Judith Post's Blog, page 103

Chapter 8’s up.

Ink leads Zoey to the meadow with 13 dead trees–the witches’ grave.  And the whispers start.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Book Birthday for Me!

So happy to share that my fellow author, Kyra Jacobs’s new book is available now!  I love its cover!  From Kyra:

 

Hello everyone and happy Monday! I’m so excited to share that DRAGONS AGAINST THEM, sequel to DRAGONS AMONG THEM, is now available! Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Kobo  |  iTunes Follow al…

Source: Book Birthday for Me!

Confidence: where do you get it?

It’s odd yakking about my books, because book 3 hasn’t even come out yet, but right now, I’m busy working on book 5 of my Mill Pond romances.  My brain is full of Miriam and Joel, but no one’s met them, and no one will meet them for a long time.  And when they do?  I’ll be working on something else.  So in my head, I have a whole community of couples who you have and have not met yet.  Yes, I have plans for almost every character I’ve given some pages to in different books.  And I’m fond of every single one of them.  Each one of them intrigued me in one way or another.

When I wrote book four–which won’t be out until spring 2017–I combined a guy, who had enough self-esteem and confidence to flatten any obstacle that got in his way with a girl, who barely believed in herself.  Tyne’s parents loved themselves much more than they ever loved their two sons, so the boys learned to be strong and self-sufficent.  They supported each other.  Daphne was the only child of parents who loved and sheltered her, as long as she met their expectations.  She’s a gentle soul who owns a stained-glass shop. She’s pretty and succeeds at everything she does,   but has no confidence in herself.

I could really relate to Daphne.  My parents didn’t coddle me.  They did love me.  I have two sisters, and we’re still great friends.  I was pretty much a straight A student, but I had no social skills.  None.  And I always felt like the odd man out.  No one’s fault but my own. Kids at school were nice to me.  They invited me to things.  I didn’t have to eat at the no-man’s table in the lunchroom.  The trouble?  Me.  Everyone thought I was decent but me.

I went to college, got braver, met my John, and graduated.  I loved teaching, married my John, taught six more years, then had my daughter.  Two plus years later, I had my second daughter, and life was good.  I’d grown into myself.  My husband, bless him, believes I can do anything.  His confidence in me gave me confidence.  But guess what?  Our older daughter had lower self-esteem than Eeyore.  And both of our girls had it all.  Gorgeous–yes, I’m prejudiced, but most people agree with me.  Smart.  Funny.  And so damned good at so many things.  But daughter #1 didn’t see it.  I read books about building confidence.  Give a child chores, and when she succeeds, praise her.  So we did that, and #1 succeeded, and we gave real praise for jobs well done. (Never fake praise.  She’d spot that in a minute.)  Sign a child up for activities she might be good at.  #1 won ribbon after ribbon on the swim team.  She excelled at gymnastics.  She sucked at ballet, but hey, you can’t do everything.  She scored off the chart on her SAT tests.  None of it mattered.  That’s when it occurred to me that I don’t really know how to build confidence in a person who doesn’t have any.  #1 finally grew into herself, just like I did. But it took a while and some serious jostling before she was strong and tough enough to meet Life head-on.  And that’s how my character, Daphne, in book 4, came to be.  She cowers at life until she meets Tyne, who challenges her every fear–just like my John–who has self-esteem to spare–did to me.

Of course, everything in fiction is dramatized to make a point.  But the basis for the story rang true to me, so I liked the characters even more.  That’s the fun thing about writing romance.  I can take characters that I can really relate to and throw them together for a happy ending.  How great is that?

Happy Writing!  Judy

 

BTW, chapters 6 & 7 are up on website:  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Author Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/JudiLynnwrites/

Twitter:  @judypost

 

 

COVER REVEAL

My third Mill Pond romance comes out November 22nd, but Kensington put up its cover today!  In this book, I wanted to write a story about mismatched lovers.  Chase owns the bar in Mill Pond, and women adore him, but he’s smitten with Daphne, who’s smitten with her professor . . .who’s a dud.  Paula’s the chef at Ian’s resort.  She’s new to Mill Pond, has two kids, and works so many hours, she hasn’t really gotten to meet many people.  But Jason delivers supplies to the inn every day, and she’s smitten with him.  Things change, though, when Ian hires hottie chef, Tyne.  Paula can have a life now, other than cooking and kids.  She starts going to Chase’s bar on Thursday nights while her kids take a martial arts class, and once she and Chase start spending time together, everything gets confusing.  In a good way:)  There’s a lot of cooking in this book.  After all, there are two chefs and a bartender who slings the town’s best hamburgers.  Don’t read it when you’re hungry!

