Betsy Talbot's Blog, page 5
July 6, 2015
Quickie Romance Podcast: Meredith Out of the Darkness by Amanda Gale
In this episode, Meredith Beck is living the perfect life. She has a thriving career she loves and an apartment in New York City with the man of her dreams. But when she is devastated by tragedy, Meredith must rebuild her life in what she discovers is a shockingly less-than-perfect world.
Meredith stumbles through her day-to-day responsibilities without passion or hope. Her mundane routine is pleasantly interrupted when her brother introduces her to Nick Kelly, a quiet painter from a small town in Maine.
Take Your Quickie Home with You
One Not Enough for You?
Oh, you voracious woman!
Click here to view the entire Meredith Series by Amanda Gale.
About Amanda Gale
A graduate of Vassar College and Boston University, Amanda Gale taught high school English before she began writing women’s fiction. The four novels of her *Meredith* series explore love, growth, and the flaws that make us human. A lover of history, classic literature, and quiet nights at home, she lives outside Philadelphia with her family. Find out more at her website.
Make It A Standing Date
Be sure to sign up for weekly email updates in the box below. In addition to podcast episodes, subscribers get freebies and extras like romantic stories, early copies of books, pictures from my world travels, and a sneak peek into what it’s like to be a romance writer living in Spain. And it’s all free.
See you next time, you sexy thang!
June 30, 2015
Quickie Romance Podcast: Love and Libations by Patricia D. Eddy
In this episode, meet Garrett and Lilah.
Garrett James was discharged from the army with a prosthetic leg and a Purple Heart. He found a new purpose behind the bar and has big dreams that involve his own restaurant and someone to share it with. Too bad most of the women he dates either balk at the idea of dating an amputee or can’t stand the fact that he works every night.
Lilah McKinney doesn’t have dreams. Her abusive boyfriend has systematically destroyed them, even though he’s never laid a hand on her in anger. A chance meeting with Garrett reminds her what it felt like to want something for herself. When her boyfriend snaps and nearly kills her, Garrett steps in, but he can’t stay. Lilah needs to reclaim her dreams on her own.
Fate brings them back together almost a year later, a few weeks before Valentine’s Day. Will Lilah share her dreams with Garrett? Or will her past come between them once again?
Take Your Quickie Home with You
One Not Enough for You?
Oh, you voracious woman!
Click here to view more books by Patricia Eddy.
Want Your Romance Aurally?You can listen to Love and Libations on audiobook (free if you sign up for an Audible.com trial.)
About Patricia D. Eddy
Patricia D. Eddy fuels her writing with copious amounts of caffeine – she lives in Seattle, after all – and rewards herself with good Scotch and red wine.
In between writing, editing, and mentoring other authors, she runs around lakes, reads late into the night, and is terribly addicted to Doctor Who and Sherlock. She has a thing for quirky British men and isn’t ashamed to admit it. Find out more about Patricia Eddy at her website.
Next on the Quickie Romance Podcast
Meet Meredith, a woman in New York who has a perfect life, until it all falls apart. Find out how she puts it back together in her search to find love and happiness again.
Be sure to sign up for weekly email updates in the box below. In addition to podcast episodes, subscribers get freebies and extras like romantic stories, early copies of books, pictures from my world travels, and a sneak peek into what it’s like to be a romance writer living in Spain. And it’s all free.
See you next time, you sexy thang!
June 23, 2015
Tools and Resources for Writing (How I Became a Romance Writer, Part 4)
In the last installment of the How I Became a Romance Writer Series, I revealed the reason I decided to write romance. And today, I’ll tell you how I did it, both the tools and the method. (This is a monster post, so you may want to bookmark it.)
But first, the secret, the one thing that is required before you can be successful.
Your book requires a deadline.”
Putting a stop date on a project means you are serious about completing it. It’s no longer a hobby; it is a job. You expect to complete your story on a set date, and by doing this your mind, your muse, and your mojo conspires together to make it happen.
