Dani Collins's Blog, page 63

Shared Whispers

This anthology was picked up by Champagne and will come out on all digital platforms in September. Watch for it!

 

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RWA 2013 – Wednesday Cont’d

I’ve written three posts on the conference, not counting the one about my conference preparations. I know, it was very busy. If you’ve missed the previous three, they’re here:

RWA 2013 – Overview
RWA 2013 – RWA-WF Mini Conference
RWA 2013 – Floorganized

In this post, I’m still on Wednesday, the first full day I was in Atlanta. You’re probably starting to get a sense why we don’t bother bringing spouses or children. It’s busy!

After the mini-conference, I attended the Librarian Networking Event. Fortunately I had homework from my good friends with Westcoast Romance Authors, a group of published authors who put out a newsletter for librarians and booksellers. They asked me to interview a few librarians and write up a suitable article on what they get from attending. I won’t repeat the article here, but if you are a librarian, bookseller, or interested individual, please contact me through my contact page and I’ll get you subscribed to that newsletter.

I was waiting for Cathryn to arrive and expected to find her in the HAN presentation which is the digital database Harlequin uses to service their authors. I didn’t find Cathryn, but it was a worthwhile session that taught me a few tricks about what I can find on there that I hadn’t known previously (mostly industry news and how to update my bio and other content).

I also inadvertently sat down with Joanne Grant, Senior Editor for Harlequin Presents, i.e., the woman who waves the magic wand to publish my books. She was also kind enough to escort me after the session to find Megan Haslam, my editor until about a month ago, whom I was scheduled to have a drink with. (I’ve since been switched to Laurie Johnson and love her too. They’re all fabulous.)

Megan and I had some great laughs as she described participating in something called the Moonwalk in London, which is a breast cancer fundraiser that essentially has fifteen thousand people walking a marathon through the night. It sounded pretty gruelling, but she got to cross it off her bucket list.

Two gin and tonics later, I was ready to cross something off my own bucket list: the Literacy Signing. I didn’t expect to sell a lot of books. The room was full of two hundred authors and most were there for the NYT Bestsellers, but the energy was amazing and I was incredibly thrilled when one of the librarians I’d spoken with earlier in the day rushed up to say, “I want your book!” Personal relationships sell books, people.

Cathryn Parry finally turned up with her good friend and roommate (and one of my favourite people), Blaze author, Karen Foley. I also had a surprise visit from Nancy Warren who I hadn’t seen since leaving the lower mainland, so that fabulous and we immediately made plans to catch up.

You’d think I would be exhausted by then and I was. With the time change, I’d been up since before five body-clock time and hadn’t slept well. However, I’d been invited to Sandra Marton’s suite for a pizza party with some of the Presents authors and I really wanted to go, since I hadn’t yet had much opportunity to get to know them.

I could name drop the dickens out of that ninety minutes: Jane Porter, Sharon Kendrick, Lynn Raye Harris, and–this will sound funny–but Melody Ann‘s assistant, Nicole. But Melody Ann was there too and was the sweetest person ever, I was just burnt to the bone by the time we were introduced so we didn’t talk long. There were tons of others coming and going, but it was past my bedtime and I hadn’t yet spent any time with my roommate, Natasha, so I went ‘home’ and visited with her while she unpacked.

Next up: RWA 2013 – Thursday

 

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RWA 2013 – Floorganized

I’ve unpacked from conference, but loosely–as you can see. My mom was just here and took half the books I brought home. I let her have them on one condition: she has to make review notes. I’ll then post them and offer some as giveaways.

I also have some signed copies from some Harlequin authors. Since I’ll be doing an in person signing in Grand Forks on August 9th, I’ll put some of those in a basket with my own, but watch for a giveaway here. I often pull my newsletter subscriber list for giveaways so make sure you’re signed up to that too.

I’m still working on my conference postings and will write another instalment below, but I had to finish a synopsis first. That’s a really fun project I can’t wait to talk about, but I don’t want to jinx it. All in due course, Dear Reader.

Since I made such great progress on that synopsis I have time to write up this blog post and review my To Do’s, one of which is setting my general goals for the rest of the year (three books to finish, several proposals to write.) Then I’ll feel organized, which is way better than floor-ganized. That’s something I resort to when my desk is under siege by scraps of paper, books, flash drives, spilled M&Ms, empty glasses, file folders, maps, business cards, highlighter pens, character naming sourcebooks and crumpled tissues.

There’s no room on my white board either which is stressing me out.

So where were we? Ah yes, at the RWA-WF Mini Conference.

