Jennifer Bray-Weber's Blog, page 50
August 12, 2015
Hump Day Kick Start – Lounging Looker Edition
Hump Day Kick Start – for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or ju st a visual treat.
I just love this pic.
Tell me about today’s prompt. Who is she? (Not her real name. But bonus if you know.) What is she doing/thinking/looking at? Is it just another exhausting day as a socialite? Is she an unhappy, under-appreciated trophy wife sizing up the new pool boy from her private cabana? Maybe she’s plotting the accidental death of her no-good, corrupt husband who is nearby flirting with one of the resort waitresses. Is she an undercover reporter watching her assignment? Is that milk in her glass? Maybe she’s an author taking a break from writing her next blog checking out the hunky “view”.
You tell me. What your take? Or just caption the photo.
August 11, 2015
Bonus Link Of The Week- Pace Yourself!
Running on our Back-To-School link this week, we thought we’d bring a link to a phenomenal workshop being offered on pacing. This is a crucial element to great writing. You lose the pacing, you lose the readers! It’s as simple as that.
Enjoy!
***DEADLINE – August 14, 2015. PILOT class begins online, Saturday, August 15, 2015. (More details here.)
(PILOT) THE GENIUS PACING ACADEMY
[FOR FICTION WRITERS]
for a limited time…
the PILOT will be open to a small group, at $100’s off the final pricetag. This is your chance to learn what you really need to fix, after you’ve done everything right and still haven’t sold… or sold well enough.
For 15 pilot students, this will change everything. The PILOT cost? Only $47.
This 8-week, advanced course is an all-new way to understand why your story succeeds or fails, and exactly how to fix it.
This isn’t your mama’s pacing.
In fact, it’s not what you’ve been taught before, at all.
It cuts across every technique you’ve already mastered. And it requires a new roadmap.
While all the other craft-of-fiction techniques (plot, character, setting, theme, dialogue, etc.) are about what YOU, the writer, want to create (and how to pull it off), pacing is about how driven the READER feels to keep reading.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew how to assess pacing, this thing that really exists only in someone else’s head, and we knew how to kick its butt?
If pacing is the reader’s reaction to your story, you can’t be asking what the questions you normally ask as a writer (like what you want to create). Quite simply, you have to ask waaay different questions. And you have to think with a different “brain.”
The Genius Pacing Academy gives you an easy (but deep) framework for evaluating what matters to the reader and what YOU need to put on the page.
All this comes together in The Genius Pacing Academy framework. Using the framework as a guide, you’ll decode both what you do (words on the page) and what the reader does (your story experienced as her/his virtual reality).
Exactly what’s in The Genius Pacing Academy Framework?
* 10 page-level lenses for every single scene (and every single page) you ever write.
* 3 large-scale, story-level pacing “jobs” that work for every genre and every story-form (novel, short story, even scripts).
The pacing framework takes the unknowable and turns it into a deep, powerful skillset you’ll use every time you write, brainstorm, critique, and revise.
For 15 pilot students, this will change everything. The cost? Only $47. SIGN UP NOW to be one of the pilot students. Together, we’ll revolutionize the power of your writing. Your readers will thank you.
GO HERE. (Your secrect code is MUSE.)
Questions? I’m here to help. Diane Holmes GeniusPacingAcademy@gmail.com
Link Of The Week- Back To School Week!
Have you ever thought about going back to school to get a degree in some form of writing or communications? Here’s a site to jump start your search listing 20 schools that offer programs just for you!
http://study.com/search/q_p/page/0/c3/2089/online/false/q_p/find.html
August 7, 2015
Friday Fun Facts- The Big Meow
You’ve seen them all over Facebook. You’ve seen them all over YouTube. Cats are everywhere!
We seem to have become a people obsessed with these animals. Yet, do we really know anything about them?
Water water and not a drink to be had. This old saying refers to being out to sea without any fresh water. Did you know that cats can drink seawater in order to survive? Their kidneys are efficient enough to pull out the salt and let the water hydrate their bodies in times of drought.
