Making More Progress

Debra is pleased with what she's accomplished with her WIP.

This week I had the highlighters, pens, and sticky notes out. I did a read-through of the mss for "One Great Night", marking and noting things along the way. Since then I've gone back and added things to places that needed additions and tweaked things that weren't working, whether it was a phrase or the overall feel of the scene. For the most part, I feel the story is in good shape. Having written it all out of order, I was pleased to find there were only two scenes that needed to switch places.

I also spent some fun research time looking up quotes from Eighties Movies. My characters have a little game they play back and forth. I had left notes on the mss like, 'need a movie quote here', so it was a blast to hunt down just the right one and put it in the context of the story.

Now that all of the hand notations are done, I'll take the mss and transfer the pen markings to the computer version. After that it will be time for 'one-at-a-time' edits: going through the mss using the find function and eliminating and changing certain over-used words. Once that's complete, I'll go through the formatting steps from my publisher. In the meantime, in addition to getting the revisions transferred, I need to be working on a synopsis as well. These used to scare me, but I found a system which gives me a pretty good handle on them.

Then will come the moment of reckoning when I send it off to my editor. The project will be in her capable hands for a while, after which she will hopefully offer me a contract. After which a whole new process will begin.

Fun times!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Family Secrets - coming August 1 - available NOW in paperback from The Wild Rose Press

A Writer's Brain

Paula looks at how writers use different parts of their brains

Recently, I read an article about how writers use their brains, and here is my summary of the findings.

To begin with, the researcher and his team asked 28 volunteers to simply copy some text, giving him a baseline reading of their brain activity during writing.

Next, he showed the volunteers a few lines from a short story and asked them to continue it in their own words. They could brainstorm for a minute, and then write creatively for about two minutes.

The researchers found some regions of the brain, inactive during the copying session, became active during the creative process. During the brainstorming sessions, the vision-processing brain areas of the volunteers became active. It seemed they were visualising the scenes they wanted to write.

Other regions became active when the volunteers started jotting down their stories. It was possible that one region, the hippocampus, was retrieving factual information that the volunteers could use.

Another region near the front of the brain, known to be crucial for holding several pieces of information in mind at once, also became active as well. Juggling several characters and plot lines may put special demands on it.

However, this study was limited. The volunteers had no previous experience in creative writing.

The researcher decided to repeat the tests with full-time writers to see if their brains responded differently. He recruited 20 writers who were taking a creative writing programme at a University. They took the same tests and the researchers compared their performance with the novices.

What’s interesting is that the brains of experienced  writers appeared to work differently, even before they set pen to paper. During brainstorming, the novice writers activated their visual centers. By contrast, the brains of expert writers showed more activity in regions involved in speech.

The researcher concluded that the two groups were using different strategies. The novices were watching their stories like a film inside their heads, while the writers were narrating it with an inner voice.

Once the two groups started to write, another set of differences emerged. Deep inside the brains of experienced writers, a region called the caudate nucleus became active. In the novices, the caudate nucleus was quiet.

Evidently the caudate nucleus plays an essential role in the skill that comes with practice, including activities like board games. When we first start learning a skill, we use a lot of conscious effort. With practice, those actions become more automatic. The caudate nucleus and nearby regions start to coordinate the brain’s activity as this shift happens which suggests the experienced writers were using skills they had already learned.


This article intrigued me. I’ve heard other writers talking about how they see their stories being ‘acted out’ in their mind’s eye, rather like a movie, but I’ve never been able to do that. Yes, I can see my characters, but when I write, I’m not watching the movie. Instead, I’m playing a part in the movie, and seeing it through the eyes (and other senses) of whoever’s POV I happen to be in at the time. Maybe that’s what the researcher mean by ‘narrating it with an inner voice’.

I can relate to the hippocampus retrieving information, and also to the area of the brain that juggles the plot! The caudate nucleus is interesting too, as it presumably includes basic skills such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation, as well as the other skills we use when we write, including our vocabulary, and the various others things we’ve learned about what to do and what not to do!


Has this made you analyse how your brain works when you’re writing?

The Critique Group

Jennifer went to her first critique session...

Last week I talked about a new critique group in which I was invited to participate. I went to the first meeting this past Friday. All I can say is my brain hurts!

I arrived at the house of the hostess, and was the first one there. She is the only member of the group whom I don’t know, so we had about five minutes to introduce ourselves before the other two women arrived. Once everyone arrived, we had dinner and schmoozed. We talked about the industry, our families and they also asked questions about me.

