Bev Pettersen's Blog, page 110
July 20, 2014
Safe Travels!!
To all our wonderful friends traveling to San Antonio for the Romance Writers of America National Conference, we wish you open roads, fair skies, friendly faces everywhere, tons of inspiration, and a terrific boost to your writing career! (An occasional cocktail with an umbrella in it wouldn’t hurt either.)During the conference, the Rubies will be tweeting using #rubiesRWA. Live tweets will start scrolling in this space starting tomorrow and running through next Monday.
Join in the Twitter fun...
July 17, 2014
Meet 2014 Golden Heart Finalist Ellen Lindseth!
But first some background: After years spent digging through dusty tomes on classical Greek and Roman societies, and writing such scintillating fare as “An Examination of the Economic Rivalry b...
July 16, 2014
What keeps YOU sane in this crazy world of writing?
Have we talked about this here before? Probably. My mind stays so scattered these days that I have no idea, but I was just emailing the rubies last night about how I’ve had to take a bit of a step back from writing to kind of reset myself, and it got me to wondering what everyone does to keep themselves sane.
Because the job of writing is insane! There’s not just the writing part of it—which came make you nutty all on its own—but the promoting and coming up with cool and better ways of promoti...
July 15, 2014
Working titles
I was communicating with my amazing Ruby Sister Vivi the other day, mentioning that I was having a hard time with my browser opening our blog site. She suggested that I clean my cookies. And there it was–the perfect book title. Clean My Cookies. 
Has that ever happened to you? You hear a phrase and blurt out–that would make a great book title! Here’s your chance to share some today.
I have a day job in the software industry. Our jargon is full of expressions that would make great titles.
Virtua...
July 13, 2014
Spin a story in thirty words or less.
Okay I had this really nice craft post all planned and —yawn— it was boring. So now, this is what you get. A writing exercise. In my weird writing world, I take a picture and attempt to tell the story about it in as few words as possible. Why? Crafting a story in as few words as possible helps write a back of the book blurb, a one-sentence tag line, and for those going to Nationals, it could help you nail a succinct pitch.
Wow me with your thirty words or less story about the picture below. Do...
Meet 2014 Golden Heart Finalist Jillian Lark!
Jillian’s passion for the past, England, and writing began at age eight when her family moved to a late Victorian era home near London. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education, minored in English, and studied writing and British history.
After living in two foreign countries and eleven U.S. stat...
July 10, 2014
Art, Music, and Emotion
As a stoic, unsentimental Scandinavian, it takes a LOT to make me cry in real life , but when I’m listening to music? Or experiencing some kind of art combined with music? OMG, someone pass the Kleenex.
Music alone reliably opens my emotional floodgates, but combining great music with another type of art can tip the experience to transcendent. Today, I’d like to talk about art that makes us cry.
Apologies in advance for what will certainly be a video-heavy post. I hope you’ll be able to come ba...
It’s Hot in Here: Researching Fire Fighters
Minden fireman Tony Hall demonstrates how to wear the equipment
Honestly, I can’t believe it’s July already…and I can’t believe I’m facing the start of another book. My fifteenth Superromance. Yeah. Crazy.
So I pretty much thought by this point, I’d run out of ideas. It’s been a constant worry – what if the story ideas just stop? But, like most of you, something triggers an idea and BAM! I’m off and running with a new story. So when this particular one came to me, I knew where I would start, I...
July 8, 2014
Multi-Author Boxed Sets: The Hot New Thing?
Multi-author boxed sets, suddenly you are seeing them everywhere. Fabulous covers, full length stories, all genres . . . and all for a ridiculously low price. Here lately, most sets are only 99 cents (at least for part of the time)! What? That’s just crazy pricing, right! So what’s the advantage? The disadvantage?
Before we get to that, I have several of the authors of this hot new boxed set (blatant self-promo alert 
) Love on the Edge: Nine Shades of Romantic Suspense here to tell us a bit a...
July 7, 2014
Antiques and Battleships
With the 4th of July holiday celebrating our independence just past, now might be a good time to look at what led up to the indelible image of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the attack on the Pacific fleet. A large part of the fleet was in harbor on that day, with the result being the destruction of a number of battleships and an incredible loss of life.
But what led to that moment began in 1890. Just as surprisingly, in 1941 battleships were about to become antiques from the Victorian e...
