Liz Flaherty's Blog, page 176

A break from writing lead to this---

Since I've barely written a word this past week, I'm going off on a rant about overzealous customer service in retail stores these days.

2008 did more than ruin our economy, it put the fear of God--or the non-committed consumer--into the heads of CEO's across the country.

I work for a major retail establishment and I know this quite intimately. We are told to greet customers when they walk in the door, "Welcome to our store." 
Store not-to-be-named so I can keep my day job and paycheck. ...

Author Interview with Jenna Jaxon!

Hey there, WordWranglers! We are very pleased to welcome historical romance author Jenna Jaxon to the round corral this morning. Jenna is here to talk about her writing process and share a tasty tidbit or two from her books. One with the interview!

WordWranglers: Hi, Jenna, welcome! Please tell us a little about yourself.
 
Jenna: I am a multi-published author of historical and contemporary romance.  My historical romance, Only Scandal Will Do, the first in a series of five interconne...

Cover Reveal: Pleasing The Pirate

   Cover reveal for Pleasing the Pirate by Sharon Cullen   Release Date: February 25, 2014 (preorders available now)   BLURB:   Two hearts are wrenched between love and duty in Sharon Cullen’s tale of a ruthless pirate and the Scottish lass who fills him with desire for something greater than plunder.   With her clan’s crops burned and their property confiscated, Mairi McFadden is desperate to free her brother from imprisonment so that he can take his rightful pl...

It's 2:26 - do you know where your mind is?

I don't, thank goodness, suffer insomnia often. Sometimes, however, I am worried. Or excited. Or went to bed too early--an autumn tendency, when nights are cool and darkness comes way too quickly. It's now 5:41 AM, not particularly early for me, but I've been awake since 2:26. Yowser.

Wait a minute. Did I really say 5:41 (now :42) and 2:26? I didn't say "on the looking toward side of six" and "nearly 2:30"? Well, no, obviously I didn't. But why not? And is this something I do when I write? Do...

Brain Fried

I sat down in front of my computer today and something not so strange happened. Absolutely nothing. My mind went blank. This is the third week. But I decided not to simply turn off the keyboard and forget about it. I decided to peck the keys and see what happens.

A lot of my brain freeze has to do with what's been going on in my working life lately. I've been traveling to various offices in Atlanta. Quite a few of them are far, far from home. One afternoon, it took two hours for me to get home...

Finding the Heart of your character

I hope you don't start to get bored but I'm beginning to think my blog day is turning into realizations brought on by my new work-in-progress. 

This week I wrote one line that to me captured the very essence of my character. It felt as if I'd found the magic key that unlocked her story.

Kind of like the scene in Harry Potter's Sorcerer's Stone in which the characters enter a room full of winged keys and only one of them unlock the door. Maybe that was J.K. Rowling's subtle writing analogy. ...

Goodbyes and Hellos and Moving Ons

Ziva & Tony say goodbye on NCIS
It's been a week for television. Seriously. A week!

Most of the Twittersphere is alive with the ending of Breaking Bad. I never watched that show; no particular reason, it just never appealed to me. So, the finale of BB didn't really make my radar until my social media stream erupted with Tweets and Status Updates and whatnot the other night.

What did make my radar was the second episode in Season 13 of NCIS, a show I came to late (like, the year Kate died) bu...

Seen Them

I have strong opinions. Learning to rein them in a bit hasn't been the easiest. I'm active on Facebook (some say way too much)!

I can *usually* keep my mouth shut about politics and religion. Why get into it over Facebook? Your opinion isn't going to change mine and vise verse.

The other day I made the mistake of mentioning a grammar pet peeve of mine. Hooboy. Did I make a couple of folks mad.

But, since most of the people who will read this blog are readers/writers, I feel I'm a little bit sa...

Opposites attract? Yay or nay?

"Stable and satisfying marriages usually involve two people who are very much alike.” -  eHarmony.com
Duane and I were so very opposite that some of our best friends were betting on the longevity of the marriage—and most of those bets weren’t of the positive variety, unless you count a lot of people being positive it wouldn’t last. Forty-some years later, we’re still together and are still polar opposites. This has led to many, many noisy dialogues or prolonged angry not-talking-right-nows...

A Different Way To Look At Books

a wordle created from the WATGD synopsisI have a certain way I like to look at my books as I'm writing them. Actually two ways: visually and auditory. 
Visually because I've found that pinboards help me keep the little details - the way a character 'looks' as she laughs or how a man can smile without moving his mouth at all - in tact throughout an entire book. I started using Pinterest for that reason because it kept all the images for books on the same board. I've also been known to prin...