Dani Collins's Blog, page 71

Quick Update

Or
Since when do I do anything slowly?

I just realized the post I'd scheduled to come out last Sunday didn't make it. Very annoying. Mercury is moving into retrograde on Tuesday and obviously already causing problems. Scroll below for another jewel of snarkiness about something that seemed important to me a week ago.

My new website is coming along nicely and will likely be up in the next couple of weeks. Once it goes live, I'll be migrating my blog from Blogger to Wordpress. I don't know what that means, I'm just following orders and hoping that when I schedule something to post, it will.  Of course, maybe this recent mishap was operator error. Time will tell.

I also just noticed that after pulling Hustled to the Altar, I got it back up and then didn't tell anyone. My sister kindly posted to Facebook, but I'm also now telling you it is definitely available, but exclusively on Kindle until the middle of January. (It's a marketing thing.)

If you have a Kindle or the Kindle App, you can purchase this here: Dani's Book! Added bonus: I just signed up for KindleGraph so through the magic of modern technology, I can personally autograph it for you. What a kick, eh?

Other news...  I have my cover for the Mills & Boon release which will also be digital only (but all devices) in the new year. Here's a sneak peek:


Note the Book Of The Month seal. I'm pretty full of myself over that.

That's it for the moment. I'm off to meet readers over at Goodreads if you want to find me there ;o)

It’s Personal Taste

Or
There’s definitely nothing wrong with that.

I touched on this when I wrote my Fifty Shades post here: Fifty Shades of Fifty Shades.  Now I’ve just read this: It’s Genre Fiction here.

First off, I want to thank Arthur Krystal for helping me finally understand what literary fiction is. Literature with a capital ‘L’, as it were.  Because I’ve always kind of shaken my head thinking it was a story that wandered like a lost bee full of pedantic words with a lousy, or at best, dumbfounded ending.  (Pedantic: adj. Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules. That’s also what I thought literary fiction was about.  Looking up words.)

He talks about how we’re returning to the days of good old fashioned storytelling which was disdained by the modernists and this was helpful for me to understand why literary readers and writers cling to this genre–because literary novels are a genre unto themselves, ask Jennifer Crusie.

The mention of modernists was a vital piece of information I’d been missing. You see, I learned something about modernists from my daughter’s first boyfriend. He asked me to critique his essay on Salvador Dali. I was especially happy to pass this same sliver of knowledge along to my father, because he’d never seen the point in Picasso and abstract and bent clocks either.

Modern art was birthed out of necessity for survival. When photography became widely available, artists who could paint a good likeness lost to the perfect likeness of Kodak. They had to bend clocks and use other gimmicks to get noticed. No, I mean they were trying to get people to think. Except, they were also trying to stay relevant and get noticed and sell a painting or two.

Now I’m all for making people stop and think. Here I am, throwing words onto a page right now, hoping you’ll take away something more than that I’m a name-dropper who never understood what Modernism was about.

I think the snob-factor of literature is a leftover of this ‘have to say something’ attitude. Why write a book that is a clear snapshot of life, perhaps even a posed one, when you could be taking minds to a place they’ve never been? It’s a lofty aspiration and perhaps we should commend those who try and those who follow the author’s path to their brand of enlightenment.

This path, according to Arthur, has the potential to ‘break the sea frozen inside us’, whereas commercial fiction never will.  ”One reads Conrad and James and Joyce not simply for their way with words but for the amount of felt life in their books.”

Hmmph. Okay, here’s the thing. What I said in my Fifty Shades post was that sometimes people want to be challenged by their reading and sometimes they don’t. I stand by that. Real Life breaks the sea inside of me and leaves me stinging and hurt and railing at tragedy. I escape from that mess by reading something that uplifts me. 

And again we get a comparison that commercial fiction is light and fluffy–he likens it to Santa Claus, while literary fiction is Wotan.

I would like to shift the metaphor to food. It sounds to me like literary fiction is about experimenting and opening your mind to what previously seemed impossible. Eating bugs for instance. I might eat one by accident in my broccoli, but for the most part I’d like to eat just the broccoli, thanks. I know what I’m getting and it makes me feel good to eat it.

All this to say, again, isn’t this just about personal taste? I suppose we can praise the bug-eater for going forth and trying new things, but the reliable gardner is equally necessary in this world. Plus, how does the bug-eater even stand out if everyone is eating bugs?

Now I’m going to go look up who the heck Wotan is.

The post It’s Personal Taste appeared first on Dani Collins.

It's Personal Taste

Or
There's definitely nothing wrong with that.