If you say you’re working on a book, you’ll always be working on it. If you say you’re publishing a book on August 15, then you’ll do it.
See the difference? If you take nothing else from my writing routine below, please take that message to heart. Because you can spend a lot of money and time trying to write a novel. Working on a novel. Waiting for your novel to take shape.
Or you can spend a fixed amount of time writing a novel, knowing from word one when you’ll finish and training your mind and muse to work to a deadline. And once you harness your creative power in that way, you’ll never flounder again.
How to Outline a Novel
You know those writers who say the character speaks to them, that they merely transcribe the story as the character relates it? I’m not one of those writers.
I suspect most writers are more like me. We imagine a group of characters, a specific scenario, and we wonder what will happen if we keep throwing difficulties and obstacles in their way of achieving a goal. The characters cannot invent these twists and turns, because if it were up to them, they’d get their happily ever after in chapter two, right after they meet the sexy hero.
Some writers do it with a detailed outline from the start. We call them Plotters. Some writers are Pantsers, writing by the seat of their pants from page one. I’m somewhere in the middle, plotting a general outline of my story through Beats, a method I learned from Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant, two professional writers I admire for their productivity, quality, and professionalism. It still gives me some wiggle room if I want to change things up midstream.
Click here to learn Sean and Johnny’s method via Udemy for just $19. This is money well spent, and the same course I took that transformed the way I work.
Gin & tonic optionalWriting Tools
I don’t use a ton of tools or programs for writing, mainly because my main tool is so comprehensive and I use the methods outlined in the Udemy course above.
Scrivener
I am a diehard fan of Scrivener for writing books. Unlike Word, Pages, and Evernote, Scrivener was created specifically for writers and the way we work. From the ease of writing, to the ability to move my scenes around until they fit, to saving my cut text, to the side-by-side comparison, to the ability to create location and character sketches within the book, I will never write without Scrivener again.
When I am editing, revising, and cutting my books, the last thing I need is technology that fights against me. Scrivener flows with me, making the difficult job of writing as easy as it can possibly be.
The bonus comes at the end of the writing, though. Compiling the book for print, PDF, Kindle, iPad, and other formats takes a fraction of the time as it does working with other programs.
Scrivener is cheap, and when combined with the method of outlining with beats that I revealed above, it has become the secret weapon in my writing business. Without it, I’d produce less than half of what I do and with a lot more aggravation and stress.
Click here to buy Scrivener for just $40 (immediate download for both Mac and PC). You can also follow @ScrivenerCoach on Twitter for helpful tips on using the software.
Grammarly
My other writing tool is Grammarly, a tool that helps me correct my writing before I send it for editing and proofreading. You may ask why I do this step, when I’m already paying professionals to do the same thing.
The reason is two-fold. First, I learn from Grammarly about my normal writing mistakes, tendencies I have that need to be corrected. When someone else corrects my work, I can’t learn from my mistakes.
Second, I don’t pay professional editors and proofreaders to simply fix stupid mistakes. I want them to polish my book, to make the story sing. Their services are far more valuable to me than simply correcting typos or grammatical errors. And when I give them a clean copy of a manuscript, they can spend more time on polishing my words than fixing my mistakes.
Grammarly has a free option to try. I use the Premium service and pay a discounted annual fee of $140, though you can pay a monthly fee for the Premium service with no discount. Click here to find out more on Grammarly.
Productivity Tools
Concentration
Focus@Will is a music site designed to boost productivity. I use the Drums & Hums channel to focus on my writing in twenty-five-minute bursts of concentration with a five-minute break in between. After four of these sessions, I take a longer break of twenty to thirty minutes.
I can generally hit my target of 2000 words per day in three sessions.
This method of working is called The Pomodoro Method and is named after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer. What I like about Focus@Will is that I can combine their productivity-boosting music with the Pomodoro system of working to give me maximum results in shorter time period.
