May is for Multi-tasking by Brenda Whiteside

Hello, my name is Brenda and I'm a multi-tasker. No matter how hard I try, I keep slipping off the wagon. Nothing seems to work to break me of this most annoying addiction. I don't find it annoying, but the people I live with have a few objections.

So I've ruined a few pans by not sticking close to what I'm cooking - that's the price they pay for letting me cook anyway. Boiled chicken becomes browned and sort of crispy. And you'll find blackened salmon on expensive menus. At least I was able to weed the flowers and change the sheets on the bed while dinner was cooking.

Maybe it's not the best idea to write those last few sentences of chapter four while the sink fills with water. But the floor needed mopping anyway.

Speaking of water, the flower bed just won't need to be watered for maybe a week or two, but how can I remember to get back to moving the hose when my dog is demanding breakfast and I'm making out the shopping list while waiting for my toast to pop up while my coffee is brewing?

And no I can't just talk on the phone. With the phone tucked between my chin and ear, my hands are free to make the bed or check my email. This only causes problems when my chin hits the disconnect or the person on the other end of the line says "are you listening to me?"



A little something about Brenda:

Although I didn’t start out to write romance, I’ve found all good stories have to involve complicated human relationships. I’ve also learned, no matter a person’s age, a new discovery is right around every corner. Whether humorous or serious, straight contemporary or mystery, all my books revolve around those two facts.

Visit Brenda at www.brendawhiteside.com.

Or on FaceBook: www.facebook.com/BrendaWhitesideAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/brendawhitesid2

She blogs on the 9^th and 24^th of every month at http://rosesofprose.blogspot.com

She blogs about prairie life and writing at http://brendawhiteside.blogspot.com/

My Motivation To Write by Margo Hoornstra

Ask any writer why they write and you’ll get a variation of; Because I can’t not write. My reason for writing is much the same and I also write romance because of the happily ever after.

Everyone has a list of life’s challenges, experiences and adversities they’ve faced and, hopefully, overcome. In addition to being slightly older for The Last Rose of Summer line of The Wild Rose Press, the characters in my stories are no different. Not only do they tend to have been around the block a time or two, they are definitely mature and, in some cases, entering the second phase of successful careers and moderately happy lives. They’re everyday people slowing down, pausing to smell the roses, if you will. Who understand, at long last, what’s important in life. Many have been dealt challenges and granted second chances.

In many of my short stories, the heroines especially face, and manage to triumph over, their own adversities. In Forgotten Alliance, Sarah Novak was forced to come to terms with her husband’s infidelity. Greg Novak's journey is to admit to this failure and do whatever it takes to save his marriage.

My first full length book, Honorable Intentions, has single father Chase Canfield trying to rebuild a life for himself and his teenaged daughter. The heroine, Samantha Wells is a retired police officer embarking on the second phase of her law enforcement career.




The three Class of '85 high school reunion books I did, Glad Tidings and To Be Or Not are true second chance reunion stories. Next Tuesday at Two has a going home again theme with a twist. 

My current work in progress, Circumstances Beyond Her Control, has hero Brad Collins, a bounty hunter about to embark on a quest that will affect his life like none other. In this case, he thinks he knows it all and has no idea what’s in store for him. (I'll be totally honest here, neither do I. Yet!)

As is a sign of today’s times, many of my characters end up forming non-traditional families. And, it almost goes without saying the heroines are strong, intelligent and self-sufficient. The heroes are individuals who can eventually acknowledge they may not be perfect or have all the answers.

While, in my opinion, there’s a special beauty in the happily ever after guarantee of romance fiction, also in my opinion, there’s another bonus, the payoff, if you will as we all experience the ups and downs in real life.

In a romance, the hero and heroine find love and acceptance on their own terms and to fit their own lifestyles. Something readers can identify with, maybe even find inspiration in.

They can do it. I can do it. We’re all going to be okay. Which in large part, is motivation in itself.

Links to my books and stories, some for free, can be found on my Blog

A poem about love by Barbara Edwards

                        Bricks

You said you needed time to sort your feelings out

To understand and decide what love is all about

Stupidly I nodded when you asked me to wait

No matter your decision, it came too late

Love’s glowing scorched my heart...

            Love’s burning teared my eye

To stop the heat that sears my soul

            I’ve built a wall heart high

So my eyes could clear

            I made it thick and wide

Behind cold stone I put myself

            Pressed close enough to hide.

Chin up, feet braced, I have no strength

            To reach

Across that wall another will never breach

Behind my wall I am alone

            In cold unhappy night

And this will be my final poem

            There’s nothing left to write

Barbara Edwards

Visit my website www.barbaraedwards.net

A Memorable Opportunity to Support a Good Cause

Laura Breck

A group of authors from the Midwest Fiction Writers’ fundraising anthology, Love in the Land of Lakes, will be signing books and chatting with whomever stops by Thursday evening, May 23.

