by Jennette, December 5, 2012

WANA Wednesday is back, with three great reads just in time for the holidays!

Fantasy author Debra Kristi celebrates the release of her short story, “The Lonely Egg,” in the anthology Open Doors: Fractured Fairy Tales. By purchasing Fractured Fairy Tales, you’ll be giving too – all proceeds from copies purchased between now and December 20th will be donated to the Primary Children’s Hospital.

Fractured Fairy Tales is a whimsical collection of fairy tales. Ever wished to be like Sleeping Beauty so you could take a nap–for once? Isn’t it a bit annoying how the fairytale princes always get the girl, or how the three little pigs always beat the wolf?

Debra’s story, “The Lonely Egg,” is a new look at Humpty Dumpty. Sounds like fun, huh? More info at: http://debrakristi.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/fractured-fairy-tales/

Stacy Green’s romantic suspense novel, Into the Dark, was released last week. Into the Dark takes us into the two-hundred-mile labyrinth of dark storm drains beneath Las Vegas, where for a delusional stalker hides. He’ll go to any lengths to possess fragile, emotionally isolated Emilie Davis. To survive, Emilie will have to confront the secrets of her past she has kept locked away from everyone, including herself. She has nowhere to turn but to Nathan Madigan, the hostage negotiator who worked the robbery.

Nathan is haunted by his failure to protect a loved one fourteen years ago and has dedicated his life to saving others. Determined to catch the lunatic hunting Emilie, he finds himself losing his professional detachment. He fears history is about to repeat itself if he cannot protect Emilie from the Taker’s obsession. The police close in on the Taker’s identity as Nathan and Emilie grow closer to each other and to resolving the misery of their own pasts. At the height of The Taker’s madness, his attempt to replace someone he’s lost will either kill them all or set them free. Into the Dark has received some great reviews, and Stacy is having contest with two $25 Amazon gift cards as the prize! More info at: http://stacygreenauthor.com/2012/11/30/into-the-dark-is-available-now-is-it-the-next-big-thing/

There’s also a new historical romance from Renee Vincent newly released. In The Temperate Warrior, Gustaf Ræliksen lives by the blade of his sword. After avenging his father’s murder and reuniting with his family, he wants nothing more than to settle down and have sons of his own. Only one woman will do—a fiery redhead he saved from the spoils of war.

No longer forced to warm the beds of the men who’ve taken everything from her, Æsa has nothing to offer the noble warrior but her heart. When someone with a deep score to settle seeks revenge upon her, Gustaf’s world is torn asunder. He has but one vow—saving the woman he loves from the ignorant fool who dared to best the temperate warrior. More info at: http://www.reneevincent.com/2012/08/the-temperate-warrior.html

Quick ROW80 Update: I’ve finished the type-in to the latest revisions for Hangar 18: Legacy, have my editor lined up and ready to go, and have emailed my subject matter expert (on the military, not aliens) with a few final questions. He usually gets back to me pretty quickly, so I should get the book to my editor this week. Also, Christmas decorations are up! Shopping’s started, but there’s a good bit more to go. Yikes!

What is WANA? It stands for We Are Not Alone, a guide to blogging, social media and networking for authors by Kristen Lamb. It’s writers helping writers, whether or not we’ve taken the course, and proving that we really are not alone!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

What about you? Do you like suspense novels? How about twisted fairy tales, and romance? If you are doing ROW80, how’s your week going so far? I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, December 3, 2012

Courthouse Square, where the Downtown Posse used to hang out

One of my writing friends wrote a flash fiction piece on Friday about a Christmas that wasn’t so merry–and she conveyed amazingly well in 100 words the devastation losing a loved one during the holiday season can wreak on a family.

But can you imagine how much worse it would be, if that loved one was murdered?

That’s what happened one year to the families of six people in Dayton, in a murder spree dubbed The Christmas Killings. Six people, murdered for no reason, between December 23 and December 26, 1992 – and an appropriately dangerous, conflict-laden situation into which to dump a character – as I did in my time-travel short story, “Time’s Holiday.”