Focus@Will has a free thirty-day trial period. I pay the discounted annual subscription of $49.99 for this service, though you can pay monthly.
Productivity
In addition, I keep a spreadsheet to track my line count during those sessions. This one activity has helped me more than double my production per session in just six weeks. Because I write with Scrivener, I always have a counter of my day’s work available, so tracking each session’s productivity takes only a few seconds.
My spreadsheet is simple, tracking the date, the number of Pomodoro sessions, and my total line count in each session. I also have a comment box to note anything that affected my production, positive or negative. I can look at a glance to see my production and easily figure out what’s helping or hurting me.
If you work in different locations or different times of day you may want to add that data in to see where and when you’re most productive. (I write at the same time every day and at the same location.)
Publishing Resources
I am an indie publisher with my husband, which means sourcing ISBN numbers, beta readers, editors, proofreaders, formatters, and designers ourselves. We create our websites, manage our social media and email marketing, and write our own blogs and website content.
Much of this we can do ourselves, but there are some things we need to outsource. The most obvious one is book cover design. We like 99Designs and have used this service for several of our nonfiction books and all of The Late Bloomers Series books. What I like about the service is that we can state what we generally want, let designers interpret that in a number of ways by submitting concepts, and then allow our readers to vote on the ones they like best.
It is market research and design rolled into one. And the cover I like NEVER makes it to the final round, which tells you how bad my taste is in choosing book covers. I don’t think I’m in the minority on this, as most authors are not professional designers or marketers. I have a tough time distancing myself from the book to see it objectively, so I allow professional designers and my market decide for me.
Click here to find out more on 99Designs and how it can work for you.
Books on Writing
There is a danger in reading too much about the craft of writing, mainly because it keeps you from writing. But there are some books I’ve found helpful on the craft of writing and the process of publishing.
Write.Publish.Repeat, by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant. You’ll see that I’m a big fan of these guys. They are professional, prolific, and personable, all the things I strive to be. They publish over a million words a year, and their repeatable methods are easy to replicate. If your goal is to become a professional writer, making a regular income from your books, then this comprehensive book is your roadmap to the process and mindset that will get you there.
Do the Work, by Stephen Pressfield. This short book is my go-to resource for battling Resistance, that evil voice in my head that tries to turn me away from work and productivity when I’m most prone to making a breakthrough. One quick read and I’m back on track.
The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp. Learn about preparation and harnessing productivity from this accomplished choreographer. You will never think of creativity the same after reading this.
That’s it, my tools and resources as a romance writer. This is how I get the manuscript done, but it is certainly not everything. Every single writer needs an editor, no matter how long she’s been doing it, and smart ones rely on beta readers and proofreaders as well. And that’s the subject for part five of this series, so stay tuned.
To keep you enthralled until then, catch up with the five women of The Late Bloomers Series in this free story about New York City, New Year’s Eve, and a surprise chance at love. All I need is your email address to know where to send it! Click here.
June 22, 2015
Quickie Romance Podcast: Above All by Rebecca Brooks
In this episode, Casey Webb is reeling from a sudden breakup. She leaves Brooklyn, drives north and settles in a sleepy mountain town in upstate New York. She’s convinced she’s happy being alone—until she reads the acknowledgments in her ex-boyfriend’s hit debut novel, thanking his new girlfriend “above all”.
Good thing Ben Mailer is in town. The hot, young Brooklyn-bound chef offers the perfect distraction, and soon Casey is having the best sex of her life—on a mountain, in the lake, all over her cozy cabin. But as their weekend fling turns into something more, the demands of Ben’s family and budding career make moving to her idyllic town impossible.
Now Casey must decide what she can’t live without—her life in the mountains or the man she wants as hers. Smart, sweet and blisteringly hot, Above All is about getting lost…and finding yourself right where you belong.
Take Your Quickie Home with You
One Not Enough for You?
Oh, you voracious woman!
