X is for Extra

Margaret talks about writing

 

If you want to become a successful writer you need to go the extra mile. You have an idea for a story, you write it, send it off to a publisher, then wonder why it wings its way back.

OK, some authors get their first book accepted with very few changes, but re-writes are normal. We all think our story is perfect - after all we’ve spent hundreds of hours working on it - but editors see things that we don’t. We are too close to our precious piece of work to see where it’s not working.

The wisest course of action is to put your precious finished manuscript to one side for a few weeks. It’s amazing what a difference it will make. When you re-read it again you’ll see things that weren’t obvious before. Even if you’re self-publishing it’s still important to go the extra mile and make your book the very best you possibly can.

 

X is for XOXO

Take a peek at the first kisses of Debra's characters.

Romance tends to involve lots of kissin' and huggin'. At least that's the way I prefer mine! So, I thought I'd share a glimpse of my hero and heroines' first kisses.

In This Time for Always Sharlie and Logan kiss for the first time (At least in the story. They were high school sweethearts.) at the rodeo. It's kind of an angry kiss, and Sharlie laments the tender boy she used to know. The grown up version of Logan seems so different.

In This Can't Be Love Zach kisses Jessica on the deck of her grandfather's cabin.

In This Feels Like Home Jake and Amber kiss in the parking lot of The Corral after their picnic date. This soon leads to so much more...and then to Amber's guilt for sleeping with Jake on the first date.

In Christmas at The Corral Van kisses Maggie in the parking lot of the Christmas tree farm. Snow has just begun to fall, creating a cozy, romantic scene.

In Valentine's Day at The Corral Scott and Gail kiss on a bench in the park after she finally agrees to go out with him on Valentine's Day.

In Fourth of July at The Corral Tyler kisses Pam next to the stream in the woods by their favorite spot. This is a reunion story, so it's not their first first kiss, but it's the first one in the story.

In Wild Wedding Weekend, Noah gives Abby a quick kiss on the set of the tv game show they've been coerced into participating in. He does it because all of the other contestants did it too. They share a 'real' kiss a few days later.

In Family Secrets Chase brushes Erika's cheek with a soft kiss as he's leaving her house. It also leaves her wanting much, much more.

In A Christmas to Remember Sam kisses Heather under the mistletoe after pondering the Celtic origins of the tradition.

In An Unexpected Blessing Joe kisses Katie after the barn dance, then tells her he's waited almost fifteen years to do it. He's had a crush on her since junior high.

In The Vampire and the Vixen Kelsey and Rafe kiss out on the balcony at a library Halloween fundraiser. She's dressed as a 'vixen' and he as a 'vampire'. Soon after she finds out he's her new boss. Oops!

So...there you have it. A collection of first kisses!

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Xenon - arc light or anaesthetic?

Paula asks: What’s the link between Xenon and writing?

 

Xenon is a colourless, odourless, inert gas, used in arc lamps, and sometimes as a general anaesthetic.

 

What has this to do with writing? It occurred to me that sometimes our writing can be like this – colourless, odourless and inert. Happily it does sometimes light up like an arc lamp, other times it seems so dull that it’s sending you to sleep, never mind your readers.

 

So how do we get our writing out of the ‘Xenon’ mode?

 

Colourful instead of colourless: this doesn’t just mean describing the colour of the sea, or the heroine’s hair, or the hero’s eyes, of course. Nor does it mean pages of purple prose. ‘Colourful’ means capturing the reader by making our characters and the whole world in which they live come alive. Create ‘real’ characters with whom the reader can empathise and show their surroundings through their eyes. Make them jump out of the pages and into the imagination of the reader in full technicolour, not just in black and white.

 

Aromatic instead of odourless: the sense of smell is important – new mown grass, a rose, woodsmoke, freshness of the air after rain … etc. This leads us on to the other senses: sight, sound, touch and taste. All important in evoking emotions in our readers. Again, show them through a character’s perception. Don’t tell the reader the tree had a gnarled truck; have your heroine running her hand along its rough bark. Put the senses within an action, not outside of it. But don’t overdo it. Less is more!

 

Animated instead of inert:  an inert gas does not react with other substances and does not undergo any chemical reactions. That’s the last thing we want in our stories! Our characters need to react with each other, of course, and they also need to undergo some kind of ‘growth’ during the story, whether it’s overcoming a fear or flaw, learning something about themselves, or dealing with a personal conflict.

 

We need to concentrate on the ‘arc light’ capability of Xenon and not its anaesthetic qualities, by keeping our writing dazzlingly bright and not soporific! A Xenon Ion Drive engine can be used to propel spacecraft on deep space missions by firing a beam of energetic xenon ions – so let’s do the same, and reach for the stars!

X Is For…Exes

Jennifer talks about her characters’ exes…

I’m happily married with two kids. But the characters I create have very different situations than I do. And their ex-girlfriends, ex-husbands and ex-wives, do a number on my heroes and heroines.

