Shopping?

This can be the most fun or the most frustrating thing ever.

Right now, it’s in-between. Mainly because I’m mostly talking about furniture shopping. We’ve been out looking for a few weeks, off and on, trying to get an idea of what we want in our living room. Sounds easy at the outset…one couch, one recliner, couple of chairs.

WRONG.

I’ve looked at so many couches I don’t know which one is better. They are all starting to feel the same to me. Then, there are fabric choices. I can’t decide between leather or microfiber. All I know is I need something pet and kid freindly. Have no clue really which one would be better suited.  And God forbid I pick the wrong one. The furniture I have now is almost 10 years old, and I’m sure it will be another 10 years before I can replace the new furniture. UGH. And don’t even get me started on prices. Sheesh!! Let’s just say they’re not giving the stuff away.

The only thing I can say is I like furniture shopping WAY better than clothes shopping. Did I mention I saw swimming suits at the store already??

 *runs away screaming  and hides*

Annette Blair contest winner

Calling Stacey Smith! You won our special D’s-son drawing for the free copy of Gone With the Witch from Annette.

Please contact Marilyn at marilyn.pappano@sbcglobal.com so she can get your mailing information sent to Annette.

If we don’t hear from Stacey by next Saturday, we’ll ask D’s kiddo to draw another name from the virtual hat.

Slutty Weather

We’ve had quite a storm (slutty weather) here in NE Oklahoma. First it iced–the hardest stuff to drive on. (You can see some pics on my blog) After that it sleeted, then it snowed. And the temps have been so low, it’s all stayed around.

I’ve been home all week. (No way I’m going to ice skate to the car with John My Cane holding me up.)

Staying home’s not a bad thing when DH is here. We’ve built fires, watched movies, munched popcorn and had a great time. Since we don’t have kiddos at home anymore, I haven’t worried about dressing them warm enough to go out and drying up puddles of melting snow when they come in.

When they were little, I did a lot of that. One year, DH borrowed my brother’s motorcycle and hitched the kids’ sled to the back. He dragged them all over the 53 acres we lived on. They had a ball.

Just like when I was a kid. Dad built us a sled, using 2 X 6 boards for runners. He’d open the back of the station wagon so he could hear and see us, then he’d take us for rides through the streets of our little town. 

Talk about fun! As the #1 sister, I had to ride in front because the blowing wind made it coldest there. I learned in a hurry not to use my toes to try to stop the sled when the car stopped. Talk about painful!

One night we went to the neighbor’s house, where several friends gathered. We had homemade pizza, salad, hot chocolate and took turns riding on our sled.

They let the kids ride for just a little while. Then the men took it out with the promise that they’d be back soon so the kids could have more fun.

But they didn’t come back for a long time. It grew later and later. Past time for us kids to be in bed. Mom must have been worried, because we stayed at the neighbors until Dad got back.

When they finally got there, he told us what happened. It seems they were playing. As they drove, they took corners a little fast, trying to dump the guy riding the sled.

Everything went fine until our preacher got on. They took a sharp corner and success! They slung him off the sled and into a ditch.

When they got him dug out, they had to wake up the local chiropractor and get him to work the kinks out of Preacher’s back.  

Get my dad to tell that story today, and he’ll laugh until he cries. I wasn’t even on the scene, but I think it’s a riot. I still wonder how the preacher tells the story.

By the time the sled retired, the 2 x 6 runners were worn down to nubbins. Maybe a half inch left, if that. I wish we still had that sled, even though it wouldn’t be usable anymore.

It hold so many shiny memories.

Susan

Absence of Writer’s Cramp, or Why I Hate Book Signings

It’s an ugly part of the writing biz. People stare at you while keeping their distance. They sometimes approach you, noses wrinkled as if they can hardly bear the smell, then dismiss you as unworthy.  Sometimes they insult you to your face, and you sit there and smile politely while muttering curses under your breath.

I’m talking about book signings. Some authors, I’m told, actually enjoy them. They usually fall into one of two categories: they’re either newly published and haven’t yet experienced the worst book signings have to offer, or they’re best-sellers who have people lined up out the door.

My first book signings took place at national conferences for Romance Writers of America, where the books were freebies. No-shows were no problems; everyone loves freebies. My first paying-customer signing was at a Romantic Times convention. I sold nearly a hundred books in a few hours and thought this was too cool! I couldn’t wait to do it again.

