Did You Catch the Name? by Leah St. James

You know how you hear about a good new book or movie you’d like to check out but you can’t quite remember the name? For me, something like this will run through my head: “I’m looking for the new book by the author who wrote that other book that was about a man and woman...”

You get the picture.

I’m terrible with names, whether I’m trying to remember the names of new acquaintances, or books or movies, or naming my own books. (For some reason, I don’t have a similar problem naming characters, just the books themselves.)

I was thinking about my naming-challenged situation a few months back while reading the list of best-sellers in the Sunday paper, wondering how they all came up with the names.

I’ve never published a nonfiction book, but it seems fairly easy.  You have a specific expertise or point of view you want to share, then you stick on a colon and a bunch of explanatory words after. Here is the list that printed in my paper this past Sunday. Take a look at No. 1:

“Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant To Be” by Rachel Hollis. Okay, so I presume that first phrase has a special meaning to the author, maybe an expression she heard over and over growing up. The rest, after the colon, is all self-explanatory. Easy, right?

Why can’t naming fiction be like that?

Why can’t we title a book something like “Raven: A story about a woman with black hair and how she meets the man of her dreams”?  (Yes, I just came up with that. Catchy, huh? :-) I kind of like the Raven bit though....)

Fiction authors aren’t that lucky. We have to come up with a catchy title that somehow, in some way, conveys what the story is about, without giving too much away. And we have to be somewhat unique. With literally MILLIONS of fiction titles currently published, that’s not always easy.

To me, Margret Mitchell’s classic “Gone With the Wind” is a perfect title, one that – if memory serves me correctly – borrows from a phrase in the book itself.  None of my titles have come that easy, but then I am not a world-famous best-selling author!

Seeking guidance, I took a look at the current list of fiction best-sellers and discovered  something interesting. It seems the trend is to tack a colon after the title, followed by “A Novel.” 

I’ve seen that before, and not just recently, but it seems more and more book titles are following that naming model. Five of this week’s top ten sellers have done it.  Another two have “novel” stuck in the series title, like “Feared: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel.”

The latter I understand perfectly. You want readers to know the book is part of a specific series. But I don’t understand why you would add “A Novel” to a book title that everyone pretty much knows is a novel.  Do we really need “A Novel” added to Stephen King’s “The Outsider” to know it’s a novel?

 Is it a way to assist with searching? So if I can’t remember the book title (which is probable for me), I pop “A Novel” in the search field and I’ll narrow the field down by 50 percent? (That’s presuming I remember there’s “A Novel” in the title.)

I tested that theory by searching for “A Novel” in Amazon’s book section, but it pulled up every book with the word in the title or description. So that can’t be it.

Next I theorized it’s a device meant to indicate a certain type of novel, a certain intellectual level, maybe literary versus genre fiction. But then I saw the King novel. Stephen King is a brilliant novelist on so many levels, but he doesn’t write literary fiction.

Do those simple words add a mystique? Would “Gone With the Wind: A Novel” have sold more copies? Doubtful.

Whatever the reason, it annoys me. It feels pretentious, like the author is saying, “Hey, look at me. I wrote A NOVEL!” But then I remember the publisher usually rules the title, so the publisher is saying, “Hey, look! He/she wrote A NOVEL!”

None of these thoughts seem to make sense, so I figured I’d toss my question out to this group.

Any idea why so many current book titles seem to include “A Novel”?

Does this annoy anyone else, or is it just me?

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When not frittering away her writing time obsessing over things like book titles, Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil and the power of love. Learn more about her books (not necessarily the titles) at leahstjames.com, or visit her on Facebook or Pinterest where she occasionally posts about life, writing and her favorite things.

Being a Thoughtful Writer by Leah St. James #amwriting

About eight years ago I attended the annual conference for New Jersey Romance Writers. Since the conference takes place across the water from Manhattan, it usually draws some big names in romance fiction, and I hit the jackpot that year.

