What's Under Your Bed?

Queue background music from Jaws…da…dum…da…dum…

dadum.. Dadum, DaDum!

Under my bed are a few dust bunnies (okay, maybe more than a few) and my first, oh, fifteen tries at writing. And Oh. My. God, were they scary to look at! Why, they scare themselves just like the fierce little monster above. (Come to think of it, he resembles me watching a scary movie... like Star Wars. Yeah, I know.)

Lately, I’ve been REcontemplating the writing process, something that happens whenever I start to doubt my ability, my story, my existence, lol. So this was the impetus to find my favorite box of writing books which I’d misplaced after the MS River fiasco. Serendipitously, a little book by Heather Sellers, Chapter after Chapter, jumped out of the box and into my hands.

I’d left off reading quite some time ago so I flipped to where the dust jacket was primed, to the chapter on Serious Writer Man. “When we’re unsure, or in quicksand, in order to deal with the fear of the unknown, we suit up and call on Serious Writer Man, but it’s fake…and always produces weak writing…When we’re driven to please, to fit in, to try to be heard, (to write for the wrong reasons) we’re prone to producing work that rings hollow. We don’t trust the greatness within us.”

Wow.

And…”Serious Writer Man must never be allowed into our writing

space.”

This was followed by advice on counteracting the “I should” mechanism.

Ms. Sellers likens writing a book to swimming across a vast lake. It’s scary and lonely. The swimmer is doing fine when she’s stroking, not worrying about the other side being far, far away, or what she should be doing. Every so often she stops and reassesses and then keeps going. She said we need to replace “’Should’ with curiosity and attention to the tiniest details. If I cup my hands will I swim faster? If I write in present tense, do things flow differently?”

Ironically, when I go back to some of my earliest serious attempts at writing, I find a fun freshness to the writing - not so many contrivances and attempts to style my writing to fit a mold or please anyone but me.

So what’s under your bed? What were some of your early stories about? Have you considered pulling any of them out to revise and submit? Which ones the scariest artistically? Did you always write in the same genre as you do currently, or did you explore your limits?

And most of all, when you re-read some of your earliest work, what do you see in those honest clueless samples of your voice? Has any of it resurfaced in the more advanced versions of your voice or style?

And readers, what’s beside your bed? Tell us what you like about what you’re reading lately? Did you ever make a stab at storytelling? Tell me about it. I hope you kept it somewhere precious, because everything we create is an opportunity to tap into our own unique soul center.

So You Want to Write a Book

Did you miss me? Where have I been? Well, I have been busy.

I have been blogging on Blame It On The Muse and from now on, I'll post my blog there on my Marley blog, so you won't miss a thang!

Let's see, I was going to do Nano but then decided to enter the Golden Heart. For those of you who aren't familiar with the RWA's big contests - that's Romance Writers of America - there are two. The Rita is for published writers, the Golden Heart for unpublished. Everyone says if you only enter one contest, enter this one.

My motivation for entering had to do more with timing - the deadline for the contest and the entry requirements helped me get my synopsis and partial completed to fulfill the requests from the M&M conference in October.

In the middle of those preparations I took a trip to San Diego for my cousin's wedding and got sick in Sunny - ha ha - California. That might have been part of the problem, considering I left sunny and hot Louisiana as we touched down, on the rain blown tarmac the pilot announced sarcastically, "Welcome to Sunny San Diego." I was cold for four days.

I came home, got my entry off (finishing my synopsis the morning I put it in the mail). Now it's time to get back to work, get the partial off, get Reluctant Defender, the new title, revised for the full submission. And start something new.

It is also my intention to be more active on Twitter, Facebook, and my blog.
I'm researching what the most effective use of my time and slow internet is and I'll  keep you updated on what I find out. There are some great software packages, new tools for self promo. Things are changing! More on that soon.


