IT'LL GET YOU WHERE IT HURTS.

Christine Hart
Best Laid Plans
Teen Fiction
James Lorimer and Company Ltd., Publisher
150 pages, $9.95
978155277465

When parents are the problem. 

What do you do if it's your parents that are leading you down a destructive path? Award-winning children's writer CHRISTINE HART asked herself that same question when as an employment counsellor she was meeting at-risk youth who were in just that situation.

“I had been exposed to at-risk youth as a high school student, and then later as a working professional. In both cases, I was repeatedly meeting young people who were being held back by their own parents; those experiences are what prompted me to write the book,” says Hart.

Hart’s just-released novel for teen readers focuses on a teenage girl, Robyn, who struggles with the decision to leave her family behind to attend university even though her parents pressure her to stay and work on the failing family farm, a move that would likely leave her to face a difficult financial future.

“It’s not often in the realm of kids books that the situation of one’s parents being a bad influence exists, but it does happen in real life. I wanted to communicate how hard it can be to build a life for yourself with huge barriers standing in your way, and how it’s even more difficult when it’s your parents who are the barriers to your future plans.”

s yparents that are leading you down a destructive path? Award-winning children’s writer Christine Hart asked herself that same question when as an employment counsellor she was meeting at-risk youth who were in   
BEST LAID PLANS 
book review by joylene nowell butler (5 stars)

Every so often I come across a novel that touches a cord and leaves me yearning for more. Generally it's because I relate to the situation or I admire the protagonist. In Christine Hart's Best Laid Plans, I connected immediately to Robyn Earle and had to take a double check to see whether this book was indeed fiction. As the title implies, like all of us, Robyn wants to believe she has control over her future. And she does, if her parents don't ruin it for her.

Christine Hart has a talent for creating such remarkable real-life characters that you will believe she's written a story about you or one of your friends. While captivated by Hart's genius at weaving the plot, you can't help but wonder how she was able to get inside your head.


Best Laid Plans crosses generation boundaries and is so well written and such a moving story that I could no sooner set it aside than say goodbye to the characters. Robyn Earle is that young girl inside all of us. She's that girl who is afraid to make the wrong decision, but who so desperately wants to grow up and escape. She carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. She feels responsible for her sister, for her mother and father. She has to remind her dad that she's the kid, not the adult.

On the eve of high-school graduation, Robyn understands that turning to her family for help with tuition fees for university isn't an option. All she has to do is look around at their dilapidated orchard to see that whatever her father puts his hands to fails. Nor does she begrudge him his failures. She simply applies for and gets a job so she can pay for university herself. Robyn dreams of becoming an architect, and despite being poor and on assistance, she is determined to make something of her life.

She's got what it takes too: intelligence, determination, and focus. But her greatest enemy is her family and her own willingness to let them tear apart her dreams. The taxes on the land they inherited from her grandmother are overdue, and Robyn's dad cannot believe she would rather go to university then help them save the orchard.

Best Laid Plans is the story of a young woman on the cusp of self-discovery. Will she reach for her dream and leave her family behind? Or will she save the orchard her father is bent on destroying?

I recommend this book for those young people in your life. Best Laid Plans should be required reading for all high school students: boys and girls.



CHRISTINE HART lives in Victoria, B.C. She writes short stories and young adult fiction, and was the recent recipient of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards (Gold Medal) for Watching July.

Guinea Hen Gets Bathed

My husband recently rescued a Guinea Hen from a farm down the road. She was in dire straits and had he not brought her home for some R&R, I doubt she would have lived through the night; her feet were freezing and she couldn't walk. In the spring she'll go back to the farm, but meanwhile, her and her friend Mr. Rooster are our guests; Mr. Rooster was being pecked by the occupants of the hen house and too small to defend himself. Who knew hens could be so vicious. I kind of feel bad that I don't have a pic of the rooster. Maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my friend Christopher Hoare has been entertaining me with stories, so I coaxed him into sharing one with us today. Chris, a frequent guest host, is the author of The Iskander Series. If you haven't bought a copy of one of his books and you love S/F, you're missing something. If I had to list in three words or less why Chris's books are so entertaining, it would have to be:  STRONG WOMEN CHARACTERS.

Here's an excerpt from the first book in his series titled Deadly Enterprise:

"Gisel turned away quickly. Two wings of the building stretched away from her. Both echoed with the sounds of running feet. Which way? One stretched away into darkness, the other had an open loft door at the far end. The daylight meant outside – maybe the stable yard. A shout of alarm rang out — from the lighted wing. She launched herself forward.