Then we moved onto the critique. During the week, everyone had emailed their 15-20 pages to each other and we’d all read and marked up the copies. The host gets critiqued first. The rules are that you critique as a reader, meaning you don’t know what’s going to happen in the book beyond the pages you’re currently reading. The person being critiqued doesn’t respond and all critiques have to be constructive and positively framed. We each took turns critiquing the work and there could be no interruptions from anyone else.

We critiqued two people, took a break for dessert, and critiqued the other two. I expected to be embarrassed, with three people telling me what was wrong with my story. It was so much better than that, though! There definitely are stronger writers in the group than I am, but everyone had interesting perspectives and very good suggestions. Everything was framed very kindly and no one was embarrassed. There were many good things pointed out as well.

I came home with pages and pages of suggestions, as well as many, many things that they liked. As I’ve been going through the suggestions, I agree with some and disagree with others. But the changes I’m making will make my story stronger and I can’t wait for the next time!

2014 Author Earnings Report

Ana just read the report from 2014 Author Earnings.

It was well worth her time. 

They offer a link to their statistics. Here's the link:

http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-author-earnings-report

Guest author Cynthia Owens

Show Don’t Tell

Thanks so much for having me here at Heroines With Hearts. I’m thrilled to announce the release of My Dark Rose, Book III of my Wild Geese Series.

Writing is something I’ve done since I was in first grade. I’ve always thought of writing as a sort of magic, putting words down on paper to make words, sentences, paragraphs, and eventually stories. I always thought it was something that came naturally.

Until I started writing not just for pleasure, but with an eye to eventually becoming published. That’s when I learned that the first rule in romance was “Show, don’t tell.”

“Showing” a story was one of the hardest things for me to learn. It took a little while before I fully understood what it meant. “Telling” a story is just that: telling the events that happened. Think of reading a story to a child—you’re telling him or her the story. But when you show a story, you put the reader into the story. Rather than describing the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and sensations, you make you reader experience all these things.

Here are a few examples:

Telling:  Shannon took one look at Grainne Donavan’s face and knew disaster had struck.

Showing: Shannon looked at Grainne Donavan’s face and saw disaster.

Telling: She inhaled deeply and coughed because of the smoke. Laughter came from a corner of the room.

Showing: She drew a deep breath and sucked in a lungful of acrid cigar smoke. A fit of coughing seized her, and her face burned at the sound of a drunken hoot of laughter from a corner of the room.

It takes practice to show your reader what your characters are experiencing. But using active verbs and the five senses will help make your story that much more memorable.

 I believe I was destined to be interested in history. One of my distant ancestors, Thomas Aubert, reportedly sailed up the St. Lawrence River to discover Canada some 26 years before Jacques Cartier’s 1534 voyage. Another relative was a 17^thCentury “King’s Girl,” one of a group of young unmarried girls sent to New France (now the province of  Quebec) as brides for the habitants (settlers) there.

My passion for reading made me long to write books like the ones I enjoyed, and I tried penning sequels to my favorite Nancy Drew mysteries. Later, fancying myself a female version of Andrew Lloyd Weber, I drafted a musical set in Paris during WWII.

A former journalist and lifelong Celtophile, I enjoyed a previous career as a reporter/editor for a small chain of community newspapers before returning to my first love, romantic fiction. My stories usually include an Irish setting, hero or heroine, and sometimes all three.

I’m the author of The Claddagh Series, historical romances set in Ireland and beyond, and The Wild Geese Series, in which five Irish heroes return from the American Civil War to find love and adventure. 

I’m a member of the Romance Writers of America, Hearts Through History Romance Writers, and Celtic Hearts Romance Writers. A lifelong resident of Montreal, Canada, I still live there with my own Celtic hero and our two teenaged children.

…Like the Wild Geese of Old Ireland, five boys grew to manhood despite hunger, war, and the mean streets of New York…

He was the lucky one…

Dary Greely is the only one of his brothers and sisters to survive the hunger in Ireland and the coffin ship to America. He was the one whose parents made a bit of money, the one who emerged from the war virtually unscathed. He was the lucky one…but when the war ended, his luck ran out.

She was burdened by too many responsibilities…

Róisín Donavan is an Irish girl who lives in a Five Points tenement room. She dreams of a future as a great diva and sings Irish songs at Paddy Ryan's Pub. But her stubborn Irish pride won't allow her to abandon her family, even if it means sacrificing everything for them.

Can Dary make Róisín see her true worth? Can Róisín heal the festering wounds that tear at Dary’s soul? And can love truly mend their grieving hearts?

The Sally Malone, Black ‘47

On the Atlantic Ocean

They slid into the water with scarcely a sound.

