So, let's move our Daredevil into the romance novel. He's the hero who isn't going to think twice, who might hurt the heroine before they reach the Happily Ever After, but somehow can be forgiven. Taking extremes is part of his nature. Actually this reminds me of a story of a MotorCross [I think] racer who died, leaving his family behind. So, right… that doesn't actually represent the romance novel, but I think if we spin real life to fit into our make-believe, this is the guy you'd have. And when he dies, everyone says, "He died doing what he loved." As if that makes it better… then again, maybe it does. See [I'm going to get philosophical on you], we all die. If you think about it that way, why not die doing something you love? Like surfing or bike racing or pirateering–okay, that one's definitely from a romance novel. As a matter of fact, read The Iron Rose by Marsha Canham. It is one of my all-time favorite romance pirate stories. The opening scene in that book IS daredevil. It's a hero with a flare for style who takes ships as a hobby… until he unwittingly takes the heroine's ship!!

ONE MORE DAY! Join me either tomorrow or Thursday at Penny's blog as I wrap up my series on HEROES talking about the warrior. Thanks for being here.

With Love,

Bethanne

But what about when you’re tasting it for the eighth time that week, and this time, it’s under deadline? Talk about indigestion.

And that’s exactly how I see revision quite often. ..a third, fourth, or fifth helping of something that’s starting to make me a little queasy, and can’t I just have something new for once?

Here’s a better quote about revision from Pete Murphy:

“Rewriting is like scrubbing the basement floor with a toothbrush.”

Yes!

Like the rituals I mentioned in a previous post, as writers we all have our own revision methods when it comes to getting our manuscripts bright, shiny and out the door. Some of us are linear. Some of us are “whole picture” types.  And most of us? Well, we’re works in progress.

I’ve been reading  “Manuscript Makeover” by Elizabeth Lyon and she sees the process as two-fold. We’re either looking from the inside-out (watching for our nuances and our “voice”—the style that makes our works our own and what those agents/editors/and publishers seek) or we can work from the outside-in (where we get down to the structure of our paragraphs, our word usage, our structure).

Both views are essential, Lyons says, and both lead to better manuscripts. Check the book out if you get a chance. As a person going through SERIOUS edits on two manuscripts in the wave of two requests, I needed serious perspective.

Here at Passionate Critters, our revision style is probably as unique as we are. But we tend to fall into two camps. The “edit-as-you-go” writers, and the “get-it-all-out-first-and-revisit-later” types.

Debora is the classic write/edit at the same time author and says that she can’t really call her first draft her first draft. “Because my first draft goes through so many changes, it’s probably more my sixth draft by the time I get to it at the end.” She’s also a very linear writer—Debora writes her novels from start to finish and cannot do scenes out of order.

On the other hand, there’s Nina. She plows through her first draft very quickly (“But I do quite a lot of plotting first,” she says) and doesn’t edit along the way. Once complete, she reads the entire way through, making notes. Then it’s chapter by chapter. When it comes to cutting, she finds it easier to let go than to add. “I like to have a good few thousand words in hand so I don’t feel bad about dumping stuff.”

Rewrite dynamo Bethanne has spent an entire year and a half on one manuscript. (Dedication, much?!) She’ll read through once looking for the glaring grammar problems and line edits. Once that’s done, she does the chapter by chapter method. “Revisions are completed as I come to them, even if it means going back during the chapter sequence and layering in. I’ll forget otherwise.” She is also a big believer in skeleton plotting beforehand.

Stephanie hates the rewriting. “I feel like the effort has already been made, so I don’t want to rehash it again.” She lets her manuscripts breathe quite a bit, and says she sees so much more than she does the during the initial edits.

Vanessa has no problem cutting, either. “Unless it’s a character I’m attached to,” she says. “My darkest villain says some very lovely things, but they are often unnecessary.”

Vanessa likes the entire process, especially seeing what her draft has been before and what it looks like after. Just in case, though, Vanessa is known to save a million drafts.

“Just in case I do something stupid,” she says. And rewriting? "Rewriting bites.” (Amen!)

Jenn is another linear writer—from start to finish—who “semi-edits” as she writes. A self-prescribed “bare bones writer,” she uses her subsequent passes through her manuscript to add layers, grammar, and punctuation. When she has critiques, she works them in, but finds cutting hard to do while writing. "Ihate to see the word count go down!” she explains.