Then a pistol shot, the woof of a black-powder weapon. Gisel sprinted the whole length between fresh stacked bales of hay. More shots — Yohan’s revolver this time. She dove for the edge of the hay loft, and peered over the wooden sill. A groom in the stable yard struggled to hold two frightened horses as he backed them into an alcove. Across the far side, Yohan stood beside an open door. His back was to the wall – his pistol in his hand. He twisted his body to peer inside. From a window behind him the head and shoulders of a man appeared. Six feet away from Yohan. He raised a flintlock pistol, tilting the firing pan uppermost like a good cavalryman.

Gisel raised her automatic and fired in one motion. She swung out of the opening. The man cried out and clutched his shoulder. His pistol hit the ground."

Now here's Chris and Shirl's latest adventure in frugal shopping:

Careful, considered, frugal shopping.....

Well, not quite. One day, many years ago, we went into town to buy a pound of butter and ended up buying a house. Not quite as reckless as it might sound, perhaps, because it looked to be an ideal revenue property that with a little fixing up could easily earn its keep in rentals. And, for awhile it did.

Eventually, after a regular turnover of tenants we found that – unlike the relatively civilized tenants we’d had when we were in the city – these small community, rural, people had different ideas on renting. The damage deposit was really intended to be part of the last month’s rent when they moved on without giving notice. Defrosting a new fridge was fast and efficient if you used an ice-pick on the cooling system. It was merely a family custom to ram one’s spouse’s head through the drywall. Landlords probably like repairing doors frequently after tenants lock themselves out (or spouses looking to keep their heads out of the drywall locked them out).

After a couple of years we called the experience further education and sold the place. I don’t think we lost anything, but didn’t end up much over break-even. By the way – we didn’t forget the pound of butter.

Fast forward to today. We had received a letter from Ford about a recall on our 14 year old Explorer, so arranged to take it in for the 15 minute job this morning. While waiting for the vehicle to be driven inside for the job we took a stroll around the premises. My wife liked the look of the Mustang GT in the showroom, but this was no more than casual tire-kicking.

The salesman was lonely so he came past on his way to the popcorn machine, and I went for some too, to keep him company. We stood around talking cars and the price of watermelons for awhile and no doubt mentioned that the old Explorer is holding up well, but has over 306,000km on it. It makes some odd noises that it never did when it was younger – but what the heck, so do I.

We advanced to the topic of almost new Fusions – just like those two silver ones over there that are just off lease. We took a walk around the lot outside – just for a bit of exercise, to shake the kinks out. I was merely looking at practical things, like the claimed fuel economy and whether they had intelligent, European design, lever handbrakes instead of those despicable North American sh*t flingers operated by the left foot. (The Explorer’s is a joke since it has such a puny amount of force spread over the rear disk brakes. Don’t trust it on anything steeper than a 0.1% grade.)

Shirl had been sitting in another senior’s new Ford Escape the day before, and so the topic of smaller, more economical SUVs than the Explorer came up. A car is nice, but we really need something that can pull a light utility trailer – to collect firewood, and pick up coal from the local Hutterites (that I’ve forgotten to phone about yet again). Salesman pointed us to the money offered for turning in our old clunker, but hold on – it’s years from being a clunker yet. We looked at the used Escapes (I balk at buying new and taking that big hit from the sticker price) as well as a Saturn SUV that had escaped from the GM lot. It was three years old, with 95,000 km for only $11,999. Interesting but no tow hitch – and how much weight could it handle back there?

Strolling over to the shiny silver Fusions I looked at a much more sober red Focus – only a year old. We asked and found out it had just over 10,000 km and had been traded by a young couple who’d had it new for less than a year. With 2 kids already, wife became pregnant with twins. A Focus might be called cute, but not with four squalling kids in the back – they’d gone for an Expedition to house the family. The Focus, asking $12.999, with oodles of warranty left and a four cylinder engine that promised 48 mpg in the country – where we live – it seemed worth taking for a drive. (The Explorer was still not inside for its 10 o/c appointment – gee, should I be suspicious?)

Not bad for room, not bad for pickup and hill-climbing – since my racing days are long over. Front wheel drive, so it should be able to get out of a snowbound driveway as easily as the Audi we had when we first moved down this way. Manual transmission – which had ruled it out for all the amateur drivers. We’ve only ever owned two vehicles with sewer-pump transmissions. The Explorer is manual and Shirl has been driving her brother’s BMW a lot since he went into a lodge – so she managed her trial trip without too much nonsense (only stalled it once and only hit 5000 rpm once when shifting from 1st to 2nd). But she likes it.

“We really need two vehicles in the country.”

“I can keep the Explorer for knock-about trips after firewood or taking the dogs. So we don’t need another 4WD with load capacity.”

