with printing her art on 100% cotton fabric and making it colorfast. With that process in place, she designed dolls and birds that she prints onto fabric, cuts out, sews, and stuffs. This process makes toys for babies and toddlers that are completely child-friendly and can be machine washed.



She's also selling quite a few prints of her artwork at Leaflette in 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10, ready to frame up and hang on the wall. Or you can purchase them as fabric prints for use in quilts or toys of your own. Here's one of my favorite illustrations: Birder Boy.

Stay tuned in the New Year because Hanna has sold an illustration to a well-known magazine, and I'll be posting up the details when I'm free to do so! Meanwhile, go browse at Leaflette, and maybe you'll find something you'd like to purchase.

Good news and bad news

There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that I've been pretty much stalled on Tempest for the better part of two months. The good news is that I discovered that my story had problems before I'd written 100K. I was only half way there.

I've spent the past couple of weeks going through many of the lessons in the How to Think Sideways course from Lesson 7 through 16. This time I've actually done the assignments instead of just reading them :P I also have open (and am working back and forth between) Create a Character Clinic and Create a Plot Clinic, also both by Holly Lisle.

I wish I didn't have to report that I've removed every scene from Aben's viewpoint in the draft thus far. (I moved them to an out-take file, so don't panic. They're not deleted! But I doubt there will be much in them I can re-use.) You'll notice Tempest's status bar on the right went from 47571 to 33618.

I've deleted all Aben's plot cards, completed and *future*. I found out that I'd written a character whose one redeeming feature is that he's a hard worker. He's also full of himself, afraid of heights, and a whiner. How did I not notice this months ago? I have no answer for that. I'm trying to hang onto the fact that I AM seeing it now, before I've finished the novel, before my crit partners look at him and go *huh*?

It's a bit humbling to find myself a third finished a first draft I thought I was half done. It's a bit humbling to find myself making such a simple but complex error when this is my eighth novel. But I'm trying to look on the bright side. Reading through the entire draft this week, Tempest herself is fairly strong. She has a strong voice and she certainly has conflict in every scene and she has a lot at stake in this novel. Sure there will be stuff to revise--it's not perfect--but I'm not throwing out anything but Aben's scenes at this time. I can work with Tempest as a character.

But my job for the next few days is to recreate Aben into a worthy love interest. Sure he needs a flaw or two, but he needs more positives than a good work ethic. Honestly. Where's the romance in that? :P