Rachel, the uber-producer, is decidedly non-linear.

“I will write the first few chapters, some middle scenes, and the end, not necessarily in that order, and fill in the blanks.” She sees her manuscript as a movie and different parts come out at different times. And edits? She fits them in as life allows.  Crits, she says, make editing much easier for her.

“What’s difficult for me in the process,” she says. ‘Is that when I rewrite something, I wonder what is wrong when I’m done. “

In the end, Rachel’s got the attitude right: “I try to be thorough, and yet remember the reason I write. Only so much can be given to the editing process.” 

Joyce line edits as she goes, then goes back chapter-by-chapter. Not content with a single pass-through, she lets it breathe a bit, and then starts the process over. Her biggest frustration is thinking she’s got something figured out—then encountering a character that won’t behave.

“I think I have a character figured out, and he’ll tell me something new when I’m done editing and writing, and I have to go back and change things.”

Another  challenge for Joyce? Knowing when to quit. 

“Sometimes I edit so much that I lose my voice and that makes me mad!”

And that leaves Harper… 

A grammar-fiend, I cannot go a paragraph without fixing commas, periods, or spacing. Typos mock me and I have to go back and get them. But it ends there. I don’t rewrite crappy dialogue or watered-down characters until I’m done with a section. When it comes time to get down and dirty in the manuscript, I look for a few key things the first pass through. (And I cannot edit on screen. Paper copies are a must for my own edits and for the crits I do.) 

I seek out all of my adverbs. Any time I see “quickly” or “slowly,” or others on my list, I highlight it. Same thing for “was.” When it’s time, those sentences get rewritten. Adverbs are good warning signs for writers—they’re usually overused and signify a weak verb (that needed your adverb in the first place!)

They also can be red flags for the ways we build sentences (subject ,verb, adverb , noun) and I try to vary that as best as I can. (I’m notorious for building “dependant clause, independent clause” sentences. Example: “A cat without fear of cholesterol, Garfield was notorious for his love of lasagna.” They’re everywhere in my writing!)

I keep a post-it pad with me and jot down words I think I’m overusing. (“Gaze” is one of them. Gag!) Then I’ll get in the document later and do a search for them. (I’ve come up with 12 instances of the word “quickly” in the first three chapters of a work once. Nice, eh??) 

The bottom line in revising is this: it’s miserable, but it’s necessary. So we suck it up. We perfect our methods…and we get going with our writing.

Kind of like the dreaded task of putting the laundry away after its clean, life (and writing) can’t really go on until we do!

Some of the best writers had them. Some of the rest of us still do.

Junot Diaz writes in the bathroom, perched on the edge of the bathtub to find enough solitude to finish a chapter. Janet Evanovich writes strictly from a visual storyboard. Stephen King writes ten pages a day, no matter what. Walker Papers author C.E. Murphy has a computer she writes from named Nook. Nook has no access to the internet, therefore saving the author from the temptation of checking the latest weather forecast in Dubai or looking up a recipe for Bangers and Mash. Agatha Christie once claimed she got her best ideas while standing at the sink doing dishes—she’s also claimed that eating apples in the bathtub helped her creativity.

Rituals and habits serve a variety of purposes for us, besides giving us an excuse to wear that shabby “Cosby” sweater we love so much. (“But it’s my lucky sweater! I have to wear it to finish my book!”) They can be broken down into two camps, for the most part: Environment (nesting, lighting a candle, brewing a pot of coffee) or Behavior (each morning at 5 a.m., 10 pages no matter what).

These habits reduce some of the anxiety that inherently follows when we see the blinking cursor and the blank page…we know we’re safe because we have our lucky mug with us, it’s 9 p.m., and this is what we always do when we write.

Rituals increase our own power and control, and can’t we all use a little more of that in our lives? It’s a sense of ownership…this is our writing. Our world. Our time. Being in our little writerly nest makes us the empress, queen, and lordy mighty dictator for the few sparse moments we have before our kindergartner is attacked by the preschooler. Or before the “other half” needs to check the scores on last night’s game. Our rules. Our time. Nice…

Writers who live by their rituals suffer from less writer’s block, it’s true. Though it may seem like we’re living up to Natalie Goldberg’s “shi**y first draft” mantra, and writing pure junk, writing with a ritual tends to not place so much pressure on the time we are in the chair, keyboard at hand. We don’t have to be brilliant, we just have to be there with our favorite pencil and our Jimmy Eat World (or Bach, or Burt Bacharach) CD playing in our headphones.