~ * ~

After the State Of The Industry presentation, there was an excellent presentation by a panel of reviewers: Barbara Vey from Publisher’s Weekly, Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and daughter/mother team Gwen and Sarah Reyes from Fresh Fiction.

What a smart, funny bunch of ladies and so heartening. Getting a crummy review sucks, so it’s great to see these are real people who aren’t out to gut anyone for their own gain. They actually love books and have crushes on authors and love interacting with readers and writers.

A few highlights:

Online networking is about engagement. Be authentic and lay off the hard sell.
Remember that readers are customers (ie. the customer is always right) Therefore, don’t engage with someone who gives a lousy review. You’ll only dig yourself into a deeper hole.
If you do screw up online, own it, apologize, move on. Someone else will screw up in ten minutes anyway. (Loved this perspective, thanks Sarah Wendell)
Develop a social media policy for yourself (eg. no politics or religion, Don’t tweet angry etc.) I haven’t done this formally myself but I do have two that I follow fairly strictly: my family is not identified by name and I don’t go online if I’ve been drinking.

They identified other levels of engagement beyond reviews and social networking: eg. book clubs, street teams, podcasts, newsletters and Goodreads.

Above all those things, however, is a well-maintained website. Nothing is more frustrating for a reader (and I’ll join in here as a reader and agree) than a website that doesn’t appear current.

Which reminds me I have work to do on my own, including my much promised List of Books. It seems simple, but I need to decide where it will live and how to link to it off the Home Page. I have ideas and keep making the excuse that I don’t have that many books to worry about yet. I just put it on my To Do list though. It’ll happen before the end of the year, promise.

~ * ~

I had to leave the RWA-WF mini before the final presentation which was a round table discussion, but I did stay through Lori Wilde’s workshop on craft. This was one of the best craft workshops I’d ever attended and I won’t be able to do it justice so if you have the opportunity to attend one of Lori’s workshops, do.

She talked about why readers read: Escape and Exercise (of the mental variety, working through imaginary conflicts.) As a writer, you need to identify your reader and her stress level, ie. the level of imaginary conflict she’s willing to go through.

This segued into When To Show and When To Tell, telling being a way to allude to something that might exceed your reader’s stress level. I especially loved that she debunks the Show Don’t Tell ‘rule’ since I’m a huge fan of believing we need Tools not Rules. There are times when telling is better, but for less experienced writers still working on understanding the difference, she offered these tips on how to Show:

Action: This could be a physical action the character takes or a physical reaction like heart pounding. The way your character responds to a given situation demonstrates his/her character.
Specific and Concrete Detail: You can tell the reader ‘the window was broken’ or you can show them ‘the jagged edges of glass formed a toothy pattern inside the frame.’ (That’s my example. I know, I’m brilliant.)
Dialogue: Again, this is a way to demonstrate character so use it
Internal Monologue: She offered up some great examples of exposition vs deep third person POV. Use your character’s voice, slow down, focus on emotions and character development

Remember that what you do affects pace so Telling is often used in transitions.

More over the next few days. If you missed the other posts in this series, they’re here:

RWA 2013 – Overview
RWA 2013 – RWA-WF Mini Conference

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RWA 2013 – RWA-WF Mini Conference

By some act of divine intervention, as I was preparing for conference I saw a post on Jane Porter’s Facebook Page about RWA’s Women’s Fiction Chapter offering a mini-conference at National.

Oh. My. Gawd. am I glad that I signed up. I wound up having a very busy conference with lots of places to be. Also–and I know this will shock you–but when you get twelve hundred women in one place, you tend to make a lot of conversation. Time flies when you’re talking writing and story and editors.

The mini conference was my savior. I had goals and most of them were met in that first day, freeing me of guilt for skipping workshops later in the conference.

The first session was a kind of state of the industry and what’s hot this year, featuring HelenKay Dimon, Christie Ridgway and Literary Agent, Laura Bradford. In short:

• Young Adult is still hot

• Small town contemporary is popular

• Darker contemporary is big (I later learned of Jackie Ashenden going to auction on a three-book deal for dark contemporaries with St. Martins)

• New Adult, light or dark, is a thing now

• Billionaire erotic romances are still hot–pun not intended

*Tortured heroes never go out of style*

They ran through a lot of what I already knew, basically saying today’s authors have a lot of choices. Actually, I’ll contradict one thing they said and sum up a recurring theme I saw in this conference that was first raised here:

They said everyone at last year’s conference agreed that it was a confusing time and predicted this year would be even more confusing. I disagree. It’s a great time to be an author. We have so many choices so yes, there is confusion while we all try to sift through what we each want and how best to get it, but it’s like everyone arrived in an airport hub—yeah, I’m still here. Everyone is rushing hither and thither. Some wind up delayed or even stepping on the wrong escalator but order is emerging from the chaos.