Click here to find out more about Rebecca’s upcoming book, How to Fall.
About Rebecca Brooks
Rebecca Brooks has backpacked alone through India and Brazil, traveled by cargo boat down the Amazon River, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, explored ice caves in Peru, trekked to the source of the Ganges, and sunbathed in Burma, but she always likes coming home to a cold beer and her hot husband in the Bronx. She writes about independent women who leave their old lives behind to try something new—and find the passion, excitement and purpose they didn’t know they’d been missing. Click here to learn more.
Next on the Quickie Romance Podcast
You’ll meet war veteran Garrett James, a bar owner with a prosthetic leg, a Purple Heart, and big dreams. Will he and the emotionally scarred Lilah McKinney be able to heal each other? Find out next week!
See you next time, you sexy thang!
June 15, 2015
Quickie Romance Podcast: A Heartless Design by Elizabeth Cole
In this episode, we delve into a historical romance with a woman ahead of her time and a mysterious man who tests her reputation. Why does “Heartless” Cordelia Bering have to refuse all marriage proposals, and will master spy Sebastien Thorne find out her secrets?
Take Your Quickie Home with You
One Not Enough for You?
Oh, you voracious woman!
Click here to view the entire Zodiac series by Elizabeth Cole.
Want Your Romance Aurally?
About Elizabeth ColeElizabeth Cole is a romance author with a penchant for history, which is why she lives in an old house in an old city. She can be found hanging around libraries and archives, or curled in a corner reading, cat on lap. She believes in love at first sight. Then again, she also believes that mac ‘n’ cheese is a healthy breakfast, so don’t trust her judgment on everything.
Elizabeth is currently writing her Secrets of the Zodiac series of romantic spy thrillers set in the Regency period. The fifth novel, BENEATH SLEEPLESS STARS, will be available later this year.
She also writes a series of light-hearted, sweet Regency Rhapsody novellas. The fifth book, A DRESS THE COLOR OF DUSK, is now available.
Find out more at her website.
Next on the Quickie Romance Podcast
Mother Nature is the setting for next week’s quickie, just in time to welcome in the summer. Don’t miss it!
See you next time, you sexy thang!
June 8, 2015
Quickie Romance Podcast: Protect Her by Ivy Sinclair
In this episode, introduce yourself to the sexiest necromancer you’ll ever meet, Riley Stone. When he meets up with amnesiac Paige Matthews on a job for the archangel Benjamin, his life gets even more complicated than it already is.
Take Your Quickie Home with You
Buy Protect Her: Part One: (A Necromancer Romance Suspense) on Kindle
One Not Enough for You?
Oh, you voracious woman! (I recommend buying the collections so you can move right past the cliffhanger to the next installment of this series.)
Want Your Romance Aurally?
Protect Her is available as an audiobook!
About Ivy SinclairIvy Sinclair cut her romance teeth on classics like Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, An Affair to Remember, and Sabrina. She is a firm believer in true love, a happily ever after ending, and the medicinal use of chocolate to cure any ailment of the heart. You can find Ivy at www.ivysinclair.com.
Next on the Quickie Romance Podcast
We go back in time for a historical romance. Find out how “Heartless” Cordelia Bering reacts to the charms of the mysterious Sebastien Thorne in Elizabeth Cole’s Secrets of the Zodiac Series.
See you next time, you sexy thang!
May 31, 2015
Big News: The Quickie Romance Podcast is Here!
I don’t want to brag, but I give pretty good audio.
It’s not polite to say such a thing in public, but just between you and me, I enjoy it. A lot. I’ve been doing it publicly with my husband for over a hundred episodes now at the Married with Luggage Podcast, and ever since I started writing The Late Bloomers Series of contemporary romance, an idea has been floating around in the back of my mind.
Why not a romance book podcast for busy women?
A quickie, so to speak.
For a month or so I thought about it, researching what was already out there. The problem: the shows I found were either too long, aimed at writers and not readers, or just simply abandoned by their hosts after a few episodes.
