Diane Chamberlain's Blog - Posts Tagged "inc"

Screenwriting Tips for Novelists

I belong to an organization called Novelists, Inc., whose mission it is to provide multi-published novelists with information and support. It's a great organization. Recently on the NINC email loop, one of the long-published members pondered what those of us who've been writing forever had to learn from writing workshops. The answer, of course, is that we can learn something from every single workshop we attend, even if that workshop has nothing to do with writing. Honestly, I'm of the mind that I can pick up something I can use in my writing from a speech on dairy farming or coal mining. If I have my writing cap on, everything looks like an idea to me.

But today I attended a workshop that truly can teach an old dog new tricks. Alexandra Sokoloff is a friend who moved to Raleigh four years ago, around the same time I did. She and I were welcomed into the group of writers who've become my writing support network here in North Carolina, those women who are my retreat partners and fellow brainstormers. Alex moved from LA, where she was a screen writer. She's now a novelist writing thrillers, and her workshop today was on using screenwriting techniques in novel writing. I know I'll never look at a movie the same way now that she's opened my eyes to film structure, and I can't wait to take another look at my work-in-progress from this new perspective. Alex has an incredible blog that covers what we learned today and much, much more.

Alex and I both have books coming out May 26th and we'll be holding our book launches (with refreshments, of course!) at Raleigh's Quail Ridge Books just a few days apart (Alex will be there June 4th and I'll be there June 9th). If you're in the neighborhood, come join us!
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Published on May 09, 2009 20:52 Tags: alexandra, chamberlain, diane, inc, novelists, screenwriting, sokoloff

Cartomancy and Character

I’m not much of a believer in the occult, but I do love Tarot, not in any small part because the 78 cards in a Tarot deck can be so beautiful. There’s something undeniably fascinating in the symbols and images, and it’s easy to get caught up the magic.

My first reading was done by a real pro: author Nora Roberts. We were at the Washington Romance Writers’ annual retreat at the fabulous Hilltop House in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and Nora was doing readings for her friends. I think she told me my marriage was destined to last forever. The next reading I had was by another fellow writer, the late, beautiful Virginia Ellis, shortly after my divorce. Ha! So as I said, I’m not much of a believer, but I do believe in taking brainstorming help wherever I can get it, and a good Tarot Card reading–for a writers’ characters rather than for the writer herself–can jumpstart a scene, or even an entire book.

Like Nora, Gin Ellis was a generous reader. At a Novelists, Inc conference in Santa Fe one year, she read for every major character in my work-in-progress. I learned one character’s deepest, darkest secret, why another was afraid to be a mother, and why yet another chose his particular career. There are many, many other ways to brainstorm, but none as intriguing or fun as Tarot.

I’m aware of one book on Tarot specifically for writers (Tarot for Writers, by Corrinne Kenner), but I’m sure there are more, because writers have turned to Tarot over the years (over the centuries, since Tarot’s been around that long) to help them develop characters and story lines.

Tarot came into play with my upcoming novel, The Lies We Told. I didn’t use it to help me brainstorm, but my characters themselves use it to. . . well, I’ll wait until the book comes out to tell you!

So how about you? Have you ever had a Tarot reading?
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News from NINC

I wonder (and worry) that readers might be a little upset by some of the things that thrilled the authors at the Novelists, Inc conference this week. I’ll get to that concern in a minute. But now that the conference is over, let me give you a little taste of my experience of it.

St Petersburg is beautiful! What a great setting for a fall conference. Below is the beach, which I had no time to enjoy, but it was lovely to look at. Everything was lovely, as a matter of fact. Especially the food. It’s going to take me a month to undo the damage I did to my waistline this week, but whatever!

To be a member of NINC, a writer must have at least two novels with an advance-paying publisher, so the conferences are far more about the business of writing than the craft. As you can imagine, in recent years with the economy suffering, the news for writers hasn’t been all that encouraging. But the rapid proliferation of e-readers and e-books is changing the landscape. People are reading–and reading plenty. Nothing could please a writer more and we were all pretty happy campers this week! Yet I know that the majority of my readers still love their books-on-paper, and I wonder if they feel any anxiety or annoyance over the movement toward e-books? What do you think?

What I personally find exciting, as you know from some of my recent posts, is the opportunity authors have to make their backlists (their out of print books) available to their readers by self publishing those books as e-books. This was a huge topic at the conference. There is a lot to learn about self pubbing, and some of us are ahead of the curve on this. (I have Secret Lives available and should have The Escape Artist ready to go in a few weeks). I can’t tell you how bizarre this development is, though, when two years ago (or even a year ago), the words “self-publishing” would make a professional author shudder with disdain.

The conference ended at noon today, so John and I went out to lunch and then visited the Dale Chihuly museum. That’s one of his sculptures in the picture of me above, but the real beauties were inside and we weren’t allowed to photograph them. His glass is extraordinary and I’ve admired it in pictures for a long time, so I was so happy to have the opportunity to finally see some of it in person.

John and I also took one of the paddle boats into the little canals that run through the resort and it was a near death experience. Seriously, we thought we might have to be rescued. It was so incredibly hot, my seat back was broken and we could barely keep the boat moving. I think it’s time for John and me to get our butts back to the gym!

We leave in the morning. John has a bunch of new photographs to play with and I have a head full of information and excitement.

And some weight to lose.
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Published on October 12, 2010 06:14 Tags: conference, diane-chamberlain, inc, novelists