BLANK PAGES

Oh, the dreaded blank page. You're sitting in front of the computer, fingers poised and your brain goes blank.  Where is inspiration when you need it?

Nora (yes, the famous one) says you can't edit a blank  page. Duh! So, where can I find the key to unlock my creativity?

The story I'm working on is set in late, 1800's Colorado. My town is based on a real place, Lake City. I've mentioned it in the last blog. Small as it is, I'm sure there are hundreds of real life stories that are worth writing about.

My characters have been in the back of my brain demanding their story be told. All well and good, until I begin writing and other characters pop in. Well heck. Now I have to figure out what their part in the story is.

One writer friend sits down and pounds out 20,000 words in a couple of days. Her mind is full of interesting characters and action. It's been months and I'm just about to hit that mark.  I have to sit back and think of who these people are and what is happening to them. How do they get out of horrible situations. How did they get into horrible situations? The agony never ends.

My critique partners are invaluable. They've sat with me and gone over pages of my manuscript and offered ideas and thumped me when I forget to watch out for point of view changes. (I'm terrible at that and never notice.)

Maybe I need to do some on-site research and head to Colorado. Maybe not. I think it's snowing there already. Yeah, more than an inch of snow strikes fear in my heart. Pretty, but I'm used to a few flurries in the winter.

How do you kick start the writing juices?  Pictures? Real historical figures? Situations? Please, I need help!!

It's Not Always the Writer's Fault by Vonnie Davis

Like you, I'm a reader of romance; it is my nighttime guilty pleasure--well, the one I'll talk about in polite society, anyhow. I devour on an average of two books a week on my Kindle. So before I make my purchase on Amazon, I tend to read over the reviews, reading the top three and the lowest three, as far as star rankings go. I learn a lot about the story and the author--and the reviewer too--by reading the reviews. Because each of us brings something different to the reading of a book. Some of us love one type of romance, while many love another. Most of us enjoy the alpha hero, while many also enjoy the gentle, sweet hero. If a book doesn't match the "likes" we bring to the reading experience, we often get vocal in our dislike of the book. Simply put, the book wasn't a good fit...kind of like the last pair of jeans I bought.

But I also look at reviews with the eyes of a writer. I need to keep a finger-pulse on what most readers like and dislike in their romances. Trends keep changing, and not always for the better. But that's the grandma in me talking. Some reviews go on and on about the sex, about how steaming "hawt" it was. And I wonder, what about the romance? Those delightful, sighable moments of falling in love? Ah...did I mention I was a grandma? Some reviewers complained that the characters fell into lust and bed before they knew anything about each other. Other reviewers complained the books were nothing more than one sex scene after the other, the prose and dialogue sprinkled liberally with profane street lingo. Grandma nodded at their wisdom.

I began my publishing career at a small, but well-respected eBook publisher and was treated quite well. But my eyes were always on the Big Six, or the Big Five now that Penguin and Random House merged. I always wondered if I'd be good enough to contract with them. To that end, I studied my craft and worked hard at improving my writing...and boy-oh-boy was there a lot to improve. Ladies, I kid you NOT!!! Lucky for me I had a teaching agent, who took me under her wing and literally beat my writing into submission. Oy!

Last year, I contracted with the eBook imprints of both HarperCollins and Random House. It's been a fast and furious ride. In fact, I now have 2 series contracted with HarperCollins, none of which are written, and Random House wants more bear shifters. I am writing furiously, keeping an eye on my submissions' calendar. I am once again in learning mode.

What am I learning? That the big guys are more vocal in how they want things. My one editor emailed me to think about where I wanted to put my "new" first sex scene in the contracted book, because NO one waited until chapter twenty any more to have the characters do the "wild thang". Well, pardon me! I was trying to create a relationship, give them time to fall in love. Grandma here was giving her readers all those sighable moments. *cough* I confess the first sex scene now takes place in chapter eight.

She also changed the series and book title, but I was too shell-shocked to do much more than grumble about it. Why? Because I'd also been told all my euphemisms for body parts were no longer allowed. I now had to type explicit words on my computer screen. Words that made my eyeballs twitch. So the next time you grumble about the way an author wrote a story. Please remember my plight. I'm telling you, it's not always the writer's fault.

Visit Vonnie's website at www.vonniedavis.com

*** If you'd like to become a member of Vonnie's Street Team--Vonnie's Vixens--please visit http://vonniedavisstreetteam.blogspot.com/

Can We Ever Learn Enough?...