That’s when I came up with The Quickie Romance Podcast, a 15-minute show for women who want a quick intro to a great read.
The show is long enough to decide if you want to read the book later, short enough to fit into your busy schedule right now.
I contacted my friends and colleagues, bestselling romance authors from multiple genres, and asked them to contribute a quickie scene just for you. They delivered! (Are you a romance author with a great book? Submit to me now.)
So if you like quality romance reads from a variety of genres with a little gossip and secret news thrown in about the author, then this is your new Monday morning date.
Check out the first episode with bestselling romance author Melissa Foster right here. And be sure to subscribe to the weekly email update for new episodes and brief updates from the life of a traveling romance writer.
We’re gonna have fun with this one…promise.
Quickie Romance Podcast: Sisters in Love by Melissa Foster
In this episode, introduce yourself to the steamy love story between Danica and Blake in Sisters in Love, the first book in the Love in Bloom Series from bestselling romance author Melissa Foster.
Take your quickie home with you to devour completely:Sisters in Love (Love in Bloom: Snow Sisters, Book One) on Kindle, or
Nook
Kobo
Google Play
iBooks
One not enough for you?
Melissa Foster’s Books (and there are a lot!)
Want your romance aurally?
Find Melissa’s audiobooks via Audible
About Melissa FosterMelissa Foster is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling and award-winning author. She writes contemporary romance, new adult, contemporary women’s fiction, suspense, and historical fiction with emotionally compelling characters that stay with you long after you turn the last page. Find out more at her website.
As a special treat, find out what Melissa’s husband had to say about being married to a romance writer. As you can imagine, it comes with all kinds of perks! Listen to them talk love, writing, and chocolate on episode #55 of my other podcast, Married with Luggage.
Next on the Quickie Romance Podcast
We’re getting our paranormal romance on with the hottest nonhuman book boyfriend you’re gonna find: Riley Stone.
See you next time, you sexy thang!
May 2, 2015
Put Up or Shut Up (How I Became a Romance Writer, Part 3)
I started my romance writing career officially in Tangier, the creative zone of famous twentieth century writers and dropouts like Paul Bowles and William S. Burroughs, as well as rock stars like the Rolling Stones.
And now, Betsy Talbot.
Though I’m not much of a dropout yet. I think that comes after the fame and fortune. Must consult fame handbook to be sure.
But anyway, back to the start. I became a romance writer in Tangier in the same way these men tapped into their creative energies. I hung out with interesting people and consumed mind-altering substances. Specifically, gin and tonics. (My mind didn’t require as much altering as my predecessors.)
We came to Morocco in January to wait out our visa for Spain, a month-long visit with Belgian friends who also work online like we do. The plan was to spend a month together in a house, working during the day, and talking, eating, and drinking well into the night.
We’d create great works. Eat savory foods. Solve the world’s problems.
One night we were sitting in the salon of our house, picking at the remnants of a spicy lamb tagine on the low table in front of us. Drinks were full, and we were talking about writing. Specifically, what would I do now that our memoir/travelogue was done?
I wanted to regain some of our privacy, to stop showcasing all of my life and relationship to the outside world. But I still wanted to share experiences, transformations, and even the funny parts of our journey.
I don’t remember which one of us said it, though it must have been my friend Alison. Why not write novels? And then my husband Warren, always with sex on the brain, must have recommended erotica or romance. And then my friend Andrew, he of the recent MBA, must have put a deadline on it.
Before I knew it, the gauntlet was thrown. Every person in the room was challenged to write a romance novel by the end of the year. But not just any romance novel. It had to be about an unlikely hero or heroine, someone not typically seen in the genre.
As a woman over forty, I knew exactly who I’d write about: a woman like me. Just old enough to no longer be the ingenue, but too young to be the matron.
Over the next few months I thought about my romance novel, continuing to put it off as an idea, something I’d get to later.
