Or is that Dog Days of Summer? Either way it's blazingly hot. We're tucked into our cottage on the lake, with the air conditioners blaring. Who cares if the flowers are blooming, the warm lake breezes blowing, the water's warming and the boats are ready to go. Give me cool, cool, cool, dammit.
It's been a crazy spring, my grandson came and stayed with us a few days before going into Basic training for the Navy. My 7 year old grandson is visiting and he's become a computer nerd, until we mention boat ride and then he comes out of his funk. My 18 mo. grand daughter is visiting and loves the lake, the boats and being outdoors. We all have to run and watch her so she doesn't go near the water.
In between all the visiting and my outside activities (I do a lot of paint classes.) I've been busy with edits on my Ellora Cave book, DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS. Haven't been given a pub date on it yet, but the edits are finished so it can't be long now.
My first Pirate book, VIRGIN PIRATE will be out July 9 and the second one which I just finished writing HER PIRATE LOVER will be out in mid October. As I said I just finished writing HER PIRATE LOVER and fell in love with the characters myself. Each time I write a book, I grow to love my characters but Hawke is a sexy, sexy man, but then so is Trey Carlylse from VIRGIN PIRATE and the women in both books, Nellie and Abella, know just how to handle men. Wish I knew as much as they do. Now I'm ready to start the third book in the PIRATE BOOTY series. I'm already starting to love the characters in this book, which will be American pirates. I think I'll call it, THE PIRATE BRIDE. Charlie is another female pirate who's met her match in Buccaneer Jackson Payne. Jackson spends most of his time trying to save Charlie from herself and the American government who's determined to rid the waters of the infamous Pirate, Red Charlie. When Jackson discovers she's a woman and what a woman, he looks at things a lot differently. I think I'll have fun with this story.
In the meantime rewriting another book, Dark Paradise about a girl named Molly who got bit!!
So that's how I'm spending my hot summer days. How are yours going?
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Tootling Along
Some days are just plain ordinary days that don't bring any special discoveries and no surprises, yet those days are just as precious in our lives and one with all sorts of rewards. Today is such a day, but as I look back over the past few days I think of all the things I've learned.
For instance, we had a wonderful speaker at our monthly writer's meeting who showed us how using astrology and sun signs can help us understand our characters better. I've never been one for following sun signs or horoscopes, but our speaker had us do some workshops using horoscopes and lo and behold I found myself delving deeper into my charater. This is definitely a source I will use again to better understand where my charters are coming from and where they're going.
Then I learned that I must tighten up on some of my writing. I got a wonderful rejection letter that spelled out what my weaknesses and strengths are. Point of view is something I've been rather sloppy about, changing from the hero's pov to the heroine's pov. It's fun to make that transition quickly from one paragraph to the next. You can fully exploit what the characters are feeling especially in a love scene, but though I may enjoy it, a reader might become confused by the changing povs. My new goal is to really pay attention to that. I think my writing might be stronger as a result of it. It's easy to get sloppy, but if you want your writing to become stronger, you have to always be mindful of what you're doing.
So that's my learnin's for now. I expect every day I'll go forward, learning and doing better. After all I've only been writing for 30 years and you can't learn everything in that amount of time.
For instance, we had a wonderful speaker at our monthly writer's meeting who showed us how using astrology and sun signs can help us understand our characters better. I've never been one for following sun signs or horoscopes, but our speaker had us do some workshops using horoscopes and lo and behold I found myself delving deeper into my charater. This is definitely a source I will use again to better understand where my charters are coming from and where they're going.
Then I learned that I must tighten up on some of my writing. I got a wonderful rejection letter that spelled out what my weaknesses and strengths are. Point of view is something I've been rather sloppy about, changing from the hero's pov to the heroine's pov. It's fun to make that transition quickly from one paragraph to the next. You can fully exploit what the characters are feeling especially in a love scene, but though I may enjoy it, a reader might become confused by the changing povs. My new goal is to really pay attention to that. I think my writing might be stronger as a result of it. It's easy to get sloppy, but if you want your writing to become stronger, you have to always be mindful of what you're doing.
So that's my learnin's for now. I expect every day I'll go forward, learning and doing better. After all I've only been writing for 30 years and you can't learn everything in that amount of time.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Zowie, Saturday
The second Saturday of the month is always one I look forward to. We have our regional writer's meeting, we being known as the Grand Rapids Regional Writer's Group. We eat, even desserts or maybe especially desserts, have our meeting and a program or workshop. Today was on p.o.v. in forming characterizations given by one of our published writers. Really well done. We had some hands-on exercises which were a lot of fun. We do a lot of laughing in our meetings. Writing is such a solitary job that when a bunch of writers get together, we go a little over the top.
We're going to a Writer's Retreat in Fremont next week-end, nearly all of our chapter will be there. We'll order in food, drink margaritas and too much wine, eat too much, write a lot, laugh and tell dirty jokes and be really loud and say outrageous things, and get very little sleep. We do this twice a year and it's a nice break away from our normal routines. Some of our members work so hard, turning out several manuscripts a year as well as editing. They are really devoted, dare I say, even driven. They deserve every ounce of success they have.
So this week, I will follow their good example, and work very hard on finishing this third book, maybe even starting another, and plan my week to get my house and yard work done so I can go off with a clear conscience. And Next Saturday? I'll be laughing and writing and sipping and nibbling and talking and laughing and ---having a really good time. Being a full time writer is not bad, not bad at all.
We're going to a Writer's Retreat in Fremont next week-end, nearly all of our chapter will be there. We'll order in food, drink margaritas and too much wine, eat too much, write a lot, laugh and tell dirty jokes and be really loud and say outrageous things, and get very little sleep. We do this twice a year and it's a nice break away from our normal routines. Some of our members work so hard, turning out several manuscripts a year as well as editing. They are really devoted, dare I say, even driven. They deserve every ounce of success they have.
So this week, I will follow their good example, and work very hard on finishing this third book, maybe even starting another, and plan my week to get my house and yard work done so I can go off with a clear conscience. And Next Saturday? I'll be laughing and writing and sipping and nibbling and talking and laughing and ---having a really good time. Being a full time writer is not bad, not bad at all.
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