We’ll be appearing at SubText Bookstore, 165 Western Avenue North, Saint Paul, MN 55102 at 7 PM. I’ll be there with a big stack of the anthology paperbacks, and I’d love to meet readers and writers and talk about how the anthology was created.

All profits from the anthology go toward providing learning opportunities for writers in every stage of their career.

 

Hope to see you there!
Laura
~Smart Women ~Sexy Men ~Seductive Romance
LauraBreck.com
~Dancing in a Hurricane is available in digital formats at Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble and in paperback at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Createspace
~Love in the Land of Lakes is available in digital format at Smashwords, All Romance Ebooks, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, and in paperback at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Createspace

Motivation - The M in GMC by Jannine Gallant

There's a lot of talk about GMC - Goals, Motivation & Conflict - in writing circles. Editors tell us we can't have a story without it. Authors agonize over it, using the following formula: Your POV character wants (goal), because (motivation), but (conflict) keeps him/her from attaining that goal. I'll admit, about the third or fourth time I saw this posted, I wrote it on the inside cover of my catch-all notebook, feeling more than a little nervous for having ignored GMC up to that point. Now, even though it's there, staring me in the face, I still tend to ignore it when jumping on a new project. Occasionally, when I'm in the mood to torture myself, I'll contemplate one of my completed novels and try to fill in those blanks. Sometimes it works. Other times, not so much.

Does this mean my books are weak? Probably not, since I'm not overly filled with self-doubt. I think it means I fill in the blanks on a sub-conscious level as I write. Goal is never an issue for me. My books tend to have lots of action with a plot that moves right along. A common goal in all romance novels is to find love, but most of my characters also have the goal of survival. I write suspense, so there's usually a bad guy hindering their chances of making it to the end with their skin intact. So, there you have it, my surface level conflict - outwit the villain. The internal conflict generally goes along with the finding love goal. What makes our characters tick that keeps them from skipping merrily down a smooth path toward happiness? That's where the M comes in.

Motivation. I rarely think about this. Which is why I was plenty shocked yesterday to find myself worrying about the motivation of my heroine in my current WIP. Grace was the sister of my heroine in my very first published book, Victim Of Desire. I gave no thought to a sequel when I wrote it way back when. And now I'm stuck with the traits and history I gave Grace. She's single, beautiful, sarcastic, motivated to succeed, and not afraid of much of anything. I can work with all that. BUT, she had the reputation for going through men faster than takeout pizza. Yikes, not the best quality in a heroine. So, for the first time ever, I started thinking about why she would act this way. What was her motivation for her love 'em then run for cover attitude? My CP suggested an early marriage that ended in tragedy, so she's afraid to love again. Good, but no go. She'd never been married in the first book, so I can't toss in a husband now. So after a couple of unsuccessful ideas, I finally came up with one I liked. My CP likes it, too! Now I have my motivation for Grace's behavior - but you'll all have to read the book to find out what it is. LOL

So, is it easier to sit down and plot out your GMC right from the beginning? Or are you like me, letting it develop as you delve deeper into the story and learn more and more about your characters? Motivation often comes from something that happened in our pasts, but we have to slip it into our writing gradually, keeping a bit of mystery surrounding it. No info dumps! But that's a post for another day...

Find blurbs and links for all my books on my website.

Memory, Memorial, Miracle by Jena Galifany

May is a month of many happenings in my family. There are several birthdays: both of my sisters, one niece, a great-nephew, and my late Puppy Dog.

May is also a month of tragedy. Both grandfathers passed away in May, before I was two years old. I don't remember either of them. I experienced my first panic attack in May twenty years ago and continue to deal with them.

Worst of all, my oldest daughter was made a widow at the age of twenty-one seven years ago. TJ was taken from her in a car accident. He was a passenger. His seat belt failed to keep him from hitting his forehead on the dash. He lingered for two days before Amanda had to make the decision to let him go. There was no brain activity for two days before she had to make that horrible decision.

I'd like to share a few memories of my son-in-law, if I may.

TJ was a character. He was Phillipino/Chinese and had some odd ideas about how the world should work. For example: he thought it was alright to "taste-test" fruit in the grocery store. We used to laugh about him selecting an apple in Albertson's while Amanda and I were shopping with him for the first time. He polished it on his shirt and chomped into it. Amanda starred at him in disbelief, not sure what to say.

"TJ," I said, "you can't do that."

"Why not?" was his reply. "I have to make sure they're good."

That brought him a roll of the eyes from his wife and myself. I chose another apple and put it in the shopping cart so I could pay for it at checkout. I had some trouble explaining to the checker that I only wanted to pay for it, but not take it with me. He couldn't understand that I was paying for the one my new son-in-law had eaten.

~~~~~~~~~~~

TJ had never had a birthday party. An only child, he was raised by his father. His mother lived in a different state. Neither had given him a birthday party. I was privileged to provide him with one on his twentieth. It was small, only family and a couple of his friends. But he was thrilled.

