Happy Birthday to Me

Since today is my birthday, I decided to let a few of my friends from Facebook interview me.  Here are their questions.

What do you feel is the hardest part of the publishing process? (From Vania Rheault)

Rejection – The hardest part for me is finding a home for finished work.   I haven’t been brave enough to enter into the Self-Publishing world because that all seems hard to me.   So finding a home for whatever completed project I have is hard in the sense a certain amount of prediction for agents and editors on what readers may want a year or more out makes it difficult.  I’ll send out a query and then get a rejection and if I’m lucky they will tell me why.  Sometimes I get a form letter or even worse that they liked the writing but it wasn’t a good fit.   

How are you just so damn adorable all the time? Inquiring minds want to know. (From Lyn Armstrong)

Lyn is biased, her and maybe my husband.  I love and miss you, lady. 

Do you work plots out with writing buddies or plot all by yourself? (From Marie Johnston)

Normally, I plot by myself.  But recently I asked for some input on a finished Regency I just finished and my local critique group helped me come up with a plot (it involves murder) that I will weave back in through the story.  This isn’t uncommon for me to finish a manuscript and then change one, maybe two, things, and then have to layer those elements back in. 

When you write so many books, what’s your strategy for keeping plots, characters, and settings fresh? (from Natalie Pierce)

It helps that I write in a few different sub-genres of romance.  Once you change the setting everything else can be fresh or new based on a new place or time.  I have started keeping series bibles so I can remember how old someone is at story X so I make sure to age them by story Y. I usually keep these in either Pinterest, Google Keep, or in a Notebook. 

Happy birthday! Let’s see. I’d love to know more about how you got started writing stories. How much of real life is included in your books? Do you have other business ideas you might work on in the future? (from A. Catherine Noon)

Figures A. Catherine Noon would have the most questions.   Here we go.  

I have been writing since childhood, before my grandmother passed she gave me a collection of stories I wrote for her about the various mythical holiday creatures, like the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, A Leprechaun trying to find Baby New Year.   Unfortunately, they didn’t find him because I had only gotten as far as writing their origin stories.  I loved info dumps even as a child. 

I include much of real life in my contemporaries, including some of my friends (you know who you are).  Of course, I changed their names to protect the not so innocent.  I’ve used their professional knowledge among which include a pilot, an architect, a nurse, firemen, and of course a writer.   Most of my paranormal, sci-fi, and fantasy stories are entirely fiction.  

Future Business Projects – Writing Wise I’m working on my Brave the Elements Series – Wind Resistant is my Nano project.  I will be querying my Regency this month and maybe a bit in November.   I take December off because I find I need the break for the holidays.  Non-writing wise – I’ve thrown my hat in on a contest in ND pairing artists and writers.  Long Term I’m hoping to get a North Dakota Writers Conference so if you are thinking about something like that my fellow writers, let me know.   There are far more of us than the world knows about. 

I’m wondering what percent of your writing is actually non-fiction, in a fictional book. (Brian Daly)

It depends on the fiction.  In my Steampunk Series, I’d say 50%.  I altered parts of the timeline significantly.  

My Regency is fairly historically accurate but I did change a few things – my hero knows cane fighting which isn’t really a thing until closer to the Victorian period and was invented in France, not England.  So those are pretty liberal. My Contemporaries including my paranormal books are about 25% fiction accounting for characters and the mythology of fairies.   But the career choices are based on people I know. 

And I would say my Post-Apocalyptic books are 75% fiction the only real elements being geography and locations in the future. 🙂 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Q&A.  If I missed your question here leave a comment below and I’ll try to answer it.  ~Tina

AuThursday – Darlene DeLuca

Please welcome Darlene DeLuca to The Clog Blog! Darlene can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?

Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me, Tina! My degree is in Journalism, and I started my writing career as a newspaper reporter. That was before kids. The hours were long and I spent many nights attending planning commission meetings and city council meetings. While I learned a lot, after a few years, I moved into corporate communications. I spent about 25 years writing for employee and consumer publications with a little art direction thrown in as well. Then I was “downsized” and left Corporate America for creative writing. I have to say, writing novels is a lot more fun! Summer is my season. I love a sunny day at the beach with a good book, a little dark chocolate and a cold glass of iced tea!

How do you make time to write? 

For me, the great thing about writing is the flexibility, because life happens and often eats into regular business hours. I can, and do, write whenever. I’m probably most productive in the middle of the day when I get all the busywork out of the way and I have the house to myself. I’m not one of those get-up-at-4 a.m.-and-start-going types. I need my beauty sleep! 

What genre are your books and what draws you to this genre?