At that time, there was a loose-knit street gang who called themselves The Downtown Posse – teens and twenty-somethings who mostly hung out around Courthouse Square, bumming money off of people to buy booze and drugs. A couple of days before Christmas, the Posse decided to up their game, when one it its members suggested they rob a man she knew, who she enticed with an offer of sexual favors.

Robbery turned into murder, and the four Posse members involved got away with the man’s car, a television set, and his microwave. They’d gotten away scot-free, so why not try it again?

The next day, they shot a young woman on the phone in a phone booth, just for the hell of it. She didn’t have any cash to speak of on her. They took her designer gym shoes and her coat. They then decided to go after one of the girls’ ex-boyfriend – he had money and a car. He managed to get away with a gunshot wound in his leg.

All this time, the cops were busy investigating and putting together clues. The Posse weren’t the smart criminals we read about in suspense novels, so it was a matter of time before they slipped up. The Dayton Police only hoped it was before more people died.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t how it worked out. The Posse’s next victim was another ex-boyfriend, but at the scene of that murder – on the street in front of his home, when he got suspicious – the cops found leads and witnesses that began to point them in the right direction.

The Posse hid out at the home of one of its members. This boy’s mom and her boyfriend were terrified of the Posse (and rightly so), and holed up upstairs the whole day and a half the Posse occupied their house. This is the point at which, in my short story “Time’s Holiday,” young Taylor Gressman shows up and finds herself in a heap of trouble.

The Posse went on to kill a convenience store clerk – the single mom of an 11-year old girl. After that, they cruised around some more in their stolen cars, now numbering three, with some other friends. One young man convinced them to take him home. The other two weren’t so lucky, and were killed because the four ringleaders were getting nervous and feared they might snitch.

As it turned out, the boy they’d dropped off earlier was the one who snitched, giving the police the last bit of evidence they needed. They trapped three Posse members in one of the stolen cars, and found the other at the house where they’d been staying – and where the terrified mom identified the last culprit.

All four of the Posse members who were arrested that day were convicted by the court. One man, Marvallous Keene, was executed by the State of Ohio in July, 2009. The other three perpetrators were only 16 and 17 at the time of the murders, so all three are serving multiple sentences, with no chance for parole until 2098 at the earliest.

While there have been plenty of other murders in the area, including some where more people were killed at once, the police consider this the worst, as it was clearly premeditated, and one murder was committed, then another plan was executed, and another. And the worst thing was, not only did it happen over Christmas, it was done for kicks.

Here is a reprint of a Dayton Daily News article that tells the whole story, which I used extensively in my research.

My story, “Time’s Holiday,” is available as a standalone ebook for FREE! Although fictitious, find out how seventeen-year-old Taylor sneaks away on Christmas Eve, hoping to find the angel who saved her life a few weeks earlier. Instead, she takes an unexpected trip back in time, and finds herself in the midst of a murderous street gang. Now it’s up to Taylor to ensure that she and a newfound friend don’t become the gang’s next victims, and in the process, learn that giving is the best gift of all.

If you’ve thought about giving the Saturn Society series a try, this is a great way to see if it’s something you might like. Grab a copy of the ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo Books, Sony or iTunes.

If you’d like something more, “Time’s Holiday” is also included in the Ohio Valley Romance Writers of America’s anthology, Home for the Holidays. The anthology is available in both print and ebook at Amazon.com; and in ebook from Smashwords, Kobo Books, Sony, Barnes & Noble and should be coming soon to iTunes. All proceeds go directly to Ohio Valley Romance Writers of America, and help bring in educational programs for the whole chapter.

What about you – do you have any creepy true crime stories in your home from around the holidays? Can you imagine what the victims’ families must go through every year? And not to end on such a downer, do you like holiday stories?

by Jennette, December 2, 2012

Wednesday night, I hit a milestone: at last, the word count meter in the status bar of WriteWayPro registered 50,123. I was done with my NaNoWriMo novel!

