Lorenda Christensen's Blog, page 13

Me Read Pretty One Day

If you’re reading this post, congratulations! You’re one of the 83% of the people in the world who can.

In case that’s not clear enough, 17% of people in the world TODAY can’t read simple sentences. In a world full of smart phones, instant messaging, and internet connections galore, it can be hard to fathom.

I make no secret out of my love of reading. How many of us wear glasses today due to reading under the covers as children after lights-out because we had to know how the book ended? One of my favorite books of all time is Perfect, by Judith McNaught. The heroine, Julie, grew up as a foster child and never learned to read. Like all good romance novel characters, she figures it out and eventually becomes a teacher. But many people don’t have the opportunities she did (or we do).

Can you imagine your life without the ability to read the written word? I would feel like a piece of me had been ripped out, leaving a gaping hole. But if I was never able to read, I would have a different kind of gaping hole—one where many wonderful characters and fantastical settings of books I love never existed in my soul, where the profound truths of history don’t live in my consciousness, and a simple crayon-drawn card from my kids doesn’t make sense.

Let’s take a hard look at the statistics:

Today, nearly 17% of the world’s adult population is still not literate; two thirds of them women, making gender equality even harder to achieve.
The scale of illiteracy among youth also represents an enormous challenge; an estimated 122 million youth globally are illiterate, of which young women represent 60.7%.
The 67.4 million children who are out of school are likely to encounter great difficulties in the future, as deficient or non-existent basic education is the root cause of illiteracy.
With some 775 million adults lacking minimum literacy skills, literacy for all thus remains elusive.

(Source: UNESCO)

This horrifies me as an author, a life-long reader, female and mother. How did it make you feel?

We have something precious, something I know I take for granted.

Wanna help? Here’s just one of many, many wonderful organizations where you can make a difference.

http://globalliteracy.org/

Find another if you don’t like this one. I’m in no way endorsing a particular organization over another.

People—no matter their nationality or station in life—deserve the ability to read. Do your own research and then decide if this issue speaks to you. It does to me.

*steps down off soapbox*

And now for those of you who stayed with me for the whole post, I’m giving away a print copy of one of my backlist titles to a randomly drawn commenter below who can tell me the real title of the book I butchered to title this blog. Bonus points if you can guess the reason I chose it.

How a Reality TV Star Saved My Book

By Original: Jerry7171 Modified image: AmosWolfe [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons

Contemporary romance has always been my first love when it comes to reading romance, so when I decided to make the leap from reading to writing romance, it made perfect sense to try my hand at contemporary.

But I have to confess that my love of contemporary romance isn’t the only reason I chose that genre. Although I love reading historical romance, the thought of writing it makes me break out into hives. All that research. I live in terror of setting a novel in 1405 and having my characters use the word “hi” and having people laugh behind my back because everyone knows “hi” didn’t come into use until sometime between 1425 and 1475 (Yes, I researched that specifically for this post).

But here’s the thing. Although I write contemporary romance and, you know, live in contemporary times, I still have to do research. In my book, Tell Me Something Good, the heroine is a psychologist. Great for her, but I have degrees in communication studies and sport management. So off to the Internet I went to find out what schooling she needed and what type of therapist she was, crossing my fingers that it wouldn’t lead me astray.

The hero and the heroine in that book also discuss the finer points of the knuckleball. I’m an avid baseball fan, so I wrote that scene only using the knowledge stored in my brain. Then I panicked a little and headed to Wikipedia to make sure the knowledge stored in my brain wasn’t leading me astray. According to Wikipedia, it wasn’t, so high-five to me.

But none of that compares to the research I found myself conducting several weeks ago. In my current work-in-progress, the book opens a few weeks after the heroine reaches a divorce settlement. When I first wrote the manuscript, that’s exactly the timing I used – “a few weeks later.” Then it occurred to me that I needed to be more specific – and accurate.

Here’s what I needed to know – how long does it take to get a divorce finalized in California? So off to the Internet I went. I found that it takes six months from when you file for divorce for it to be finalized – that’s if both parties agree on a settlement at the time of filing. Which is all well and good, but that really didn’t answer my question. In my story, the heroine applied for divorce a year ago, but no settlement had been reached yet because her husband is a jerkface.