For my writer friends.  Therese Walsh posted the top mistakes writers make on queries and  used this video to make her point. Amy Atwell shared it on own GIAM loop's new daily newsletter.

Don't lie. How many of these comments do you remember someone saying? That's what makes it so funny!

Just don't ask me to...

gearcave.com 10 amazing high crimes

Sorry except for blogging at BlameItOnTheMuse I haven't blogged in a couple weeks due to slow satellite which I've blogged about ad nauseam. Quick update: after nine months of trying to convince the tech support people there was something wrong with my modem, they changed it out. All it cost me is $115 and reupping for another year on my contract. 'Nuff said.

~
With the Atlanta conference coming up in a month, there's a lot to be done. Besides preparing pitches I have to make sure my car is serviced.

ON THAT NOTE: I have fairly new tires but last week I was driving through a small town nearby that's had a nightmare of road construction for five years. I came back with a flat tire. On the way home yesterday, I had another and another tire was very low.

At first the car felt like it was being buffeted by heavy wind but I didn't see the tree limbs moving, and it's not a great place to pull over - four lane with small shoulders - so I kept driving. Then I heard that familiar roaring sound and decided to pull into a closed car dealership where the surface was clean, level and concrete. I knew before I popped the trunk but verified that it was indeed a flat. No sooner had I popped the truck and picked up my phone than an SUV pulled in and a couple asked if I needed help.

I gratefully accepted after he informed me changing tires was what he does for a living. His wife got out and introduced herself and said that they had driven from a town approximately 45 miles away on the way to Natchez for a night out. The reason he pulled into this dealership was not because he saw my trunk up, but because he'd received a flyer in the mail about a sale on cars and they thought they'd just walk the closed lot without the hassle of a salesman around. His words to his wife, "Let's just get out of town and go spend time together and hope we don't see anyone with a flat!" We all laughed. She said, "So you're our blessing." Certainly it was the other way around. He even had his portable air gun in the trunk. How much more serendipitous could a flat be?

It reminded me of what Michael Hauge says in his workshop (which he's presenting in Atlanta). What does your character give lip service to? What does he SAY he wants and what is he willing to do to get it? To get your character's conflict right, fill in the blank. "I'll do anything you want me to, but just don't ask me to _____."

My man, George, may have wished NOT to change a flat on his night off, but he obviously enjoyed doing a good deed for someone who appreciated his kindness.  He could have kept driving or ignored me. Good good people. They are everywhere regardless of the negativity we hear on the media.

New (to me) Author

One of my friends suggested a series to me since I'm working on the world building of RCPN. Keri Arthur's Riley Jensen series is a wonderful world of paranormal beings - werewolves, vamps, griffins!, Hellhounds.

Riley and her brother Rhoan are twins, half vamps and half werewolf. (It's always cool to find a new spin on one of the standards in the paranormal genre.) Keri pulls you into this world as smooth as silk. Before you know it you are in the scene with Riley, Rhoan, sexy beings like Quinn, and other members of Melbourne's Directorate of Other Races. Yes, the stories are set in Australia which is something else that sets the series apart.

I could waste time whining that I didn't read her sooner but I'm glad because now I have five Rileys I can read until the new one comes out in October. And it's not just the paranormal world that intrigues and holds your interest, Arthur's writing is superb and fresh, making her books keepers.

When I was reading Gabaldon's Outlander series, I'd have to wait until I got a glimmer of another book coming out then I'd allow myself to slowing savor the book I'd bought as soon as it was released. Like fine chocolate, it was difficult to eat the last piece until you new there was more in stock.

To read more about her books check out her website.

An Interview with Leah Braemel

I'm here today with my friend and CP, Leah Braemel, to discuss her upcoming release Private Property, coming out on January 27th from Samhain Publishing. Leah and I met at Margie Lawson's online class, Deep Edits, and struck up a very successful partnership. But Leah, a Canadian author, has been writing for years and needs less and less critiquing.