I actually finished the novel a few days earlier, on Sunday night… with a word count of only a little over 46,000. Not enough. But I’d left a bunch of plot holes and dropped subplot threads, which I’d normally tackle in revision. Instead of moving to another project, I decided to tie some of those up, and that got me to 50,123 on Wednesday night.

I was elated! I exported my document to Word, fearing my word count would change, and it did – to 50,006. But that’s still over 50,000, right?

I entered my new wordcount into the NaNoWriMo website, and the “I’m ready to validate my novel” link appeared. I pasted my whole dang book in…

And no winner bar appeared. Instead, the wordcount I’d entered now read 49,926. What???!!

So I went back and added that author’s note, just a short one. Re-exported, and re-entered. This time, I made it over 50,000 words and got my Winner! graphics.

Here’s the details on my ROW80 goals for this past week:

Finish NaNoWriMo novel – Done!
If NaNo novel is less than 50k, write author’s note and/or nonfiction project to add up to 50k – Done!
Physical activity 5x this week – partial – I got it in 4x
Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 13 & 14 – Done!

Here are my overall goals for this round:

Format and release OVRWA holiday story anthology – Done and now available!
Revise Hangar 18 – revisions/markup done, corrections typed in through Chapter 10 (of 14)
Keep up with my exercise, five times a week – ongoing
Win NaNoWriMo -Done!

So that means I’ve already met my revised ROW80 goals, how about that??

But I’m not going to take the next two and a half weeks off. There’s still much to be done, although with the holidays coming and all the extra to-do that entails, I am going for small goals. So for this week, I’d like to:

Hangar 18 – finish type-in
Hangar 18 – get answers for new/remaining few research questions, and send to editor
Hangar 18 – put together book info sheet (blurbs of varying lengths, and other details needed for publishing)
Physical activity 5x this week

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, how did you do? And either way, have you ever finished a big task, only to find out that you weren’t finished after all?

by Jennette, November 28, 2012

…the writer will play! Or will she??

Not if it’s November, and she’s participating in NaNoWriMo!

Well, okay, maybe a little.

Oh, you want an explanation? Okay. It’s that time of the year that really helps a writer out. No, really.

It’s hunting season (the other helpful time being “football season”). How so? Well, to be specific, this week is gun season for deer in Ohio, which means my more-sociable half is away at deer hunting camp with lots of guys, lots of guns, and lots of beer (for after the guns are put away!). This means there’s lots of quiet in my house. I don’t think the TV has even been on in the past two days. The one in the room where my computer is hasn’t been on since he left the other day.

It’s been weird. And good for the word count – I finished my NaNoWriMo novel on Sunday night.

And as noted in Sunday’s post, fell short of the 50,000 words required to win NaNoWriMo – my book clocked in at only 46,000.

I was going to write an author’s note (wow, that would have to be a long one!) or do some work for a nonfiction technical piece. Then I came to another realization: There were holes in my book. Lots of ’em – maybe as many of them as there was beer at that deer camp earlier this week. But mostly, I had a fraying book – tons of dropped threads, subplots that were introduced but never tied up. This is something I often do (doesn’t every writer? No?) and then go back and catch these suckers in revision.

But usually, I need to cut words. This time, I need to add, so why not add something I’d add anyway, now?

So that’s what I’ve been doing. My NaNo novel is right on schedule for a win tonight or tomorrow, currently sitting at 48,442 words.

I’ll leave the rest of the ROW80 recap for Sunday.

Oh, and my DH is due home today, but he called yesterday with good news: he got one! Looks like there will be some good eating in our house this winter (he’s also a very good cook)!

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, are you on track to win, have you already won, or have you already conceded that you’ll not hit that 50k (which I don’t necessarily consider “losing”)?

