Pat Bertram's Blog, page 324
July 29, 2009
I Received an Invitation to be a Speaker at a Writer's Conference!
My fame is spreading! Well, maybe it's not my fame that's spreading, maybe it's just my name. Or perhaps they are the same? Yikes, writing like that would never get into one of my novels. Inadvertant rhymes? That won't do! Still, the sentiment is true. Someone, somewhere has heard of me, because yesterday I received an invitation to be a speaker at a writer's conference!
Scribblers' Retreat Writers' Conference would like to cordially invite Pat
Bertram to be a guest speaker for one of our four co
July 26, 2009
Creatures of the Corn
When he entered the cornfield and saw the stalks closing in over his head, his heart beat faster and icy beads of sweat chilled his brow. He wiped his clammy hands on his pants and forced himself to relax.
He looked around. A wide path cut through the corn, and the tall stalks afforded some protection from the incessant wind.
He stopped short. What was that?
He listened, but did not hear anything out of the ordinary.
Man, you've got yourself spooked. Get your head straight!
As he hurried to catch up
July 25, 2009
Claire Made Me Do It
I have a confession to make: I seldom leave comments on the blogs I visit. Mostly I don't want to sound like an idiot (or a spammer) and say: Thanks for sharing, though sometimes that is exactly what I want to say — so many bloggers write fantastic and helpful articles. Occasionally I don't understand the repartee going on in the comments, so I skulk away without leaving my mark. And all too often I don't have the time to come up with something witty, clever, or even passably intelligent to wri
July 23, 2009
Sun-Warmed Apricots and A Court of Western Kingbirds
July is almost over. I could ask where the time has gone, but I know the answer to that one — it passed me by while I was paying attention to other things. No, writing is not one of those things, unless you call sending dozens of emails and posting several blog articles writing. Of course, those are writings, and they are creative, it's just not the sort of writing that adds pages to a manuscript.
So what have I been paying attention to? Starting a new blog for Second Wind Publishing, as if one i
July 22, 2009
A Shocking (And Embarrassing) Reality
I received my second royalty check yesterday and was shocked (and a bit embarrassed) by how few books I had sold online in the past couple of months. I've been a big advocate of online promotion, and I've had a great time connecting with people on Facebook, Gather, Twitter, Goodreads, this blog, and other sites. Apparently, however, while I've been making friends, I haven't been making sales. I realize the economy is bad, that people are spending money for vacations and back to school clothes, t
July 20, 2009
The Apollo Moon Landing, The Dish, and Me
I was taking a walk on earth forty years ago when men were walking on the moon. Unlike everyone else, it seems, I wasn't sitting in front of a television. For one, we didn't have a television, for another, the whole thing seemed rather ho-hum to an inveterate reader of science fiction. If we hadn't been there in truth, we'd been there in stories, in imagination. So, oblivious to the excitement, I went for a walk.
The passing years — and all the movies and the books about the subject — didn't chan
July 19, 2009
Wringing the Ings From Our Things
I know you're getting sick of hearing how much I hate copyediting, but it's only my work I hate copyediting. I truly get a thrill out of reading a soon-to-be-published book that one day thousands of people might love. In addition, I get to mark up the manuscript. My suggestions probably won't make any difference to the success of the work, but they might help keep future readers anchored in the story. It seems that nowadays most readers are also writers, and while we may be a forgiving lot, inco
July 16, 2009
No Whine, Just Champagne Writing Discussion
Another week of summer has passed since my chat group No Whine, Just Champagne last met. Don't know whether to be glad the heat is going to be leaving us, or whether to be sorry that winter is creeping up. There. Now don't you feel just a trifle cooler imagining the coming snow? Lately, I've been thinking about how writing is a way of playing with our readers, making them worry about the outcome of the story, making them think one thing is going to happen and surprising them with another, making
July 14, 2009
Sex SCENE not SEX Scene
One problem new writers have when they approach a sex scene is that they think of it as a SEX scene rather than a sex SCENE. Any effective scene — sex or not – serves multiple purposes. This is especially true of a sex scene, otherwise it will seem unconnected to the story, as if you just threw sex in the mix because you felt it was time to titillate your readers.
One good use of a sex scene is to show character. One of my favorite scenes in my novel A Spark of Heavenly Fire is when Jeremy King,
July 12, 2009
Sex Scenes: Self-Concept and Sex Concept
I just finished reading a book about how to get anyone to do anything, and the basic premise is that you figure out what a person's self-concept is, and you play up to that. For example, if the person thinks of himself as a good father, you appeal to his father image: "If you help me, it will make a better world for your children." If you go against a person's self-concept, he will resist you and may end up disliking you. For example, asking the father to work on a night when he promised to be a
