Liz Flaherty's Blog, page 145

Friday Funk

 Friday was not a good day for me. 

My dog was deathly ill and I was thinking we were going to have to put her down. Even though my head was in a bad place, I still had to go on with my day, which included
 a writing workshop led by Chuck Sambuchino.

Note:I highly recommend any workshop led by Chuck. He is an awesome presenter--which was good because he did every presentation for the day.

One of the presentations included the reading of a page aloud as five agents and editors list...

And Now for Something You'll Really Like

When I was a kid, I always got excited at the point in the Rocky & Bullwinkle show when Rocky said something new was coming up. I always knew it would be fun. I always knew it would be different. I always knew it would make me laugh. I always knew I'd be surprised.

Now that I'm grown up, I find myself looking for those Rocky & Bullwinkle moments in the books I read, the movies I watch...and in my own writing. Which is why, I think, I choose some of the same authors. As an adult, I'd li...

TSTL or Plotter vs. Pantser

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Good times

Photo by Matt ShouseThis morning, I read a review on Back to McGuffey’s (why do I dothat to myself?) that said it wasn’t the worst book the reviewer had ever read. Ouch. This week, I got a painful rejection. Ouch. It’s snowing and while it’s very pretty, the truth is I’m over it. Ouch. While I’m at it, I tripped on my back porch step the other day and landed on my knee. Ouch, ouch, ouch!
Anyone feel sorry for me yet? No? Oh, good, because there’s absolutely no reason to.
Also this week, I spok...

My Fickle Muse

 Tomorrow I am attending a How to get published workshop led by Chuck Sambuchino. And I have registered for a consult as well.

Here's the thing--what do I want to pitch?

Do I pitch Bix as an upper-middle grade/younger YA?

Do I pitch Pages of Life? My current WIP when I don't get distracted by my fickle muse. The other day I went to B&N to get some work done and she kept trying to ply me away from Pages by dangling ideas about my Ice Age book that I shelved like five years ago to work on...

Cowboys Need Apply!

One of my favorite reader questions is this: would you date a guy like the men in romance novels? My flip answer to that is yes – but I might not do it again. I really get why this question is asked a lot – because the men we read (and write) about are tough characters to love.

Alpha Males are autocratic, sometimes abrasive, large-and-in-charge men. They aren’t sensitive (at first), they don’t see both sides of any coin (at first) and they want things the way they want them and everyone else b...

Names Matter and Other Writerly Stuff

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Once upon a time in February...

I despise February, don’t you? It is the big, bad Monday of the calendar year. Here in the Midwest, the weather sucks, skies are gloomy, everyone (besides you) is cranky, and the 28 days allotted to it last for 16 weeks. However, as I have mentioned before, my personality type is P for Pollyanna, and when I took a long, hard look at February, I discovered:
         February 1: Hattie Caraway (1878-1950) the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate, was born in Bakersvill...

The Bestest Day

 This was the hardest blog to come up with because I'm not a romantic and I'm not married to a romantic. I can count on one and half hands how many times he's brought me flowers. And you know what, that's okay. 

I think of when the girls were little and I'd have a particularly stressful day and he'd start a bath, grab whatever book I was reading, and push me toward the bathroom. "I'll put the girls to bed."

For me, that's romance.

So, when I started thinking about my all-time favorite...

My Favorite Valentine

I'm kind of not great at the Valentine's Day thing. I know, sacrilege for a romance author to be not great at the biggest love celebration of the entire year. But there you go. I like the idea of setting aside a day for loved ones. I like picking up a little something - a video game or some great chocolates or (in the case of RadioMan) a LEGO set - to say 'I love you'.

RadioMan and I usually do the dinner and a movie thing and some kind of flower bouquet usually comes along with that. I love c...