Marley: Leah, how do you pronouce your last name?

Leah: I pronounce it Bray-mel’ with the emphasis on the ‘mel’ but if you want to pronounce it Bre-mel or Brahmel that’s fine too, just as long as you buy my book, LOL.

Marley: Could you tell us a little about your path to publication? I remember this time last year you despaired of even being able to write. (She wrote about that and about her life near Toronto on her very entertaining blog.)

Leah: Oh, wow, this could take a while. I’ve written since I was in elementary school, though I’ve never shown anyone my writing after one disastrous critique by my big sister (she was probably correct in everything she said, but when you’re seven, being told “this sucks” stings.) Around 2004, I met my now-critique partner, Sue, on a non-writing-related MSN group and we started chatting. She told me she was hoping to get published and before I knew it, I was showing her some of my writing. For the next year she bugged me and prodded me to join a writers’ group and get serious about my writing. It took me until 2007 before I finally decided to try to submit anything to a publisher. I submitted my first manuscript – a paranormal shapeshifter story – in July 2007 to a publisher who shall remain nameless. By July 2008 I had a contract for Private Property, which is a contemporary erotica, a complete change of my usual style.

Marley: When did Private Property come into being? What's it about?

Leah: Although I prefer my romances with the bedroom door wide open, I’d never considered writing erotica until Sue challenged me to write one in the spring of 2007. When I visited her and my other critique partner, Dani, in Dallas that summer, I was standing on Dani’s dock on Lake Arlington, looking at the amazing houses surrounding her and wondered … what type of security must these folks have? In my regular twisted-author’s fashion, I then started wondering about the people protecting them, and wondered how I could make an erotica out of it and … well, next thing I knew, the seeds of Private Property were sewn.

But I didn’t start writing it until October of 2007. I’d watched The Italian Job around that time, and I liked the idea of a woman breaking in to safes the way Cameron Diaz does, and so my heroine is Jodi Tyler, a security specialist who breaks into estates to prove their security needs upgrading. Her latest assignment is to break into a house on the shores of Lake Arlington and leave a note in the office safe to prove to the owner his security is flawed. What she doesn’t know is she’s being set up by her boss, Mark Rodriguez. He and Jodi have been having a no-strings-attached affair and he’s decided to fulfil some of her sexual fantasies for her birthday by inviting his best friend and future business partner, Sam Watson, to have a ménage with them.

Of course, as a writer, it was my duty to torture them so I decided that Sam would turn the tables on Mark and teach him that there were some things – including Mark’s relationship with Jodi – that should be considered Private Property.

Marley: Sam seemed so sexy to me. I couldn't help but think of one actor in particular. Did you have someone in mind?

Leah: When Jodi first meets him, he’s standing in silhouette, and I had an image of Laurence Fishburne in the Matrix – lots of leather and a dangerous air about him. As I wrote his dialogue though, his sense of humor started showing through and gradually he morphed into Dwayne Johnson (The Rock). At that time, I had in mind that he was a professional football player, but that changed as I realized that there needed to be some tension between Mark and Sam too – so Sam became a very successful former FBI agent who now owns the biggest personal protection agency on the east coast and is in the process of buying Mark’s business out..

Marley: You live in a house with three men. How does that affect your writing? Tell us about the three men in your life. Do you find that it helps with the man's point of view? How does it affect your process, I mean, they are men.

Leah: I think being the only woman in the house gives me a bit of an insight into how men think. Apart from enduring the sock throwing contests and the belching contests, at least if I’m unsure of how a guy would react, I have three ready sources to quiz. Other than that, they’ve been incredibly supportive. My eldest took script writing in college so he’s a good source when I need to talk the ‘technical’ side of writing. My husband and youngest have ended up writing their own novels. My husband has written everything from short stories to a novel length thriller a la Stephen Coonts, and my youngest has finished a 50K urban fantasy YA, and is writing its sequel. So quite often around our house we now have conversations about writing – anything from grammar to point-of-view and internal versus external conflict.