48mpg will look good when the price of oil tops $200 a barrel next year. We’d better check at the bank that we can still access the line of credit I used to have when I ran my own business. Whee, 3.75% interest, and we can choose our own repayment schedule as long as the monthly payment covers interest and other expenses. With Canada’s biggest customer looking more and more like falling off the edge of the world next year it’s a good time to turn dollars into necessary utility. In high inflation economies it makes more sense to be a debtor than a creditor.

We pick up the Focus tomorrow at 1 o/c.

Chris Hoare

http://thewildcatsvictory.wordpress.com/
http://thewildcatsvictory.wordpress.com/reviews/

Writing Advice from author JUDITH MARSHALL

Please welcome today's guest host Judith Marshall.

Judith Marshall is a author of Husbands May Come and Go but Friends are Forever, winner of the Jack London Prize awarded by the California Writers Club. She is currently working on her second novel, Staying Afloat, the story of a devoted stay-at-home wife and mother who morphs into a sex-starved adulteress.


SOME DO'S AND DON'T ABOUT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:
Do pay attention to your characters. Remember story is as much (if not more) about character as about plot.

Do make your characters original. The beauty of this approach is that your plot will often grow out of a unique character, instead of vice versa.

Do use a less expected way of describing your character; instead of saying her eyes was were “blue,” you could say, “Her eyes were the color of the lake behind her.”

Don’t use stock, cliché, or outrageous names. You will either look lazy or like your trying too hard.

Don’t introduce too many characters at once. Figure out a way of staggering them or focus on one and ignore the others. You can switch the focus later.

Don’t describe just the usual characteristics, such as eyes, hair, and face. Go farther. “The sun reflected off his bald head.” “The skin on her face was drawn tight across her cheekbones, eyelids stretched smooth, forehead shiny and line-free -- all the signs of recent cosmetic surgery.”

Remember readers don’t want the ordinary, the everyday; they want to be captivated. Ask yourself: Are my characters interesting? If not, there’s more work to be done.


MARKETING IN THE DIGITAL AGE
I attended the subject webinar recently, sponsored by Digital Book World.  Since I'm knee-deep in promoting my new novel, "Husbands May Come and Go but Friends are Forever," I was quite interested in the topic.  The panel included  Jane Friedman, Publisher & Editorial Director, Writer's Digest, Diana Vilibert, Web Editor, Marie Claire, Dan Blank, Director of Content, Reed Business Information, and Patrick Boegal, Director of Media Integration, Media Logic.  The highlights follow:

1)  If you blog, be sure to use your personality.  Posts should be either entertaining or useful (i.e. for non-fiction).
2)  Bloggers should post two times a week and be consistent.
3)  Book store owners check out blogs.
4)  Use analytics (even the free ones from Google) to determine your ROI for blogging.
5)  Facebook offers an "incredible opportunity with fan pages."
6) Twitter is becoming more powerful every day.  Writer's Digest requires each editor to participate on Twitter.  Authors should be use it, along with Facebook to build an audience.

As much as we authors hate to take time away from our writing, being involved in social media is a must.  Deal with it!  BTW, I hope this post was useful, if not entertaining.

WRITER'S BLOCK can strike at any time in the process – when you can’t finish a book or when you can’t send it out into the world. According to Dr. Jane Anne Staw, author of “Unstuck,” anxiety is at the root of writer’s block.

To remove some of the obstacles to writing, Dr. Staw suggests:

1) Ask your inner critics to leave
2) Don’t think to big (i.e. thinking about the whole novel or casting the movie)
3) Write on a regular basis, so you don’t have to keep starting over
4) Think small – pick a moment and write about it for 15-20 minutes. The best writing is small – the details are essential
5) Remember, writing is about revision: 1st stage – get it down, 2nd stage – flesh it out, 3rd stage – check the flow, 4th stage – polish and fine tune (word choice and syntax), 5th stage – punctuation and line editing, 6th stage – self-dialog.

Why Show and Not Tell ...

Courtesy of Janet Reid, Literary Agent and Bill Cameron, here's a video from the University of Ottawa. Some things must be viewed to be truly appreciated.

Show don't Tell.

Song: I Got a Feeling by Black Eyed Peas

Some of my upcoming guests are:

Judith Marshall    Chris Hoare     Katherine Swarts       Phyllis Zimbler Miller

I'm also doing a series of interviews with 5 of today's best marketing and promotional gurus in December. Monday, Nov 30 I'll be interviewed at Novel Works with host Marta Stephens. I'm guest blogging on Karen and Robyn's blog on Dec 7th. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for December. Stay tuned, folks.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING AMERICA

We're very grateful that you were all able to share our big day with us yesterday. Thank you for all the good wishes. It was indeed a proud moment seeing our son dressed in the official Vancouver 2010 Olympic suit and carrying the torch. What a thrill.

In honour of all my special American friends, my dear buddy Kathrine Neff Perry has written a post in celebration of Thanksgiving. Enjoy. And have a wonderful Day.