I haven’t spotted any new releases from my writer friends the past couple of weeks, so no WANA Wednesday book news this week. I think many of my writing buddies are doing the same thing I am – writing! If you know of any, give me a heads up in the comments, please?

by Jennette, November 26, 2012

While I work on my book for NaNoWriMo, here’s another blast from the past… IOW, a post from way back when, in 2006, when publishing was a different world… yet it wasn’t.

This topic’s been brewing in my mind ever since the 2005 RWA National conference, and a young writer’s thoughtful post yesterday reminded me of it. At the 2005 conference, one of the keynote speakers was Debbie Macomber, who gave a poignant talk about her struggles to become a published writer. During the journey, she decided she’d never become a published author unless she took a chance and quit her day job to write full time. She gave herself a year (if I recall) and told her husband she’d go back to work if she hadn’t sold by then.

It wasn’t easy (is it ever?). She struggled to pay the bills. Right before she sold (which was also right before her self-imposed deadline), she struggled to come up with the postage to mail her submission to Silhouette. Though we are talking back in the eighties (again, I think), that couldn’t have been more than ten bucks. Can you imagine not being able to come up with ten bucks, with having to choose whether to eat lunch, or mail your manuscript? I can’t. Yet plenty of writers deal with this. Even more (published and not) have difficulty coming up with $75 for their RWA dues each year, or to fund attending National conference.

Do we have to struggle financially to sell? I don’t think so.

Perhaps the pressure gave Debbie Macomber that extra push to produce, to hone her craft, to excel. It would have the opposite effect on me. For me, this kind of stress is burdensome and stifling. I would not be able to produce. The quality of my work would suffer if I was worried about having the electricity shut off, or feeling guilty because we were eating ramen again instead of steak (or even chicken).

My late father in law was a gambler. My husband’s childhood memories include getting steak for dinner because the Lakers won – and eating macaroni and cheese (again) when they didn’t. My husband is never comfortable without having considerable savings. Many full-time authors still struggle to pay the bills, and live off of credit card debt. My husband would not be able to sleep at night if this were our case. Neither could I.

Granted, plenty of full-time writers are supported by a spouse or by retirement income, and while they may not have the standard of living they’d have with a regular paycheck, they don’t struggle financially. I was without a job for two years, thanks to the dot-com bust. We got by fine, but I always felt a cloud hovering over my head because we didn’t save anything during that time, much to my husband’s discomfort. Because I felt obligated to help in any way possible, I did all the child care and taxiing during that time, and often ran errands for my husband’s business. I ended up not producing any more writing than I did while working for a paycheck. I did freelance graphic design work to alleviate the burden somewhat, but the fact is, it was a huge relief when the current day job fell into my lap.

Many people posted blogs last week about what they are thankful for this Thanksgiving. Of course I’m thankful for family, friends, home, health and all that. I’m also thankful for my day job. It allows me to focus on my writing during my writing time, without worrying about credit card debt piling up or not being able to pay the mortgage. I’m fortunate that my day job is fairly low-stress, pays decently, and provides health insurance without requiring me to take work home. There are plenty of writers who work crappy-paying jobs to pay the bills while they try to sell, because they can’t get anything else that wouldn’t take too much time away from writing. These are the folks I really feel for. I have worked hard over many years to excel in my fields – graphic design and software development – but I still realize I’m very fortunate.

Each writer can only determine for her/himself which is the right path. The young woman linked above is smart to go to college and plan on a career where she can earn a good living. You can’t count on ever making a penny on writing. Sure, it would be great to get paid for the stuff I make up, and yes, I think my work is worth being paid for, but realistically, the odds are long. I don’t plan to quit the day job when I do sell (thinking positively), as I know how low the advances typically are for a first-time romance author. Plenty of successful authors continue to work a day job. For now, I consider my writing a second job. It works for me.

Without the suffering.

What do you think? Are writers with a hard luck story more deserving of success in their art? What is it about the whole “starving artist” thing that makes it seem so? How much are you willing to suffer for your art, whatever that may be? I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, November 25, 2012

My NaNoWriMo book has come along quite a ways this week… in fact, I expect to finish it today or tomorrow.

