Not writing related at all

Today is my first official day back in the writing game after months away from my manuscripts. I’m using this blog to limber up my creative juices.

As a fun side note, my imagination is feeding me the sound of collective gasps from those who know how I get sucked into writing and forget things like answering the phone, cooking, and changing out of my PJs as I type, but the absence was for a good reason. I am happy to say that we have finally relocated.

Rewind a line, we are not quite relocated but at least in the correct city and state. Our new home still sits empty, waiting for the moving van to show up. We pray that happens next week. Thankfully, the hotel room is nice, and I’ve been keeping busy making to-do lists, and setting up trash, cable, water, electric, and etc.

Good times.

The best thing about the move is that this time away from writing has provided me with a chance to expand my mind, and I wanted to share a few things I’ve learned.

1. I will never be a long haul trucker

2. I shouldn’t watch the DVD player while driving

3. Kansas is big

4. Hydration is important and passing the closest rest stop is a bad idea

5. I owe all of my friends who’ve helped take care of the zoo during this trip my first born child, or a good night on the town (please pick option 2)

6. I will never be a long haul trucker and I’m really happy to be home again

See you in February

Off for an adventure ;) Be back next month.

The Lost Lord - A Sneak Peek

Welcome to, possibly, the world's shortest blog. Please swing by my website to check out a sneak peak at The Lost Lord: http://danellafayecom.ipage.com/Page11.html

Good Critique Partners are Treasures Worth Hunting

Writing invigorates as the story in your mind, once a small lump rattling around in the brain, builds and grows until the pieces crystalize into a complete work. Characters, born from imagination and fleshed out on paper, come to life. Plot lines twist and curve, revealing surprises and unexpected elements, and an idea turns into a story. However, the story isn’t perfect; the little gem still needs polishing.

The next step requires submitting your work to those rare treasures trusted to provide feedback and direction needed to turn the rough gem into a shining beauty. Critique Partners will find those hidden flaws, unnoticed errors, and jagged edges dulling the tale. Critique partners are a valuable resource, and every writer needs them.

My first attempt to find these resources started amongst my family and friends. They all love and encourage me, and were as shocked as I was when the rejection letters arrived.

After picking myself up, slapping some bandages over the still-bleeding wounds, and re-evaluating my situation; I realized I needed more help. The key question was where to find critique partners.

I started my search by reading, listening to, and investigating any available advice on the subject, but none of the information fit me perfectly. I am still searching for a magic formula, and have learned a few things during my hunt for those jewels among writers who fit well with me.

First, find potential candidates. There are many resources to help locate other writers: online groups, professional associations, even twitter and Facebook. Try them all, or try the ones you feel most comfortable using. My best resource are writing groups, specific to my genres, because, let’s be honest, a mystery writer is probably not enthused by my Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, or Young Adult works, and I’m not the best candidate to critique a mystery.

Second, ask for help. Critique partners will not appear the second you decide you need one. No one knows you’re looking if you don’t say anything especially in this age – the digital wallflower doesn’t exist, nobody sees him.

Third, trade writing samples to make sure you are comfortable with each other’s work, and be honest about your shortcomings. Make sure the other person knows what to expect, and what to review or not review. Grammar and punctuation are not my strong suits until revision 10 of a story. I’ve chased away a few critique partners because my early submissions contain errors, and although my process altered to reduce the number of mistakes a critique partner finds, I’m not willing to change my entire process – it’s working for me. My punctuation shortcoming is something I always tell potential candidates, to save anyone from undue headaches trying to chase down missing commas.

Fourth, if you don’t think the partnership will work, say so. You will save yourself and the other person time and frustration if you’re honest.

Finally, keep trying. The biggest secret to success is persistence. Not everyone you run across will be a good partner for any number of reasons. Fight the discouragement, and try again.

As I stated earlier, we all need critique partners. You love the story; the writing is a treasure you created. Good critique partners will help you perfect your work, and make it shine. I’ve met a few people who are fortunate enough to work with a perfect team, and many more who are still searching. Me, I am blessed with a good team, and am thankful for every member, but am still looking for a few good women or men.

As I continue my search, I’ll add information to this topic. Check in for updates, inspiration, and nuggets of wisdom as I stumble upon them.

Best Wishes To and Through the New Year

I'm signing off for a few days to enjoy family and friends and life without cell phones and computer access ;) Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year.

See you in 2012
Danella

Deadlines and the Unexpected

For about six months now, I have been waiting for a call from my husband. Well, not just any call, despite his male telephone skills, I do get calls. No, I was waiting for “The Call” - the call beginning with “Guess what” and ending with the location of our next move.