So, while it’s still January, maybe it’s a good time to consider our own rituals—both the ones we keep and the ones we’d like to keep this year.

From our own group, here’s a sampling of how members of Passionate Critters create ritual when they write:

Vanessa keeps different playlists for the different books she’s working on. She has a single notebook she carries with her everywhere that houses her ideas, notes, scribbles, etc. Oh, and a complete tea service set up is a must when she writes. Complete with teapot, cozy, sugar cubes, milk, and a cup and saucer.

Silke has a “trusty moleskin—with me always,” she says. And coffee. Coffee is a definite must for her. Oh, and her partner can’t look over her shoulder as she writes. (I can relate. I’ll actually toggle away from my writing to whatever Internet page I happen to have open. No peeking!)

For Jenn, when it comes to naming her characters, she has a ritual she follows every time. She’ll write out each letter of the alphabet and give each character a name that starts with a different letter.

When it’s lights out for the kids, it’s “brilliance on” for Bethanne…who runs a house full of adorable kids and still manages to put awesome stories on to paper.  (I think she ought to host a mini-workshop on that alone. I have two and I want to pull my hair out some days.)

A night owl, Joyce finds the good times roll in the p.m. hours.  She’s also working on a new one for 2010: 1,000 words a day (you’re in great company…that’s exactly what Stephen King recommends in “On Writing”).

If you’re looking to get chummy with our little green friend, envy, you should take a peek into Rachel’s uber-structured, uber-productive system.  She’s up at 5.a.m and whether its having the laptop with her while warming the house with the wood stove, she’s always working. Always, it seems! Up until 1 or 2 a.m., she squeezes the most out of her days and has the productivity to prove it.

Nina doesn’t start writing a new project until she hears distinct conversations between her characters in her head—a great trick. How many times have we had a “great idea” and rush into the writing, only to have no clue what our characters sound like?

And as for me , well, I have a goofy sort of ritual. I have a red pashmina scarf/wrap thing that I started wearing around the office a while back while I edited. It was a joke, really. It was meant to keep people at bay while I was working on deadline and it seemed to work. It also earned me the nickname “The Red Baron” because I must have looked a little like Snoopy when he’s fighting on his dog house. So I took the scarf home with me and now I either have it on, or with me when I write. (I fiddle a lot when I’m thinking, so sometimes I just play with or chew on the ends. Eww. Gross. I know.)

My goal for 2010 grew out of my first few weeks here at Passionate Critters. Instead of a daily goal, there’s a “weekly goal” board and I’m finding it much, much easier to accomplish a weekly goal. I beat myself up when I fail at stringent daily quotas…but this weekly method? It seems perfect for a writer like me who can have slow days (500 long, arduous words) or Rachel-esque productive days (1,500+).

So revel in your rituals. Notice them. Appreciate the uniqueness of them. And use them. And if you don’t have any yet, create some. It’s a great month to get started.

Right. We try that again!

Happy 4th Birthday, PC!

It's been a while!

I'm going to quote Debora here, because, well…

On January 7th 2006 we started the PC Yahoo group – but Jennifer, Cyn and I had been crit partners for a while before that!  I believe before the year was out we had moved to a free forum with this one hot on it's heels!
Wow, ladies…
Thanks for the support, the good times, the laughs and the professional guidance!
I count you as some of my closest friends.

Gosh, Deb, guess what? We feel the same way.

Some of us have been here from the beginning, some almost from the beginning, some took a break and came back, some never left, some have been around a while now, some just joined.

We are currently up to 18 members (ergo, applications are closed) and our last four new victims recruits are still finding their feet, but we're all in it for one thing:

Cake!

Err. Wait. No. That's not it.

Cake fights!

Ok. Maybe not.

Hunks!

Okay.

All kidding aside…

We're all about books, writing, publishing, critting and most of all — we support each other.
(Unless there's a hunk around. Then all bets are off and it's every woman for herself. )

Happy Birthday, PC!

Follow the link below to the original review on Long And Short Reviews.
(All links open in a new window.)