I sat next to Brenda Novak at lunch where we shared concerns over having sons with Type 1 diabetes. I attended a round-table discussion for published authors facilitated by Suzanne Brockman where she talked about how she was handling the emergence of self-publishing. And I attended a workshop led by Eloisa James. (Talk about writing “fan girl” heaven.) I don’t know what happened to the copious notes I took from these and other sessions, but one thing Eloisa James said stuck in my head all these years.

Someone asked her about her writing routine—what a typical writing day looks like. She didn’t answer right away but finally said (paraphrasing) that she spends a lot of her writing time thinking. She got a laugh from the audience, but it made sense.

Creating fiction, or any piece of writing, takes time in thought before you can start actually writing. Then as you’re putting your story to words, you sometimes have to stop and adjust, maybe consider a different angle or research a point.

Writing takes a lot of thought, and that requires time.

I was reminded of that this week, Friday night actually, when I staggered home after a 12-hour day at the “paycheck job,” exhausted, discouraged and ready for more than bed. I was ready, in that moment, to sit down and tell  TPM (The Plot Master a/k/a hubby a/k/a my critique partner) that I was taking a break from writing until the day I could (hahahaha) leave full-time employment and maybe get a part-time job.

I didn’t say anything to him (other than “goodnight”!), and he got up first in the morning (meaning fed the cat and locked him out of the bedroom). Luckily I woke feeling a bit less fatalistic. Then we went to breakfast at our favorite diner-type breakfast spot, and the conversation turned to the plot of my current WIP. (You might recall that’s the one he ripped to shreds about a year ago, the one I’ve been struggling to get back on track.)

I told him about some changes I’ve made in his ideas, and we talked them out. We looked at different angles to the story, and I explained why I decided to make the changes. I had so much fun! When we left, I was re-energized and ready to tackle the project again.

I know I’ll get discouraged again. I’m sure I’ll have many more long days at work when I come home too tired to do more than fall into bed, days when I think about chucking it all. But I hope I can remember those words from Eloisa James. I hope I can slow down for a few minutes and think about why I started writing--to tell a story. I hope I can remember again how she inspired me. It might take me another five years to finish this blasted book, but as long as I keep at it, a little every day, someday I’ll get there.

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Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil and the power of love—or at least she writes them in her head. Eventually they make it onto a book form. To learn more, go to LeahStJames.com.
 

When the #amwriting voices aren’t just in your head ~ by Leah St. James

Piggy-backing off Jannine’s post the other day about how BURIED TRUTH came about, I thought I’d share something that happened to me a few years ago at my day job. It hasn’t made its way into a published book yet, but it’s definitely in the works.

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I work for a local news organization. We publish the daily newspaper for our area. It’s not uncommon for visitors to stop into our lobby to get help with their accounts or to share “news.” (Once a woman stopped by to tell us she saw a cloud formation in the shape of Jesus. Another time a woman brought by an oddly shaped sweet potato.)  But sometimes the messages visitors bring really make me think. Like this instance...

Receptionist on the phone: "Leah? There's a ... gentleman in the lobby. He wants to speak with someone in the newsroom about a...uh...a story he wants published."

Me (sighing, not too subtly):  "Really? I'm so busy. Can you take his name and number? Or tell him to leave a copy?"

Receptionist:  "He won't leave until he speaks to someone personally." (Big pause while I tried to figure out a way to squirm out of the request.) Then she whispered, "He said God told him to come."

Me: "God? As in, you know, the guy upstairs...in heaven, I mean?"

Receptionist: "Yes. God. THE God."

Me:  "I'll be down in a minute."

I'm not sure why I gave in so easily, relatively speaking, but I went downstairs and introduced myself to the man. He was maybe in his mid-60s and called himself "Golden Boy." He proceeded to tell me he'd done terrible things in his life. Because of his choices, he'd lost his wife and his children. (Thankfully he clarified that they were estranged, not dead.) He'd been to jail and served time for serious crimes.   

While he spoke, his eyes remained on mine, steadily, without a blink. 