The call didn’t come, and life moved on with approaching deadlines. I set a rigid schedule for myself to keep on track and avoid my favorite pastime (procrastination). I do believe it is essential to scope out this year’s best in new boots, check out what all of my friends are doing on Facebook, and read some new blogs. More importantly, I must stay on schedule. Otherwise, I would have forever avoided Chapter 3 in “Wolf Runner,” which caused me brain pain. Without the schedule, I wouldn’t have made it to revising Chapter 4 (Chapter 3 is set up for another round of revisions).

Then, last week, the call came. The new location is welcome news, the timing – not so much. This winter, right in the middle of the holiday season we will be selling the house (fingers crossed), finding a new place to live, and preparing our belongings and the zoo for a cross-country trip.

Now, I’m faced with the original deadlines and wondering how I’m going to pull this off. Times like this, I remind myself of wise words a friend of mine once shared as we were racing to catch a plane together. Mid-sprint, as computer bags and carry-ons were banging against our legs and my choice of shoes for the trip was proving most unfortunate, she turned to me and said, “you know, if we don’t make this one there is always another plane.”

We made the plane, and I'll make this deadline. This time, I'm fortunate enough to have chosen good shoes.

Herding Cats

“Herding Cats” happens to be a favorite phrase of mine, especially when faced with an organizational nightmare slipping rapidly out of control. In my past life, I held the cat herding title and rounded those little suckers up, in the figurative sense.

This morning, my youngest canine companion took up the reigns - literally. Our neighbor has an exploding population of feral cats. Pip decided to chase them.

Unfortunately, when tempted with the promise of capturing something his recall is not the best (it doesn’t exist). In turn, I chased Pip through the back yard to the neighbor’s tumbledown garage where a pride of mini-lions were expressing their displeasure at his intrusion.

Praying that the excitement didn’t inspire Pip to leave a “present” on our neighbor’s lawn, I snagged his collar and tried to pull him away. The drama overwhelmed one little lion to the point that he/she decided to attack and managed to land on Pip’s back. I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. Karma will get you every time.

The bright note in this adventure, aside from watching the canine rodeo is that when we went outside for the noon “break,” Pip showed no inclination to check out the cats. I will re-claim my title as family cat herder until he decides to challenge me again.

Look at that face, he can't wait to challenge me again ;)

Happy Holidays - A Rant and A Rave

Being a scrooge during the holidays does not win me any bonus points and makes me wonder – is everyone else in the world doing the same stuff I am? So far this month I have decorated, baked, shopped, packed, shipped, and coordinated plane travel and pick up. Come on January 2^nd – you can’t get here fast enough.

I’m still bracing myself for the travel, visitors, and big explosion sure to happen when everything does not go exactly to schedule. I know a plane will be late, the drive will be longer than anticipated, and/or I will burn Christmas dinner.

If you have ever seen the National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, you’ve seen the chaos I’m expecting this holiday. Thankfully, we had the foresight to send the canine kids to a doggy-sitter over the holiday - missed that bullet.

In a moment of frustration, I asked my mother why we do this and, after receiving “the sigh,” she reminded me of a few things. After listening and reassuring her that I understand, I agreed with her. The chaos leading up to the holiday is worth it.

At the end of the day, I will get of my baby nephew opening his gifts and the look on my much-beloved younger brother’s face when he sees what we bought the dear child, and visit family we don’t get to see often enough, and no one will care about the quality of my cookies or the travel stress.

I’m back to the kitchen to make some more cookies, candies, and everything else we need with a happier heart and some good red wine.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Ranting about Romance, Lust, and Love

Disclaimer: If you remember me scaling trees on a daily basis, bringing snakes home to live in my sock drawer, and wearing a baseball glove 24/7 (mom), or are a step-child of mine, I’m not responsible for any recovery therapy needed if you read this.

A beloved family member called me, about a year ago, to talk about the dying spark he wanted to resurrect with his first serious partner. Desperate and saddened he asked how something so right changed so quickly. Did love just vanish? I asked, as delicately as possible, if he was experiencing lust instead of love.

He insisted on love, but after the spark faded the relationship soon followed. The experience left a sour taste in his mouth and a wound in his heart, but proved what I’d suspected about the powerful emotions he described and how they faded.

Lust doesn’t last; love does.

Romance comes in many forms, some last for moments in time and others last forever. Those crazy days, or months, or years, as everything runs hot and wild are what I call “early onset romance.” I love it so much I write about it, drawing on sparks of my own experience and the well of my imagination, to bring those precious experiences to life on paper. I’ll even admit that I miss the days when two minutes didn’t pass without extreme PDA, and we spent every possible evening, morning, and afternoon doing (cough, cough – in case mom ignored the disclaimer) stuff.

