Happy Friday,
It's October and my next release I Can Make You Love Me hit the shelves on the first. I Can Make You Love Me is the second installment in the Gautier's series. The Way You Aren't is the first and the third installment Where Love Begins will be release October 2010.
I focused the book on Detroit automotive industry and my characters continue from one book to the next. The story involves an older woman/younger man relationship. The heroine was the hero's babysitter before she went off to college and met her husband.
Recently, I was discussing the story idea and concept to the nursing staff at my doctor's office. I mentioned the idea of the heroine being thirteen years older than the hero and that the heroine at one point was the hero's babysitter. One of the nurse's stopped and pointed a finger at me. She immediately responded, "My uncle did that." Surprised, I stared at her shocked to find out that this situation was not uncommon.
This is where you come in. Go to my website and read the excerpt and then email me. Let me know your thoughts on the concept. I'd love to hear from you.
Remember, don't be a stranger.
Karen
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Book titles
When writing, some people start with the main character, then go on to formulate the stories. Other's find it easy to start with the title of the story. For me, the hardest possible thing in the writing process is naming my story. I can come up with characters and names that just fit the characters. I can come up with intricate plots and scenes. But for the life of me I cannot find a suitable title for my books.
My debut publication morphed from, "Once upon a Wedding day" to "A Marriage of Convenience" with a whole list of abandoned titles in between. Two years ago I entered it into a first chapters competition hosted by gather.com. It was an American Idol style competition where a book publication contract with a nice signing bonus was the prize. Of course hoping for anonymity where my friends and family were kept in the dark did not help my cause and needless to say, I didn't even make it to the second round.
One person reading my first chapter in that competition made this comment (and I am paraphrasing) "Interesting story, but the title lacks originality." I can tell you, I was more than a little upset. Two years and a publication later, as I did a search on Amazon.com for "A Marriage of Convenience" I understood what the reviewer was saying. There were so many other books and videos entitled "A Marriage of Convenience" that I had to use the author's name to search for it.
"From SKB with love" in the Holiday Brides Anthology was a little more original. But that went from "Love on the shores" to "A Caribbean Christmas" to "Sugar City love" before finally becoming "From SKB with Love" based on the title of a song mentioned in the book and the nickname for St. Kitts, where the story unfolds.
Right now I have a WIP and for the life of me I cannot think of a name for it. I wonder if it is good idea to have a naming competition. You know, post a synopsis on the web and have people email me the possible titles and then choose from there. The prize could be a signed copy of one of my published novels. It should certainly give a pre-publication, pre-acceptance, pre-submission publicity boost.
What do you think? Is that a good idea for selecting a title for a book or am I just being naive?
My debut publication morphed from, "Once upon a Wedding day" to "A Marriage of Convenience" with a whole list of abandoned titles in between. Two years ago I entered it into a first chapters competition hosted by gather.com. It was an American Idol style competition where a book publication contract with a nice signing bonus was the prize. Of course hoping for anonymity where my friends and family were kept in the dark did not help my cause and needless to say, I didn't even make it to the second round.
One person reading my first chapter in that competition made this comment (and I am paraphrasing) "Interesting story, but the title lacks originality." I can tell you, I was more than a little upset. Two years and a publication later, as I did a search on Amazon.com for "A Marriage of Convenience" I understood what the reviewer was saying. There were so many other books and videos entitled "A Marriage of Convenience" that I had to use the author's name to search for it.
"From SKB with love" in the Holiday Brides Anthology was a little more original. But that went from "Love on the shores" to "A Caribbean Christmas" to "Sugar City love" before finally becoming "From SKB with Love" based on the title of a song mentioned in the book and the nickname for St. Kitts, where the story unfolds.
Right now I have a WIP and for the life of me I cannot think of a name for it. I wonder if it is good idea to have a naming competition. You know, post a synopsis on the web and have people email me the possible titles and then choose from there. The prize could be a signed copy of one of my published novels. It should certainly give a pre-publication, pre-acceptance, pre-submission publicity boost.