What does this ‘new order’ look like? Well, it looks like a lot of people leaping aboard  what appears to be cheap rapid transit to the destination. Many wind up in a very isolated place. There was a strong message throughout the conference on how to succeed as an indie author. I’ll sum up those particulars in a later post, but wow, there were so many workshops that talked about indie and indie and by the way, you can go indie. To the point that we noticed a lack of workshops on craft.

I think it was Christie Ridgeway who said she misses the days when everyone gathered to talk story because now it’s all about marketing. That’s what indie publishing and the internet in general has done: filled the market with so much choice that discoverability has become a problem. So there were a lot of tips throughout the conference on how to be visible and here’s my take-away on that:

Stick with Harlequin.

I know, easy for me to say when I’m there, right? It doesn’t change the fact that as a publisher it stands out with their ‘Booktiques’ (unless I’m misremembering what they called it.) Basically, the Harlequin brand has it’s own mini-shop on sites like Amazon and it’s own destination displays in retailers like B&N. I’ll rant about the pros and cons of indie later, but the fact is, there are a few indies with a name that stands out, but most are lost in a sea of sameness. When you say, “I’m a Harlequin Author,” everyone knows what you write and that logo helps people find your books.

I’ve totally digressed from the mini conference. Told you I’d be jumping around. This is as much as I wrote in the airport before the guy behind me began whistling tunelessly. Ask my husband how well that goes over when I’m trying to write.

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RWA 2013 – Overview

You’ll see that I started this post on my way home from Atlanta. My office is a sty, I’m behind at the day job, I haven’t finished unpacking, and I have a proposal due by end of the month which is really this weekend for me. So these blog posts will be hit and miss, but my intentions are good

~ * ~

Good morning. It’s Sunday, July 21, 6:44 am Atlanta time and I’m in the airport, on my way home from the RWA National conference. My nails are still too long for typing comfortably, but I’m hideously early for my flight. And, even though I don’t usually target my blog posts toward writers, I have a lot of writer followers and heck, it’s always fun to get a sneak peek at the romance writer’s inner world, right?

So I thought I’d offer up a play by play of my conference experience. I’ll start out chronologically, but knowing myself, I’ll wind up jumping around to get the full story told. Apparently I think in hyperlinks.

Tuesday, July 15 – Departure

Spokane is a fabulous airport and a comfortable drive so I flew out from there. Mercury was retrograde, but I had booked my travel when all systems were go, so I expected a few small delays, but not too many. I left the house and immediately noticed I’d stolen the garage door opener. Dirty trick, I know. And had I realized I’d be waiting at the border for thirty minutes, I probably would have turned around, but I was too excited.

All the flying went fine, but I hadn’t really processed the time change. I knew I was getting in late, near midnight, but I had read that the Marta—Atlanta’s rapid transit—would take me right into the hotel. So I bravely got myself onto it, even figuring out how to buy a round trip on the Breeze card.

The only hitch was, when I got off at my stop, I was the only person on the platform. I was in the bowels of the subway, it was hot and, well, you know what they smell like especially in a humid climate. For the first few seconds I just walked back and forth listening to my own hollow footsteps thinking, You dumb hick. What have you done?

But I got myself up a level and a pair of women directed me to street level and finally I was among people and a friendly man in a Marta uniform told me to turn left and right and left and I’d be at my hotel.

Longest walk of my life. Especially when a very friendly gal offered to escort me and explained that she needed nine fifty for the homeless shelter. I gave it to her, of course I did, and I hate myself a little bit because I’m sure it was going to drugs, not food. Sadly, that’s me. I want to believe people are telling the truth.

Anyway, between the empty subway, the heartbreaking conversation, and the moral decision that I’m still questioning, I wound up kind of off center by the time I got into my room.

Oh, and it turns out the Marta doesn’t run early enough for this flight so my roommate and I had to hire a car this morning and leave both our return trip Breeze cards for housekeeping. Another rookie move.

Fortunately, the rest of the conference went so well I want to come back again and again so I’m pretty sure I’ll get better at figuring out the best travel tricks.

~ * ~

Stay tuned for more conference coverage. I’m also trying to fix the link to the More Than A Convenient Marriage? page.

 

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#SampleSunday – Workshop

I wasn’t going to post anything today. I’m kind of swamped with a million things, but I had the nicest note from a friend who will miss my workshop in Atlanta with Cathryn Parry.