In my opinion, lust is one of the most powerful, wondrous and sometimes overwhelming physical and emotional experiences a person can have. Hoever, lust isn’t the end game, and if the romance can’t last past those flashing moments, let it go. If we all remained in “early onset romance” mode bills wouldn’t get paid, dog poo would pile up in backyards across the nation, and streets would fill with bodies dropping from fatigue. Lust is not sustainable.

True romance, love, develops a stronger bond than mere lust. Love requires work and support, but with it, you thrive. Those emotional and sexual highs still flare up, and I do enjoy them. One of my favorite moments happens when my personal alpha male gives me a slow smile and asks if I want to watch a movie. His words, code developed during our “early onset romance,” send a tingle down my spine. I cherish those moments as much as I cherish the times we sit down to watch a movie, able to be quiet and with each other without all of the extras, love at its finest.

The “early onset” romance thrills, filled with electric sparks building into a raging fire. Living the emotions, action, lust and suspense of the romantic story is a joy for the reader and writer. The benefit of writing romance novels is listening to the characters clamoring in my head for attention (not the neighbor’s dog – not those kinds of voices) and nurturing the ones who can truly develop a strong, enduring love.

I offer a promise of true love winning in all of my writings. I wish I could offer the same promise to the much beloved young man who called me late one night a year ago. Life would be easier if I had the ability to say, “This is the one.” His first relationship didn’t last, neither did the second, but I’ll always encourage him to keep trying, enjoy the lust and cherish the love when it comes.

Grunts - or Writing (Fighting) the Blurb

Oh, I know what you’re thinking – “grunts,” not sexy and this woman claims to write romances. I agree with you that grunting does not evoke romantic ideals. Sensual imagery be damned. I’m grunting, sighing, and spitting out less polite noises, because  finishing a blurb is my goal today.

“Grunt”

My beloved and protective spouse spent the day sitting beside me, growing alarmed by the strange sounds escaping from his wife. He worries and I scared him. Every time I made a noise, he responded by asking if I’m OK. At one point, he picked up a cell phone with fingers poised to dial 911, because the grunting grew too frequent and too loud. I hope he was joking.

He tries to sympathize, but my work falls well beyond his area of expertise. Creating a blurb of 200ish words describing a story in the most enticing of ways, "grunt," turns out to be difficult. A peak at try number 20+ appears below:

Abby Faa had no choice but to adjust to a new life after awaking in the arms of the wrong man. Her diet is limited to blood, her world filled with the creatures from her nightmares, but she refuses to bow to her maker’s ultimatum: become his blood-mate or her human family dies. She dresses for seduction, arms herself for murder, and accepts the fact that to ensure her family lives, she must die.

Advice from a friend ruins her well-laid plans when she faces the one person she never thought to see again. Torn between the man she loves and the one who will destroy her, Abby must choose with whom her faith lays. As her time runs out, and passion builds, she fights to escape her fate and create a new world where humans and paranormals live side by side.

Perfect, no - I still have some work to do, so I’m grunting again then off to promise nothing is wrong before the whambulance arrives.

I'm A Writer

A dream is just a dream until you do something about it – by me

I love quotes, collect them and use them constantly to spark inspiration and motivation, and sometimes for entertainment value, or to win a game of trivia. For a few decades now, I’ve had a dream, and year ago I decided to stop storing ideas, plot outlines, character studies, and rough drafts in the closet, and honestly go after my dream. In the hunt for quotes, I discovered many referencing dreams, but nothing inspired me more than the words at the beginning of this blog.

This quote manipulation led me to another one, “don’t complain about how easy someone’s job is until you’ve done it yourself.” Lesson learned, and I’m issuing an apology to Stephan King, because growing up I thought he had the easiest, most fun job in the world. Write horror stories for a living - sign me up. (A pile of horror stories is hiding somewhere in my closet.)

I didn’t comprehend the work involved in each manuscript, my apologies Mr. King.

What I did understand, could sympathize with, is the compulsion to write, the driving need to write, an impossible urge to keep going. I’m an addict and writing is my drug – new quote!!

Unpublished as of yet, I write every day, and every day my writing strengthens and I learn a little more about myself, about my characters, and about the business. I wrestled with and won over plot development, character growth, emotional impact, tension, sex scenes, and commas – commas and I disagree from time to time. Sometimes the process is painful, definitely more work than I ever imagined, but always rewarding. Part of my personal reward is to say, “I’m a writer” and have a paranormal romance, the first of an exciting series, to back me up.

The next step is publishing, and I am embarking on this journey with zeal, a dash of crazed glee, and a bit of mild trepidation. As I complete this exercise, I will check in here to discuss my progress, vent my frustrations, and touch other topics I dream up. I invite everyone to peek in and join the ride; I’m anticipating a good time and on that note, I’ll close with my daily inspiration.

“A dream is just a dream until you do something about it.” – by me