So I did. It was much smaller than RT’s convention signing, with far fewer authors taking part, and far, far fewer sales. But it still wasn’t too bad. After that, I did a few signings at my hometown book store, and those were great. (Anyone I’m not related to, my mom knows or my husband has arrested, and people have a tendency to not hold their arrests against him.) Then one day the publicist at my then-publisher called. They wanted me to do a signing in Kansas, at their expense.

You betcha, I said. She gave me the date and time, along with the store info. It was set for a fall Saturday afternoon. DH and I would drive up to the town in Kansas – don’t recall the name now, but it’s the home of Kansas State University – and we’d spend the night, then do the signing and return home. A nice little weekend getaway, right?

I knew something was wrong when DH started trying to make hotel reservations. There was nothing in town. Nothing anywhere within sixty miles of the town. “There’s a football game that weekend,” he told me when he finally found a room an hour away.

A football game. Huh. I’m not a fan, but I remembered how everything in Stillwater came to a stop on OSU’s home game days. My stomach started to hurt.

The weekend came. We got up that Saturday morning in our distant motel and drove into town, where traffic was heavy and restaurants were crowded and everyone was sporting school colors. The ache rose into my chest.

The bookstore was one of the few places in town that wasn’t busy. A table was set up inside the main entrance, stacked with piles of my book. “Sorry about the timing,” the slightly-anxious manager said as he got me settled.

“Timing?” I echoed through gritted teeth.

“Well, yeah. Kansas State is playing Kansas today just a couple miles away. In fact, kickoff is in five minutes.”

Oh, great. KState is not just playing; they’re playing Kansas.

In two hours, I told three people where the bathroom was, directed two people to the music section and sold two books – one to the manager, one to the assistant manager.

That’s when I started hating book signings. I’m not an outgoing person, I’m not a sales person, and I find it really hard to sell myself. I’d rather stay home and scrub toilets than do a signing these days. Maybe that’s why I’ve convinced myself that signings aren’t really great sales tools, even though I know they can make a difference. Just not always a good one.

I went to a signing once with an NYT author who was snippy and rude (then went back to her hotel and whined online about being stuck in Oklahoma for the night). Soon after, NYT author Robert B. Parker did a signing in Tulsa, and he couldn’t have been nicer. I still buy his books. I don’t buy hers.

How do book signings rate for you? Better than cleaning a toilet, worse than a root canal, or do you actually enjoy them?

Shiny Things

On the way to the airport this morning, my husband and I discussed how language, especially slang usage, can date a story.  He began by telling me that no matter how an author tries to make their story timeless, the dialog nails the story into a decade or generation by virtue of language.

He has a real good point.

If I say, “groovy” you know I’m either a child of the sixties talking, or I’m in the sixties.  Groovy is a word that is tied by usage to that decade.  It can either ground your story in that timeframe, or show a character who is hopelessly stuck in that mindset.

In science fiction, an author struggles to give a believable background to the story, but one that is ‘different’ enough to feel exotic and otherworldly.  The story needs to be understandable, and the reader needs to know what is going on, but the language has to be twisted in a way that makes it ‘feel futuristic’.

One of the inspired usages of language tht did just that was in Joss Whedon’s short lived TV series, Firefly.  In the future, as man launched from ‘Earth That Was’ out to colonize the stars, the frontier became a zone much like the Old West.  One of the easy ways that Whedon made the dialog distinct but understandable was in using “shiny” as a word for good, excellent or wonderful.

Visually, we were faced with dusty frontier planets, the inhabited worlds were dingy and patched together.  Using the word “shiny” to evoke excellence or greatness brought to mind how a brand new spaceship would look to its crew.  Only on the maiden voyage would it remain ’shiny’.

The word shiny is not technical, or exotic, but in dialog usage, it was very distinct and made a noticeable difference in how we speak and how the people of the future spoke.  Understandable, yet distinctive.

As a child, when your grandpa told you that a woman was “the bee’s knees”, you didn’t really know what he meant.  Perhaps by context you could suss out the meaning, but it was not language that translated easily.  The trick for an author is to identify a few choice, understandable words and pepper them into the dialog in such a way as to make sense and keep the chatter distinctive.

Using dialog to add a futuristic flavor to a novel is a requirement for making a world that can be explored by the reader.  Sometimes a writer uses a phrase that continues on long past the popularity of the book.  And if you don’t ‘grok the fullness‘ of that, then you don’t read science fiction.  spw

They just don’t get it!