Kissing Trick by C.D. Yates

Kissing Trick by C.D. Yates
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Full (235 pages)
Heat: Spicy
Rating: 4 Books
Reviewed by Fern

Reggie Snow is the author of the popular YA Paddy Dimple series. Her childhood, best friend, Dr. Patrick "Trick" McCullough is a former playboy, current OBGYN. They've each got some image problems. She's unexpectedly pregnant, not a great thing for a woman who's primary audience consists of impressionable teens. And he's on the nurses' naughty list; always a problem for a randy man who's seen most of the single women in his small town naked without sleeping with any of them. Besides, Trick's starting to realize it might be time to settle down if he wants to increase his patient list to include the pregnant mamas waddling around town.

That can be fixed…

They decide to work together by playing married until Reggie's baby's born. She hopes that her pregnancy won't bag her latest book's sales or encourage young adults to have unwed pregnancies. He hopes a family-man image will destroy his bad-boy bachelor reputation so he can deliver babies and heal more women in his small town of Hadley Falls, Vermont.

As long as they don’t fall in love…or into bed. Easy to say, until she starts kissing Trick.

Kissing Trick is a delightful story about friendship, devotion, and trust. Author C.D. Yates has twined a tale about best-friends that are brought together by circumstance, but are drawn to one another by love.

Patrick, aka Trick, is a man that has the power to make you swoon and laugh at the same time. He’s comical, witty, and utterly charming. And it’s a good thing, because his counterpart, Reggie, is equally snarky and sarcastic. She’s always seen Patrick as a handsome man, but never as a potential lover. Once she does, sparks fly and pages sizzle. I enjoyed the playful banter between them, and snickered gleefully through a large portion of the story. Their adoration for one another is evident, and goes a long way in making the story not only believable, but memorable as well. It takes a special kind of man to marry a woman that he cares for that is carrying the child of another man, and Trick not only steps up to the plate, he hits a homerun straight out of the ballpark. He’s never noticed Reggie as a woman before, but once he does, he’s not willing to let her get away.

There are other elements throughout Kissing Trick that add to the richness of the plot and character development, namely Reggie’s abandonment issues and Trick’s history of being a player, and it ensures you’ll remain invested in the story from start to finish. Patrick isn’t the only one that shines. When Reggie moves past the taint childhood heartbreak, she’ll come into her own and embrace the happiness that Trick extends.

If you’re looking for a spicy story with equal portions of heart and humor, Kissing Trick is a book you’re bound to enjoy.

Yes, I love those rainy days and nights.  There is something magical and romantic about walking in the rain with the one you love under a big umbrella. Even sitting by the window and watching the drops cleanse the earth and refresh the spirit. The most relaxing thing in the world for me is listening the gentle patter of rain against the roof or skylight just above my bed when wrapped in my guy's arms.

When was the last time you ran through a puddle – on purpose? Remember being a carefree kid and stomping in the puddle?

As for inspiration for plotting? Rain? Well, yeah. Just sit, listen and let your body and mind run wild through the drizzle. Put on your favorite rain coat and go for a walk in the summer rain – don't think about your troubles, don't think about your plot…just let the water sing to your soul. Running water can have an amazing effect on your imagination, if you listen to it. It's natural, it's a force of nature that can be both refreshing and deadly, depending on the circumstances.

Now take your character and put them in the rain. How do they react? Do you have the primadona who is horrified her hair will frizz? Are there bad memories of a storm as a child? Does your hero want nothing more than to drag the heroine into his arms and kiss the rain from her lips?

Next time it rains, make use of all of your senses and enjoy!  And to really set the mood – here's some inspiration from the Neil Sedaka.

Every romance writer has heard these comments a thousand times. Some try to argue against them, but many prefer to ignore the critics and put their energies into producing and selling lots of books.

But is it true? Or, do romances in fact address some of the same issues as literary novels, but in a manner which allows the reader a choice: just relax and enjoy the love story, or engage their mind with the questions raised.

Let’s take my latest release, SECRETS OF THE PAST, out from The Wild Rose Press a few days ago. Romantic suspense. Is it all about the hero and heroine meeting and having a few nail biting obstacles along the way, before they confess their love and settle down together?

No. Not to me. There are serious themes beneath, for those who wish to explore them.