~~~~~~~~~~~

TJ was Phillipino, as I mentioned before. Their culture has a lot of fish in their diet. Amanda is half-Italian, from her father. Amanda does not like fish. Shortly after their wedding, they went to her father-in-law's home for dinner. Lying on newspapers on the dining-room table was a large fish, approximately two feet long, head still intact. Amanda smirked. The conversation when something like this:

Amanda: "What is that?" (Horrified look.)

TJ: "That's dinner." (Wide grin.)

Amanda: "EEWWW!" (Wrinkled nose.)

TJ: (Brows drawn down.) "In my family, that is a blessing."

Amanda: (Brows raised.) "In my family, that means someone is gonna DIE!" (Think Luca Bratsi in "The Godfather".)

~~~~~~~~~~~

TJ's second Christmas and Halle's first.

TJ had never celebrated Christmas. His family just didn't celebrate holidays. I had the privilege of giving him his first Christmas. Amanda was pregnant with Halle. I had the joy of making it a Christmas none of us would forget.

For once, I had the money to do it right. Everyone got everything on their Wish List. We had breakfast together, all the kids in their pajamas. We opened gifts and enjoyed being together. Beside fulfilling their wish lists, I got each of them (my son, both daughters and TJ) a bucket of Legos, a Barrel of Monkeys, Video Games, candy and fruit (a family tradition). We even had the train around the Christmas Tree. That evening, we partook of a prime rib dinner together. The whole day was perfect.


~~~~~~~~~

TJ was a gamer, a snow-boarder, and an all around good guy. He left us too soon but he left a blessing in the form of Halle. She is now nine years old. She doesn't remember her father but she knows who he was by pictures and stories she's been told about him. He was a great guy and we all miss him.

May always begins on a bad note with the memory of his loss. We are happy that he was saved and baptized. Amanda finds comfort knowing TJ is in heaven waiting for her. They faced some challenges in their young marriage, but I feel they had a love that will last forever.


~~~~~~~~~~~~
The memories of TJ are sweet. The memorial: I visit his grave occasionally and I always take him an apple. The miracle is that, even though she didn't know him, Halle is just like him in so many ways. She is truly her father's daughter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for letting me share.
Cheers!
Jena'
http://jenagalifany.bravehost.com

Eight Marvelous Self-Editing Tips by Alison Henderson

I know it's "M" month, but I'm deep in revisions right now and have editing on the brain, so I thought I'd share my top eight tips. (This is actually a list of my personal writing bugaboos, but you may be able to relate.)

We all know publishers have limited resources to devote to editing these days.  Many editors are overburdened and underappreciated.  They lack the time to spend with individual authors tightening scenes and strengthening story arcs.  And copy editing is becoming a lost art.  I don’t believe I’ve read a book by a top author in the past year that didn’t contain at least three glaring copy edit errors.  Now, more than ever, writers are responsible for the product that ultimately reaches the reader.

I had a wonderful experience with my first book, Harvest of Dreams.  My editor was gentle and patient, guiding me through three rounds of edits until we had a satisfying final version.  I soon realized an objective editor is worth her weight in gold.  I thought I knew how to write, but during the editing process she taught me to recognize and remove redundancies, energize passive writing, and beat down my proclivity to stuff sentences with adverbs. She did such a good job that my third book, The Treasure of Como Bluff, needed only a few minor tweaks.

Unfortunately, we can’t always rely on someone else to point out the flaws in our work and suggest corrections.  If we want to get published and stay published, we have to nourish our inner self-editor.

I’m not talking about the little voice of self-doubt that criticizes every word choice and threatens to strangle your muse during the first or second draft.  I’m talking about a critic who can review the almost-final product and see mistakes with detached clarity. 

Every writer should develop a self-editing checklist based on his or her weaknesses.  The process requires self-knowledge, but isn’t that one of the ultimate goals and rewards of writing?

Here’s a short version of mine.  Perhaps some of these will strike a chord with you, too.

1.     Watch those #%$&* adverbs!

2.     Remove unnecessary “that”s.

3.     Watch for word echoes (words repeated too close together).

4.     Keep verbs active (within reason).  I once had to give up on a mystery after three chapters because the author had amped up every single verb.  The result was unnatural and exhausting.

5.     Show, don’t tell.

6.     Balance dialogue tags and beats.  Too few and the reader won’t know who’s talking.  Too many and you interrupt the flow.

7.     Use repetitive words or elements with caution.

8.     Maintain consistent point of view.  This is partly a matter of style, but I prefer deep third person POV and try to catch myself if I start drifting father away.

There are many more pitfalls in writing, so find your own, and happy editing!

Alison

www.alisonhenderson.com

http://alisonhenderson.blogspot.com