            When I was a little girl, I used to sit on the front porch with my Grandmother and tell her stories. To this day, I can still hear her laughter. She used to ask me to repeat the story when my Grandfather came home, because she thought they were so funny. When I tried, he would look down his nose at me, shake his head at both of us because my Grandmother was rolling on the floor laughing again. He though we were both crazy.

      When my own children were young, I made up stories to entertain them. From the time they were tiny, it was expected of me. To make them laugh. There were times when I could be pretty convincing, especially to my son. He would look at me with those big brown eyes and not move a muscle. Waiting for the tale to continue. My daughter was a little more reluctant to believe all my stories.

      One Thanksgiving Day, I got up about 4 a.m. Cooking and singing. I was just happy to be alive and happy that we were having family and friends over to celebrate the day.

      When the turkey was carved, the potatoes mashed and all the dressing and other dishes were on the table, we all gathered in the dining room to eat.

      I blessed the food and everyone dug in.

 My son, who was very small, maybe five or six at the time, leaned against the table. His little head just above the plate and said in his sweetest little voice.

      “My Mom used to be a pilgrim. She came on a boat for the first Thanksgiving.” Proud he remembered.

      My Grandfather glared across the table at me, nodding his head. She’s still telling stories!

      Blessings and Hugs and Happy Thanksgiving

Our Son: Vancouver 2010 Torch Relay Bearer

Thank you to all our family and friends, to the well-wishers at Deadly Prose, Muse Conference, KatLogicBookClub and Novels Chat Online for your warm congrats to our son Cory. If you would like to watch Cory's run, you can receive live feed at http://www.ctvolympics.ca/torch/follow-torch/index.html. Cory's run takes place today in Gagetown, New Brunswick at 3 o'clock Atlantic time.

Wish we were there, Cory.
-- Mum and Dad

Cory carrying the torch, November 25th, 2009

Confetti Girl by Diana Lopez, Reviewed by Jo Ann Hernandez

Confetti Girl
By Diana López
Little, Brown and Company, Books for Young Readers NY 2009
ISBN 978-0-316-02955-1

Apolonia Flores is the hero of this book. Her father says about her first name, “It’s the girl form of Apollo. He was the god of the sun. Get it? It’s my way of calling you a sunflower.” Parents! What can a teen do with them? Gratefully, everyone calls her Lina. Vanessa is her best friend, who lives across the street.

Thankfully this book is not about gangs, migrant farm workers, or crossing the border. It’s a regular book about a regular family in a regular neighborhood where the girls go to a regular school with regular problems. Do I seem a bit obsessed with regular? This is a beautiful story of a girl who has lost her mother and needs her father. Her father in his grief has immersed himself into books. How does she go about reaching through those books to her father, who holds them up in front of him? She thinks: “I see a body, a neck, and a book where his face should be.”

I enjoyed this book so much because the writing was good and the story was so real. Lina struggles with Vanessa’s breaking away from their best friend status to date a boy. The girls plot to help Vanessa’s mom. Lina grapples with how to approach a boy she likes and isn’t sure whether he likes her. The whole issue of losing a parent is dealt with in two ways: lost by death and lost by divorce. The plot of this story is the generational age dilemma of any teen and their parents: how do you reach each other to an understanding of what each needs. The ending is hilarious and would make any therapist proud.

I had read The secret blog of Raisin Rodriguez : a novel / by Judy Goldschmidt and was so disappointed. Because the books attempts to make Raisin, just like any other girl. Seems the author created a character with no ethnic roots. I’m not talking about being a Pocho or not knowing or hiding that she is Latina. I mean the things that she worries about are just too white. With Lina, the author, Diana López, did a sensational job of presenting Lina in her environment with everyday teen problems and yet embracing her culture background. Nothing in the story was too heavy or pushed on you about culture. Even the whole discussion about cascarones was more about the girls’ story than about the history of cascarones.

I believe that the community, any and all of us, are in dire need of more books like Confetti Girl by Diana López. Stories that portray us as people with hurts, joys and loves, just like everyone else in the world in any skin color. I encourage you to rush out and buy this book. Read and enjoy!

Jo Ann Hernández
BronzeWord1@yahoo.com
BronzeWord Latino Authors
http://authorslatino.com/wordpress

Latest News from Cluculz Lake

This is called an Inukshuk and it is one of the logos for the 2010 Olympics, held in Vancouver, BC, Canada. While it symbolizes the strength and fortitude of the Inuit people, it also says, "You are on the right path."

The torch below was designed to be representative of our our nation during the Olympics.

My family and I are thrilled to announce that our youngest son will be carrying the torch November 25th, 2009. If you follow my blog then you know that Cory, who recently returned from his 7-month tour in Kandahar, Afghanistan, is stationed in Gagetown and has served his country diligently for 11 years. He was chosen to carry the torch, and we couldn't be more proud and excited for him.