Today, I was telling my dad how lately life had been stressing me out…enough that I talked it over with my doctor and got prescribed a “happy pill”.  (Okay, those of you who thought I was slipping into dementia, blahhh!!!)  Anyway,  I also warned him that I was on deadline for a writing contest next week and would be available only for emergencies…please.  His response was that maybe I should give up the stuff that came with deadlines.  After I freaked out a little, I tried to explain to him that as a selling author, I would have to get used to deadlines, and probably very short ones at times.

On the way home, I got to thinking…those closest to us usually just don’t get it.  They don’t understand that writing is more than putting the story to paper, mailing it out, and getting a check.  To them, it can be done in your spare time…in between the “important” stuff like day job, housekeeping, washing the car.  I know my family didn’t understand why I had to do sooo much more travelling to promote my eBooks than I did with my Silhouette Desire.  The difference between a well-known name publisher and a new publisher (not counting a new medium!), totally escaped them.

Other missed understandings–I actually had an acquaintance (not a friend, thank God!) who felt sure that if I wrote her life story, it would be a best seller.  She survived an abusive marriage by killing her husband in self defense to protect her unborn child while the old man was beating on her… again.  When I explained that while her story of survival was inspiring, I wrote romance, about love.  Her response?  “But I still loved him when I pulled the trigger.”  Somehow, she couldn’t understand that because her relationship story didn’t have a happy ever after, it wasn’t a romance.

Then there is this gal at work who tells one and all that “Jackie writes smutty books!”, giggling all the while.  Time and time again I explain that I write sensual romance, not smut.  Of course in my defense, it didn’t help when one of our female doctors announced to one and all that after she finished reading my Desire, she woke her husband up at three in the morning for some action.  Flattering, but not conducive to convincing people I’m a serious writer who creates stories about healthy, loving relationships.

But I think the most frustrating misunderstanding is from my friends who have read all my Star Trek/Science Fiction stories, but don’t read my romances.  Oh, they’re proud of me for selling, but they’re waiting for me to write a “real” book.  The kind that is eligible for a Hugo nomination!  Though my sister did read, love, and re-read WARRIOR’S HEART, but I have to wonder…is it because the hardcover made it a real book? 

Interview With Annette Blair

What do you do to relax other than writing?

I don’t do a lot of relaxing; I’m constantly on deadline.  But I love antiquing.  I collect 19th century glass slippers and jadite kitchen glass.  I love traveling with my husband.  A special treat is a day that I pick up my toddler grandchildren from daycare and take them for the afternoon.  I love nothing more than sitting on the floor with them to play and read.  They’re probably the only 3 & 5 year olds who say let’s make up a story, Nana, and know what I mean when I say, and who’s the main character?  What’s the conflict?  Black moment?    Readers can see pictures of both my glass slipper collection and my grandchildren on my website.   

 

 

What do you like to read?  What’s on your “keeper” shelf?

Reading is a luxury like relaxing, so my keeper shelf is full of older books.  But if the rare occasion allows it, I love reading anything that sucks me into the story and makes me feel what the characters do, a story that lingers in my mind long after I’ve shut the book.  I have keepers by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Janet Evanovich, Deborah Smith, JK Rowling, Nora Roberts, Mary Janice Davidson, and so many more.

 

 

Who/What influenced your writing the most?

My early inspiration came from Mary Balogh.  Her Regencies made me laugh, cry, feel joy, hope, and let me leave my worries behind for a while.  That’s what I wanted for my readers.  I own several copies each of all Mary’s early Regencies, and every Christmas, I read her anthologies to get me in the spirit.

 

 

Have you always been a writer?  What did you do before becoming a writer?  Did you or do you still have a “day job”?

I wrote romances about my girlfriends and their boyfriends in high school, and they always had a four poster, which got me into trouble with one mother.  And I never got into trouble.  LOL.  One day I read the copy of The Flame and the Flower that my sister put in my hand and I was hooked.  I discovered Mary Balogh right away.  By the time I became the Development Director in a private prep school, I had already started writing, but I worked there for 21 years.   I’ve been a full time writer for nearly three years.

 

 

Did you always want to be a writer?  If not, then what?

Don’t laugh.  I wanted to be a nun, but I couldn’t enter the order when I wanted to.  While I waited for the next convent entry date, I went on a blind date with my husband, who I went to grammar school with, as it turned out.  Needless to say, I never became a nun.  And the people who knew me back then really get in some digs when they read my love scenes.

