Alison Kent's Blog, page 32

REAL people are STILL characters

Writing a romance about a real life couple is not a lot different than writing about a fictional one, except it is. I think authors who don't like to plot because knowing where a story is going takes the fun out of writing it would have a hard time writing a novel based on fact. Everything is known in advance. Everything. There is room for literary license, but there's not a lot for creation. Imagination, yes, as the author would have no way of knowing what was said at a dinner party, but...

IN THE WOODS and SECRETS OF EDEN: mini-reviews

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But ...

Where I strangle myself on pepper spray

Yesterday we had a fun and super easy dinner. Casey, Taylor and Sam, and @hollykate came over. No. 1 Daughter was at her boyfriend's, where she is most weekends, doing homework, so we had a small group and decided to cook stuff that was FAST. We broiled butterflied pork chops after dredging them in Char Crust and Crusting Blends, tossed a romaine, radichio and parmesan salad, boiled mini corn on the cob ears, and wilted spinach. Thirty minutes, prep to table, if that. The thing that took the ...

Bringing to your attention today's Shirt.Woot

This is only available today, Monday, 2/28, so if you want, then get to buying!

In honor of my VOWS couple – The Luckiest

I thought I'd start introducing them to you a bit at at time, sharing some of what I'm writing, now that I have just about all the information they've agreed to provide. Am waiting on one more bit, but am already getting busy on the book, and have adjusted my sidebar Scribometer to reflect just this project. Anyhow, this is the song they saved for the final dance at their wedding.

I dare you not to choke up. Or at least swoon. ;)

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told...

How many rejections are enough?

Last week on Twitter, an aspiring author friend threw out this question:

How many rejections is enough? When is it time to hang the manuscript up?

She got quite a few answers, and they ran the gamut from now to never.

But the one the answer that stopped me was:

when you've queried the pubs/agents you're interested in working with/respect & the answer is always no, it's time

Yeah . . . no. Here's why that doesn't work for me.

1) Think of the stories told over the years by authors who suffered...

They must not touch

After @cuppacafe leaves for work, Takumi and Snickers like to get on the bed with me where I'm usually drinking coffee and doing a first blast of email reading on my Blackberry. Snickers is a cuddler. She'll nearly push me or Walt off the bed trying to curl into a ball in the small of our backs or in the crook of our bent knees. Takumi enjoys scratchings and rubbings, but that's it for touching. He sleeps a-l-o-n-e. And the two of them NEVER even THINK of using each other for comfort and...

And we're walking . . . and walking . . .

I had jury duty yesterday. I actually had it on the 3rd, but rescheduled so I could attend a conference call with my VOWS editor, the series developer, and the other authors involved. (How cool to be tapped for feedback!) Anyhow, yesterday was the day, and since @cuppacafe and I share a car, he dropped me off around noon (had to be there at 1:00 p.m.) then went on to work for awhile. I was seated as juror #12 on panel #2 of two. Forty minutes later, the judge dismissed us, leaving me WAY...

Pseudonyms Are Weird

I use one. I've actually used two, but Alison Kent is my best known, and no part of it is my real name. Kent was my brother who was killed when the helicopter he was piloting crashed in 1987. When I sold in 1993, I knew I would use his name. My own first name has been mispronounced my entire life, and my first editor shared the misery and understood that I wanted to take a pen name. I had no attachment to any first names, so tossed her five. Alison was her favorite, so here I am.

The weird...

A Ghost Story, sort of

I'm happy to announce that GOES DOWN EASY is now available in electronic format. You can get it for the Kindle here, and in a Mobipocket edition here. Though having written as many books as I have I can't be sure, but I think this is the only one with a ghost's viewpoint. I'm not a fan of ghosts in books, especially when they interact with humans, but this ghost didn't do that, and I liked her story, so I let her tell it. If you missed this one but read FOUR MEN & A LADY, this is Jack...