You can view the relay live at: http://www.ctvolympics.ca/torch/follow-torch/index.html

Keith Pyeatt, author of STRUCK won the 2009 New Mexico Book Award for Mystery/Suspense Novels; deservingly so. 

My article TROUBLED BY POINT OF VIEW? PARTICULARLY OMNI? is the featured post on Selling Books today.

If you have any news and would like to add it below, let me asap and I'll post it.

* cluculzwriter at yahoo dot ca

Dogs are Good Teachers by CHRISTOPHER HOARE

My guest today is Christopher Hoare, author of the Iskander Series: Deadly Enterprise, The Wildcat's Victory, and Arrival. Chris lives with his wife, Shirley, and two shelter dogs, Coco and Emmie, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. Although, Chris and I live only a day's drive apart, have never met, but we've worked together for over 10 years. Chris is a colleague and a friend. Please welcome him, and leave a comment if you can. We writers live a solitary life, and hearing from readers is a joy unmeasured.

That solitary life might be another reason we love our animals so much.


Dogs are good teachers ...

... they live in the moment; but that doesn’t make them calm, Zen introspectives. They react to every moment fully and never hide their feelings.

Our two dogs came to us from the local humane society shelter. Coco, a border collie blue heeler cross was first. She acted as surrogate mom to a whole succession of puppies that my wife fostered and house trained so that they would become more adoptable. She accepted their rough treatment, biting her ears, crawling over her, and all the other mischief puppies get into with great patience and acceptance.

The last of the foster puppies was Emmie, the runt of a litter born in the shelter, of no determinate breed, with one lazy eye that responds to light but cannot close down to protect against strong glare. She also has a delicate stomach and is given to timidity and freaking out – to thunderstorms, rifle shots, and even the lid of their food cooking pot when I offer her a lick. At first, she was frightened of me – would not let me feed her or go to the outside door with me. She was too timid to find a new family home, so she stayed with us. She also has a jealous streak, which meant we couldn’t take in foster puppies any more.

The one time my wife tried her out for a trial adoption with another family she freaked out within the first two hours when the man tried to take her outside on leash – broke her collar clasp and ran away. This was in a February while she had a shaved belly from her spaying operation. It took us four days to recover her. We had help from the local radio station and from everyone who reported seeing her at various locations. When we went to check out the ruined mine buildings at the edge of town the owners of her sister, also one of Shirl’s foster pups, came along to see if she’d come to her litter mate. No luck, she was too frightened to come out of hiding.

I borrowed a fox trap from Fish and Wildlife and set it in one of the mine buildings, baited with puppy kibble. I checked it two hours later and found her inside. I thought it best not to try to get her out myself, I called Shirl and waited for her to arrive. When we let her out of the trap she went to Shirl and the two of them went into the back of the Explorer and both cried.

I’m reminded of this because I finally found a good home for my brother in law’s golden retriever the other Saturday. I was told about someone near to where I walk the dogs about a couple who had lost a pet to old age a few days previous. I went and knocked on the door, asked if they’d like to see her and left about a half hour later with only two dogs again. These people are real animal lovers, with one other dog, four house cats and numerous others in the barn - they live in a wooded acreage beside a river and take the dogs for two walks a day. Susie is now in dog paradise.

So are ours. This three was definitely a crowd – the dynamics never worked. Coco has always been alpha dog, and the two year old 70 pound puppy was beginning to challenge the old lady’s seniority. Well, Susie is nearer 60 pounds now with a strict diet and lots of exercise, but her very presence was stressful to the others. Emmie played with her, but with less and less enthusiasm as time went on. The games were terribly one sided with Emmie outweighed about two to one. Our Explorer lost most of its cargo space to a great monster that took up all the space behind the seats (with 3 dogs on the back seat they squabbled over space) and stomped all over anything placed there.

Since Susie left, I’m able to take our dogs for walks in the countryside around the community – which was hard to do when I couldn’t manage three dogs on leash. Susie had been eyeing cattle with a view to chasing them, although she did come to the whistle, but there are fewer chances to offend where she is now. And now Coco will come in more readily when called to the back door. With her bad leg, it’s getting too cold for her to stay out long, but she was clearly reluctant to come inside while Susie was there.

An overweight puppy that sometimes forgets to ‘go’ in the right place and uses its excess weight as a battering ram to claim too much space in the house is no pleasure to have around. People who like Golden Retrievers must have better ones than my brother in law bought. The Goldie down the road that sometimes goes for walks with us is a far nicer dog. I really hope Susie fits in well in her new home, because it’s not her fault her first owner was incompetent to train her or that her disposition was at odds with the original residents here.