By Anna Jeffrey

 I’ve lost track of all the courses, classes and workshops I’ve taken since I started my writing journey years ago. Besides studying characterization and story structure and any number of other elements of a story, I’ve learned various systems for keeping up with information. I took a class once that taught how to keep copious detail about story people in multiple 3-ring binders. For me, that turned out to be mostly a mess. I was so busy gathering and sorting information I had no time to write the story.

The most profound thing I’ve learned from all of this learning is that I can never learn enough. Consequently, I’m starting a class to learn how to use Scrivener.

Scrivener is writing software that’s supposed to improve the organizing of what you write. Everyone I know who has mastered Scrivener thinks it’s the answer to the organization and flow of information through a story. I bought the program believing I could teach myself. Boy, was I wrong. So now I need a class. The woman teaching the class is the author who wrote “Scrivener for Dummies.” Appropriate, huh?

Organizing storytelling information has been a challenge for me forever. A manuscript of 100,000 words has a lot of information to keep up with. In one story, there might be two-dozen speaking characters, for example, playing only minor roles in the story, but not giving any one of them critical attention would be a mistake.

You can’t have the heroine’s aunt be blue-eyed on page 36 and green-eyed on page 150. I’ve read books that made it to print with this type of flaw. And for some reason, in spite of all the other details a writer might put into a story, despite beautiful prose, a mistake like that one jumps right off the page at a reader. Scrivener is not going to help me keep up with all of those details, but hopefully, if I’m better organized, I’ll be able to find them easier and discover a flaw if there is one.

Over time, I’ve devised all kinds of “systems” and record-keeping methods to help me keep it all straight. Most of them work to a degree, but none of them are great. Lately, I’m using a clumsy system I’ve created in Microsoft Excel. Fingers crossed that Scrivener will be better. If it isn’t, and if I have to go back to Excel, I’m going to be extremely disappointed.

This is particularly important to me right now as I’m writing a romance trilogy that’s a family saga, with a sub-story arc that carries through 3 books.

The organization and flow of information is important to the whole trilogy. The trilogy, THE SONS OF TEXAS, is about three brothers and the family they live within. As anyone who has ever written a trilogy knows, it’s critical that facts in Books #2 and #3 correlate to Book #1. Hopefully, by the time I’ve finished my Scrivener class, I’ll be able to pull that off a little more easily than I’m managing now.

Oh, and by the way.....HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY.

What's A Cover All About

If you've seen my covers, you know I'm a fan of attention-grabbing covers. I like 'em sassy!

2014 has brought about a new adventure for me in the way of cover design. Something out of the blue and clearly unexpected. 

I've had all of my covers professionally shot utilizing a local photographer. Recently, I was asked by a few friends to help them with their covers. 

I'm not a newbie to electronics, so I thought I'd give graphic arts a try. It's like crack people... And I'm addicted. 

Here comes the fun part: What's In a Cover?

Most folks think of what's "on" a cover, but in reality, it's the message in a cover. 

That ain't so easy! As I utter under my Texas drawl. 

I write Contemporary Romance and my mind is plagued by a gazillion options for covers. Right out of the gate I receive an opportunity to do a Sugar Skull themed cover for Blue Remy. I was thrilled... And terrified. 

What goes into a cover relays a message to the masses. It's the first thing that a potential reader sees before they pick-it or click-it. 

No pressure here people... None, naddah, nope. You believe that, right?

I took a deep breath, googled sugar skulls and fell in love. From then on, it was magical. I was creating visually about something I knew nothing about. That's because I was being inspired by what I saw, just like a reader would. 

I've now learned how to do more, not just eBook covers. I'm now designing cover flats and the like while embracing cover art for all genres of writing. 

As I write this, I've just put the finishing touches to my own cover for "My Confession" that will release on Valentine's Day. 

I challenge you to start 2014 off with trying something new and different. You never know when you might fall in love with something really rewarding. 

Wishing you a fabulous fourteen (2014),

DeLaine

  

Romance Rockstars

The romance genre is a tricky one. It’s not quite as easy to categorize as, let’s say sci-fi or paranormal. It comes with an abundance of stigmatisms, assumptions, and clichés. Mentioning just one is the fine line between steam level among mainstream romance vs. erotica. Yes, I went there. The big ‘E’ word. The genre many people don’t like to talk about, and certainly don’t like to admit they read.