What do you think? Is that a good idea for selecting a title for a book or am I just being naive?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Church and the atheist
It seems strange that the newest occupational venture for me should have started decades ago in a Roman Catholic church. At that time, at the end of primary school, a nun by the name of Sister Declan took a strange shine to me and decided that I was going to turn into the best gospel-reader our private school had ever heard. So, while other children spent their time running around the playground during recess, I was stuck in the church, standing at the lectern -- while Sister Declan sat in the very back pew -- reading from the Bible without shouting. "Project, don't shout," I can still hear her say. As well as, "That sounded muddled. Read the passage again." And her personal favourite: "Again!"
I went on to a short, but illustrious, unpaid career, doing the readings during Easter, Christmas and assorted other Holy Days of Obligation, speaking out to a congregation, mostly without the benefit of a microphone.
Later on, people would comment on my voice and I'd do some impersonations, just to get a laugh. A fellow I worked with told me I had the perfect voice for phone sex, but I didn't pursue that line :: rimshot :: any further.
Then, it came up again. (No, not that; my voice.) While in a chat with m/m author, Carol Lynne, and my UK publisher, Claire from Total-E-Bound, Claire commented that I had a great voice. In fact, she added, it was just the kind of voice they were after for their new line of audio books. They had been through quite a few voice actors and couldn't quite find what they were looking for, but I sounded perfect and would I mind terribly much forwarding them an audition tape?
* GULP * Uh. Okay. It's not often that I'm struck speechless, as anyone who knows me will attest, but I was that night. I put together a few minutes of narration, forwarded it on and got the gig. That was months ago, with the intervening time spent at various microphones, reading various books on voice work, taking courses on voice work, and generally ordering my DH around so he could construct a small studio in my office. Eventually, after many many many weeks, the payoff finally came, with Total-E-Bound launching their audiobook line this past weekend. I'm proud to say that I narrated the first six launched stories.
I mentioned in my official blog that I think it important for writers to have a few strings to our collective bows, especially when we're making the kind of money from our writing that makes the poverty line look darned attractive. For myself, a few contracts in technical writing are still not out of the question and, while narrating is not something that would've occurred to me in the first instance, I'm very happy to be doing something related to writing, but not directly involving it. It's always nice to have a different perspective on things, and this is what narrating gives me.
Just remember, authors, to pity your potential voice over talent. I've learnt not to make my character names too tongue-twisting, and not make my chapters too long! Amen, and thank you Sister Declan.
I went on to a short, but illustrious, unpaid career, doing the readings during Easter, Christmas and assorted other Holy Days of Obligation, speaking out to a congregation, mostly without the benefit of a microphone.
Later on, people would comment on my voice and I'd do some impersonations, just to get a laugh. A fellow I worked with told me I had the perfect voice for phone sex, but I didn't pursue that line :: rimshot :: any further.
Then, it came up again. (No, not that; my voice.) While in a chat with m/m author, Carol Lynne, and my UK publisher, Claire from Total-E-Bound, Claire commented that I had a great voice. In fact, she added, it was just the kind of voice they were after for their new line of audio books. They had been through quite a few voice actors and couldn't quite find what they were looking for, but I sounded perfect and would I mind terribly much forwarding them an audition tape?
* GULP * Uh. Okay. It's not often that I'm struck speechless, as anyone who knows me will attest, but I was that night. I put together a few minutes of narration, forwarded it on and got the gig. That was months ago, with the intervening time spent at various microphones, reading various books on voice work, taking courses on voice work, and generally ordering my DH around so he could construct a small studio in my office. Eventually, after many many many weeks, the payoff finally came, with Total-E-Bound launching their audiobook line this past weekend. I'm proud to say that I narrated the first six launched stories.
I mentioned in my official blog that I think it important for writers to have a few strings to our collective bows, especially when we're making the kind of money from our writing that makes the poverty line look darned attractive. For myself, a few contracts in technical writing are still not out of the question and, while narrating is not something that would've occurred to me in the first instance, I'm very happy to be doing something related to writing, but not directly involving it. It's always nice to have a different perspective on things, and this is what narrating gives me.