I write women’s fiction and contemporary romance. Basically, I like stories about people. I like the affirmation that generally accompanies women’s fiction, and I like the good old-fashioned happy ending of a romance.

How did you deal with Rejection Letters if you received any? 

Oh, yeah, I’ve received them! They’re hard, but you’ll never achieve success by quitting. The hardest ones are the “passes” after a revise-and-resubmit because it’s easy to get your hopes up then. I just try to glean what I can from them and move on. It helps to have a support network of other writers!

How did you come up with the idea for your Women of Whitfield series? 

It’s hard to ever pinpoint an exact moment of inspiration. The tiniest thing can spark an idea and it just grows with time and attention. Once I started developing the characters, it became obvious that each one of these friends needed her own story. I also liked the idea of featuring women in their fifties and delving into the issues of that life stage.

What are your thoughts on writing a book series?

I like the Whitfield series and the characters began to seem like real people to me, but honestly, by the time I finished the third story, I was ready to move on to something else. I’m currently developing a romance series that I’ve dubbed the “Masterpiece Series, where Love is an Art and every Romance a Priceless Treasure.” The stories are all related to art in one way or another.

How are you publishing your most recent book “The Story between us” and why? (*e.g. Indie, traditional or small press)

This is my first step into traditional publishing. My earlier works were self-published on Amazon’s direct publishing platform. “The Story Between Us” is part of the Sweetheart Line from The Wild Rose Press. It’s a very different process, and I’m hoping to reach a wider audience through their publishing connections. It would have been much faster to publish myself, but I’m happy to try something new!

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Learn the craft. Read a lot. Join a critique group. Look for and accept genuine feedback and criticism. 

Where can readers find you on the World Wide Web?

Everywhere, I hope! Here are the links to my social media sites:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6879809.Darlene_Deluca

https://www.instagram.com/darlenedelucaauthor/?hl=en

Tweets by darlene_deluca1

https://www.facebook.com/Darlene-Deluca-282385088481413/?ref=bookmarks

Website:

Home

Do you have an excerpt you’d like to share with us?

Reed pulled his keys out of his pocket. In the doorway, he folded his arms and leaned against the casing. “Can I ask you a question?”

Chest pounding, Kristen forced a smile. “Of course.” She took a couple of steps toward him and braced a hand against the back of the sofa.

“Is writing your only reason for being here?”

Heavy, charged air closed around her. How to answer that? Honestly, of course, but…how honestly? “Well, writing is my goal for sure. But—” She glanced around the room before looking at him again. “I’d love to ride my horse, er, Star, and spend some time with…with people I like, too.”

As he pushed off from the door, a slow grin spread across his face. “Sounds like an excellent plan.” He sauntered closer. About a foot away, he stopped. “You’re good with dinner at the main house tonight? Don’t let Dylan bully you. You decide.”

She gave a shaky laugh. That was the plan, right? She couldn’t remember for sure. Her brain was going fuzzy. “I’d love to,” she managed to say.

He leaned closer, his breath warm on her cheek. She braced herself for a friendly peck, but when her eyes fluttered shut, his lips grazed hers. Hovered there, and when she thought her legs might give out, Reed caught her arm and pulled her slightly toward him, his lips covering hers again.

Sparks exploded in her brain, and she grabbed hold of his arm. All of her senses came alive and responded to the unexpected deluge.

A long moment later, he pulled back and brushed a thumb across her cheek. “See you in about an hour.”

Kristen could only nod. As soon as the door closed behind him, she collapsed against the sofa. She ran a finger along her bottom lip. That kiss…Oh, man. The chances of her getting any writing done this weekend just dropped from unlikely to who-said-anything-about-writing?

Writer Wednesday – A few of my favorite things

A lot of writers get asked what kind of tools they use when writing and editing.  Here are a few of mine:

Books

The Romance Writer’s Phrase book by Jean Kent and Candice Shelton – It’s a handy little phrase book, used for tag lines, body language, etc.

A more updated version would be The Emotional Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.   I use these books when I’m in the layer process of my book.   I used to use them during the rough draft, but found I got too bogged down with particulars rather than just writing the damn book.

The Novel Writer’s Toolkit by Bob Mayer – I have an old copy of this, but found it useful for understanding aspects of the business like Sell-thrus and royalties.   I believe he has an updated version.

And of course I have a Thesaurus, Dictionary and Two Style Guides.

Online Tools

Pinterest – I use Pinterest to store a lot of my pictures for characters, setting, clothes, etc.   Of course you can totally get lost on there.

First Draught – I have to give a shout-out to these ladies, because they cover a range of topics and they talk about everything from craft to publishing.  I love their Vlog!