Feral cats have been blamed for the extinction of 33 species. (Mostly on islands)
When a cat gets declawed, what really happens is that their toes are amputated up to the first knuckle. It’s intensely painful for the animal.
They instinctively don’t want to drink from a water bowl placed next to their food bowl. Even though they have been domesticated, they are hunters at heart and would never drink at a watering hole near a fresh kill because it might have contaminated the water.
Cats sleep 70% of their lives. That’s about 16 hours a day. They sleep more than any other mammal including bats and opossums
Disney owns more than 200 feral cats. By day they are housed in feeding stations around the park. At night, the release! In 1955, a large number were found when they renovated the Castle and they were covered in fleas etc. Now they are neutered, given shots, and fleas are all but gone.
Black cats will usually have a spot or two of white on them. The Middle Age persecution found the solid black cats being burned alive because of their association with witchcraft and other demonic activities. The church had acted as a natural selection mechanism in a most brutal way.
The death rate from cats falling 2-6 stories is much higher than those falling from 7-32 stories! How can this be? Cats have a keen sense of direction so can right themselves in order to land on their feet. They will also flex them allowing the absorption of the impact and not break their legs. They will also position themselves in an “umbrella” fashion as they fall which will decelerate the fall with more time. **Don’t try this at home with your kitty. I’m merely reporting weird facts I find on the internet.**
August 5, 2015
Hump Day Kick Start – Scholarly Edition
Hump Day Kick Start – for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or ju st a visual treat.
My head has been down, deep in my editing cave, working feverishly. And then it hit me. I haven’t posted Hump Day yet. My bad.
So here is a quickie. Pun intended. Who is our couple? Randy librarian and shy researcher? Bad girl college student dressed as a good girl seducing the overly stressed, respected professor? Archaeologists giving in to their attraction after hours of scouring for a lost, ancient tome that will save humanity from the clutches of an evil, supernatural uprising?
You tell me! I’d love to hear your take. Or just caption the photo.
July 30, 2015
2015 RWA New York in Pictures
Romance Writers of America’s conference was held in New York City this year. As I do every year, I’m posting pictures of the visit. I admit, I was in back-to-back meetings for most of the conference, without attending one workshop. Yet it was a productive trip with a great deal of networking. And I did manage to get in a few photo ops. Stacey and I even played hooky for a few hours to sightsee.
A room with a view.
Day or night, Times Square is packed. And you never know what characters you will meet.
Minions, Super Heroes, Ninja Turtles, Famous Piano-playing members of boy bands, the Naked Cowboy, creepy, tall Statues of Liberty, evil dancing babies, selfie-stick vendors, and more could be found in the crowds. Here, I spotted Captain Jack, blissfully unaware of the naked painted girls nearby.
Photo bombed by New York’s finest.
Dinner with old friends, the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood, is a conference tradition.
Networking is a must. Here, I’m chatting with RWA’s Bookseller of the Year, the delightful Tom Luce.
Took a couple of hours to visit the 9/11 Memorial Museum and reflect at the Twin Towers footprints. Truly moving. There are no words…
Stop! You must take in a Broadway show. Stacey succumbed to the call…
…taking me with her. *YES!* The Phantom of the Opera was A-MAZ-ING!
Trade Show pimping – The Killion Group. Pretty sweet gig!
Speaking of pimping…look at my, um, you know…pasties. Courtesy of the Passionate Ink chapter.
My ride to the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue for the Harlequin Ball. *giggles*
Feeling like a celebrity with my Ruby Sisters in the Starlight Roof at the Harlequin Ball.
What a way to end the trip…with my very own mini Rita statuette made of dark chocolate. Sadly, she didn’t make it through the night.
If you went to New York for the conference, I hope you had an amazing time enhancing your career, meeting old and new friends, and making memories. If New York wasn’t in your cards, there is always next year. San Diego or bust!
July 29, 2015
Hump Day Kick Start – Front Seat Foreplay Edition
Hump Day Kick Start – for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or just a visual treat.