Thus my real question was – after that initial six-month period, how long does it take to finalize a divorce once a settlement is reached? Surely the courts don’t force you to stay married for another six months after the settlement is reached if you’ve already been separated for six months.

I didn’t think that was a difficult question, but the Internet disagreed with me. I kept running into the six-month thing and it was driving me up the wall.

And then it hit me.

Kim Kardashian got divorced in California!

Yes, Kim’s 72-day marriage to Kris Humphries (and the media’s obsession with all things Kardashian) was actually going to be useful. So off to the Internet I went. Here’s what I found out.

After she filed for divorce in 2011, Kim and Kris agreed on a settlement April 19, 2013. A judge officially granted the divorce June 3, 2013.

For those keeping score at home, that was 45 days or a little over six weeks between settlement and divorce. In my book, “a few weeks later” became “six weeks later.”  

And that, my friends, is how you do book research. *drops the mic*

If you write books, what kind of research have you found yourself? When reading books, do you ever find yourself wondering if the author has any clue what she’s talking about or find yourself in awe of something she’s included?

Selling Books and Taking Names

Fellow Firebirds, thank you for the opportunity to blog today. You ladies make the e-mail/group messages fly in a most dizzying way! I confess to lurking like crazy and to grinning when the news is good and frowning when the news is bad. I’ve said a few prayers. Maybe you’ve felt them even if you didn’t hear me say them.

Today I’m going to talk about selling books.

Because I FINALLY sold a book. Sold 3 books, in fact. I still can’t believe it. Someone pinch me!

In the interest of honesty, I have to admit to writing and deleting four five posts already. I mean, you only get to tell your first sale story for the first time. . . once. So…I decided not to tell my first sale story yet. I know. I’m a hopeless tease. (Don’t throw things!) I’m hoping *fingers crossed* that RWA will pick up both of my workshops, and that story fits in well with one of those. Instead, I’m going to give you a few stats:

15 years from the time I finished my first serious novel* until I sold
9 manuscripts written—the last 3 sold
4 computers I’ve gone through
3 contests I’ve finaled in
2 kids I’ve brought into the world in those 15 years
1 incredibly supportive husband who’s had my back every step of the way
??? rejection letters—I should probably count those, huh? Let’s just say I have a binder full.

*Define serious. It was a historical western with some very serious problems: lack of internal conflict, meandering plot, ridiculously improbable scene where the hero saves the heroine by shooting the rope she’s about to be hung with just as the trap door opens underneath her feet…

At any rate, I can now agree all things come in good time. If I’ve critiqued with you, I’ve learned from you even if I didn’t agree with you. If I wrote it, I learned from it. Even better? I get to feel like I finally know something about writing because I sold some books! (That just doesn’t get old.) Here are the top 6 things I’ve learned on this journey:

Patience is a virtue. If you like speed, take up drag racing.
Don’t compare yourself to others; therein lies the path to madness. The sooner you can honestly be happy for other writers around you and honestly take pride in their successes; the sooner success will find you.
Volunteer in your writing organization. I would’ve never connected with some of my favorite folks if I hadn’t volunteered for Georgia Romance Writers. Someone remind me of this bullet point during the next two years while I’m serving as president of GRW.
Set goals that you can accomplish. You can say you’ll write 1000 words a day or enter a contest. You can’t say you’ll win that contest or that you’ll be a successful writer by the time you’re 30. I said I was going to be published by the time I was 30. Um, I’m going to be 40…..When?…Someday! (Sorry had to have a When Harry Met Sally moment there) In all seriousness, I’ll almost assuredly turn 40 before I hold a finished copy of my first book in my hot little hands.
You can’t beat yourself up when you fail. Instead, get back to work. As they taught us in pole dancing class, when you fall down….get up sexy.
Good critique partners are worth their weight in gold. And Nicki Salcedo is totally right about criticism. You gotta internalize those critiques and really think about them. Only then will you be able to sift through what your pride’s telling you not to change and what your writer’s instinct is telling you not to change. (Confession: this is STILL a work in progress)
Advice is just that. . . advice. Ask my dad about what opinions are like if you want to know how much advice amounts to. So anytime I, or anyone else for that matter, dispense pithy suggestions like this, you know to take what you like and leave the rest.