 

 

What does your normal (writing) week look like?

I write on my laptop that isn’t connected to the internet, so I’m not tempted to play instead of writing.  One day a week I check emails and catch up.  A couple of 18 hour writing days.  Maybe an overnighter or two per week.  I take a rare day for errands or a day for some fun with the grandbabies.  Anyone who’s read my work must know that I love children. I can only go a few weeks without having to see them.  But basically, it’s work, work, work for me.  For the sake of family time, and my sanity, I have to learn to stretch my deadlines a little farther apart.

 

 

What does your family think of your writing and/or your success?  How do they support/encourage you?

My family is so incredibly supportive, you would believe it.  I mean, everybody jokes about not having enough time with me, and they’re only half joking, and they’re right, but my husband shops, cooks, does laundry.  Sometimes if I’m going to do a book signing a distance away, and the weather is iffy, he drops everything to take me. Gotta love a guy who’ll nap in the car for two hours while you’re signing books. 

 

 

How did you become interested in witches, witchcraft?

I live 45 minutes from Salem.  In 2002, friends from New Jersey coming to visit the witch city stayed here for the night on the way, and wanted me to go with them for the weekend.  Though I was in pain from an emergency root canal, I didn’t want to disappoint them.  I was miserable, popping pain meds, following them around, blank mind, wondering when it would be over…then I saw a shop called The Kitchen Witch, and I wondered, “what if?”  I wrote the first three chapters in days and read them to one of those friends on the phone.  She asked me if I’d ever read Janet Evanovich.  I hadn’t back then.  She said, “finish that puppy,” so I did.  After The Kitchen Witch, Berkley wanted more witches, and readers wanted more paranormal, then I got interested in witches.  The Kitchen Witch isn’t really paranormal, which can’t be said for any of the rest. It turned out that I had several witch friends who only admitted as much to me after the book came out, and they’ve been a great help. 

 

 

How did you move from writing historical to writing contemporary?

See answer above.  Purely by accident.  I’d always figured that I couldn’t write a contemporary.  Who knew?   As it turned out the contemporary market was much bigger than the historical market at that time and the paranormal market even bigger than that.  If I hadn’t switched, I’d still be working full time and writing all night…every night, I mean.  Now, I at least get 8 hours of sleep a night, whatever time it starts.

 

 

If you could write yourself into a story, what would your character be and be like?

I’d be as gorgeous as a model, a powerful alpha heroine with an uber hot shape shifting dragon hero who adores me.  I’d be rich, of course, with plenty of paranormal gifts, and plenty of the other good stuff that an alpha hero does so well and so often.    We’d spend our time traveling the world and solving fascinating mysteries.

 

 

What advice do you have for writers who are still waiting for “the call”?

Don’t give up.  The only guarantee in writing is that if you give up, you will NEVER sell.  I know this well, because my journey was long.  That can read about it on my website, year by long agonizing year (www.annetteblair.com).

 

 

What do you wish you had known earlier in your writing career?

I wish I’d known that I would succeed.  It would have helped my stress level tremendously. 

 

 

What is/are your favorite ways to promote your books?

I love book signings, meeting my readers.  I enjoy doing on sight writing workshops.  I enjoy speaking at local libraries, etc.  I’m having some fun with a current contest where I ask readers to promote my books on the web with a certain number of entries for whatever type of promo they do.  Readers can check that out at:  www.annetteblair.com/contest.htm 

 

 

What’s coming up next for you?

I’m working on a new contemporary paranormal series.  The premise is a supernatural employment agency in Salem owned by a witch who greets and acclimates the supernaturals who come through a veil made thin my human magick.  The first hero is a dragon shapeshifter.  The next is an angel.  The first will be out in January of 2010.   Also, my first Vintage Magic Mystery just came out.  A VEILED DECEPTION has been working its way up the B&N mass market mystery bestseller list for the last three weeks.  It started at #18 and is now at #9.  The next LARCENY AND LACE will be out in August.  The third Death by Diamonds will be out in April 2010.

**For a chance to enter a drawing for a copy of Annette’s GONE WITH THE WITCH, check out the contest box to the right.**

No Pain, No Gain

IMO, all writers are masochists, otherwise how could we subject ourselves to the pain of writing and actually like it? Isn’t it a little like giving birth every time we produce work? And then, after this initial exhausting catharsis, we go back and fuss with our precious little child, comb its hair just so, dress it in its best—and promptly hand it over to those who we know are going inform us, in no uncertain terms, that our baby is not nearly as cute as we thought, and in some circumstances, rip it apart.