Just remember, authors, to pity your potential voice over talent. I've learnt not to make my character names too tongue-twisting, and not make my chapters too long! Amen, and thank you Sister Declan.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Shed envy
I've never set much store by the Freudian penis envy nonsense. I was five when my brother came along and old enough to remember if I'd looked at my brother's appendage, realized, horrified, that I didn't have one, and run bawling to Mama. Sorry to break it to the guys out there, but I've questioned many of my female friends and relatives about this and they all hooted at the mere idea. There's consensus, all right, namely that Mr. Freud should go jump in a lake, but I digress.
Envy is nowhere on my list of sinful indulgences (so many more interesting ones out there!) but I freely admit to the shed version. Apparently the 'shed at the bottom of the garden' is a ubiquitous British phenomenon and several of my online friends have turned theirs into writing sheds. One of them, Debs Carr, even won a shed prize this year. Take a look at her paragon of shedly beauty...
Yes, I've got it bad. I want one. I want to walk out of the house, down a garden path, and enter a shed that's all mine. A writing shed. A cozy niche that I don't have to dress up to go to, and where my muse is always eager to greet me as he reclines on an old daybed, wine glass in hand, toga slipping off his bronzed, muscular torso...
This week, after yet another debilitating bout of shed envy, it dawned on me that we DO have a shed. Maybe, just maybe... I went outside and looked at it with new eyes. Well, I tried anyway.
My mother used to store supplies in there when she was building her house and she keeps planning to tear it down, but first she'll have to decide what to do with all the junk inside: a huge aquarium with a broken panel; about five computer cadavers, courtesy my son, and an old dot matrix printer, courtesy same; entrails of said son's first car; lengths of PVC pipe, ends of wood, a wheelbarrow, paint cans, shovels, forks... You can barely get beyond the door and finding something in there is such a frightful prospect that we usually back away slowly and run off to the hardware store instead. The last time my sister braved the shed she moved a bucket out of the way and a young mapepire (deadly fer-de-lance viper) scrambled from underneath it and disappeared from sight.
I stood there looking at the shed and my little flicker of hope spluttered - and died. The thing leaks in about twenty places and it doesn't take much of a wind to get the roof flapping. There are gaps in the floorboards, and tidemarks from the time it got flooded out. I'd need a truck to cart away all the junk - and where would I put the tools, the bags of fertilizer and potting soil, the seedling trays? More pertinently, where did that snake go? Is it still there, all grown up now? Has it settled down and started a family?
So much for that brilliant idea. I'll just have to get by without a writing shed after all.
—Liane Spicer
Envy is nowhere on my list of sinful indulgences (so many more interesting ones out there!) but I freely admit to the shed version. Apparently the 'shed at the bottom of the garden' is a ubiquitous British phenomenon and several of my online friends have turned theirs into writing sheds. One of them, Debs Carr, even won a shed prize this year. Take a look at her paragon of shedly beauty...
Yes, I've got it bad. I want one. I want to walk out of the house, down a garden path, and enter a shed that's all mine. A writing shed. A cozy niche that I don't have to dress up to go to, and where my muse is always eager to greet me as he reclines on an old daybed, wine glass in hand, toga slipping off his bronzed, muscular torso...
This week, after yet another debilitating bout of shed envy, it dawned on me that we DO have a shed. Maybe, just maybe... I went outside and looked at it with new eyes. Well, I tried anyway.
My mother used to store supplies in there when she was building her house and she keeps planning to tear it down, but first she'll have to decide what to do with all the junk inside: a huge aquarium with a broken panel; about five computer cadavers, courtesy my son, and an old dot matrix printer, courtesy same; entrails of said son's first car; lengths of PVC pipe, ends of wood, a wheelbarrow, paint cans, shovels, forks... You can barely get beyond the door and finding something in there is such a frightful prospect that we usually back away slowly and run off to the hardware store instead. The last time my sister braved the shed she moved a bucket out of the way and a young mapepire (deadly fer-de-lance viper) scrambled from underneath it and disappeared from sight.