And I don’t expect to hit 50,000 words until Wednesday or Thursday.

In other words, I’m running out of story. And I’m a bit shocked – if anything, my work usually runs long, just ask anyone who’s read Time’s Enemy or especially Time’s Fugitive. Even my short story, “Time’s Holiday,” clocked in at over 7,000 in its first draft, and the Home for the Holidays anthology required it to be 5,000 or under. It turned out I had some repetitious stuff, and stuff that wasn’t absolutely vital to the story that I could cut, and I whittled it down to size while making it a much better book.

The NaNo novel is already lean – there’s almost no description in it. That’s something I usually have to layer in during revision, but it’s even more scant in this book than usual. Then again, I’m just now getting to the big boss battle, and I do write long, so this may take up the words after all.

If I don’t, I have a plan. I can add an author’s note, and see how much that adds. If it’s not enough, I can start in on a little nonfiction project I’ve been meaning to write for a while – an instruction manual, of sorts, for my web design clients.

Here’s the details on my progress for this past week:

12,000 words on NaNoWriMo novel, to a total of 43,000 words or more – Done!
Physical activity 5x this week – partial – got 4x in – not bad for having a holiday!
Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 11-12 – Done!

Here are my overall goals for this round:

Format and release OVRWA holiday story anthology – Done and now available!
Revise Hangar 18 – revisions/markup done through Chapter 12 (of 14)
Keep up with my exercise, five times a week – ongoing
Win NaNoWriMo – on track with 43,063 words so far!

For this week, I’d like to:

Finish NaNoWriMo novel
If NaNo novel is less than 50k, write author’s note and/or nonfiction project to add up to 50k
Physical activity 5x this week
Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 13 & 14

by Jennette, November 21, 2012

We have a special treat for WANA Wednesday this week! Prudence MacLeod, author of romance, science fiction, and fantasy, agreed to stop by and let me pick her brain. Prudence is one prolific lady, and I wanted some insight into how she does it. Okay, enough from me – here’s Prudence!

JMP: Prudence, how long have you been writing? How many books did you write before publishing?

PM: Thanks for inviting me over for a coffee and chat, Jennette. How long? Off and on for close to fifty years, I guess. Seriously for about seventeen.

JMP: That’s a good while! And I thought I’d been at it a long time. Have you been published by a big publisher? Small press/epub? Independently? Please share your publishing experience.

PM: I had a few articles and short stories published in magazines long ago. As for novels, I acquired a box full of rejections and spent a fortune on postage before the internet changed the publishing world. As soon as the option became feasible, I began self-publishing.

JMP: I don’t blame you! Your books tend to cross genres, and I’ve found self publishing to be a perfect fit for that as well. Now that you’ve tasted the control and flexibility that comes with indie publishing, are you still pursuing a traditional publishing contract, or perhaps an agent?

PM: No, once I decided to go it alone I stopped trying to go traditional. If you’re doing self-pub right you don’t have much time left over for writing a synopsis or sending out query letters. You are spending your time on writing, editing, and social media.

JMP: Boy, isn’t that the truth! And that’s on top of creating, or contracting for cover art, formatting, editing, and more. What do you do (or have you done) for a day job? Has this informed or inspired your writing in any way?

PM: I’ve had a number of day jobs over the years, but I have to say the years I spent as a personal trainer give me the fondest memories. Those years, the people I worked with, and the things learned there are a big influence on my writing. A lot of my characters come from those days.

JMP: I’ll bet you met a lot of interesting people as a personal trainer! Most of us have trouble getting to the writing every now and then, if not every day. What keeps you from writing, and how do you handle it? How do you make time for writing?

PM: Finding the time can be an issue some days and I so admire you folks who manage jobs, children, and still find the time. Me? I just make the time. I learned this in powerlifting. When a lifter wants to enter a contest and lift three hundred pounds, she will set up a chart, probably twelve weeks. She starts with week twelve and marks it at 300. Week eleven is marked at 290, week ten at 280 etc. Each day she enters the gym she knows exactly what she has to do. I do the same now with writing. If I want a first draft of 72,000 words in twelve weeks, then week eleven calls for 66,000, week ten is 60,000 etc.