In A Heart of Little Faith, Gideon, the hero, has been hurt by an ex-girlfriend who has convinced him that as a result of his accident, he’s not worth it. While his accident has left him in a wheelchair, it’s the psychological damage she caused that creates most of his problems and influences how he behaves with the story’s heroine, Lily.

The heroine of Skin Deep, Valerie, escaped an abusive marriage. Her husband actually died before the story began, but his abuse causes her to distrust men, especially when they drink.

Nathaniel is the hero of The Seduction of Esther. His ex-wife had a very public affair with the president of his former synagogue. As a result of her public indiscretion, he is gun-shy when it comes to any kind of public attention. Thus, he fights his attraction to the choir director of his new synagogue.

X marks the spot

Ana hasn't written a town called Xanadu. 

Or a xylophone-playing hero named Xavier.

No storybook child in desperate need of emergency X-rays after a xenophobic super-villain carries out his plan to hoard (and hold for ransom) the world's supply of radioactive isotopes.

No x-tra exciting car races. Or fiery crashes.
No x-treme sports (other than time travel and pulse raising sex).

I'd like to think I've written some x-citing scenes with x-emplary word crafting. That I'm an x-ceptional writer with x-traordinary skills.

Internet research says the the Saxon vocabulary didn't have words that started with the sound of X, and that's why we don't have many words that begin with X. Our X words are scientific or adopted from other cultures. That appears to be true.

All I know is it's darn hard to have X be the word of the week.

Sundy Snippet - A Peek at Debra's "A Christmas to Remember"

Prelude

Did she really expect him to be there? She hadn’t seen him since last year. She had no way to contact him. No way to know if he meant it when he’d said they should meet again next year.

Yet through the long months in between, she’d hoped. Even when the snow melted and the tulips bloomed announcing the arrival of spring, she hoped. On those sultry summer nights when it was too hot to sleep, she hoped. And when autumn turned the leaves to burnished gold and russet, she’d hoped.

Through the changing seasons, her thoughts, her heart, had never been far from snow covered mountains, cold, crisp air, and a cozy ski lodge.

She made her flight reservations in late October. Hoping.

As the days grew colder and the nights grew longer, her anticipation heightened. When the first snow fell, a giddiness overcame her. The pristine blanket of white made the memories more vivid. More real. Many times over the past year she wondered if she’d dreamed the whole thing.

Heck, for all she knew he had a wife or a girlfriend at home. Or both. Maybe everything he’d said to her had been a lie.

She told herself he wasn’t the reason she hadn’t gone out with another man in the past year. It had nothing to do with him. She simply needed a break from dating.

All the while she hoped.

Now she was here and anticipation warred with nerves. She couldn’t really expect him to show up, could she? Theirs had been a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

Yet here she sat. Waiting. Hoping.

More than likely she’d wind up alone in this place. As she’d expected to be last year.

Only it hadn’t turned out that way. She touched the pendant hanging around her neck as her mind drifted back.

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Saturday Friend: Courtney Corcoran

Please welcome Courtney Corcoran to Heroines with Hearts! 

For days, until just a few seconds ago, I stared at a cursor blinking on a blank page, trying to decide what to write about writing. There is nothing more menacing than the steady flash of a cursor going nowhere, and nothing more beautiful than the steady horizontal movement once the words pour forth and something is created that people may actually want to read and enjoy.

When I was asked to write about writing, I didn’t think I’d have such an issue getting started. After all, I’ve written as long as I can remember. When I was a kid in the 1970s, it was with crayons or sometimes dandelions or clovers as I sat out in the outfield during softball games, where I was relegated as a kid with little to no softball skill. Words helped me escape, work out problems, make friends, and influence people. They also got me into a decent amount of trouble, but those are stories for another day.

In order to get writing, I need the trifecta of time, a great idea, and the gumption to get started. Right now, I’m working on the sequel to my first novel, which is due sooner than I like to think about. I have the great idea and the gumption, but time is always elusive. It’s a good thing November has come, or I’d never get it done. Which reminds me – I also need deadline pressure. Is there such a thing as a quart-fecta? Quarfecta? Fourfecta? I don’t know what it looks like, but I need it.

I am not a writer who creates outlines or meticulously chooses between an appositive or a participial phrase in order to add detail to my sentences. I don’t deliberately debate decisions regarding alliteration. I don’t handwrite everything first and go back and type later. I pick where I’m starting and decide where everyone should end up, and my characters just sort of wind (and sometimes suffer) through their own stories until they arrive.

Over the last year, though, the stars aligned and I completed my novel, Cate in Flux, the first in a series about a girl awkwardly coping with life. This novel started during NaNoWriMo as I was going through a rather hideous divorce. Cate and her friends offered a respite from the day-to-day madness of holding it together for my own sanity and for my children. Writing is an escape for me, as much as losing myself in something that someone else has written. 