To sum it all up, it’s been one heckuva awesome week. 3 books sold. Still something dead in the fridge. Still a mountain of laundry. But, hey, I’m gonna whistle while I work. (And hope for small woodland creatures to come out of the woodwork to assist me)

*deep cleansing breath* I finally sold a book. I sold 3 of them. *squees* *frolics* *twirls the first person who comes by the blog and kisses him/her on the mouth*

Please look for Beulah Land and the Happy Hour Choir in 2015. If you’re here in the Atlanta area, be on the lookout for the book launch. I’m thinking it’s only appropriate that it be a Happy Hour, yes? In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter (@SuperWriterMom) or at www.sallykilpatrick.com and my new Facebook author page https://www.facebook.com/SuperWriterMom (when I remember I have an author page).

Thanks again, Firebirds! As always, it’s an honor to hang with you guys.

Lorenda Christensen’s debut novel, “Never Deal with Dragons”

WELCOME TO LORENDA CHRISTENSEN’S BOOK LAUNCH!

 

Today we have Golden Heart 2012 Paranormal Romance winner, Lorenda Christensen launching her debut novel, Never Deal with Dragons 

 

So, Lorenda, I remember you practicing your pitch for this book outside the Harlequin Pyjama Party at RWA Nationals last year.  How would you pitch it now to the readers out there?

Hopefully better than when we were practicing!

Today, when someone asks me about this book, I tell them it’s a dystopian, somewhat-urban fantasy set in a world populated with pregnant dragons, chicks in pencil skirts paired with muck boots, and deadbeat ex-boyfriends who aren’t as bad as they seem.

My world is loosely centered around the Tulsa, Oklahoma based DRACIM offices, otherwise known as Dragon Relations, Arbitration, and Cooperative Interspecies Mediation. My heroine, Myrna Banks, is a smart, sarcastic woman with dreams of climbing the corporate ladder as a human dragonspeaker. She takes on a project that has the potential to skyrocket her straight from the position of disgraced secretary into management. But she has to do it with the help of Trian, the ex-boyfriend directly responsible for said disgrace, and she has to do it without ticking off any high ranking dragons.

She definitely has her hands full. J

So why dragons?

You know, that’s a great question. I remember getting the spark of an idea for Never Deal with Dragons when I ran across the now-cancelled television drama, Fairly Legal. It was a short lived series centered on a woman who left her job as a lawyer to work as a mediator in San Francisco.

The writing was fun, the banter snappy, and I thought “how much fun would this be in a paranormal setting?”

And then I promptly forgot about it. Until my husband (the king of all random knowledge, by the way) mentioned the Black Brant scare. Not being a history buff of any sort, I had to ask him what the heck he was talking about. He sent me to this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident

And somehow my random brain put both of these bits together—a unique mediation setting, and something large enough to be mistaken for incoming missiles. And, of course, something totally cool and not worn out.

Dragons it was.

Of course, over the first few drafts, the dragons’ origins morphed quite a bit, and DRACIM as an organization firmed up in my mind, but those were definitely the first sparks.

Have you always liked dragons?

My kids love Dragon Tales, but looking back, I don’t remember many shows or books featuring dragons. To be fair, I didn’t really get into reading fantasy until I was an adult, but every book with dragons that I picked up – from Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern to Naomi Novik’s Temeraire to Thea Harrison’s Dragon Bound—managed to capture my interest and hold it.

In everything I’ve read, dragons are regal, majestic, and all-around larger than life. But more than anything, dragons are dangerous with a capital D. What better backdrop to a paranormal love story?

That’s a pretty hot guy on the cover.  How would you rate the heat level of your work?

I’d definitely agree with you on that! When I first revealed the cover on Facebook and Twitter, I got more than a couple of people who told me that dealing with dragons didn’t seem half bad if you got to do it with a guy who looked that good!

But if you’re expecting wall-to-wall sexy times in this book, you’ll likely be a bit disappointed. That’s not to say that there isn’t any time for snuggling (and more) between dragon attacks, but most of the time, Myrna and Trian are too busy to do more than give each other smoldering looks.

On a scale of 1(sweet) to 10(smokin’) I’d probably rate NDWD somewhere around a 5. (Is that vague enough for you?)