In his hand he held a laminated sheet of pinkish-purple notepaper. At the top of the sheet he'd written, "God said," followed by a series of sentence fragments, prophecies of the end of the world by means of cataclysmic natural events, exhorting the reader to publish. He handed it to me and watched while I read it.

My insides churned.  I looked up from the page. "I don't understand. Why did you bring this here?"   
   
Man: "The word needs to get out."

Me:  "I'm sorry, sir. We can't publish this."

Man: "I didn't say I wanted it published in the paper. I said I wanted the word to get out. I don't care what you do with it. God told me to bring it here. I'm looking in your eyes. I can see you understand. You do with it what you will."

With that, he turned to leave, looking back as he shouldered the door open. "God put it in your hands now. You're the one."

Even now as I think of that moment, shivers skitter up my spine.

When I told the editor about it, she asked me why I hadn't called security. I said, "He seemed harmless enough. It's not like he was going to kill me with paper cuts."

"Leah," she said with a kind of tone she typically reserves for a misbehaving puppy, "if someone comes in the lobby and says God sent him and that you're the one, call security."

I know she's right. And I know I'm terribly gullible at times. But the writer in me loves those encounters, the ones that wrap themselves around our imaginations and form the roots of our stories. The encounters with strangers that make us ask, “What if?”

What if God had sent him?

What if it was God's nudging that made me go down that day?

What if there is some message in there we were  supposed to impart to the world? (See my imagination running amok here!?)

I haven’t heard from him since, but judging by the natural disasters that have taken place in the years since, he might have been on to something.

Just thinking about it now, my brain is going in a dozen different directions that make me want to start writing, start shaping those thoughts into a story...enough so I’m tempted to put aside my long-suffering WIP to get started! Maybe I’ll use it as incentive instead: Leah, you can work on the “You’re the One” story ONLY WHEN you finish your current WIP.” Who knows, it might work!

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Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil, and the power of love. She blogs here on the 6th and 22nd of each month.  Learn more about her writing at leahstjames.com or visit her on Facebook.

Happy reading!

Beginning the beginning...again by Leah St. James #amwriting

Several months ago I wrote about ripping up the plot of my current WIP and essentially starting over.

What was my old prologue is out, and a brand-new prologue is in. My original Chapter One was moved to later in the story, and what was Original Chapter Three is now New Chapter One.

(Did you all follow that? I’m not sure I did!)

To recap, I now have a New Chapter One—a new beginning. And we all know how important beginnings are. Yes, I have a prologue, but Chapter One is still so important. When I read a book with a prologue, I look at the first chapter as the start of the real story. To me, it still has to grab the reader right from the start, or else that reader could very well toss the book and go to the next book that he or she likely picked up for free or cheap somewhere! (Sorry, got a little off topic there.) I need, and want, something that good. (And I really loved the beginning of Original Chapter One, too....sigh.)

But we soldier on.

 

This book is a sequel to my debut novel (Surrender to Sanctuary), and New Chapter One opens with one of the main secondary characters from that book. In fact, that same character opened the first book (in the prologue), so in a rare moment of inspiration, I decided it would be clever to parrot that opening.

Here’s the original opening from Surrender to Sanctuary:

Maxwell Davies was lost.

He squinted toward the countryside behind him, down the tattered two-lane roadway he’d just traveled, empty but for the smattering of cows and sheep grazing on the hillsides and an occasional farmer’s cottage. Ahead lay the intersection of a triplet of lanes bordered by a series of hedgerows and flowering bushes that threatened to overrun the dirt-packed lanes.

Should be easy to come up with a complementary opening, right? Not so much. I hated everything I came up with. Like these...

Maxwell Davies was troubled.

UGH. Lame! Weak! Wimpy!

Maxwell Davies was desperate.

No way, totally out of character.

Maxwell Davies was enraged.

No!!! Makes him sound like a lunatic...and it's way too early in the book for that!

So here’s what I’ve come up with so far for my New Chapter One beginning. I’d love your opinion. Would you want to read more? (Remember: This is a first draft. Please be gentle!) :-)

Danger.

