Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 164

Letters to Kel: WRITING CONFERENCES -- GO!

I just got back from a writing conference in Pennsylvania. A two-hour drive each way. I'm exhausted!

But worth the time, the effort, the fees.

I'm surprised when people ask if writing conferences are "worth it." I'm even more surprised when some people respond by saying it was a waste of their time. Did they check out the classes and workshops offered, the focus of the conference, the keynote speakers, the writing group sponsoring the conference? If you do your homework, you know what you'll be getting if you go, and that means unless someone was lying big-time, it won't be a waste of your time and money and effort.

Of course, you have to be open to learning. You have to be ready to learn. Don't just sit there expecting someone to spoon-feed you.

Yes, conferences are worth it. Even if you know the basics of what the workshops are offering, it's still worth going. Just like it's worth reading books on writing that you've read before: You need to refresh your memory. You need to hear what you already know presented in new ways, learn to see the rules, the guidelines, from a different angle. Sometimes all it takes is a different approach, hearing people talk about how they handle the same blocks and puzzles and decisions, to get that "Ah ha!" moment.

We all need "ah ha!" moments.

We also need to get together with people who are going through the same struggles of finding inspiration, rough drafting, revising, polishing, marketing, and then promoting. Even though writing is usually a very solitary occupation -- maybe because it is so solitary -- we NEED to get together with people who know what we're talking about. The people who are in the trenches with us. The ones who will nod and pat our hands and say, "I know what you're going through." Because you can only take so much of the "Huh?" looks from people who don't understand ...

Find a writer's conference, no matter how small. The one I went to on Saturday was only a day long, and didn't cost a lot. It didn't offer me a chance to pitch to editors and agents. But it did offer learning and refreshing and fellowship. And that's what we need. Go to the little conferences. The bite taken out of your checkbook won't be that big -- it might not even sting -- but chances are you'll get a lot of the same benefits you would from the big (big as in lost-in-the-crowd, big as in credit card bills) conferences.

Off the Bookshelf: GEARS OF A MAD GOD by Brent Nichols

Warning: I am doing research for a Steampunk series I want to write, so I am reading all the Steampunk books I can get my hands on. (special thanks to the authors who offered their books, short stories, sample chapters for free on B&N -- my Nook has been feeling neglected, up until now!)

GEARS OF A MAD GOD by Brent Nichols is sub-titled: A Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure.

Thank goodness we didn't get a visit from Cthulu (am I spelling it right? ) in this book, but readers get a lot of close encounters from the homicidal lunatics in service to Lovecraft's truly creepy creation.

Colleen is an independent young woman who fixes things -- from clocks to annoying young men to mad pursuers to broken down old factories. An orphan, she is waiting for her young man to propose, but life is interrupted when she gets word that her uncle, her only living relative, has died. As she journeys across Canada of the last century, she receives bits and pieces that make her wonder what is going on. That and several men who keep showing up, following her, then chasing her, or poking their noses into her business ... it's enough to make an independent young woman itch for a wrench to do extremely unladylike things to said irritants. When she finds out the events of the days leading up to her uncle's death, the mystery gets even stranger. If you like tough chicks who are good with wrenches and cogs and steam boilers, this is the novella for you.

SPOTLIGHT SATURDAY: Chatelaine of Forez by Vijaya Schartz

Today's Spotlight is on a medieval fantasy romance by prolific fellow Desert Breeze author, Vijaya Schartz.

CHATELAINE OF FOREZCurse of the Lost Isle medieval fantasy romantic series
1028 AD - Afflicted by the ondine curse, Melusine seeks the soul of her lost beloved in the young Artaud of Forez, who reigns over the verdant hills south of Burgundy, on the road of pilgrims, troubadours and merchants. But this dark and brooding Pagan lord is not at all what she expected or even hoped. He knows nothing of their past love, her Fae nature, or her secret curse. Must Melusine seduce and betroth this cold stranger to satisfy the Goddess and redeem her curse?
The gold in the rivers instills greed in the powerful, and many envy the rich Lord of Forez, including his most trusted vassals... even the Bishop of Lyon. When Artaud’s attraction to Melusine makes them the target of a holy hunt, will she find redemption from the curse, or will they burn at the stake?
Kindle, 2.99 http://amzn.com/B00I3T9VYG
Each book in the series can be read separately, if you want to read them in the right order:Book 1 – PRINCESS OF BRETAGNE
Book 2 – PAGAN QUEEN
Book 3 – SEDUCING SIGEFROI
Book 4 – LADY OF LUXEMBOURG
Book 5 – CHATELAINE OF FOREZA box set of the first three novels in one download, special edition Curse of the Lost Isle for $4.99.
Born in France, award-winning author Vijaya Schartz never conformed to anything and could never refuse a challenge. She likes action and exotic settings, in life and on the page. She traveled the world and claims she also travels through time, and feels just as comfortable in the future as in the far past. Her novels collected many five star reviews and literary awards. She will make you believe you actually lived these extraordinary adventures among her characters. "Phenomenal world building, characters the readers care about, and an intriguing mystery... all the elements one expects from a Vijaya Schartz story! Easily recommended!" Debbie - CK2sKwipsandKritique
Vijaya SchartzBlasters, Swords, Romance with a Kick http://www.vijayaschartz.com Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/vijayaschartz   B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/vijaya-schartz
FB: https://www.facebook.com/vijaya.schartz
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vijayaschartz  