Plot aspect: The heroine is the daughter of a wealthy family, and all her life she has been successful. When she sets up a business on her own, she fails. She has to accept that what she thought of as her own achievements were in fact a result of her privileged background. She must adjust her idea of herself, and learn to live with financial hardship.

Questions: Do we really know who we are? How close is our idea of our identity to that of others? How easily do we adapt when our world changes? Does learning humility make you a better person?

Plot aspect: The hero’s parents disappeared when he was a child. Rumors claim that he murdered them, but powerful family friends and the local police covered up the crime.

Questions: Do we have a right to make decisions that affect others so deeply? Is hiding the truth always going to leave a festering secret which in the end destroys the people it meant to protect? How does a shared secret tie people together? Can the past ever be left behind?

Plot aspect: The reclusive hero sees the heroine and sets out to take care of her, fixing up her house, keeping an eye on her.

Questions: What is the difference between a stalker and a guardian angel? Is there any real difference between the two in intent and action? Or is it all in the mind of the recipient, whether the attention is welcome or not, how the recipient feels about the perpetrator?

Plot aspect: The heroine falls in love with the hero at first sight, and then finds out that he may be a murderer.

Questions: Is there love at first sight? And if such love does exist, can it be renounced if the object proves undeserving? Does love ever depend on a deserving object? Or is love so blind that it simply exists, unconnected to the qualities of the person to whom the love is directed? Is love inspired by deeds and qualities, or a random gift of fate?

Back to the opening argument: Are romantic novels trash or literature?

You read. You decide. And let us know.

Buy SECRETS OF THE PAST from The Wild Rose Press!

PS – Romance writers do admit to the happy-ever-after aspect.

There appears to be this great big misconception that it’s two spaces after a period.
It used to be two spaces.
It changed.

If you refer to the newer style guides, they all unanimously state one space after a period.
The 2000 and 2008 editions of the GPO Style Manual are unequivocal:

“A single justified word space will be used between sentences. This applies to all types of composition.” (Paragraph 2.49)

In chapter 6 Punctuation section 3 Typographic and Aesthetic Considerations, the Chicago Manual of Style states:

6.11 Space between sentences In typeset matter, one space, not two (in other words, a regular word space), follows any mark of punctuation that ends a sentence, whether a period, a colon, a question mark, an exclamation point, or closing quotation marks.

So there you have it.
ONE space. Not two.

The reason there used to be two spaces was because typewriters used a monospace font, and people thought it was easier to read if there were two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence.
Today things are a little different. While we still submit in monospace fonts (Courier / Courier New), the poor, hardworking copy editors absolutely loathe the practice of two spaces. They have to take them all out again before sending the manuscript to press.
Now, even if you do a seek-and-destroy… err… find and replace, things get a bit messy. Not because the formatting is being messed up, but these poor people (and you, the author) tend to use track changes.
Turn on track changes.
Go into your manuscript and do a find and replace on all the double spaces.
Choose “Show Revisions in Balloons”.
Welcome to Hell.

Do your copyeditor a favor — use one space only.

The name of the hero.

I know, so shallow of me. But, really in all honestly do I want to spend the next few hours of my life, curled up in my bed reading a book with a hero whose name I either (a) cannot pronounce or (b) is a name that conjurs up images of limp noodles or worse – an ex-boyfriend?

Let’s take (a) – If you want me to fall for the hero, give him a name that not only fits his personality, his powerful physique and sure, make it something that sets him apart. DO NOT make up some name that’s clearly made up (it’s okay, you can agree with me!) or something that my tongue trips over everytime or I pronounce a hundred different ways until I’m finally forced to give him a nickname before I throw the book against the wall.

On to (b) I’m sorry, but if you name you hero Wesley, Barney or Elmo – I’m probably putting your book back on the shelves.

The second part of (b) would be the ex-boyfriends, which of course is totally random, and totally personal. I don’t hold any author responsible for the bad memories I have associated with the 8 (yes, you read that right, EIGHT) Johns I dated before I married my husband.

So how do you name your hero? Think strong, think cutting edge, but give me something I can sink my teeth into when I’m reading. I’ve got a few baby name books I refer to and I admit sometimes it takes me a chapter or two before I completely hone in on a name that truly fits all his quirks.

Do you have a name that makes you cringe? A name that would make you put that book down? Or does the name not matter to you at all?