I touched on this when I wrote my Fifty Shades post here: Fifty Shades of Fifty Shades.  Now I've just read this: It's Genre Fiction here.

First off, I want to thank Arthur Krystal for helping me finally understand what literary fiction is. Literature with a capital 'L', as it were.  Because I've always kind of shaken my head thinking it was a story that wandered like a lost bee full of pedantic words with a lousy, or at best, dumbfounded ending.  (Pedantic: adj. Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules. That's also what I thought literary fiction was about.  Looking up words.)

He talks about how we're returning to the days of good old fashioned storytelling which was disdained by the modernists and this was helpful for me to understand why literary readers and writers cling to this genre--because literary novels are a genre unto themselves, ask Jennifer Crusie.

The mention of modernists was a vital piece of information I'd been missing. You see, I learned something about modernists from my daughter's first boyfriend. He asked me to critique his essay on Salvador Dali. I was especially happy to pass this same sliver of knowledge along to my father, because he'd never seen the point in Picasso and abstract and bent clocks either.

Modern art was birthed out of necessity for survival. When photography became widely available, artists who could paint a good likeness lost to the perfect likeness of Kodak. They had to bend clocks and use other gimmicks to get noticed. No, I mean they were trying to get people to think. Except, they were also trying to stay relevant and get noticed and sell a painting or two.

Now I'm all for making people stop and think. Here I am, throwing words onto a page right now, hoping you'll take away something more than that I'm a name-dropper who never understood what Modernism was about.

I think the snob-factor of literature is a leftover of this 'have to say something' attitude. Why write a book that is a clear snapshot of life, perhaps even a posed one, when you could be taking minds to a place they've never been? It's a lofty aspiration and perhaps we should commend those who try and those who follow the author's path to their brand of enlightenment.

This path, according to Arthur, has the potential to 'break the sea frozen inside us', whereas commercial fiction never will.  "One reads Conrad and James and Joyce not simply for their way with words but for the amount of felt life in their books."

Hmmph. Okay, here's the thing. What I said in my Fifty Shades post was that sometimes people want to be challenged by their reading and sometimes they don't. I stand by that. Real Life breaks the sea inside of me and leaves me stinging and hurt and railing at tragedy. I escape from that mess by reading something that uplifts me. 

And again we get a comparison that commercial fiction is light and fluffy--he likens it to Santa Claus, while literary fiction is Wotan.

I would like to shift the metaphor to food. It sounds to me like literary fiction is about experimenting and opening your mind to what previously seemed impossible. Eating bugs for instance. I might eat one by accident in my broccoli, but for the most part I'd like to eat just the broccoli, thanks. I know what I'm getting and it makes me feel good to eat it.

All this to say, again, isn't this just about personal taste? I suppose we can praise the bug-eater for going forth and trying new things, but the reliable gardner is equally necessary in this world. Plus, how does the bug-eater even stand out if everyone is eating bugs?

Now I'm going to go look up who the heck Wotan is.

Not Ready For PrimeTime

Or
This is why it was a soft launch.

I discovered some problems so I have pulled Hustled To The Altar.  It should be available again in a few weeks, but still only on Kindle.

This is why I didn't make a big splash with it.  I'm testing the waters and, in this case, got as far as my belly button and had to run back to shore.

Stay tuned.  (Brrr)

Oh Yeah, that’s me

You can buy it here: (Link Removed – Sorry.  Will restore shortly.)  Paper copy still coming soon (I’m only one person) then all the other devices next year.

Meanwhile, here’s the back cover blurb:

One con-artist bride…

The last thing Renny O’Laughlin wants to do on the day before her wedding is see her eccentric ex-boyfriend—the one with more dollars than sense who provokes the thrill-seeker inside her. But his grandmother just got duped. Renny has to tell Con before she marries another man and leaves forever.

One innovative ex-boyfriend…

Games-inventor Conroy Burke won’t buckle to convention, especially marriage.  He’s crazy about Renny though.  She’s the only woman able to keep up with him. When she explains how his Gran was tricked, Con sees an opportunity to convince his Wildcard she doesn’t really want to settle down.

One chance to sting a thief…

Renny agrees to identify the swindler to police, not expecting a caper with inept kidnappers, an ambitious reporter chasing the story—or her old feelings for Con to resurface. Marriage will make an honest woman of her, but getting Gran’s money back would prove it too, making it…

One hectic day before a wedding.

This is what’s called a ‘soft’ launch.  Can you tell? 

The post Oh Yeah, that’s me appeared first on Dani Collins.