Haha.  Let’s say, on a 1-10 scale for vagueness, it’s a 5. :-p  So, when did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

I laugh about this, because I’d love to say that I knew from the time I was in kindergarten, but that isn’t quite the truth. In fact, I remember watching my mother work as a newspaper reporter through my high school years and wonder why she’d purposely picked a career that forced her to have an English paper deadline EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Now, between drafts, revisions, blogs, and emails, it looks like the joke’s on me.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learnt since your first book sold?

When I thought I had no time before my sale, I didn’t know anything. Writing a book is hard. Writing a book while revising another while putting together a website while….well, you get the drift. Writing might be fun, and it might feed the soul of this accountant, but it is definitely a job. With an English paper deadline EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Sounds like a great ‘problem’ to an unpublished writer like me. ;-p So, I’m sure anyone who was at the 2012 awards dinner at Nationals in Anaheim would remember your acceptance speech (a parody of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’s theme song).  What other memorable things have happened to you in the year since then?

Hehe. I prefer to think of my acceptance speech as homage to a literary master. The Fresh Prince—there’s depth under that still water. J

Let’s see. I assume living in India probably counts. My husband, a mobile apps developer, moved us to Bangalore for two years to open an India branch for his company. He went for the job, the rest of us went for adventure. I actually flew in to the awards ceremony from India, and flew back after a quick trip to Disneyland. (Shh, don’t tell the kids). We’ve since moved back to Oklahoma, and that’s an adventure in and of itself. In fact, I’m typing this up in an office stacked nearly full of storage tubs that we’ve managed to move back into our house, but haven’t yet had the time to empty.

Ah the glamorous life of the writer.

Haha.  Indeed.  What are your plans for the future?  How many books have you got in the works for this series?

Retire with my royalty riches, of course.

And, you know, if that doesn’t work out, you’ll probably find me writing some more. Carina contracted me for a trilogy, and I’m currently working frantically on revisions for Book #2 in this series. Dodging the Dragons is Myrna’s friend Carol’s story, and it has been a monster to write. Luckily, I have a great editor, and she’s helping me whip it into shape. But it’s a slow process, and DTD won’t be out until sometime in 2014.

Well, that was a fun chat.  Thanks so much for answering my questions, Lorenda. Now, it’s time for our readers to ask their own questions.

Firebirds by the Numbers — One Year Later

It’s been one year since the Firebirds all met in person at RWA 2012, strengthened their bond, and cheered for one another at the 2012 Golden Heart ceremony.

Since then, we’ve become even better friends, better writers, and bigger cheerleaders for one another, as the year proved to be a wild and exciting one for our group.

In just the 12 months since the Class of 2012 sat in the Golden Heart ceremony, the Firebirds have:

Published 28 books. (See 22 of them here!)
Have 41 books already scheduled to publish later in 2013 or in 2014. (A post listing the 41 books to follow!)

The Firebirds are also super proud to have in their ranks:

1 USA Today Bestseller. (Susan M. Boyer for “Lowcountry Boil“)
1 Amazon No. 1 Top-Seller (all books). (Terri Osburn for “Meant to Be”)
1 Nook No. 2 Top-Seller (all books). (Susan M. Boyer for “Lowcountry Boil“)
4 authors who broke the Amazon Top 10 list (all books). (Susan Boyer, #7 for “Lowcountry Boil”; Terri Osburn, #1 for “Meant to Be”; Kim Law, #10 for “Ex on the Beach”; and Tracy Brogan, #2 for “Crazy Little Thing”.)
1 Amazon No. 1 Romantic Comedy Top Seller (Kindle). (Tracy Brogan for “Crazy Little Thing”)
1 Amazon No. 1 Historical Romance Top Seller (Kindle). (Tracy Brogan for “Highland Surrender”)
1 Amazon No. 1 Single Women Top Seller (Kindle). (Kim Law for “Caught on Camera”)
1 author not only crack the “Most Popular” list at Carina Press, but land at No. 1! (Lorenda Christensen for “Never Deal with Dragons”)
1 author who was a Book Sellers Best finalist. (Tracy Brogan for “Highland Surrender”)

The Firebirds also have:

2 RITA nominees for 2013. (Tracy Brogan for “Crazy Little Thing” and Kim Law for her 2009 GH-winning book “Sugar Springs”) 
5 repeat finalists for the 2013 Golden Heart: (Talia Quinn Daniels, Oberon Wonch, Kay Hudson, Joanne Lockyer, and Sharon Wray (who finaled with 2 different manuscripts.)