As you can see I’m constantly setting goals for myself. If I don’t I’ll just drift and get nothing done at all.

JMP: That’s so true, Prudence! I know for me, that’s what NaNoWriMo does – it forces us to set goals and divide up that 50,000 word mountain into chunks we can mark off each day. But wow, you have a lot of books out there now! Tell me, what inspired your latest?

PM: Okay, this was fun, actually. Needing a good kick to get my head back into my writing, I dropped what I was working on and contacted one of my most avid fans. I asked her point blank, “What would you love to see in my next book?” She was pretty clear on what she liked so I set out to write a romance with her in mind as the reader. I sent her a small teaser and she loved it. I’m just getting started on it, but I hope to get it ready in time for Christmas.

JMP: And now for the $64,000 question – CDN or US$, either is fine. 🙂 What are some things you did to build your readership? What’s worked? What didn’t?

PM: Well, pushing in social media doesn’t work, running contests and doing giveaways haven’t worked for me, and offering sales and free books hasn’t worked either. What has worked is personal contact. Any reader who reaches out to me via e-mail or through a comment on my blog gets a personal response; not a come on to buy more books, but a response just to them. This can be a bit time consuming some days, but I will keep it up as long as I am able. I love the one on one with the readers.

JMP: Amen to that! Getting email from readers is the best! What are some things your readers have told you they particularly love about your books?

PM: Most of all it is Hope. I try to offer hope in all my book; they always have an upbeat ending. Folks also tell me they find my books informative; they learn things about all sorts of different people and lifestyles.

JMP: Having read and enjoyed some of your books, I couldn’t agree more! What’s up next for you – and where can readers find more about you and your work?

PM: Oh, gosh, I truly wish I knew. I’m hoping to find more ways to get in touch with the readers in more personal ways. I’m just not good at running big promotions; I’m more comfortable chatting over a coffee.

Here’s where you can find me, folks.

http://www.prudencemacleod.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Prudence-MacLeod/e/B0079XOY8U

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Witchhazel

Jennette, thanks for the coffee and the chat. Let’s do it again soon.

JMP: You bet, Prudence! It’s been fun – thanks again for stopping by!

Quick ROW80 Update: So far so good for NaNoWriMo! I’ve logged another 5,000 words since our last check in, bringing my total to about 36,000. I’m off of work today through Sunday, so I’m hoping to stay on schedule for that. I say stay on track, rather than get ahead, because I’m hosting Thanksgiving! My family’s great – everyone chips in as far as food goes, and it’s always a good time, so it’s ALL good! Hope you’re doing well if you’re participating in ROW80 and/or NaNoWriMo, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

by Jennette, November 19, 2012

Note from Jennette: this blog post originally ran on August 15, 2011, and remains one of my most popular posts for people to find via search. Meanwhile, I’m working on my NaNoWriMo novel, and am now over 2/3 of the way to the 50,000-word mark!

One of the fun things about writing (and reading) time travel stories is the whole fish-out-of-water aspect, especially when someone goes into the future. There is one scene in Time’s Enemy, my newly-released time-travel novel, where a character from the 1930s comes forward to modern times. When she asks for a drink and is handed a can of Mountain Dew, she’s understandably perplexed at what to do with it (and initially thinks it’s moonshine, LOL).

Anyone remember drinking beer or pop (“soda” for you non-Midwesterners) from a can like this? Younger folks might not, but in the sixties, seventies, and into the early eighties, this is what you got if you bought beer in a can, or got a Coke, Pepsi, etc. from a machine. Of course, I also remember pop in glass bottles – you know, where you bought a six pack at Kroger and paid a deposit of $.05 – .10 per bottle, which they returned when you took the bottles back to the store.