Oh Yeah, that's me

You can buy it here: (Link Removed - Sorry.  Will restore shortly.)  Paper copy still coming soon (I'm only one person) then all the other devices next year.

Meanwhile, here's the back cover blurb:


One con-artist bride...
The last thing Renny O'Laughlin wants to do on the day before her wedding is see her eccentric ex-boyfriend—the one with more dollars than sense who provokes the thrill-seeker inside her. But his grandmother just got duped. Renny has to tell Con before she marries another man and leaves forever.
One innovative ex-boyfriend...
Games-inventor Conroy Burke won’t buckle to convention, especially marriage.  He’s crazy about Renny though.  She's the only woman able to keep up with him. When she explains how his Gran was tricked, Con sees an opportunity to convince his Wildcard she doesn't really want to settle down.
One chance to sting a thief...
Renny agrees to identify the swindler to police, not expecting a caper with inept kidnappers, an ambitious reporter chasing the story—or her old feelings for Con to resurface. Marriage will make an honest woman of her, but getting Gran's money back would prove it too, making it...
One hectic day before a wedding.


This is what's called a 'soft' launch.  Can you tell? 

Miss You Danielle

Only in Canada, you say?

I'll come out and admit that I'm a bad Canadian in one particular respect. I don't care for Maple Syrup. I don't like maple-flavored anything.

But everything else about maple, I love. Our flag, the amazing colours of the leaves at this time of year, even the town I grew up in was named after these beautiful trees.

(photo courtesty of Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers)
I love the idea of tapping maple trees for their sap and making something yummy out of it. I love that my grandmother nursed a sugar maple for years, from one farm to another, hoping that one day it would be big enough to produce a few table spoons of sap. I love that Canada accounts for more than 80% of the world's supply of maple syrup. (The US supplies the remaining 20%, give or take.)

I was recently so taken with the idea, I have a heroine in an upcoming book with Harlequin Mills & Boon who grew up on an estate that produces the stuff.

That's why I was so aghast, aghast I tell you, to hear that more than 16,000 barrels (street value approx $20 million) was recently syphoned from the maple syrup reserves and stolen.  This is the global strategic reserve, people.  Canada is a Superpower of maple syrup production.

What I really appreciate about this story is its hallmarks of a truly Canadian story.  I can see this as a movie starring Paul Gross.  I mean, it's a Big Deal.  It's a theft on a huge scale since we're talking about 16 tanker trucks worth, yet so quirky.  Who decides this is a good idea and who thinks they can sell it?  Who acts as a fence for 16,000 barrels of syrup?  What kind of toque and mack-jacket wearing lumberjacks crept into the warehouse to accomplish this theft? (Can't you just see these MacKenzie Brothers alternately starting the syphon hose and smoking up, going into a sugar high fit of giggles?)

Fortunately, the police have tracked at least some of the stolen syrup to an export company in New Brunswick. They're sending it back to Quebec under guard.  The export company thought the search  was a joke at first. They bought the syrup in good faith--of course.  They're Canadian!  We're innocents.  Yes, perhaps we'd be suspicious of someone trying to sell us a bridge or even question whether that really was a Hutterite chicken we just bought, but our beloved maple syrup?

The plot thickens as you read further into the Press Release at the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers website.  The seizure is only a portion of what has gone missing and the Federation has accused this New Brunswick company in the past of buying from unauthorized syrup producers.  Is this yet another anglo/franco conflict?  Something motivated by revenge?  Are we talking about industrial espionage?

We're talking about Canada, a big country capable of massive undertakings that ultimately result in kitchen table conversation.  Want to educate the kids on our patriotic product while you enjoy your Saturday morning pancakes?  Check out this link: Agriculture Canada - Maple Syrup.

Fifty Shades of Fifty Shades

Or
Yeah, I'm gonna talk about that too.

I will start with the spoiler alert, which is hysterical because I haven't read the book(s). I read to the first sex scene in a borrowed copy while on vacation in July. (Funny story about that: I read it while floating in the pool and got a very stripey sunburn across my stomach. That's the problem with reading Fifty Shades of Grey, you turn Fifty Shades of Red, har har.)

A few weeks later, I saw the three books in the local Pharmasave and had twenty minutes to kill while waiting for a prescription. I read the end of the first book. Yes, you read that correctly. I totally did that. Then I read the end of the third book. Completely skipped the second.