And have been tearing up the contest circuits:

6 Firebirds finaled and/or won for unpublished manuscripts:

Catherine Rull’s “The Fat Chicks’ Club” finaled in the TARA in the Women’s Fiction category.
Natalie Meg Evans’ “A Dark Flowering” finaled in The Daphne.
Sharon Wray’s newest, “Rogue’s Escape,” finaled in The Daphne.
Pintip Dunn’s “Fit To Die” finaled in The Marlene and The Sheila.
Jean Willett’s “Island of Roses” took third place in the 2012 Golden Pen for Novel with Strong Romantic Elements.
Eileen Emerson’s “The Unloved Earl” finaled in the 2012 Royal Ascot, The Tara, and The Beacon. It won the 2012 Sheila, Maggie, Put Your Heart in a Book, and The Golden Pen. From those contests, it received eight requests.

3 Firebirds finaled and/or won for published manuscripts:

Susan Boyer’s “Lowcountry Boil” won an Agatha for Best First Novel and is nominated for the Daphne du Maurier Award (it won the unpublished division last year) and a Macavity Award for Best First Novel.
Tracy Brogan’s “Crazy Little Thing” and “Highland Surrender” were double Golden Quill winners.
Kim Law’s “Sugar Springs” finaled in the Gayle Wilson Award for Excellence.

And that’s only our first year! We hope you’ll join us for another year as we keep trying to bring romance-readers the best books possible.

 

Heather Ashby’s debut novel, “Forgive & Forget”

WELCOME TO HEATHER ASHBY’S BOOK LAUNCH!

We’re here today for the launch of Heather Ashby’s debut novel, Forgive & Forget, a military romance that is Book 1 in her Love in the Fleet series. Here is a brief blurb:

Welcome Aboard the USS Blanchard

Because her mother had always boasted, “I have something better than a son—a daughter with balls,” Navy journalist, Hallie McCabe, isn’t afraid to use them to protect the man she loves—and the five-thousand crewmembers aboard their aircraft carrier. Her chutzpah enables Hallie to find paradise with Lieutenant Philip Johnston on shore without him discovering she’s an enlisted sailor stationed aboard his ship—until they deploy. Her most challenging test however, occurs when Hallie faces the threat of an al-Qaeda operative intent on destroying the USS Blanchard so he, too, can find Paradise.

Anchors Aweigh!

 

Hi, Heather.  It’s so great to have you with us here on the Firebirds blog. 

It’s wonderful to be here today, Catherine.

What an exciting time for you—your debut novel is now available from Amazon and other book sellers, and out on Kindle on 16July, 2013 , in time for the RWA National Conference. Plus, you’ve signed a four-book deal with Henery Press, so we can look forward to three more after this one!   Talk about an amazing year since becoming a Golden Heart Finalist in 2012!  Where were you on your journey to getting published at the last national conference?

I had two manuscripts under my belt that had done well in contests and garnered many requests, but had not sold. Last year at Anaheim, I met the very impressive editor from Henery Press through my Golden Heart Sister, Susan Boyer. Kendel Flaum said she’d take a look at my work, although Henery Press leaned more toward mysteries than romance.

What do you think made your work sell? 

Voice. I submitted Book 2 in the series, my Golden Heart final, now titled: Forget Me Not, to Henery Press. Kendel said she fell in love with the voice from the first line. She also said there was enough mystery and suspense in my series to offer me a four-book deal.

As your CP, it’s been a treat for me to read your books in advance.  And personally, one of the things I really like about them is your strong women. 

My couple’s first date is on a sailboat – which plays symbolically through the book – and there is a theme running through that says, “Nobody took the wind out of Hallie McCabe’s sails.” As the protagonist, she will definitely show her strength when al-Qaeda comes to call. The war widow in Book 2 is also strong, soldiering on after her husband’s death. By the way, she is the only civilian heroine in all four books. She’s a veterinarian and I tried to get to her to be an Army Veterinarian, but she refused to join up.