Maxwell Davies sensed its presence as he stood at the big picture window in his office overlooking the back lawns at Sanctuary, Virginia, a tumbler of Maker’s Mark in one hand and a lit cigar in the other. Members in tuxes and their mates in glittering gowns gathered in groups of four or six, talking, laughing, drinking, enjoying life. Others danced, their arms twined tightly around one another, on a temporary dance floor where a six-piece ensemble pumped out a steady playlist of top hits from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

The community was in party mode, and he was late, lost in thought over the troubled waters they’d just navigated, and the murky waters that still lay ahead. Maxwell didn’t know the source, or the timing, only that every instinct screamed warning-warning-warning like a clanging bell in the back of his head. (In my head I’m hearing "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!" ... Might want to change this line.)

Dusk had fallen, layering the sky with streaks of oranges, pinks and blues, casting sultry shadows over the celebrants. Ahead, multicolored lights twinkled in the trees lining the mighty James River, like hundreds of rainbow fireflies lighting the evening sky. Flowers in a dozen shades lined the pathways traversing the property from the river all the way to the gated entrance.

My creation, he thought as he took a puff of the cigar and savored its rich tobacco flavor. Mine to protect. Mine to defend.

 So that's what I've got. Thoughts? 

Am I worrying too much?  Does the first line of the first chapter have the same impact on a reader when there is a prologue? 

Or maybe I just need to finish the book before spending too much time on this. I mean, who knows what might happen to Max between now and then!

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Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil and the power of love. She blogs here on the 6th and 22nd of each month. Learn more at leahstjames.com.
 

A New Series by Christine DePetrillo

Wolf Kiss, Book One in my new series, The Warrior Wolves Series, will be releasing on August 17th. This is the first time I have written all the books in the series before publishing any of them. This afforded me some unique revision opportunities. I completed each book and went through my normal routines before moving on to writing the next one, but then I sat down and read the entire 5-book set in a week.

In doing this I was able to:

• comb through and fix any inconsistencies, 
• make sure the passage of time worked out correctly, both within books and between books, 
• keep each story focused around the series theme while maintaining its own uniqueness, 
• keep the action moving from book to book
• check that all the paranormal "stuff" I made up made sense,
• see the arc of the entire series from Book One to Book Five
• change anything that wasn't working and make sure it got changed everywhere it needed to,
• think deeply about cover design and how to make it consistent so readers know it's a series,
• get excited about how everything tightened up nicely!

I read Jennifer Probst's writing book, Write Naked, right before finishing this series and used many of her tips to help me sharpen up the series too. I highly suggest this text. It's an easy read and full of goodies to get you thinking about your writing and career as an author. 

While this series is paranormal due to the inclusion of some supernatural characters and events, I think I still maintained an air of contemporary romance with the setting of good old Vermont. As I've maintained since the publication of my first series, The Maple Leaf Series, "love grows in the woods." I'm convinced that love does best when surrounded by a heavy dose of nature, maple trees in particular. 

The Warrior Wolves Series follows five Celtic warriors who have been banished from Ireland by Flidae, the goddes of wild things when they use their "gifts" to kill. They all end up in present-day U.S.A. While they don't all start out in Vermont, the Green Mountain State becomes their gathering ground when they find each other... and their one true loves. 

These books are about finding your pack and making a home. 

   

Here's the cover, which I LOVE. Many thanks to Dar Albert of Wicked Smart Designs. She always gets it exactly right.

And here's the blurb:

Warrior Reardon McAlator kills anyone’s enemies for the right price. Victory comes easy to him and his fierce army… until one day, they meet their match. Faced with the possibility of destroying their legendary winning streak, Reardon takes action. He makes his men more like him and angers the wrong Celtic goddess. Banished from her protection, he wakes up alone in a different place, in a different time, and in a world of pain. He must do something worthy to get home to Ireland, but maybe getting home isn’t where he thought it was.