Chapter 5’s up

Is there such a thing as Destiny?  And can you run from it?  Everyone in the town of Prosperity has been waiting for Zoey to return, to fix things for them.  But when Zoey meets Zak, he always knew she’d come back to him.  He says that his heart beat in rhythm with hers, that he could feel her.  “Our names both start with Z.  We’re meant to finish things together.”   Finish what?  She’s tired of hints.  She wants answers.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Inspiration comes from odd places

Almost every time I’m on a writing panel, and we open it to question and answer, someone asks, “Where do you get your ideas?”  I understand that question.  I’ve sat in front of my computer screen many a time wondering what the heck I’m going to write.  Worse, when I first started writing, I grabbed onto an idea that looked wonderful until I tried to make it into a story . . . and it couldn’t hold up to twenty, sixty, or three hundred pages.

The good news is, the longer you write, the more ideas you have and the more tricks you learn to weed the good ideas from the flash fiction variety.  Now, if I can’t think of a good set-up, three key turning points, and an ending, I know I’d better write something really short.  For the YA novel I’m posting, chapter by chapter, on my webpage, though, I knew I had a large enough cast of characters and a big enough concept to make a book.

When I was younger and hungry to dig deeper into beliefs and mythology, I took a Bible study class on Judas Iscariot.  The minister insisted that Judas never meant to betray Jesus. He only wanted to push Him into proving to the world that He was the Savior, that He had powers the rest of us didn’t and never will have.  According to our study book, Judas had Jesus arrested, sure that He’d pull out His powers and pizzazz the Roman soldiers to save Himself.  And when Jesus didn’t save Himself and let the soldiers crucify Him, Judas couldn’t live with his mistake, threw away his thirty pieces of silver, and hanged himself.

I’m not knowledgeable enough to know if I agree with that theory or not, but it did make me think.  And it gave me an idea for a story.  I read another article (because I’m a horoscope fan), that each disciple Jesus chose stood for a different horoscope sign.  Twelve signs, twelve disciples.  And that made me think of a coven.  Twelve witches led by one priestess.  What if each witch came from one sign of the zodiac?  And what if the priestess practiced only white magic, but a witch she’d started to train was more tempted by dark spells and turned the town against her?  Until finally, one of the “good” witches decided to force the priestess into proving herself.  And…  Well, one idea led to another, and soon I had enough plot points to write a book.

The ideas for the book came from a few random, different articles, but they came together to give me a solid plot after I asked myself a few “what ifs?” along the way.  What ifs, cause and effect–if my character does this, this will happen–, and characters’ motivations can tease your mind into filling in the blanks between story spaces.  Enjoy the process!  And happy writing.

My webpage:  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

My Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JudiLynnwrites/

Twitter:  @judypost

 

 

 

Chapter 4’s up

Zoey’s familiar comes for her–a black cat, of course.  I had one for 20 years–yup, Pywackett had a long life.  Loved that beast. Ink has an attitude, too, and he’ll lead Zoey to the circle of thirteen, dead trees.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/chapter-4.html

Chapter 3’s up

Chapter 3 of The Familiars is up if you like witches, paranormal, and YA.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Copy Edits

Okay, the content edits for Mill Pond 4 are over and done with.  My editor approved the book.  No more rewrites.  Now, I have the final draft to proofread for any small mistakes.  I like every process of writing EXCEPT this one.  So I put it off.  Not a brilliant thing to do.  I should have started it the same day the pages showed up on my front steps from Fed Ex. But did I mention that I really don’t like copy edits?  So I did everything I could think of to stall.  I’m great at procrastinating.  But I knew I still had plenty of time to get them done. Except time slips away, and now I have to finish them this weekend.

It’s not that copy edits are torturous or hard.  They’re not.  I’m the problem.   When I copy edit, I have to read every single word, look at commas, grammar, etc, and look for mistakes.  There aren’t many.  Kensington’s editors have caught most of them.  But I’m one of those people, who when I finish a book and have to look at it again, I can’t stand my own writing.  I read every sentence and think of a way that I could have done it better.

Thank heavens, I’m not allowed to change anything but mistakes, or I’d probably end up rewriting the entire book.  And when it was finished, and I copy edited that version, I wouldn’t like it either.  I’ll wish I was more lyrical, more descriptive.  I’ll compare myself to Elizabeth George and Alice Hoffman and come up short.  I’ll tell myself I’m no Neil Gaiman or Theodore Sturgeon.  Copy editing is always humbling for me.

A few years from now, when the book’s “rested” for a while, I might like it again.  Maybe. Maybe not.  But I’ve learned my moods and habits when it comes to writing.  And I know this is  normal–for me.  So I just have to sit butt in chair and go through the pages. Which I’m doing.  And when I get back to writing Book 5, I’ll like my writing again.  I’ll even like it when I do serious edits.  But when I can’t tinker with it anymore, when I’m just reading it for spelling and grammar, I’ll sneer at Book 5, too.  It’s the way I am.

Does any writer finish a book and not worry about how it fell short?  If there’s one of you out there, you’re lucky.  If you’re more like me, though, happy writing anyway!

author Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/JudiLynnwrites/

twitter: @judypost

webpage:  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

 

 

Chapter 2’s up

Since this is a book, not a novella, I decided to load a new chapter more often than once a week, or it will take FOREVER before we reach The End.  So, here’s chapter 2.  Hope you like it.  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/