Marley: You have a free story over on Samhain right?

Leah: I wrote a short story called First Night that introduces readers to how the two main characters in Private Property, Jodi and Mark, began their affair one New Year’s Eve. It’s available as a free download over at The Samhellion newsletter webpage - click here.

I also recently signed a second contract with Samhain for Sam’s story, Personal Protection, that will be the start of a series following the bodyguards of Sam’s company, Hauberk Protection. Personal Protection will be released in May of this year, but I don’t have an exact date yet.

Marley: Is there anything else you dream of writing or that is in the works?

Leah: I have all sorts of things ‘in the works’. First off, I’m writing a sequel to Personal Protection (AKA Sam’s story) that follows Andy Walters, one of Sam’s bodyguards. But in the wings is a paranormal shapeshifter story called Delving Deep, but while that will be hot, it probably won’t be erotica, just a good paranormal romance. I also have another one which will be more of an urban fantasy, but given my schedule it’ll probably be a while before I get to it unfortunately. If I do ever have a moment, I also have a Canadian historical based on the rebellion of 1838 … and another I’ve been toying with in the same location in the war of 1812 – but given that the Americans are the bad guys in it, I doubt I’d find an American publisher, LOL.

I’ve also been toying with the idea of writing an ongoing story and posting weekly chapters on my Yahoo group that only members can read. I’m thinking of making it a paranormal, but I’m going to be asking readers on my blog and on other blogs where I post what they like to read and that may influence what I finally write.

Thanks for stopping by, Leah. I look forward to Private Property's release and the rest of the guys (okay, I'm prejudiced) especially Sam's, stories. If you haven't visited Leah's blog, you're missing some stellar information, including her trip to the biker bar to get information for Sam's story.

Upping the stakes

Recently my CP, Leah, and I got into a discussion about great contemporaries, specifically, what makes a great one.

I just finished listening - again - to It Had to Be You, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, the first book in her 'Stars Football Team series'.

She is an incredible architect of plot and emotion but her books don't come out often enough. When I need an SEP fix, I re-read one or listen to an old one. I joined Audible and all of her books are now on unabridged audio, absolutely the best way to enjoy them.

So for the last two days I've been appreciating her incredible talent. What makes her books so special? What makes me hang, enthralled, from scene to scene to the very end?

If you've read anything about writing you've heard the advice from authors to up the stakes. SEP is a master, um, Mistress of upping the stakes. There isn't just one reason why Pheobe and Dan can't be involved there are three. That's the case with every situation and relationship. And the stakes just keep getting upped straight to the end.

Shirley Jump did a workshop for Killer Instincts called the Rule of Six, where the author carries the options for the scene or the plot point or character arc down six levels. Some carry it twenty.

Imagine the work that goes into designing your scenes with so many facets. Man, would I like to be sitting on her shoulder like a little leprechaun watching her plot her books.

Whatever she does, it's wrenchingly, beautifully done. And another one is finally on the way in February of 2009 - What I Did For Love. Hallelujah!

My Dream

My goal is to become a published author, specifically to sell my first book in 2008.

How do I expect to achieve it? Through time spent learning the craft, studying the industry, long hours with my fingers on the keyboard, through a successful critique partnership, and support of my husband and friends. By networking in the industry with authors and other writing professionals.

I am pursuing it with the same passion I employed when self teaching myself guitar, computer, manufacturing management. Nothing exemplifies my professional life more than the quote by Thoreau on my Welcome page.

"I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined,he will meet with success unexpected in common hours." Henry David Thoreau

And like the fountain at Centennial Park in Atlanta, that expresses the music in so many different ways, the mind is an image fountain.



Capturing those images in a unique way is a challenge and a passion I’ve only recently discovered is as necessary as the air I breathe.

Favorite Writers Quote

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

~Anton Chekhov