We’re still polishing pieces of it, but I know some of my followers are fellow writers–we’re the worst for beating ourselves up when we don’t attain a goal, especially if that goal is a publishing contract. And plenty of us get down on ourselves for things we can’t control, like real life events that take us away from an otherwise steady path toward success. So for anyone else missing the workshop, I thought I’d post what I told my friend.

The workshop is called, The Joy Of Writing, With Or Without A Contract.

Our workshop is all about how we have to remember that the writing side is the source of joy and the publishing can make you crazy *if you let it*.

You are and always have been a writer, even if you went on hiatus. The publishers are there (sort of, lol), the readers are definitely still there. They haven’t gone anywhere and will love your stories whenever the universe chooses to help you share them.

A chunk of time passed, that’s all that happened. You still have lots of opportunity to get that contract and you’re actually way ahead of many writers because you have industry knowledge and know what you want.

Let go of your old expectations. Embrace the fact you’re able to concentrate on writing (and yes, publishing!) once again and set new goals for yourself that only look forward.

Apply at will to any circumstance in your life that hasn’t worked out precisely as you’d expected.

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RWA 2013 Atlanta GA

I can’t wait for this conference! I’ll be signing books at the Literacy Fundraiser 5:30-7:30 on Wednesday, July 17th and again at the Harlequin signing 9:30-11:15 on Friday, July 19th. Please come see me if you’re attending.

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Recap and What’s Next

I just did the math–’cause I have time for that–and July 3rd was the mid-point of the year. Whew! It flew right by and now I’m looking at what’s coming for the rest of the year.

To recap (and yes, brag a bit), No Longer Forbidden? bookends (bwa-ha-ha) my year by coming out in the UK in January and it will be part of a 2 for 1 in December here in North America.

The Healer came out in March and I haven’t seen any reviews online. If you know of any, please point me toward them.

This month, Proof Of Their Sin came out. I’ve figured out that promo works best if you build it before the actual release date, but technically I’m still promoting it. More on that when I get to What’s Next.

In the first half of the year, I also signed a contract for two erotic romances–more on that when the details become available–and Shared Whispers went from being a fun indie-project to a signed contract with Champagne. I had my fourth Harlequin Presents accepted and just got some feedback on a partial for the fifth.

The first half of 2013 has been non-stop!

What’s Next:

I’m so very excited to be attending RWA National next week. As said, I’m still promoting Proof Of Their Sin and I’ll be doing two signings with it, one at the literacy fundraiser, the other as part of Harlequin’s author signing. I’m also giving a workshop with my super, uber, goddess-pal Cathryn Parry. And yes, there might be a few other incredibly cool perks coming my way like the Harlequin Party, the Presents Lunch, breakfast with the MODAS gals and a drink with my editor from my first three books, Megan.

I shall post photos upon my return, I promise!

As for the rest of the year, I have two books to turn in by the end of the year for sure, plus  a third that is a rumour which hasn’t gone to contract yet. (I know what you’re thinking and no, I didn’t start the rumour myself.)

More Than A Convenient Marriage? will come out in December, so I’ll have blog tours and giveaways for that. I don’t know the release date on the first erotica, but I’m trying to mentally prepare a promotion plan in case it comes out between now and the end of the year. Oh, and I have two articles to write for the RWR, which is the trade publication for Romance Writers of America.

I’m working on a Career Plan. One aspect is deciding which books I’d like to finish when. I’m also looking at conferences, trying to figure out which ones I could use as an excuse to see really cool places. Sadly, I haven’t found any in Tuscany. I may resort to hosting one there myself.

For the most part, my Career Plan is to work my butt off for the next three years. Coincidentally, my youngest will graduate high school three years from now so yeah, all bets will be off. Well, not all bets. You can bet I’ll be writing and, fingers crossed, publishing.

Then I have all those little tasks like updating my website, buying a new printer and monitor, starting a Street Team and cleaning my desk(!)

Some of you may wonder why I never talk about my personal life. I don’t have one, lol!

Actually, my writing is my personal life. I have a ‘real’ job and I like it, but I don’t talk about where I work because they don’t pay me to promote their products with my own. I have a very loving (and long-suffering) husband who has yet to accept my friend request on Facebook. He doesn’t want to be online so I don’t drag him here. My kids are very understanding of Mom’s writing, but it impacts them enough without my using them as subjects for stories. Although, they have amazing senses of humour so it’s fairly criminal that I only get eye-rolls if I beg, “Can I tweet that?”