Ha ha.  I know what you mean.  Do your characters talk to you often, too?  

Yes, the aviator sidekick from Forgive & Forget jumped up and down on the flight deck in Book 1, waved his arms, and yelled, “Write about me! Write about me!” Hence Book 2, Forget Me Not was born. He talks to me all the time and he’s my bad boy, so I have to watch it.

Well, I’ve read Book 2 as well, and the bad boy talk is so fun to read!  So, other than having characters talk to you, where else do you get your ideas from?   And how does your writing process work? 

My ideas come from my husband’s and my combined forty years of association with the Navy – and from my favorite activity of people watching. As to my writing process… Warning: My answer might scare some people away. The hero in Book 2, Sky, is an ADHD Navy helicopter pilot. There’s a line in my Golden Heart final book describing him reacting to the heroine’s shocking and multi-layered news: “Sky’s brain was busier than a three-legged cat trying to cover up its crap on a hot steel flight deck during flight ops.” That pretty much describes my writing process. All over the place and putting out fires all the time. I start with a basic story idea, then have scenes and dialogue flash through my head for months. I jot down every detail with no idea where it’s going to go in the story. I’ve heard this style of writer is called a “Puzzler.” Eventually I sit down and sort the puzzle pieces and a cohesive story emerges.

I think quite a few of us can relate to that style.  How about the steamy love scenes in your book?  Your characters have a lot of chemistry.  Do you find it easy to write intimate scenes?

I love reading and writing love scenes—especially flirty sexual tension-filled scenes with good-natured bantering between couples.

 Me, too!  How did you start writing?

I had always enjoyed reading military romances, but I found there weren’t enough where both the hero and heroine were in the Navy. I figured if I was looking for more of these books, surely there were other Navy types looking for them too. They say “write what you know,” so Forgive & Forget is about an enlisted woman in the Navy falling in love with an officer from her ship. It’s not totally autobiographical because I was never stationed on a ship. But I was enlisted and I did fall in love with an officer. We will celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary in December.

Awww, congratulations!  I want to pry some more but I better move on to the next question: What’s been the biggest learning curve?

Edits. You don’t realize how attached you become to your work. This is your baby. Finally, you sell. Now the criticism is no longer from judges, critique partners, or prospective editors and agents. Now it’s coming from your editor. And some of the things they ask you to cut or change hurts. You want to defend your book, this character, that scene, etc. to the death. How dare he or she not like that part? With the first book, I kept reminding myself that she liked the book enough to buy it, so I honored most of her changes. I chose my battles and bargained to keep only a few. And she let me. After I saw how awesome the book became with her recommendations, I learned to trust her in future books.

Is there anything you wish you knew before you got published?

How much work was involved. Writing a book is easy. It’s the revisions, edits, promotions – both before and after the sale that they don’t tell you about. I truly have enjoyed every minute of the journey, but there’s a lot to do. I remind myself daily that it’s all good stress.

My best advice is to keep writing. I was so glad I had a couple of books in my repertoire before I sold. I would have panicked if I’d sold the first and then had to do edits on it while trying to draft the next one. By the time I sold, I had three completed manuscripts, and that felt even better.

What’s been the most exciting part of getting your book published?

Knowing I’m fulfilling my dream, which was to write books to entertain our women at sea. I loved serving in the Navy and grew up listening to my mother share her stories about her time in the Navy as well. When I was looking for a way to show my gratitude for my son’s safe return from war, I realized I could give back by combining my love of writing with my love of the Navy and send my books out to the fleet. Another exciting part has been the feedback from my civilian readers who have said, “I felt like I had vicariously joined the Navy for the duration of the book and I learned so much!”

I felt the same way.  As someone who got very seasick on a whale watching ferry, it WAS a treat for me to read your book while staying on  dry land! 

Well, we better hand over the questions to our readers.  Thank you so much for your time, Heather.

Thank you, Catherine. Now I have a question for the readers who are also writers: I shared what personal experience I put in my book (enlisted sailor falls for officer). What personal experience have you writers out there put in your books?

Anchors Aweigh.

The Blue Dolphin

Unlock the Truth

Midnight Shadows

Mindlink