Critique groups and contests give us a taste of what might happen when we shove our beloved little WIP out the door into the real world. It’s like overhearing friends talk about your newborn’s big ears and the hairy wart on its forehead; they’re usually pointing out things you already know about, but didn’t think were that noticeable.

Praise is our saving grace. It’s the spoonful of sugar that keeps us from choking on the bitter realization that our baby needs a bag over its head. Tell us its toes are cute. Tell us we dressed it nicely. Tell us to be patient, that its just going through an ugly phase, and it will grow up to be a brilliant, Nobel Prize winning swimsuit model.

Because we are unique individuals, the creative experience varies for all of us. For me, it changes WIP to WIP, and yet one aspect seems ever-constant: The process of writing takes a toll on my physical and emotional being, which is replaced in abundance by having written.

MY DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

I’m a junk store junkie! A thrift shop maniac. A fun day for me is hitting the local stores. I never know what I’ll find, but the bargains are just waiting. It’s the thrill of the hunt, the excitement of the find, the anticipation of making this treasure my own. I can see potential in almost any object, especially if the price is right—meaning really low. 

 

The desire to work with my hands comes from my father. He could build or fix anything, which was good since I broke lots of stuff. Just yesterday I finished a 3 X 5 mirror—circa 1970s that is going to hang in my bathroom—the same one with the malfunctioning sink that hasn’t hit critical stage yet. Total cost $15. I’ve redone frames, given furniture new life, built metal art, even sold some of my creations.

 

These days, my dirty little secret is gaining in popularity, even becoming chic. Or so I overheard from a group of teenage girls trying on clothes. Their outfits were awesome! Thrift stores—I’m a bit of a snob here as I choose to support shops whose proceeds go to worthy causes—need  both buyers and donations. A win-win situation. A great way to recycle in our disposable society.

 

So, I’ll shout it loudly and proudly…I’m an addict—an eccentric in my own twisted way.

 

 

Words and Directions

Like DP, I also don’t have anything to blog about this week. Major deadline in the day job. Tons of other miscellaneous things needing to be done around the house and office. Nothing specific or mind blowing. I thought about discussing how we got to where we are in our lives now – like the little turns we take that led us to this point and where we would’ve been if we’d turned right instead of left. Or vice versa. But that was pretty well covered in DP’s blog, too.

Then I thought about our profession and what it is that we do. Specifically. We write. And we learn to construct words in a coherent manner that’s both appealing and correct. But are we being censored? Like George Carlin’s ‘7 Words You’re Not Allowed to Say on TV’. (I think that was the name of his skit.) Are there words we aren’t allowed to use? Some publishers/editors give you a list of forbidden words. Like Steeple Hill for example. I can see that. They publish inspirational so their readers have a certain expectation the publisher has to fulfill.

But what about others? Like your critique partners? Or worse, judges in a contest? Some writers have heard a few ‘rules’ that you aren’t supposed to break. For example, the word ‘was’. Granted, it usually means your writing is passive. But there are instances where the word is needed. To leave it out would constitute an incomplete sentence. Of course, there are a multitude of other words that, if used, can mean your judge will count off on your score. Simply because they’ve read somewhere, or heard, that you shouldn’t use that word. Personally, I’d like to make a statement:

THERE ARE A LOT OF WORDS IN THE DICTIONARY AND THERE IS NO REASON I CAN’T USE THEM!

As long as I know how to use them correctly, or at least know the rules enough to know when and how to break them, then do not count off on my contest entry. And if you don’t know if the way I’ve used the word is correct, then please look it up or consult with a more experienced writer as to whether I’m correct or not.

The goal of our writing is to create believable worlds, memorable characters and intriguing plots. To craft stories that will take the reader out of their own worlds, forget their own troubles, and give them a few hours of joy, sorry, nail biting suspense or other-realm worlds.

I feel that if I can give the reader what they’re expecting, then I’m glad I was laid off from that supposedly secure job, wound up bouncing between being a secretary, bookkeeper, and temp jobs, then landing the oil and gas job that was just down the street from the community college . . . which led to a class in novel writing . . . which eventually led me to RWI.

Finally!

Home.

Linda