Both dogs and humans have noticed a big improvement in ambiance since Saturday. Coco and Emmie play gently together. Both dogs can visit Shirl as she sits in her chair and enjoy an uninterrupted back scratch. Yes, the dogs are much more relaxed at home now – they clearly have feelings too.

Emmie

Coco

ON YOUR MARK, GET READY -- WRITE

Generally, swans don't venture this close to our side of the lake. They stay on the other side where there is wildlife, but minimal human threat. During the night, they move about, often floating closer to the homes of year-round residents; their honking penetrates the darkness.

The lake has a circumference of 14 kilometres, giving the swans plenty of room to roam. This morning, we heard them before sunrise and waited until there was enough light to snap a photo. As soon as I stepped out onto the deck, they started moving away from the beach. I managed three rapid shots, but only one turned out.

Neither of these are clear photographs, but everyone knows that swans are beautiful, elegant creatures. Think swan and an image of serenity comes to mind.

I just finished an interview, and one of the questions forced me to think back to those early years (1984) when I started my first book. It's the book I wrote while convinced I could tell my dad's story and thus have him live forever. Seven years later, I shelved Always Father's Child and began work on Dead Witness.

Back in those days, I didn't know where this novel writing would take me, only that I had to write. I never considered  where the desire came from or how deep it went. Writing gave me pleasure, so it seemed logical to continue. How much time it would take to write another book didn't matter. Like seeing swans close enough to photograph, I had a story to tell and nothing was going to stop me. Certainly not a busy family or a full time job.

Sound familiar?

My protagonist Valerie, her last name didn't come to me until later, had occupied space in my head for several months. I didn't know much about her, except she had a problem, a story to tell, and wasn't about to go away.

My Valerie (McCormick) was 38 years old and looked identical to Cheryl Ladd when she was that age. Valerie lived in Prince George with her husband and three daughters. She loved and was loved; so much so that her elder daughter sneaked one of her short stories and entered it in a writing contest. Valerie won and that changed her life forever.

I began Dead Witness in 1991, finished it in three months, then spent the next ten years editing and revised it. Dead Witness was released July 1, 2008.

Is my process towards publication any different than yours? I'm sure it is. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to know how; I'm nosey. Besides, I think new writers out there need to see that while we are all unique and special, and with our own story to tell, we have similarities too.

How long did it take you to write your book? How long from the day you began to the day it was released? I  bet  there are lots of writers out there who would love to know.

CHUGGIN MCCOFFEE - How to Market Your Novel Online

Chuggin McCoffee is a coffee fanatic that has spent the entirety of his career cultivating and studying all of the best uses and brewing styles for optimal coffee and espresso flavor. His specialty site for all coffee needs, supplies, and Commercial Coffee Makers can be found at www.thecoffeebump.com.



How To Market Your Novel Online

by Chuggin McCoffee

If you are hoping to gain more exposure for your novel, then it actually pays off to use all of the tools available to you on the Internet!

One of the best ways to begin is to focus on Amazon.com. Obviously, this is a site that so many people use to purchase books, and this will directly affect your novel sales. It is important to begin to get reviews for your novel on Amazon.com, which will entice other customers to follow suit and purchase your novel. Even if you have a great book, people may not review it right off the bat. One thing that you may need to do is give away free copies of your book in exchange for reviews on Amazon. This is a wonderful way to let people experience your novel, and then they can provide their honest feedback directly on the website. This will gain several reviews for you, which will work to give credibility to your novel so that other people will purchase it. If you do have your own blog or website, you can also link directly to Amazon so that your readers can review your book if they liked it.

But you don't have to stop with Amazon! Another innovative way to market your novel online is through the use of a sample or promotional e-book. This is something that readers interested in your genre can purchase for a nominal fee, and it will allow them to have an idea of what your novel is about. If you are hoping to market your novel online, then this is a great way to reach your Internet customers. For instance, if these same customers are hoping to download your novel to a Kindle or iPhone in the PDF format, it will allow them to read a portion of the novel in the e-book form.

E-books are definitely all the rage, and your readers will appreciate this opportunity given to them in the form of an easily downloadable e-book. This will also allow them to try out your book before they buy it completely. One effective way to market this promotional e-book is either in Google Ads or directly on your own website if you have a blog. If you already have a blog with loyal readers, then you can use the opportunity of a low-cost promotional e-book to entice your readers into buying your novel.

Overall, the Internet is full of numerous marketing tools for your novel, but it is helpful to know where to begin. Positive reviews and feedback will work to gain circulation toward your novel, increasing your sales dramatically.

AUTHOR JOE MOORE: I'd Rather Have a Root Canal.