We don’t have a dog, I hate our cat, we don’t live on a lake but I look at it from our kitchen window. We don’t boat, but I like to beach. I enjoy golf and gardening, but they’ve fallen by the wayside as the publishing commitments have crept in. I’m a libra, I’d prefer to be vegetarian, and I am not a natural blond.

See, I’m not that interesting anyway. Might as well just talk about the books. And if you don’t hear much from me on even that in the next while, you’ll know why.

 

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Thursday Thirteen – Things To Love About America

I wrote a lengthy love letter to my own country for Canada Day, and I’ve been neglecting my Thursday Thirteen posts, so this week seemed like a great opportunity to send some love to our neighbour to the south. Especially because I often crinkle my brow at this very close cousin who sometimes seems very foreign when it comes to certain opposite-end-of-the-spectrum issues like universal health care.

So without further ado, here are 13 things I love about America.

Obama and Mrs. Wait, my admiration isn’t just political. We can set that aside for a second while I simply compare your current leader to ours. And I don’t mean any disrespect to Harper and Mrs. Perfectly lovely Canadian folk with our trademarked understated personality whereas the Obamas have an incredibly dynamic presence that just makes me sigh with envy. Oh, if only Canada were as cool as America.
Gay marriage. Okay, Canada has had it for several years, but I’m still applauding America for working the democratic process they are so (rightly) proud of.
Diversity. Canada is a huge country and yes we have the Rockies and the North and the Maritimes, but we don’t have the Grand Canyon or the humid South. I’m slowly wrapping my head around the fact that each state runs itself like a country with an individual culture to go with it. (Howdy, Texas.) That’s pretty cool.
Patriotism. No one can doubt an American’s allegiance. They pledge it to the flag every day at school. Canada could learn from this example.
Their flag. Back when I was in high school, my family took a driving holiday to visit friends in California. Their son of about eight pulled out an encyclopedia (yes, I’m that old) and found the American flag. He proceeded to educate me on the meaning of the stars and strips and red, white, and blue. Until then, I had no idea there was so much story behind the flag. Then he turned to the Canadian flag and said, “What does yours mean?” Um…. Yeah. (Just to be clear, I LOVE our flag, but admit it. The story behind it isn’t quite as sexy. Wait, I just got this off Wikipedia. “The number of points on the leaf has no significance; the number and arrangement of the points were chosen after wind tunnel tests showed the current design to be the least blurry of the various designs when tested under high wind conditions.” Mmm, way better.)
Hollywood. I love movies. That’s all.
Innovation. I’m a Mac girl and love all things Apple, but I’ll give snaps to Gates and all the rest for getting us to the point where I’m typing this missive into an electronic medium for consumption around the world.
U.S. Postal Service. Okay, I know it’s old school but sometimes you still have to send parcels and mail is the most cost effective way. And yes, even Target said they can’t keep their prices as low in Canada because we’re a big country with a small population and it’s expensive to move anything here, but seriously, USPS kicks butt on Canada Post every day in terms of pricing and speed.
Disneyworld. I’m not that person who falls into manufactured culture, I’m really not. I hate amusement parks, I hate crowds, I never loved Mickey Mouse or Goofy in the first place. I preferred Bugs Bunny and only watched Disney on Sunday night because it was some of the only specific programming for children here in Canada. But Disneyworld is awesome.
They let us come over. Face it, not all countries are as welcoming to anyone as the US is to Canadians. They let us come over, work in their movies, and yeah, even help ourselves to whatever is in the fridge. They be good neighbours.
Cheerleaders. Where else could you get a scholarship for being supportive? That’s seriously awesome, don’t you think? Of course my favourite was always Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri, but all those kids with genuine acrobatic talent are pretty cool, too.
Netflix. I already mentioned that I love movies, I just wish the Canadian Netflix would get its act together and offer what the American version does.
They got our back. Maybe we have spats over lumber tariffs or they have a beef with our beef, but you know what our answer is if anyone ever asks us, “You and whose army?”

You rock, America.

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Still Blogging Along

I’ve finished writing all the blog posts for my Proof Of Their Sin tour, but they’re still posting and if you haven’t won a copy of the book yet, you can drop by and enter at  Caribbean Accent Book Reviews. I know summer has finally arrived here, but who can resist a visit to the Caribbean?

I’ll also be at Secrets Of Seven Scribes on July 3rd, talking about the challenge of getting the right words on the page. I’d love it if you came to say hello.

Finally, on July 12th I’ll be at LoveRomancesAndMore with an author interview so come learn all my darkest secrets.

After that I’m attending RWA’s National Conference. I’ll be sure to blog about that on my return and will hopefully start posting excerpts for #SampleSunday again soon.

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