WHEELS: New Tabor Heights novel

It's HERE!
WHEELS, The 4th book of Year 2 of my Tabor Heights series, has just been released by Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc.
Please go over to the web site and check out ALL the NEW books from DBP.

What's WHEELS about?
The girl next door, forgiveness, memories, danger, dreams ... Yeah, like that really makes you want to read it?
Tommy Donnelly, Tabor's resident comedian, is heading up a Handicap Awareness Walk ... err ... ROLL in Tabor Heights. Natalie Schaefer, a report for America's Voice, has come to town to cover the walk, because she's been doing a lot of little side pieces on handicap accessibility in the magazine. Why has she been doing this? Well, Natalie was the little girl across the street who adored Tommy when they were children. She planned on marrying him someday ... then Tommy broke his back and his family disintegrated and Natalie's father took them to a new town. Should she tell him who she is, and remind him of their shared past?
In the middle of all this, a young man Tommy is helping, who has just been released from prison, is getting some pressure from former associates to return to his old life ... and to use Tommy to hide their activities.

HERE'S THE FUN PART:
I based this book on a script I "almost" sold 23 years ago, to "MacGyver." Well, they told me they liked it, and if I wanted to rewrite it, they would be glad to look at it, but by the time I rewrote it they had already chosen the scripts for the final half-season, so ... It still counts as an "almost," doesn't  it?
Check out my web site and the Desert Breeze Facebook page later on to find out how you can get a PDF copy of my old script. But give me time, okay? It's stored in a format from 5 computers and 3 word processing programs ago, and there's a lot of reformatting to do and junk coding to delete!

Letters to Kel: THAT IDEA STORE

Anyone who has been published -- and anyone who proclaims themselves to be writers, whether they actually write or not -- always get hit with this question:

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR IDEAS?

For a little while, I had a smart-alec answer: There's this little shop in the French Quarter in New Orleans ...  Because honestly, there was a shop with the name of "Imagination" or something like that, which I saw while walking through the French Quarter back before Katrina.

But no, you really can't "buy" ideas. You have to harvest them. Scavenge them. Make yourself open to being "attacked" by them. Even "steal" or "borrow" them from other writers and then perform surgery until they become identifiably yours. That means you often toss away everything from the original idea, sculpting and cutting and grafting in (yes, I'm mixing my metaphors -- it's my blog, I can do what I darn well want!) until it becomes a new creature. And if you do your work right, it won't rebel and turn on you like Frankenstein's monster ... Then again, sometimes the most fun I've had while writing has been when my characters became so real that they did what they darn well wanted to, and not what was on the road map of my sketchy plot. (Which is why my plots and synopses and whatever are very, very sketchy at the beginning -- to give lots of wiggle room and opportunity to go off on tangents.) Setting up your characters and situations and sitting back and watching them perform is the best fun!

Ideas are -- after all this time, I am thoroughly convinced -- living things.
They latch onto you and nag you and invade your dreams and like spoiled children, insist on pulling you away from your current work-in-progress to listen to them NOW!

You have to tame them -- that means letting them nag and interrupt your sleep and your social time, but only enough to write down what they're saying. Do not let your ideas drag you over to the computer or notepad or whatever you use for your first draft to sit down NOW and start writing their story. Because here's the secret: The ideas aren't sure what their story is, either. Not when they're first born. They need to grow up and figure out what they are supposed to do in your head. You have to let them keep talking, keep nagging, keep playing in the back of your mind. Let them bring friends along -- in fact, you should wait and even pretend to ignore them, until they bring friends to make more noise and really catch hold of your attention. Because that's when the story starts taking on multiple layers, adds complications, goes from black-and-white to color, and gets a soundtrack. So to speak. If you start telling your idea's story too soon, you'll stall out, and your idea might even abandon you just after the big explosive, "Hey, look at me!" start. Why? Because you gave the idea what it wanted -- your attention -- too soon in the process. You have to make it wait and grow and learn what most of the story is (no, you don't have to have the whole thing, just enough to know what some of the barriers and complications and supporting actors are) before you start writing. Make the idea fight for your time and attention, and it won't abandon you. It's worked too darn hard to walk away now!