But back to the cans – before they were like this, they required a can opener, like is still used today to open larger cans of juice, although those are now mostly replaced by bottles. The can opener had a sharp point on it, and poked a triangle hole in the edge of the can. A second hole was needed to admit air.

Dayton inventor Ermal Fraze

The pull tab shown on the can to the right came about in the early sixties, after Dayton tool-and-die maker Ermal Fraze went on a picnic, and forgot to bring a can opener for the drinks. According to the stories, he ended up prying cans open on a car bumper (???), then went home and devised a can with a built-in opener – the pull tab.

The pull tab was eventually superceded by the now-familiar push-in top in the eighties, but it was the pull tab that helped push cans to edge out glass bottles in popularity as a beverage container. Fraze’s legacy lives on today in the form of full-top pull tabs that are still commonly used in canned snacks like peanuts. Dayton Reliable Tool (now DRT Mfg.), the machine shop he formed in the 1940s, is also still in business in Dayton today.

Do you know of any cool little details that we take for granted today, that originated in your hometown? Please share!

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverage_can
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/fraze.html
http://www.heartlandscience.org/manuf/poptop.htm

Photo of beer can via Wikipedia, public domain | Photo of Ermal Fraze via Heartlandscience.org

by Jennette, November 18, 2012

My lack of planning is making my NaNoWriMo book a challenge. As a recap, I set my daily writing goals a little differently than the standard 1,667 words/day – instead, I write 1,500 words four weeknights, and 3,000 words on both Saturday and Sunday to meet my overall goal. But I didn’t get my 3k in yesterday until 10:30 PM – and I didn’t do much of anything else all day.

I have to outline, and I did outline this book, too. However, many of my scenes were just a few words of what would happen. And I’m finding that that’s not always enough. I need to know what’s the conflict, and who or what the antagonist is in any given scene, and many of my notes did not have this. I also got hung up on details, and spent a lot of time thinking how something specific would happen, which is something we need to ditch in order to meet the high word count goals of NaNoWriMo. I did manage to get it together just in time, so my progress is still on track, although I did not get as much done on my revisions for Hangar 18 as I’d have liked, and I had some other things to do yesterday that now will have to be done today. Things like laundry, keeping in touch with family and friends, and some graphic design work I’m doing for my brother, who’s in the process of starting a business. Good thing I have my blogs mostly set up! Oh, and I’m hosting Thanksgiving for my family. I’m taking the day before and the day after off of work – I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get some extra time in there, and keep my wordcount on track.

Here’s my progress for this past week:

12,000 words on NaNoWriMo novel, to a total of 30,000 words or more – Done!
Physical activity 5x this week – partial – Done!
Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 10-11 – Partial – I got Chapter 10 marked up.

Here are my overall goals for this round:

Format and release OVRWA holiday story anthology – Done and now available!
Revise Hangar 18 – revisions/markup done through Chapter 10
Keep up with my exercise, five times a week – ongoing
Win NaNoWriMo – on track with 31,178 words so far!

For this week, I’d like to:

12,000 more words on NaNoWriMo novel, bringing its total up to 43,000
Physical activity 5x this week
Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 11 & 12

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If you’re in the U.S., what are your plans for Thanksgiving, and do they affect your goal setting this week, especially if you’re doing NaNoWriMo?

by Jennette, November 14, 2012

First, congratulations to Kassandra Lamb, who’s celebrating the release of Celebrity Status, book #4 in her Kate Huntington Mystery series. In Celebrity Status, Kate is now married to Skip Canfield, the man who patiently courted her through the last two books in this mystery series, and life is good. Skip’s private investigating agency, Canfield and Hernandez, may be doing a little too well, however. They have attracted their first celebrity client, a pop singer whose anonymous stalker has a twisted concept of love. Before Skip realizes just how twisted, he involves first his psychotherapist wife and then their lawyer friend, Rob Franklin, in the case.