I'D RATHER HAVE A ROOT CANAL
by joe moore

The dreaded synopsis. It’s the nasty part of writing fiction that everyone hates. After all, if someone wants to know what your book is about, just read it. Right? The synopsis is right up there with getting a root canal. It’s painful and taxing. But it’s also a fact of life that you’re going to have to produce one sooner or later. Especially if you’re a first-time author. Most writers feel that creating a synopsis is harder than actually writing the book. I agree.

Clare touched on it with her July post. Here’s another look at the task we love to hate.

So what is a synopsis?

It’s taking your book’s 80,000 to 120,000 words and condensing them down to a few pages—a brief description of what your book is about. Imagine draining 99.9% of a human body away and still convey the person’s looks, thoughts and personality. A daunting task at best.

How do you get the job done? First, start by accepting the fact that you have to do it. In order to successfully market your new book, you must be able to tell the story in just a few paragraphs or pages. Barring any unusual submission requirements for a particular agent or publisher, a formal synopsis usually runs a page or two. A great time to write your synopsis is as you do your final read-through before declaring mission accomplished—that the book is done. As you finish reading each chapter, write a paragraph or two describing what happened in that chapter—what was the essence of the chapter as it relates to character, motivation and plot. Keep it short such as: Bob and Mary met for the first time. She thought he was a bore. He thought she was self-centered. They had no choice but to work together.

Also be aware of any emotional threads running through the chapter; love, hate, revenge, etc. and make note of them. But always keep it short.

Once you’ve finished the read-through of your manuscript and making subsequent notes for your synopsis, you will have created a chapter-by-chapter outline. (Don’t you wish you had had it before you began writing your book?) So what you’ve done is condense your manuscript into a manageable overview that hits on all the important points dealing with character development and plot. And it contains the emotional threads that make up the human aspect of your story.

Next step: read your chapter-by-chapter outline and determine the most important elements in your story. If you’ve correctly noted what each chapter contains regarding character, plot, and emotions (motivations), it shouldn’t take too many reads to determine the items that were critical in moving the story forward. Again, keep this new set of notes short and simple.

Even after you’ve completed this task, your fledgling synopsis is probably too long and a bit disjointed. So what you have to do next is blend all the key points together into a short narrative. Here’s one way to do it. Imagine that it’s your job to write the cover blurb that goes on the back of your book. You need it to contain enough information that anyone reading it will become interested in reading the whole book. Begin with your main character and the crisis that she faces. Explain why your character behaves as she does. Touch on the main elements that moved the story forward by referring to your chapter-by-chapter list of events. Always make clear what’s at stake—reveal the “story question”. Remember that you have to tell the whole story in the synopsis. Unlike a real cover blurb where there are no spoilers, the synopsis is going to an agent or editor. You must tell them how the story ends. This is no time to be coy. Tell it all.

A synopsis is a selling tool. It must tell your story in a very short amount of words and still get across the essence of the tale. But even more important, it must show that you can write—it is an example of your skill and craftsmanship. It confirms that you know what your story is about and can express emotion. That you understand plot and character development and human motivation.

What a synopsis is not is the classic elevator pitch or the TV Guide one-sentence description. Instead, it’s the distilled, condensed soul of your book in a few paragraphs.

So, you writers out there—do you enjoy writing a synopsis? Any additional tips on getting through the task without slitting your wrists? Once you’ve been published, does your publisher still require a synopsis before they issue a contract on your next book? If so, do you stick to the synopsis or does the end product differ from the original?

* * *

Joe Moore and his writing partner, Lynn Sholes are the authors of The Grail Conspiracy, The Last Secret, The Hades Project, and The 731 Legacy.   

Joe is a former marketing and communications executive and two-time EMMY® winner with 25 years experience in the television postproduction industry. He has written articles for national and international trade magazines covering the field of professional sound recording and video. As a freelance writer, he reviewed fiction for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Florida Times Union, and the Tampa Tribune.

Joe serves on the International Thriller Writers board of directors as Co-President. He writes full time from his home in South Florida.

The dentist pic is compliments of The Kill Zone and Joe Moore.

I'm Choked, But I Can Still Breathe

I'm choked. Some cyberpunk hacked into my computer, stole my addy and is now sending crap to other addies under the quise of it being from me.

I know I'm not alone. And this has happened before. BUT this particular email address is on my bookmarks, business cards, not to mention thousands of copies of my novel Dead Witness.

So, why am I bothering to blog about it?

It's my way of advance-apologizing for any garbage you may receive in your inbox, apparently, addressed from me. I'm on a Mac, so while these emails are a pain in the butt, they aren't viruses.

Hopefully, s/he has already grown bored and has moved on to someone else. Sorry about that, somebody else. Or maybe s/he was struck by conscience and has decided to do something productive with their lives.