Wildlife biologist Dr. Brandy Wendon cares for wolves—and her sister’s son, Dylan—at Silver Moon Wolf Sanctuary in the woods of Vermont. She loves everything about her work, including secretly researching clinical lycanthropy just for the fun of it. It’s what nerds do. Brandy stays busy, but in the lonely hours of the night, she can’t deny something is missing. If only she could find that soul mate people are always mentioning. As if one perfect match for her really exists.
 
When a pained howl echoes from the dark forest beyond the sanctuary fence, Brandy meets a wolf unlike any to cross her path. Why does she grow instantly connected to him? Why does he become so important to her? 
 
She’ll only get answers if she accepts a wolf kiss.

Check my website for preorder information and prepare to howl along with my warrior wolves!

Toodles, 

Chris

The Maple Leaf Series, Books One to Six, available now, Book One is always FREE!

The Shielded Series, Books One to Three, available now, Book One is always FREE!

Wolf Kiss, Book One in The Warrior Wolves Series, coming August 17th!

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com 

My Writing Desert - Part 2 ~ By Leah St. James

Back in April I wrote about my writing desert (that it’s been about a year and a half since I’ve put some serious time into writing), and how I joined the Insecure Writers Support Group book club on Goodreads in the hopes it would help shake me out of it.

The first book chosen was “Chapter by Chapter: Discover the Dedication and Focus You Need to Write the Book of Your Dreams” by Heather Sellers. When I wrote my earlier blog, I said I was taking it as a message from the heavens that it was time to get serious. And I did!

When the package arrived, I ripped into it as if it were a new carton of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream (yum!). It’s a gem of a book, a small hard-cover volume with a whimsical illustration on the cover of a woman aiming a bow and arrow into a night sky. Shooting for the stars–how appropriate! The inside design only stoked my appreciation–eye-catching graphics on a rich, cream-colored background, printed on luxuriously heavy paper.

I held the book for a moment, feeling its weight, and stroked my fingers over the satiny paper. Hope surged. Surely something this lovingly conceived would hold magic within its covers.

I settled into the corner of my couch with a big mug of my favorite tea at hand and turned the first page, certain I’d stumbled onto a treasure.

Sellers, an English professor at Hope College in Michigan at the time of this printing, is an elegant writer, the kind whose prose sounds effortless to the reader, although we know it probably wasn’t. But despite the grace in her syntax, her messages pack a punch.

Right from the beginning, Sellers showers tough love on her fellow writers, delivered in a series of stories derived from her classes and seminars intended to illustrate what to do, or what not to do, to fulfill your writing dream. A lot of the content talks to the mind set needed to devote yourself to this task. It makes you ask yourself: Do you really want to write a book? Are you sure? Why?

Okay...makes sense. Knowing why you want to write will help you with your ultimate goals, whether it’s to see your book on Amazon, or on the racks in your neighborhood Walmart.

But the lessons started to lose me in the second chapter, entitled “Limits.” The first sentence reads: 

“The number one reason books don’t get finished is this: Writers say yes to other things.”

Well....yeah....I suppose that’s true. At least for myself. I have been spending what little free time I have doing a lot of non-writing things...like taking online marketing classes, and creating hopefully cute/funny/thoughtful/meaningful memes for my Facebook page, and rehearsing for the Christmas and Easter cantatas at church, and getting ready for my son’s wedding, and watching TV with my hubby in the evenings. (I have to have a life...don't I?)

I turned back to my lesson, where Sellers went on: 

“Successful book authors are very rarely also: historical society presidents, garden club secretaries, book group members (O, the irony!)...” 

She continued with a lengthy list and concluded that successful authors don’t have the time, in essence, to have a life outside of writing the book. 

“Writing a book is exactly like love. You don’t hold back. You give it everything you have. ... You don’t hold some of yourself in reserve. It’s all or nothing.”

According to Sellers, to be successful at completing your project, you must make the book the main (only?) focus of your life for the duration of time it takes to finish it– a year, more if needed.