I stood there looking at the shed and my little flicker of hope spluttered - and died. The thing leaks in about twenty places and it doesn't take much of a wind to get the roof flapping. There are gaps in the floorboards, and tidemarks from the time it got flooded out. I'd need a truck to cart away all the junk - and where would I put the tools, the bags of fertilizer and potting soil, the seedling trays? More pertinently, where did that snake go? Is it still there, all grown up now? Has it settled down and started a family?
So much for that brilliant idea. I'll just have to get by without a writing shed after all.
—Liane Spicer
Friday, October 23, 2009
My Fantasy Writing Life
I laugh inside when I hear some beginning writers fantasize about their life after publication. They dream of hitting the New York Times’ bestseller list, having glamorous book-release parties attended by hundreds, and being importuned at restaurants and in the grocery store for autographs.
It’s not that I don’t want fame and fortune. Like any writer, I want to reach a large audience and have my achievements recognized.
But after living the life of a professional writer for more than twenty years, my daily fantasies soar less high. In my dream writing world, here is what my life is like:
✥ I have several office cats who purr soothingly and keep me company, but never eat, shed, throw up, chew the edges of book covers, use the litter box, or attempt to jump to the highest shelf of bookcases.
✥ People don’t assume I'm available for time-consuming projects because I don’t have a “real job.”
✥ The yoga studio holds classes at 7 or 7:30 am instead of during the workday, when they knock out several hours of work.
✥ My Facebook friends post only the things I want to know about. What are those things? Like an editor, I can’t define what I want, but I’ll know it when it see it.
✥ I don’t work weekends, but instead sew, hike, garden, sightsee, read for pleasure, call friends and family members, and do whatever else it is that nonwriters do on Saturdays and Sundays.
✥ When someone asks me what my book (which I wrote months or years earlier) is about, I remember.
✥ Someone else goes to the post office for me, as well as fuels my car, picks up my prescriptions, keeps my account book up to date, and goes to my doctor and labwork appointments. Especially that last one.
✥ After I create a marketing plan, the bookmarks, flyers, review requests, and guest blog posts magically appear and distribute themselves appropriately.
✥ Best of all, I eat delicious chocolates all day long but gain no weight.
I’m glad you stopped by my post today. I’ll be blogging again at Novel Spaces on November 7, when I’ll talk about World Fantasy Convention, which is being held over Halloween weekend.
—Shauna Roberts
It’s not that I don’t want fame and fortune. Like any writer, I want to reach a large audience and have my achievements recognized.
But after living the life of a professional writer for more than twenty years, my daily fantasies soar less high. In my dream writing world, here is what my life is like:
✥ I have several office cats who purr soothingly and keep me company, but never eat, shed, throw up, chew the edges of book covers, use the litter box, or attempt to jump to the highest shelf of bookcases.
✥ People don’t assume I'm available for time-consuming projects because I don’t have a “real job.”
✥ The yoga studio holds classes at 7 or 7:30 am instead of during the workday, when they knock out several hours of work.
✥ My Facebook friends post only the things I want to know about. What are those things? Like an editor, I can’t define what I want, but I’ll know it when it see it.
✥ I don’t work weekends, but instead sew, hike, garden, sightsee, read for pleasure, call friends and family members, and do whatever else it is that nonwriters do on Saturdays and Sundays.
✥ When someone asks me what my book (which I wrote months or years earlier) is about, I remember.
✥ Someone else goes to the post office for me, as well as fuels my car, picks up my prescriptions, keeps my account book up to date, and goes to my doctor and labwork appointments. Especially that last one.
✥ After I create a marketing plan, the bookmarks, flyers, review requests, and guest blog posts magically appear and distribute themselves appropriately.
✥ Best of all, I eat delicious chocolates all day long but gain no weight.
I’m glad you stopped by my post today. I’ll be blogging again at Novel Spaces on November 7, when I’ll talk about World Fantasy Convention, which is being held over Halloween weekend.