Thanks for listening; I'm feeling a bit better now. If you do receive an email from me and it looks suspicious, please forward it to me as an attachment with full headers. Meanwhile, I'm changing my password. I suggest everybody do that at least twice a year.

LEST WE FORGET

My family and I have celebrated Remembrance Day since I can remember. My grandfather served, my father, my brother and now our son. In honour of them and of all our fallen soldiers, I have posted several videos from YouTube on my facebook. If you want to search for your favourite, go to YouTube and type in Remembrance Day. I hope your favourite is among them.

 

Our son Cory, during his tour in Kandahar

Blogging Tidbits by Author JO ANN HERNANDEZ

Your response to Jo Ann's guest blog was so positive that I've asked her to come back regularly. Okay -- she was coming back anyway. That you appreciated her advice was icing on the cake. Oops, cliche-alert.

Here's some tidbits of knowledge via Ms Hernandez:


Things I’ve Noticed

Everyone who follows BronzeWord Latino Authors posts and links from @LatinoBookNews knows that I love doing research. Usually I go to a blog and look for their email address and their Twitter name so I can contact the owner and invite them to participate in what I’m doing. Or if I am twittering their article, I want to use their Twitter name so they know that their post had value.

Because of my constant searching, I have seen a few things that work well and a few things that are enough to cause me to want to pull my hair out. Most people will search casually and if they don’t find a way to communicate within a few minutes, they go somewhere else. Here are a few thoughts.

If you have a blog, you want people to connect with you. The email can be protected easily by using words for the @ and (.) like AT and DOT so that your email can be on the front page and look like BronzeWord1 AT yahoo DOT com. Also this information needs to be what the expert calls “above the fold.” The part of your blog that a visitor will first see when they open your blog.

Also, many people who use Blogger will put their email on their profile where the person has to click on the word “email” and an email page opens separately. First, when I had an older computer and really old software, the separate email page never came up for me. Also, because I have a very slow computer, the page takes forever to download. And because this separate email page is from Outlook, an email service I don’t use, I can’t send a message from that page because if they response by clicking “reply” they will go to an account I rarely check. Instead, I copy the email address and post it on a doc page that I will get back to when I am ready to send the invitation. That’s a lot of work to capture one email address. Most people won’t wait for the tedious response.

If you have a blog for people to connect with you, please post your email address in your “About Me” section or in the top of the screen that shows when you open your blog. Allow people to express their gratitude or thanks for what you offer on your page. Or they may have something to add to what you offer. If a big corporation looks around the web, comes across your blog, and likes what they see, they have no way to contact you. They will not bother searching and waiting for separate pages to open up. They won’t.

Most everyone has a Twitter account. Everyone posts the widget that says, “Follow Me” with the little blue bird. Hardly anyone post their Twitter account name. The little blue birdy isn’t enough.

For one thing, when you click on the blue birdy, you are taken to another page. If the person wants to follow you, they have to sign in to their Twitter account to do so. Once they are there, do you think they will go back to your page? Or do you think they will decide since they are there, they will check for messages or what’s going on in Twitter cyberspace? If you had a product to sell, or wanted to interest them in your product/book/music/whatever, you’d lose that opportunity. Completely.

There is a cute blue birdy that has your account name and the number of your followers on the widget with a “Follow Me” message. A visitor could get your name and save it to follow you later when they move on from your blog page. And that’s the key. They stay on your page. This widget can be found at twittercounter.com . I don’t have any connection with them. You can see the widget on my blog.

Or you can use the title section of the widget to post your Twitter name, like: Jo Ann @ BronzeWord with the widget underneath.

I am a major non-techie. On my Wordpress blog, when I enter a link, I am asked if I want it to open on my page or a new pop-up page. A new pop-up page keeps the visitor on your site as they investigate the new page and doubles the chances of the visitor returning to finish reading your article or browse the rest of your blog.

Please investigate Google Alerts. This is an easy way to see who is writing about you or your product or talking about you. Just go to Google and sign up. List the names that are your company, blog, and product names and let the cyber angels do the rest. Use quotes around your name or your product’s name. You will find that some little blog in Nebraska liked your article so much they are telling their 15 followers to go check you out. That will enable you to respond to that blogger to say thanks or make an offer and find out that those 15 followers have thousands following them. Wouldn’t you rather know what is being said about you on the Web?

We’ve all heard stories of how a company hears of a complaint on Twitter and resolves the issue for the customer. Now you can be as cool as Twitter and do the same thing by having a Google Alert on your name.

Thank you for allowing me to voice a few things I have noticed during my travels through cyber space. I hope these tidbits assist you in growing your blog audience.

Thanks,
Jo Ann

Jo Ann Hernández
BronzeWord Latino Authors
http://authorslatino.com/wordpress
BronzeWord1 AT yahoo com