We bought a house in Spain. Went on a book tour around Europe. Spent the summer hosting friends from our travels in our new home.
Finally, we booked a house sit in an old farmhouse in rural Portugal for August and September. It was there that I started writing what would become Wild Rose, the first book of The Late Bloomer Series. It was also here that it became a series, a plan for five books about five lifelong friends each navigating a different path in their forties.
I finished the book in early January, technically missing my deadline, but still calling it a win to finish just two weeks late. Without Andrew’s deadline, I might not have started at all.
With the help of beta readers and an editor, I spent the next month editing and revising. We commissioned a book cover, which morphed into covers for the remaining four books that had yet to be written. Warren built me a new website, the one you’re using now. I set up an email list to share behind-the-scenes info and extras with readers.
The preorder on Amazon was set up two months before the launch date, when the book wasn’t even finalized yet. People ordered it. The publish date of March 17 was set, no turning back.
We proofed the print version over Skype, no time to get a book to me in Spain beforehand. It was beautiful.
What started as a dare, a challenge to use my experience to create exotic and romantic stories for women like me who appreciate experienced characters, has turned into a new career. As I write this post, I’m almost finished writing book two in the series, English Ivy. The words flow with almost no effort most days. I’m as surprised as anyone how well I’ve taken to this new genre, and I already have another series in mind after The Late Bloomers is finished.
I haven’t been back to Tangier, but as I wished a friend good journey this week as she left my house for the ferry to Morrocco, I thought about the origins of my new career.
On a normal day, I don’t drink gin and tonics. I don’t share my creative efforts and ideas with anyone other than Warren. But there was something about Tangier, about being in that exotic place with people I love, indulging in food and drink and staying up way past my bedtime, that allowed this new dream to be born.
But it would have just been a fun story if I hadn’t set a deadline and finished it.
Next up in the How I Became a Romance Writer Series: Tools and Techniques for the New Writer. And to entertain you until then, I’ve got a free short story starring the Late Bloomers…New Year’s Eve, New York City, and change is afoot! Sign up for my newsletter and get it asap.
April 23, 2015
The Annual Love Contract
Today is my 11th wedding anniversary.
We’ve had some fun celebrations over the years:
Wine tasting in Napa Valley
B&B in Kennebunkport, Maine
Beach house in Maui
Sunrise mountain climbing in Mexico
Beers on a rooftop restaurant in China
Sailing across the Atlantic Ocean
Today we’re going to the beach for paella in Spain. The sun is shining, the sky is the perfect shade of blue, and the temperature is warm but not too hot. If you were looking for a romantic setting, this would be in the top five.
Our anniversary is also the day we normally negotiate our one-year love contract.
You see, I’m only married for 365 days at a time, renewable only if we both agree. Weird, huh?
But it works so much better than a one-time declaration of love. Every single year we discuss what’s working for us, what isn’t working for us, and what we think our near future should look like. We discuss, sometimes fight, occasionally get a little teary, but always come out stronger and more positive about our future at the end.
This annual discussion allows us to continually refine our relationship, nip negative trends in the bud, and actively work on our relationship. At the end of the discussion, we ask each other the same question:
Do you want to spend another year together?”
It’s not easy to talk about what’s not going well, but when done in the spirit of teamwork and moving together toward a more fulfilling future, it’s a pretty powerful way to celebrate another year together.
(Having the discussion in beautiful places with good food does help.)
Every year so far we’ve said yes, ending the day with positive plans for the coming year and secure in the knowledge that we are still in it 100%, fully committed to our partnership.
But there is always the chance that one year it will be a no, or a year that is close to a no, and that’s what keeps us working hard to maintain our relationship 365 days a year. For us, this has been a more active and relevant vow than the one we made at the courthouse 11 years ago.
So today I’ll be eating paella by the Mediterranean Sea under blue skies, and hoping that we return home together in the same car.
I think the odds are good. 