Let's see a store-bought idea, something you borrowed from another writer and didn't make entirely your own, have that kind of stubborn, stick-to-it-iveness and loyalty.

SPOTLIGHT SATURDAY: A Glimmer of Guile, by Mary Patterson Thornburg

Today's SPOTLIGHT is focused on another fellow author at Uncial Press, Mary Patterson Thornburg, with her new novel, A GLIMMER OF GUILE:

Vivia has guile. Using only the power of her mind, she can make water boil, heal the sick, create illusions, and even transform herself into a bird or a pirate. But guilish folk are considered witches by most people, and that frightens them. Her first teacher taught her healing arts, and after that she studied with Taso Raym, the most powerful male witch in the land. He taught her many things, and not just guilish skills. Unfortunately, neither Vivia nor Raym could ignore their attraction to each other, and intimacy between them would have meant the end of her guile. So she joined Ladygate, an all-female community, and accepted that love was not for her.
After a while, though, she realizes Ladygate is not where she belongs either. So she accepts the task of investigating the disappearance of a lord's son—kidnapped, it seems, by the malevolent witch Orath. Her guilish training is not quite complete, and she hopes Raym can help her. But Raym has also disappeared. Vivia is on her own, with a task to do—one that now touches her heart. She’s almostsure she has the necessary strength and skill……Unless Raym and Orath are in league with each other.
Meeting challenges head on, Vivia learns from her mistakes. Her guile grows with each success, as she follows a convoluted, hazy trail to the sea and, beyond, to the lair of Orath and her tyrannical consort, the Red Prince. There she finds Raym, captive and enthralled by a guile stronger and more deadly than she ever imagined. Planning carefully, she prepares herself for a confrontation she must believe she will win…

Visit Mary at her brand new website: www.marypattersonthornburg.com

Letters to Kel: BUTTONHOLES, NOT THE WHOLE DRESS

I'm editing a book that should never have been sent to me. I fear the author dictated her book into some program, like Dragon, never took the time to "train" her dictation software to understand her (and her horrid, stereotyped uneducated backwoods accent), and spoke with her mouth full.

To make matters worse, it's very clear she never bothered reading her book after it got recorded -- or else she quit school after flunking second grade a dozen times. The grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes are enough to give me headaches and pull out my hair. (I think I need a wig for Easter ...)

Bottom line: She had no right sending it to the publisher to publish, and then expect someone to fix the mangled drivel that should never have been put on the page in the first place. In the age of texting and instant messaging and email ... this alleged author can barely grasp the essentials of conversation. Forget the arrogance of writing a book and expecting people to actually read 50,000 words of reporting in excruciating detail every conversation and text message as her relationship fell apart.

Don't worry -- I don't have personal contact with the people I edit for this vanity publisher. She doesn't know I'm talking about her, and I will never reveal her name, even if you torture me. Of course, after this week , my estimate of my strength is greatly increased ...

I believe that the writing talent is a stewardship. And that means no matter how brilliant you imagine your book is, you still have a responsibility to go through it and make it the best it can be before you "release it into the world." That means even BEFORE you send it to an editor to "fix" it for you.

Several years ago on the EPIC loop, one of the authors griped about having to fix punctuation, grammar, spelling, and formatting. "Isn't that what editors are for? To fix all those things for me? Why should I waste my time?" Needless to say, he got pounded by the editors and publishers on the loop.

With the heavy load of submissions that editors in all levels of publishing receive ... if your story is equal to someone else's in terms of the suspense and characterization and details, but when the editor considers how much time she will have to invest in polishing one manuscript versus the other ... guess who she'll buy? Yep, the book that requires the least amount of work from her.

Your editor, whether the in-house editor, or someone like me who polishes up vanity press manuscripts, or helps an author polish and revise before submitting to that overworked, finicky editor, is NOT there to, in essence, write your book for you. I'm the tailor who puts on the buttons and trims the button holes and fixes the hems. I am NOT here to take whole panels out of your dress, find new material to change the look, change a neck to a sleeve, on and on. You should have your book as close to the finished product as possible before you send it to me. I'm there to clean things up, not change babydoll pajamas into an evening gown!

If you want an editor who does that kind of work, baby, it'll COST you. And you might have to put someone else's name on your book with yours. After all, they did as much work as you did. Maybe more. Because ideas are a dime a dozen, but the talent to actually write a book that people will read -- all the way to the end -- without throwing it against the wall -- that is a priceless and rare talent.

Don't write a book -- don't make a dress -- until you understand what all the tools are there for, what each type of material works best, and where it works best. And for heaven's sake, don't go out in public without making sure your dress doesn't have huge, gaping holes in it!

Off the Bookshelf: THE SON OF SOBEK by Rick Riordan

Ever wondered what would happen if Carter Kane and Percy Jackson met up?