Okay, okay, I got the point. And what that meant to me is that, by those standards, I’ll never be “successful” because I can’t muster that intense level of focus, not and work a stressful, full-time job, and have a life...at least not right now.

Still, rather than throw the gorgeous book against the wall, I checked into the Goodreads discussion group. The moderator had arranged for us to send Sellers questions in advance, and she had responded. This exchange mollified me, a bit:

“Q. What was the most meaningful thing for you that you learned from writing Chapter After Chapter?

“A. In writing the book, I wanted to have a meaningful anecdote in each chapter. As I collected stories about teaching writing, I realized how much I learn from my students every day. ...

“When I look back at the book, I’m also humbled. It is so easy to tell other people to make sacrifices and spend more time writing and less time with other endeavors.

“Now that I’m older, I am much more aware of how it’s really very difficult to make choices about where to put one’s energy. I’m less likely now to make it sound fun or easy. In fact, often it just isn’t possible in a life to spend a lot of time writing—there are just too many other responsibilities or life stresses....”   

I like that. Writers are people, not robots.

So I decided to keep reading. I’m now halfway through the book and am enjoying the stories. But better than that, I’m starting to feel motivated. I’m starting to feel like a writer again. For me, that’s a big step forward.

And even if my books never make it to those shelves in Walmart, if I can entertain or touch a few readers, and if I can get back to enjoying the creative process, I’ll count myself successful.

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Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil, and the power of love. Learn more at her website, or stop by her Facebook page (she loves visitors!) where she occasionally posts cute/funny/thoughtful/meaningful memes.
   


   

Fall into Danger!

I live a pretty safe life. My neighborhood is located in Suburbia, USA where getting my mail at 4:30 instead of 4:00 is the biggest danger I face. Police sirens are rarely heard, criminals don’t run rampant in the streets, and my super huge German Shepherd has only tiny squirrels to scare away. I can walk said German Shepherd at midnight if I want to and not worry that I’ll be abducted or something equally as heinous.

I work in a safe town in a safe school, surrounded by safe colleagues and safe students.  

Bottom line? My life is basically populated with fuzzy pink bunnies. For the most part I like it that way. I do.

But…

I am a writer, you know. Sometimes I fantasize about danger. It’s kind of my job to do so as a fiction author. I imagine scenarios that are jam-packed with suspense, action, life-and-death decisions, and of course gorgeous men that are at the center of it all. That last part is my favorite. I’ll admit it.

I can be engaged in a mundane task like weeding my yard for example. A truck will drive by and even though I know exactly which neighbor is in that truck and that it drives by at precisely that time every single weekday, I’ll pretend the driver is a 6’4” ex-Marine dressed in all black. He’s wearing dark sunglasses, a scant beard circles his full lips, and he’s got a gun on the passenger seat. A gun he plans to use. He peels around the corner in front of my house, screeches to a stop, and jumps out of his truck. In three long strides, he is standing beside me, the tips of his black boots touching my pile of yanked dandelions.

“Let’s go,” he says.

I look up with a you-talking-to-me expression on my face… and streaks of sweat and dirt no doubt from my toiling in the yard.

“There isn’t much time. They’ll be here any minute. I’m your only chance.” He extends a big, sturdy-looking hand to me.

I gape at it, mesmerized by the size of his fingers and the calluses on his palm. Man hands. Oh, boy, do I love some man hands.

Sliding my soil-covered hand into his, I let him pull me to my feet. I’m wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, but somehow I’m pulling off a cute, girl-next-door look and not the sloppy gardener look I’m usually sporting.

He whisks me into his truck, hops into the driver’s seat, and we’re off.

Away from danger.

Or perhaps into it.

Either way, I’ll be on an adventure—if only in my mind—until my weeding task is done. Then I’ll most likely be attacked by fictional ninjas while I’m folding the laundry.

Danger. It’s nowhere… and everywhere.

For more fictional danger, try my book Firefly Mountain which includes firefighters, a lunatic arsonist, and a paranormal ability capable of really heating things up.

Toodles,

Chris

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com