Is today’s prompt Haute or hawt?
Who is today’s couple? Socialite and playboy? Mobster’s girl and her undercover lover? Vintage car seller and potential buyer – barring the buyer deems it has enough room and has good suspension… Does she have a secret? If so, what could she be hiding? Is she about to break it off with him? Are they about to get hitched but her heart belongs to another?
Give it to me. I’d love to hear your take, or just “caption this photo”.
July 28, 2015
Link of the Week – Social Media Image Sizes
Hello, peeps. We are still recovering from our trip to NYC fro the Romance Writers of America conference. But never fear, I do have a link of the week for you. I nabbed this week’s link off of a blog post from a digital web design and marketing agency called Raka. Check them out.
How many times have you needed to know the exact dimensions for posting graphics to your social media sites? Well, here is a handy go-to guide of dimensions for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube, and more. Knowing the dimensions goes a long way when creating your own ads, announcements, or other marketing visuals.
http://www.rakacreative.com/blog/inbound-marketing/social-media-image-sizes-always-up-to-date/
July 22, 2015
Hump Day Kick Start – Out on a Ledge Edition
Hump Day Kick Start – for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or ju st a visual treat.
As a reminder, MuseTracks is in New York for the RWA Conference. Since we are in the big city, what better prompt than one featured high atop a building ledge.
Tell me about these two. Are they thrill seekers high (literally) on adrenaline? Had their relationship been falling apart and one of them ready to end it all? Is this part of a lover’s pact? Are they immortal, jumping through time loops, and he finally caught up to her? This could be a moment straight out of Inception.
You tell me. What’s your take? Or just “caption this” photo.
July 17, 2015
Friday Fun Facts- I Want To Suck Your Blood
Movies, books and campfire tales about vampires have scared the living daylights out of many of us. I, for one, was kept up late into the night by my older brother who told me stories about the moonbeam shining on my closet being a homing beacon for the vampires to find me. I slept under the magic covers with lights on for many years after that!
– The first use of the word “vampire” in English wasn’t until 1734, when it was mentioned in a book called Travels of Three English Gentlemen.
– Some believed that vampires suffer from arithmomania, a compunction to count things. If you threw out a handful of seeds, they’d be compelled to stop and count them, giving you plenty of time to run away. (So Sesame Street’s Count is based on historical fact…..)
– In 1973, a Polish man choked to death on garlic he had stuffed in his mouth. The police found his body surrounded by bags of salt and even the keyholes were stuffed with garlic! Wow.
– According to legend, vampires have no reflection in a mirror. Do you know why? It was believed that a mirror cast back the image of the body and soul so if you have no soul (as the un-dead) then you can’t have a reflection. Also mirrors used to be made with silver and everyone knows that’s pretty toxic to anything not quite alive!
– Being bitten on the neck is NOT the only way of becoming a vampire! Some believed a baby could be born one if the right curse was cast while invitro. Other ways include, but are not limited to, eating lamb that was slaughtered by a wolf, being a Satanist or witch, committing suicide, or by letting a cat or dog walk above someone who just died.
– Prince Charles might just be related to the historical figure known as Vlad The Impaler.
– A group of diseases known as “Porphyria” is very rare but can cause vampire- like symptoms. It has been associated with vampires in the past and causes sufferers to have a severe sensitivity to sunlight. It also causes hallucinations, paranoia, madness and other awful symptoms. Too bad it’s all of the vampires weaknesses but none of its strengths.
– This isn’t exactly a fact, but it was WAY too good to not share with you!!
http://listverse.com/2013/08/11/10-vampires-from-history-youve-never-heard-of/
– A group of vampires has been called a clutch, brood, coven, pack, or a clan.
– The most famous vampire of all time, Count Dracula, quoted the Bible. Deuteronomy 12:23- The blood is life.
– A vampire supposedly has control over the animal world. We all know he can turn into a bat, but did you know he can also turn into a rat, moth, fox, owl or a wold as well?