Dary Greely clung to his father’s hand, watching as the bodies, clad in little more than rags, were tossed over the side of the ship. The children first: his little brother and two sisters. Then Mrs. Morrissey, his new friend Declan’s ma. Shane MacDermott’s da, and the twins’ ma and their granny.

His ma’s thin fingers bit into his shoulder. She was sobbing into a threadbare handkerchief, her eyes red and swollen from crying. He looked up at her, then at Da. A shudder ran through him that had nothing to do with the cold wind blowing in from the sea.

Da’s eyes were dead. Their bright green was dimmed with sorrow. His dark-red hair blew across his face, but he made no move to shove it back with his big, callused workman’s hand. He stared out to sea, a muscle in his jaw jerking rhythmically.

Dary swallowed hard, glancing around him. He saw Shane, clutching his wee brother’s hand, one arm about his ma’s shoulders as she tried to soothe the fussy gossoon in her arms. Kieran and Cathal Donnelly stood close together, drawing silent comfort from each other as tears ran down their da’s face. Declan, self-controlled as always, stared into the water, his face full of sorrow, tears in his eyes that he refused to shed.

When the last victim of the ship’s fever sank to the bottom of the sea, the steerage passengers turned away, their muffled sobs and soft keening carried away on the rising wind. They’d left Ireland for a better life in America, but would any of them survive to see that land of promise?

As they turned to go, his father suddenly knelt before him, clutching Dary’s shoulders and staring into his eyes. “Ye are the last one, Dary.” His deep voice shook with the intensity of his grief. “The last o’ the Greelys. ’Tis ye will live on to tell the stories o’ us all. Ye’re the lucky lad, Dary, so ye are. Always remember that.”

The words rang bitter in Dary’s ears. The urge to vomit clutched at his throat with ruthless fingers. But he managed a nod. “Aye, Da. I’ll always remember, I promise. I’m the lucky one.”

At that moment, Dary made a fierce, silent vow to himself. He would survive to see America. He would go to school in America, make something of himself, just as Da had told him he could. He’d learn to read and write and do sums. He’d make his parents proud.

He was the lucky one.

Website: http://www.cynthiaowensromancewriter.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCynthiaOwens?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cynwrites1

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Cynthia-Owens/e/B003DQ1V2E/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

Mission Accomplished!

Debra celebrates completing her WIP!

I was a day behind schedule, but it's official. The first draft of my WIP, "One Great Night" is complete!

Now I'll admit, there are a couple of places I used stand-in phrases and highlighted them to show I needed to go back and make them better, but that will happen during the revising process. But for intents and purposes, the story is complete from beginning to end.

This stage of a story is so, so fun. Now I'll let it sit for a couple of days and then do a read-through. Since I'd been writing in such a piece-meal fashion, this will be the first time I'll be reading the story from start to finish. How exciting is that?! From there I'll begin revising and tweaking and rewriting until it sounds the way I want it to. After that it will be 'search' edits where I use the find function in Word and look for specific words to eliminate or change. Then I'll go through and do manuscript formatting to make sure everything is aligned the way my publisher prefers.

The last step will of course be to submit it to my editor. The goal is to have it to her by the middle of August when I go back to school. Right now I'm feeling pretty good about my plan and my timeline.

In the meantime, I have a book coming out August 1 that I haven't even thought about promotion for. Yikes.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Family Secrets - coming August 1 from The Wild Rose Press. Paperback available now!

Missing Boyfriend

 

Evidently this notice appeared in various places in London last week. Crowdwish is an online website which invites people to submit their 'wishes'. Every day they take the most popular wish, and try to action it. In this case, the wish for the 'half-decent boyfriend' was fastened to almost every lamp post in one area of London. I haven't heard whether this particular 'wisher' got the man of her dreams, but it seems many other girls have approached the group, also asking for a 'half decent boyfriend'.

 

It's an interesting story in itself, but what fascinated me more was the list of requirements for the boyfriend. Women (well, some of them!) may like to read about the arrogant, domineering alpha-man, the super-stud, or the billionaire play-boy - but in real life, they want something very different. This description fits what I consider as the alpha-minus, beta-plus man - and they're the ones I like to write about.

 

It's seems quite significant that physical attributes, although listed first, are minimal - tall, and with own hair and teeth. When we get to the 'real' needs, in every case the A-/B+ attributes are preferred to either the Alpha Plus type or Beta Minus type of male. It seems the Alpha males are going out of fashion, at least in the real world - which makes me wonder just why some women still like reading about them.