Bev Pettersen's Blog, page 38

Ruby Cookie Exchange Hop!

Happy Holidays! In this season of parties and festive treats, the Rubies would like to share our fabulous cookies with you! So start hopping through our Holiday Cookie Exchange for recipes and a chance to win a $100 gift card! Thank you for all your support over the year! Reading, reviewing, telling us that you love our characters and worlds… Thank you! You are the delicious, melty cookies in our tall glasses of cold milk! To thank you, we are sharing our favorite recipes, which will help yo...

How To Be A Successful Hooker

 Hooker? 

 Did you come to the blog thinking I was going to talk about a very old profession? If you did well…. 

HA! Made you look. You fell for my HOOK.

   I’m talking about hooks in your writing. Hooking a reader into your story. Grabbing them so hard and fast they can‘t put your book down.

  So what is a hook? Mary Buckham, in her lecture packet on Hooks and Pacing, says it best. “Hooks create an emotional response from a reader. Not just any emotional response but one that gets under your...

The Same…But Different: Using Popular Tropes to Make Your Romance Novel a Familiar Favorite With an Exciting Twist

Romance novels are all about the tropes. What’s a trope? A premise / plot device so popular a bajillion (that’s a scientific term) books have used it. Like an accidental pregnancy. Or a woman who falls for her brother’s best friend. Or a secret baby.

Maybe this is one of the reasons people sometimes criticize romance novels for being formulaic. And, sometimes, they can be. I’m a total sucker for a good brother’s-best-friend story, but I don’t want to read the same brother’s-best-friend story...

Origins of Christmas Traditions

Pine trees are being strapped to vehicles. Giant sized socks are being hung in the living room. Blue, white, and multi-colored lights are flashing all over the place. I’m forcing my kids to smile with threats of no electronic gifts to get a decent photo. An overweight man in his 60’s has sent elves to spy on my ten-year-old.

If an alien race was to observe us right now, they’d be totally confused, decide the depleted ozone must cause brain damage, and move on to conquer other worlds. Thus, l...

Take Aways from the Where Are They Now Golden Heart Posts

Today, the Golden Heart contest opens for entries.  This is your moment, aspiring romance authors!  And if you need some extra motivation or reasons to enter, check out our Where Are They Now posts.  For the last two months, we interviewed a number of Golden Heart finalists from yesteryear in our Golden Heart: Where Are They Now? series. 

No two experiences were identical.  Some Golden Heart finaling manuscripts went on to publication and to win the RITA while others would stay under the bed,...

FUNK VS BRAND

My life has been in a funk the last few years, to say the least. Sometimes, I don’t know which way I’m going and for what reason. I’m sure many of you, if not all, have had times when you’ve felt the same way.

The dark funk began after I received some heart-wrenching news. I opened my file to continue work on my next romantic suspense—because you need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, you know— and the words simply weren’t there. Tears had rolled down my cheeks and my chest had...

Tips from a Contest Judge

The Golden Heart opens for entries THIS FRIDAY (though the entries themselves don’t need to be turned in until January 11) – which means many an aspiring romance author out there in Romancelandia is frantically finishing or polishing their manuscripts for the premiere romance contest for unpublished authors.  And if you’re one of them, how would you like a peek inside the mind of a contest judge?

Every year I sign up to judge the Golden Heart and at least one other contest for aspiring author...

Let’s Be Thankful

Today’s the day. Many of us have been rushing around gathering food, packing it away in every little inch of our over-worked refrigerators. Others of us have been filling suitcases and making travel arrangements, bravely venturing out on the road during the busiest travel-time of the year. We find ourselves frantic, exhausted, and downright ornery. And yet we are supposed to cough up something for which to be thankful to put on the paper Thanksgiving tree at the big meal. Your 7yo son or you...

Where Are They Now – The Rebelles (Class of 2017)

Welcome to the final edition of our eight week series: The Golden Heart Finalists, Where Are They Now?  The Golden Heart opens in just over a week and as the aspiring authors are getting their entries ready, we have one last chance to check in with a Golden Heart class – this year’s finalists, the Rebelles of 2017.  It’s only been eight months since they got the call and originally I hadn’t planned to do a Rebelle post since they just finaled, but when we added in a Rebelle survey we got a gr...

Where Are They Now – The Mermaids (Class of 2016)

Welcome to the final week of our eight week series: The Golden Heart Finalists, Where Are They Now?  We’ve loved checking in with the Golden Heart finalists from years past to see what paths their writing careers have taken them on and this week we’re closing it out with a two-fer of our two most recent classes – the Mermaids of 2016 (today) and the Rebelles of 2017 (tomorrow).  So let’s see what impact the Golden Heart has had on some of the finalists after only a short time…

(All of the inf...