It may seem like a far off topic for me since I don’t write erotica. Shoot, I don’t even write steamy romance! But I do read, and I appreciate all storytelling (when done well). I believe in the ‘to each, her own’ literary philosophy.

This is why it astounds me the number of people who won’t admit they read, and actually enjoy, steam. Not only do they hide their own preferences, they are quick to judge anyone who would read such a book. I’ve come across this with not only erotica, but romance in general. The word sends some people running for the hills!



If this is the case, how is it that the romance genre made up 16.7% of the consumer market for the USA in 2012? That’s the largest percentage for any literary genre. Romance sales are estimated to be worth approximately $1.350 billion this year. [i]

*** Big shout out to our favorite romance experts for that little tidbit of information. *** 

Like I mentioned, I don’t write steam (yet). I write about love. I write about relationships, and whatever that might entail. However I choose to display that relationship varies and depends on the characters, the scene, and the way the story will be propelled forward from said scene. It’s not because I’m embarrassed or ashamed to write at a hotter level. I just haven’t reached a point where I find it to be the right option. I salute the amazing authors who do, and do it well. I am proud to say I have quite a few mentors in that area should I decide to take that route.

I suppose to sum up my semi-rant, I’d like to say thank you.

Chances are, if you’re reading a blog called “Smart Girls Read Romance”, you are not a closet reader. We appreciate ALL of our readers, but I’d like to give a special shout out to you and your dedication to reading what you love. You get it. You understand it’s not easy to do what we do. Words do not simply find their way into books while authors sit around with their fingers crossed making a wish, especially when it comes to those love scenes and the storylines that surround them.

Not a single one of us would amount to a hill of beans without you. So I’d like to thank you for reading our work, showing support with reviews and word of mouth, and encouraging us to move forward; to push ourselves to strive for new levels of excellence within our craft. You are very much appreciated and deserve many cupcakes.

[i] http://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=580

Taking The "R"" Out of "Raw" and Giving That "Aw" moment

By DeLaine Roberts

Taking the "R" out of Raw...

Okay, so what does that mean?

My bio reads that I have spent 30 years in medicine. This is true, I have, in several different areas from trauma medicine to interventional cardiac medicine on to breast cancer diagnosis and therapy.

Over the years, I watched happiness and much heartache as families have experienced tragedy and loss. I've had the experience of watching someone I grew up with, have a heart attack at an extremely young age because of their drug use. Imagine their surprise when I walked into their ER room.

One night in the late 1980's, I helped a young man who'd been hit by a car while he was training for his on-road bike race. When the helicopter brought him in, he was severely injured and in a coma. I knew him personally and had watched that young man grow up, babysat him while I was in high school.

Life experiences such as these are very real and very raw. They  don't ever leave, and really, don't even dull in my memory bank.

So, how does one go about removing the "R" out of "Raw" and giving that "AW" moment?

That's the beauty of being a writer. I use my pen to re-focus the events that muddle around in my brain. I decided to take the "R" out raw as best as I could, and turn them in to some sort of happy ending. While many love stories suffer loss and tragic episodes, it's the happily ever after that the reader wants. That's where the magic of the pen, the writer's magic wand, if you will, comes in to play.

"Give the reader the "AW moment."

I've learned a very valuable lesson after releasing my first book in the Running Series, Running To You, by leaving the story with the cliffhanger. Readers want the happily-ever-after, or so they've repeatedly told me. They want the "Aw moment" and I want to give it to them. Now that I've released book 2 of the series, Two Sides of a Heartbeat, the response has been great. The hero/heroine finally get their much anticipated "aw moment."

In my upcoming release of Chasing Air, coming out this fall, I write about an emergency room physician, Dr. Makenzie Holder. You will see how I take my magic wand and turn some of the tragedies that she is exposed to, into a heartwarming story of betrayal, sacrifice and finally, real love.

I hope you'll stay tuned...

DeLaine

One lucky commenter will receive a free download of both Running To You and Two Sides of a Heartbeat.

"The greatest compliment you can give a writer is to tell a friend about their work."

"I never stopped loving you, I just stopped begging for you. There's a difference." DeLaine Roberts, Two Sides of a Heartbeat

Follow me on Twitter: @delaineroberts
www.delaineroberts.com