How can I do that? Easy. I write sex scenes. I don't need to read anyone else's and I was more interested in how the relationship is resolved. When I saw that at the end of the first they were (again, Spoiler Alert!!) not together, I wrote off the series as not for me. This is my own personal preference. I have a thing about trilogies and series. I'm great when the second book has new characters and visits the couple who are living happily ever after from the first book, but do not make me buy three books to find out that these people live happily ever after. And don't even get me started on the wonderful ending of the first Outlander only to have their happily ever after crushed by future books. That is another day's rant.

Today's rant isn't meant to turn into one. I gave the books a shrug and a miss and would have forgotten all about them except I came across a blog which I now cannot find again. Basically the writer said that Fifty Shades had turned her off reading romance novels forever. That made me sad and made me feel a need to weigh in.

First of all, read what you want people. I don't judge. If you don't want to read romance, that's cool. But if you're writing off a whole genre because one writer put out a book that didn't agree with you, I feel a need to question that. Do you think we all got together and voted that romance should become graphic BDSM? Because there's still plenty of great romance that doesn't include duct tape and belts and hard limits. Turning your back on romance because of one book (okay three) is a little like refusing to eat Italian because you got a bad clam in your spaghetti marinara.

Secondly, I don't consider Fifty Shades a romance. Not the first one, anyway. Ana left Grey. She realized she was in an unhealthy relationship and she walked away.

See, fiction is generally about universal themes: birth, coming of age, courtship and marriage (hello romance), leadership, war, spiritual awakening...  You get the picture. I contend that Fifty Shades is a coming of age story. Ana discovers something about herself and matures as a result. If you walked into it expecting a courtship and romance with a happy ending (ahem!) then I can see where you are feeling betrayed by the book. The story didn't satisfy, it let you down, but that doesn't mean all writers of all romance let you down.

The writer of The Blog I Can't Find (I just tried again and lost half this post. Argh) opened her post with a confession that she used to love trashy books, but because of her experience with Fifty Shades, she was never going to read another romance. There's so much other fiction out there, good fiction, she called it. Why was she wasting her time with... I'm trying to remember exactly what she likened romance novels to. Cotton candy, maybe? Something not in the four food groups anyway. Not even dark chocolate and wine, which ticked me off because romance writers have feelings too, you know. We're use the freshest ingredients we can find, organic even, and we work hard to bring you a rich experience.

But there is such a snobbery surrounding romances novels and I don't get why making something easy to read, that delivers an uplifting emotional experience is 'bad.' What exactly is a 'good' book, then? Something with lots of big words and heavy emotions and an ending that is poignant at best? (I like to call these Oprah picks.) I'm not saying those aren't 'good' books, but why the labels, people?

Reading, like most things, is a realm of personal taste. I happen to like spicy foods; my husband not so much. He likes heavy metal; I'm acoustic. I recently discovered weight lifting and after a mentally taxing day at work, I love the physical challenge of pull-downs and leg presses. For about ten years after leaving university, my husband didn't read anything but a newspaper. Reading a novel felt too much like work.

Sometimes we like to be challenged by our reading and sometimes we don't. Liking a 'trashy' book isn't something to be ashamed of and disliking one doesn't have to change your life. If you think that reading romance novels is not a healthy choice for you, in the same way that I know I should cut back on caffeine, then great. Swear off of romance novels. But I'm not going to quit coffee just because the stuff at work is ghastly. I'll just be more choosey about where I source it and how much I consume.

You could try that too.

Quick Update

Just a quick update to say I'm still plodding along.

Along with working to fulfill my contract with Harlequin and planning future books with them, I've looked into indie-publishing some of my 'trunk' books.  Yes, Virginia, back in the days before hard-drives, manuscripts were physical stacks of papers stored in bins or 'trunks.'

Actually, mine aren't quite that old, but I've made inquiries as to the process and am developing quite a Why Not attitude about it giving it a shot. Will keep you posted.

Other news is just the same old news: Wait and See.  Yes, I thought I had arrived, but I've just transferred to a different train that makes as many stops as the unpublished one, just in different stations that are unfamiliar to me so I'm stumbling around, feeling a bit of a fool as I try to navigate the new world of marketing and self-promotion and huh?  Twitter?

But please catch up to me there--I do tweet!  Usually in the evenings.  @DaniCollinsBook.

And I have a fan page on Facebook: DaniCollinsAuthor.  I do post!  (Every couple of days.)

Why is one 'Book' and one 'Author'?  See above about how I'm still trying to figure all this out.  I think I chose Author first then found out Book doesn't fit the Twitter username thingy.  And you can't change the FB thing after you get out your chisel and carve it in stone.

Catch ya later...