Rick Riordan gives us a short story of one encounter, and maybe a hint of future stories to come. Or else he's just being a nasty tease, laying the groundwork for two of his heroes from two different stories -- and two different mythologies and cultures -- coming together. And then not DOING anything with it! (Please, don't be cruel! )

Carter from the Kane Chronicles is hunting a giant crocodile before it causes harm to innocent bystanders. He runs into Percy Jackson from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus books, who is doing the same. Since neither side knows that the gods from Greece and Egypt seem to be co-existing in our modern world, they seem to be speaking two different languages, rather than ordinary English ... and that kind of handicaps them in fighting the nasty old croc.

They conclude that someone is out to foment trouble between Greece and Egypt ... but who? I hope Riordan does follow through -- at least with more short stories, if not full-length books.

SPOTLIGHT SATURDAY: A Bowl of Rice, by Joan Leotta

This week, I'm delighted to feature another fellow Desert Breeze Publishing author!
A Bowl of Riceby Joan Leotta.
This is the third book in her Legacy of Honor series. Anna Maria O'Shea, daughter of Giulia, the heroine of Giulia Goes to War (book one of the series)  has signed up to become a nurse. What is honor? Anna Maria grapples with this question while trying to discover just who she is and how she will serve her country during the Vietnam War era. Her first challenge is her boyfriend, also in the nurse program,  who becomes a protester and does not  plan to honor his pledge to serve. Anna Maria also needs to deal with reconciling her mixed Italian and Irish heritage with her feelings for a fellow soldier, rescuing her room mate from the Viet Cong and finally, coming home.
To find out more about the author and her writing, performing and speaking, check out her blog (where there is also a free short story to read!) www.joanleotta.wordpress.com To find out how to purchase the book (2.99 on kindle!) check out this link:http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Honor-Book-Three-Bowl-ebook/dp/B00J54ZDCW/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1396707800&sr=1-3&keywords=joan+leotta

Letters to Kel: GET YOURSELF SOME FRESH EYES

No, I'm not talking about investing in Visine or taking a nap before you proofread your story.

I'm talking about finding someone to help you with the final polish. Someone to read through it and find all those little glitches and stupid typos that you didn't catch.

Here's the thing: After you've gone through your story a half-dozen times, and maybe paid an editor to go over it with you two or three times, you and your editor get kind of familiar with what's on the page. You have an idea in your head of what you want on the page, how you want the book to feel, the level of clarity. And after you've been over your book again and again and again ... your mind plays tricks on you. You see the sentences and paragraphs as you WANT them to be ... not how they really are. Your brain inserts the right words in there, and you gloss over the mistakes.

Here's what you need to do:
1 -- Find someone who has not read your story yet. Preferably someone you haven't talked to about the story, either, so they don't have expectations.
2 -- Find someone with a good, solid grasp of the rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation -- and the English language!
You might think that's obvious, but it's not -- I've edited plenty of people who speak English as their second or third language, and instead of going to someone who is a native speaker and reader and writer of English, they go to one of their immigrant friends who they consider more skilled with English, and ask them to check the book. Well, chances are good this more skilled friend makes the same grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation mistakes as the author.
3 -- DO NOT ASK FAMILY OR FRIENDS to read the manuscript. They'll tell you it's wonderful, don't change a thing. Or they'll focus on stupid little things that aren't wrong (for instance, I edited a book where the author's relatives insisted AFTER the book was published that "If you were a virgin, you were allowed to wear white" was wrong, and proper grammar was, "If you was a virgin, you was allowed to wear white." *sigh*) or they'll believe you're talking about them when you aren't, and their feelings will get hurt -- or worse, you ARE talking about them, and they'll want you to totally rewrite the book to suit them.
4 -- DO NOT WAIT until AFTER publication to ask for feedback from your smart, grammatically skilled friends. Do it beforehand, while you still have time to make corrections to the manuscript.
4a -- As a corollary, do not accept or ask for feedback after publication, if you did not ask someone (several someones, preferably) to look at it before publication. I had a client who kept friends and family completely out of the loop of her book. Then, they stood around her at the booksigning/release party for her book and pointed out all the mistakes they thought she made -- in public! To make matters worse, when she accused me of destroying her book, I asked her to tell me what the mistakes are ... and NONE of those mistakes were in the manuscript after I edited it -- she had sent the WRONG version of the book to the publisher, and never checked the galley proofs.
5 -- When the publisher sends you galley proofs of your book, this is the time to look for errors and correct them. This is NOT the time to look at the formatting, and decide if the font is "pretty" enough for you, and if the margins are wide enough, or you don't like the dingbats between sections or other graphics. This is the time to fix the TEXT.

The bottom line is: ASK FOR HELP, and ask those with skill and experience to give that help. Would you go to a stonemason for help with making lace? Would you ask someone from a tropical island to help you design clothes to stand up to an Arctic winter?