Jenna Moreci – Jenna is a YA Indie Writer and she has this Vlog where her topics are humorous and based on her writing experience.   I highly recommend this if you are exploring Self-publishing or are a YA writer.

Google Keep  – I sort of stumbled across this recently and use it in place of Scrivener.    I make up all these little notes on characters, settings and scenes I need to write and then I can have it on the side of my Google Doc.   I’m sort of envious of Scrivener, but the feature I was really wanting was to replace my post-it plotting system that I learned from Cherry Adair.

Last week I covered the importance of finding your tribe, and of course my tribes are some of my favorite things.

~Tina

 

 

 

AuThursday – Margaret Fieland

Please welcome Sci-fi author, Margaret Fieland.  Margaret, do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

Unlike many authors, I did NOT always know I wanted to be a writer. On the other hand, I always told myself stories, and I was a huge reader, especially of sci fi and fantasy – I picked the then fairly new Farmer in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein for my tenth birthday.

As a writer, poetry was and is my first love. I started writing it in High School and continued on, mostly storing it in notebooks which I piled in the attic. At some point, I started writing more, and eventually wrote a poem I wanted to keep, started wandering around online, and things snowballed from there.

Q:  What books have most influenced your life most?

I’d have to say Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, which I re-read every exam time in college. In order to help myself concentrate on studying, I would make an act with myself not to go to the library. Then I’d start suffering from Book Deprivation and re-read  my copy of The Annotated Alice.

Q:  Why did you decide to write Sci-fi.?

As I said, I’m a huge sci fi fan, but up until 2010 I hadn’t written any at all. That September, I decided to devote NaNo (National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November) to a sci fi novel. In spite of my friends’ advice to plan out the book in as much detail as possible, I wrote  about a page of plot notes and then devoted the rest of time to world building.

The resultant novel (which I completed, along with 30 poems by a poet I created in the universe of the novel) was pretty much of a mess, but I found out about an intense editing workshop that

was starting in January and signed up for that. I think the whole workshop took six or eight weeks, but I continued to work on the novel through the spring and finally ended up submitting it for publication.  It became Relocated,  the first in the Novels of Aleyne series.

Oh, yeah, and I never intended to write a series. I fell into that, too.

Q:  What is your process for writing a book? For example, are you a plotter or a pantzer? Do you start at page 1 and write your book sequentially or do you skip around? Do you start with your characters or the plot?

First of all, I’m by nature very sequential, to the point that when we still went to video stores for movies, I’d never get to watch the movies at end of the  alphabet because I always started looking at the A’s, that is, until I noticed I’d missed one of the Star Trek movies and started alternating looking backwards from the Z’s; then I only missed the M’s and N’s {grin}.  Left to my own devices, I start writing from the beginning, write the first draft straight through to the end, then stop.  This is not entirely true of some bits of some of the later Aleyne novels, where I ended up writing some of the scenes as homework for online classes.

Anyway,   I usually start with the characters and the initial situation. I plan the beginning, the end, and the major plot points. Sometimes I sketch out the first quarter or third of the novel’s plot in more detail, but in general, I’m planning in more detail a couple of scenes in front of where I’m writing. I generally have a good idea of what will happen (or what I want to happen) but not how. For example, in Rob’s Rebellion, the latest Aleyne novel, I knew how I wanted the conflict between the Federation and the Aleyni to be resolved, but I had no idea how I would pull it off until I was writing the end of the novel.

Q:  Would you tell us your story of getting “the call?”

The first novel I wrote (it was long ago accepted by a small print house, but has yet to appear) I wrote in response to the death of a friend’s wife and children in a tragic fire. Long after the event, it still haunted me, and I ended up writing a story about a little boy who loses his mother in a fire. I wrote the first draft in a weekend, but at that point I didn’t know much about how to structure and write fiction, and I spent the next year and a half learning. Among other things, I complete the Institute of Children’s Literature course. At that point, I started revising it, and eventually had it accepted for publication.

Q:  What was the most exciting thing that happened to you after you signed your contract – besides receiving your first check as a published author?

Realizing that other people actually wanted to read what I wrote.

Q:  If you weren’t writing, what would you be doing?

Spending more time playing music. I play the flute and the piccolo, but I don’t have much time to spare for it now.

Q:  What is on tap for the rest of 2016?

I’m working on another Aleyne novel, a prequel to the series this time. Some friends and I are hoping to put together another poetry collection, and I have a fantasy novel I want to get back to. And I’m hoping that my chapter book will finally be published.

Q:  Where can readers find you on the World Wide Web?

My Website:

http://www.margaretfieland.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/MargaretFielandAuthor/

Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/margaretfieland/

Join me tomorrow when we preview the trailer for Rob’s Rebellion.

~Tina