—Shauna Roberts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Foods for a Sexier Purpose - Writing
Earlier I thought I'd write an entry on a more generic novel-type subject. But by the evening, I started feeling a little sexy-energetic. That's because I went to dinner and had oysters and a glass of wine with my meal, and then . . . I found that I'd slid right into the Pynk zone. Low and behold - I think it's time to talk about sex again.
Like my steamed oysters and chilled Merlot, as you know, there are foods that feed sex drives, boost energy, sharpen memory, and actually help fight the flab. So I thought this would be the perfect time to mention the foods I know will work when it comes to feeling frisky - which at times, can also serve as a stimulating benefit to a writer.
Hot chilies - stimulate nerve endings and get the blood plumping
Asparagus and avocados - the vitamin-E churns hormones that stimulate sexual responses
Bananas - deliver a key nutrient to muscle strength which helps with orgasms
Dark Chocolate - contains a neuro-hormone, the same hormone released during sex = excitement
Oysters - linked to high sex drive due to the zinc content (here-here)
Pomegranates - contain antioxidants that lead to greater sensitivity
Red wine - also contain antioxidants that help boost blood flow
Watermelon - the oxides can speed arousal
Walnuts - the Omega-3 revs the engine
Strawberries - contains vitamin-C that boosts libido
If we choose to fuel our sex drive with these foods, I believe it could also improve our lust for writing. As much fun as a boost in sex drive can be in literal terms, imagine what it might possibly do to boost energy levels in general. We just might work that computer over and never want to get off of it! And we can all use more energy when it comes to knocking out that next book. Also, feeding our sex drive certain foods can sharpen memory. It's good to be able to remember what's on our minds and backtrack, project forward, find all of those many missing Post-it- notes, etc., so we can be sure to cover all the writer's bases. And lastly, I say mission accomplished if it can help fight the flab. We all sit for hours at a time, taking very few steps, and our midsections bare the brunt of it all. Every little bit helps. Grab some fresh fruit or some walnuts instead of those cookies and potatoes chips.
The act of sex itself can be pleasing, erotic, freeing, and aerobic, and we can all use more energy for that. But why not try the aphrodisiacs, and then head to our home office for a sexier purpose; the purpose of energetic writing? And maybe, just maybe, we'll get in a little frisky-business later on. After that hot chapter is written, that is. How about you?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Writing In Style: Reading Glasses Edition
In my last post I shared photos of my writing space.
Well, I thought I’d hidden them before I snapped the photo, but no. Sitting in plain view next to my laptop were my – ugly drugstore granny glasses!.
Fellow Novel Spaces author, Marissa Monteilh, picked up on them right away, but was too kind to call them what they are – booty.
With the truth in plain sight <- pun intended, it was time for this of a certain age writer to dump the unfashionable discount specs and up my reading (and writing!) eyeglass game.
Fortunately, I remembered a post from Wear It Well style guru, Karen Karlsen’s blog about Eyebobs.
Long story short, I now have readers I’m proud to wear while I peck away on my WIP, whether I'm at home, the library or Starbucks.
Check 'em out below:
Co-conspirator (tortoise/green) and Merry Me (orange) both by Eyebobs
I would have modeled the specs. Unfortunately, I’m on deadline, which can be hell on a hairdo.
Well, I thought I’d hidden them before I snapped the photo, but no. Sitting in plain view next to my laptop were my – ugly drugstore granny glasses!.
Fellow Novel Spaces author, Marissa Monteilh, picked up on them right away, but was too kind to call them what they are – booty.
With the truth in plain sight <- pun intended, it was time for this of a certain age writer to dump the unfashionable discount specs and up my reading (and writing!) eyeglass game.
Fortunately, I remembered a post from Wear It Well style guru, Karen Karlsen’s blog about Eyebobs.
Long story short, I now have readers I’m proud to wear while I peck away on my WIP, whether I'm at home, the library or Starbucks.
Check 'em out below:
Co-conspirator (tortoise/green) and Merry Me (orange) both by Eyebobs
I would have modeled the specs. Unfortunately, I’m on deadline, which can be hell on a hairdo.
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