Soon they are being hounded by paparazzi and someone is planting evidence to convince Skip that Kate and Rob are lovers. As they try to protect their relationship and family from this onslaught of unwanted attention, as well as a stalker who will stop at nothing to remove the obstacles in his path, Kate and Skip struggle with the reality that you can’t always keep those you love from harm.

Kassandra kicked off a big blog tour on Monday, where she’ll be giving away an Amazon gift certificate, a signed paperback, and several e-copies of her books. More info at: http://kassandralamb.com/2012/11/official-launch-of-celebrity-status-were-having-a-blast-and-a-contest/

And now for the Next Big Thing

This one’s been around for a while, but it finally caught up with me. Stacy McKitrick tagged me with the Next Big Thing meme, where I get an excuse to talk about my next book!

Since I don’t know if my NaNoWriMo book will be publishable, I’m going to answer the questions about my upcoming release. Here goes!

What is your working title of your book?
Hangar 18: Legacy

Where did the idea come from for the book?
This book has actually been published before, as paranormal romance Nothing to Hide. A while back, I decided to rewrite it, and rewrite I did – I didn’t even look at the original book. But the characters, their names, and the suspense/psychic abilities premise are the same, I just added the aliens (and improved on the writing). I got the idea for the psychic hero when my boss stopped by at work one day and asked me a question about the exact thing I’d just been thinking of. It was freaky, and I started to wonder, what if he could really read my mind? What if I was attracted to him? (I wasn’t; this is a romance writer’s mind at work. 😀 ) The alien part came many years later, when I started working at the base that supposedly housed Hangar 18, where, according to legend, the aliens and wreckage from the Roswell incident were supposedly taken. I wondered what if it were real? And what if, somehow, the aliens were still alive?

What genre does your book fall under?
Science fiction romance

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I watch so little TV and so few movies, I honestly have no idea!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A psychic AF researcher and the skeptical developer of mind-control software must team up to rescue an imprisoned extraterrestrial thought dead for decades.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It will be self-published.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
The first time, about six months. For the rewrite, maybe half that. But revision took a lot longer!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
In its original incarnation, a reviewer compared it to Jayne Ann Krentz’s “gift of” series because of the psychic element. Of course now, the psychic is also a sexy Air Force officer.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The same things that gave me the ideas.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Hangar 18: Legacy is a different science fiction romance, with a good bit of suspense and one very angry alien. There’s not a lot of tech in it, so readers who shy away from that will still find Hangar 18 accessible. OTOH, my romances tend to have a lot of other action in them, so I have had male readers enjoy them as well. Basically, Hangar 18: Legacy is about Adam Keller, a psychic Air Force researcher, who can sense the thoughts and emotions of others. Because of his gift, he keeps people at a distance. But when an angry voice demands rescue, dark thoughts of death and suicide threaten to overwhelm Adam, until he meets a woman whose emotions quiet, if not silence, the voice. All he has to do is risk his heart and engage his own emotions. Lisa Stark wants nothing more than to finish the subliminal messaging software she’s worked on for over a year. But when command cancels the controversial project, someone else wants it badly enough to kill for it. The only person who can save it and Lisa is Adam Keller, a man who’s as irresistible as he is crazy. Soon, not only is Lisa’s project at risk, but also her heart, and her life.

I’m going to weasel out of tagging others for this, because just about everyone I can think of to tag has already been tagged. But if anyone wants an excuse to talk about your Work In Progress, feel free to say I tagged you, and share!

Here are the Rules for The Next Big Thing Blog Hop:

***Use this format for your post
***Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress)
***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:
What is your working title of your book?
Where did the idea come from for the book?
What genre does your book fall under?
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.

Quick ROW80 Update: This month, my main focus is my NaNoWriMo novel. My weekly goal is to write 1,500 words four weeknights, and 3,000 words each on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday through Tuesday, I’ve written over 5,000 words, bringing my total to 23167 – right on track. So far so good!

What about you? Do you like mystery/suspense novels? How about with romance and aliens? If you are doing ROW80, how’s your week going so far? I’d love to hear from you!