I must say there is something surreal about having a book with MY NAME ON IT out there, published, for all the world to see. What if people peek into my soul and don’t like what they see? What if I get 1-star reviews on Amazon? Oh no. Is it too late to take the book back? (Just kidding)

Since I am a shameless self-promoter, as anyone who follows me on Facebook or Twitter knows, I’d like to plug this little book. I find it highly entertaining and uproariously dark and funny.  Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Courtney Corcoran is a high school English teacher and author. Her first novel, Cate in Flux, was released on December 10. Paperback and digital versions of the book are available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Createspace.com. You can follow her on Twitter @courtjcorcoran and on Facebook at Courtney Corcoran, Writer.  Read more of Courtney’s work at www.courtneycorcoran.com.

Links:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=cate+in+flux

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cate-in-flux-courtney-corcoran/1123109983?ean=2940158043383

https://www.createspace.com/5909977

Blurb:

Cate is a flighty, yet lovable, young woman who is incapable of making decisions, and when she does decide, it often ends in disaster. Her choices of men are particularly dreadful. Her latest boyfriend is the craziest one yet, and her friends - including a model, a coffee shop owner, and a celebrity attorney - have to save her yet again. From Boston to Vegas and back again, this story is a whirlwind, much like Cate's own love life. Will she ever find "the one"? Will her friends continue to stick by her?

Excerpt from Cate in Flux:

f I had known the mannequins were inflatable, I would never have bought them in the first place, and my life today would be wonderfully dull.

The day I went to pick them up was a typical fall day, breezy, sunny, and cool.  The peacocks that blocked the driveway when I drove up to receive the mannequins should have tipped me off.  They darted manically, plumage wafting, back and forth, heads bobbing.  Alarmed, I almost turned around.  But Amelia needed her dress, and I needed the mannequins to make it, so I beeped the horn.  The peacocks scattered, leaving me room to wind my way through the driveway to the cottage at the end.

I was surprised when an Asian woman opened the door.  I assumed from the transaction e-mails through Craigslist that Simon would be a man, possibly a British one.  But dressed in a short, red kimono with stiletto-heeled boots, Simon threw me for a moment.  Nails done, hair high on the head like a Jersey girl from the 80s, I wasn‘t quite sure what to make of this person holding a door open wide for me, and gesturing that I should come forth.  One diamond earring glinted in his right ear.

“Come in.”  The voice was all cross-dresser.

“Hi, I’m Cate Jakubiak,” I said, shaking his hand.  “Simon?”

“Yes.  Simon Pham.  The mannequins are this way.”

I followed Simon through the house, marveling at his balance as his hips sashayed in front of me.  Each room had a theme.  Dungeon, Care Bears, Disco.  The voice in my head said to run away fast, but I needed the mannequins.  Finally, we reached the sewing room.

“Here they are, Dolly and Sally,” said Simon, gesturing to two torsos with heads, on which he had drawn clownish faces.  “I hope they’re to your liking.”

“Um, sure,” I said.  Even though I was disappointed they were inflatable instead of solid, they would have to do.

“What are you making?” he asked.

“A dress for a friend, and maybe some Halloween costumes,” I answered.  “Is that acceptable?”

Simon picked up a length of gold lame fabric from the table where Dolly and Sally were sitting.  “Do you want this fabric? I was going to make some pants out of them, but won’t have time,” he said, winking.

“Sure,” I told him.  You never know when some gold lame will come in handy.

“All right then.  I’ll help you carry them to your car.”

We stuffed Dolly and Sally into the back of my Scion. 

“It looks like a clown car, full of clowns,” laughed Simon, waving his hands around.  “Oh my.”


“Right,” I said.  “Here’s your check.”  I handed the paper over quickly.  I wanted to get out of there.

Simon leaned in kissed me on the lips, not just a peck but a lingering kiss.  His lips were remarkably soft, and I felt it in my gut, which was shocking.  “I’ll be seeing you soon, Cate,” he whispered softly before going back into the house.  “Don’t let the peacocks bother you on your way out.”

The kiss had rooted me to ground, and it was a few minutes before I recovered sufficiently to move.  Crap.  Even though he was clearly creepy, I felt immediately attracted. I looked at the ground, and was simultaneously disgusted and fascinated by a dead giant slug, its entrails blooming out of its bloated body.

I am a boring person. I like the status quo. I enjoy working, cooking, exercising every day precisely at 5. I prefer men, strong men who want to take care of me. Okay, so some of them have been on the edge of crazy, but that’s not their fault. Well, maybe more than on the edge, really, if my friends are to be believed. Okay, the crazies follow me around like zombies on The Walking Dead. I have no idea why. Anyway, I also read bestsellers, love sewing, and adore having a nice apartment in a quiet Boston suburb.  Simon the Asian Cross-Dresser was not a person I was prepared to find thrust into my life, and if I could change just one moment, I would have driven away at the first sight of the peacocks.