Pearl Luke's Blog: Pearl Luke's Book and Writing Blog, page 32

Feb 12, Plot Outline: What if? and Why?

Easy Plot Outline for Creative Writers

Feb 12, Participles: Bothersome Verbs

Participles: When to use them, when to avoid them in your creative writing

Feb 8, Creative Writing Contests and Competitions

Creative writing contests and competitions with big cash prizes like the ones below can provide a real step up for writers. Writing competitions can jumpstart a career.

Feb 5, Personalized M&Ms for Authors?

I just discovered personalized M&Ms!

Say "I love you" this Valentine's Day with a personalized message on M&Ms. Like "love hearts" only better because they're chocolate and have your own message. If your loved one is an author, surprise him or her by having them printed with the title of his or her book.

Candies can be printed with two lines of 9 characters each, for a total of 18 characters.

They'll be the most expensive M&Ms you've ever bought, but they'll make a fun, memorable gift.

Promote Your Book on M&Ms

Feb 2, February 2nd Book Giveaway: Man & Other Natural Disasters

Simon Peters, a recluse full of half-cocked theories on every subject from heart-broken shrimp to the Jungian consciousness of DNA, meets Minerva, a twenty-two-year-old business major whose ghostly resemblance to Simon's dead sister compels him to reveal the horrific natural disasters that killed each of Simon's family members, one by one.

But parts of Simon's story do not add up. When he finds Minerva passed out and bleeding on his bathroom floor, he must conquer the tyranny of his own memory and confront what really happened that summer of 1962. But the truth, when uncovered, proves no less astonishing than the original tale.

Based on real historical events, Man & Other Natural Disasters is a testament to the power of story in a world too often shaken by forces outside our control: nature, terrorism, death—even love. Of all the planet has yet to throw at us, the question remains: can we recover from the worst natural disaster yet—ourselves?

For your chance to win this book, visit: http://www.bookclubbuddy.com/2012/02/...

Jan 27, Amy Einhorn publisher of The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My agent sent me the link to this article about Amy Einhorn, publisher of "The Help" and several other bestsellers.

The article chronicles the editor's upward climb from her first $13,000 a year job as an assistant at Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

"If you needed a new pencil you'd have to go down to the supply room and there was this little woman Rose who was like four feet tall and you'd say you needed a new pencil," Ms. Einhorn remembered. "She'd say, 'Come show me your pencil.' You'd show her and she'd say, 'You still have two inches left. You can't get a new one.'"

These and other details provide fascinating insight into the business.

Also, it's easy to understand why editors have to be so selective in choosing amongst the many novels submitted to them. As my agent, Denise Bukowski, puts it, "once you have hit the big time, your bosses expect you to do it every time, and better, which tends to make you extremely selective. Editors would rather buy nothing than buy a book that fails."

Most importantly, I feel, is what Ms. Einhorn has to say about the submissions:

"I need to be able to convince you in thirty seconds of speaking to make you want to read the book," she said. She said she received around 1,000 submissions in her first year at the imprint, and does not spend much time on manuscripts that do not draw her in from the first page. "I'd worked at places where we'd published some incredibly beautiful line-by-line novels but there was this sort of MFA navel-gazing aspect to them and they didn't sell, so I knew I didn't want to do that."

Jan 26, January 26th Book Giveaway: On Toby's Terms

BookClubBuddy.com January 26th Book Giveaway ~ On Toby's Terms by Charmaine Hammond.

On Toby's Terms, by Charmaine Hammond, chronicles Toby's journey from incorrigible to incredible. Toby, is a Chesapeake Bay retriever, adopted at age five, from an animal shelter.

Soon after Toby entered the life and home of Charmaine and her husband Chris, Toby proved to be a holy terror who routinely opened and emptied the hall closet, turned on water taps, pulled and ate things from the bookshelves, sat for hours on end in the sink, and spent his days rampaging through the house, destroying everything in his path.

Oddest of all was his penchant for locking himself in the bathroom, and then pushing the lid of the toilet off the tank, smashing it to pieces. After a particularly disastrous encounter with the knife-block in the kitchen, and when the couple discovered Toby's bloody paw prints on the phone, they decided Toby needed professional help.

For your chance to win this book, visit Getting 2 Know Charmaine Hammond

Higher Ground by Robert Hilles, my beloved

Higher ground by Robert Hilles

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Robert Hilles is my beloved, so I may be accused of having a tiny bias. However...the poems in this book are beautiful and thoughtful, as he is. By way of example, visit the Getting 2 Know Robert Hilles page at BookClubBuddy.com, and listen to one of the love poems he wrote for me, title "Beloved," read by Bob Chelmick of CKUA radio. Then tell me what you think...



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One Hundred Butterflies: I love this little book!

One Hundred Butterflies by Peter Levitt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is one of my all time favourite books of poetry. The poems are short and deceptively simple, thought provoking, joyful, and utterly delightful. This book makes me think, and it makes me happy. What better recommendation can I give it than that! Here is a short one:

Don’t eat so fast.
When you use your sticks
like scissors
you frighten the rice.

Read more...



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The Girl in the Box is popular on BookClubBuddy.com

The Girl in the Box is a psychological suspense/literary mystery set in Guatemala and Canada.

A young Mayan girl, Inez, is held captive in a dark shed in the Guatemalan jungle by her parents, who believe she is cursed. She has been traumatized by the violence of the ongoing Civil War between the government and the guerrillas fighting in the hills, and is mute.

Praise for The Girl in the Box

~ This novel is a tidy package that successfully juggles themes involving relationships, commitment, professional jealousy and helplessness in the face of international issues. ~ Publishers Weekly

~ Complex, fascinating, subtle and intensely emotional, this is a book that, like Patricia McCormick’s Sold, will profoundly impact its readers.
 ~ Michelle Fayard, author The Underground Gift

~ The characters linger long after the turn of the final page. Like people that you have met once and may never meet again, you worry about them and wonder how they are. This is not a book that you will want to give away, put it on your bookshelf and read it again and again. ~ Judith Arnopp, author of The Forest Dwellers

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The Girl in the Box