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Category: General Writing

Stuff in general about writing techniques and genres.

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Yep, peeps, once again my daring co-horts over at All Day, All Night Writing Divas have unleashed the crazy duck lady.  It was my turn to blog and instead of reporting me and calling for me to be committed, they just let me rip.  Would you read a blog crazy enough to let me post?

Anyway, this month I'm blogging about a great piece over at Huffpo by Dr. Drexler.  It's all about how men love and it contains some real surprises. I might post it here after it comes down at the other site, but you don't want to wait.  Trust me. 

So quack on over and read it this minute. Be sure to leave a comment because I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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In the course of my internet boogling this week, I ran across a link to this list of the 20 Most Prolific Authors And Writers In Literary History.  As I perused it my brain came to a screeching halt - okay that's not so unusual.  But this list is of some darned unusual folks. And keep in mind that it's the duck lady calling someone strange. 

The info is doubtless dated a bit by now, but even if some other folks have managed the mind-bending feat of scampering onto this list, it in no way diminishes the "wow" factor of the achievement of these authors.  By all the faeries on the Isle of Skye, take a look at the numbers.

The most prolific author remains a lady who passed away in 1973 - Mary Faulkner of South Africa.  I'm guessing that between 1903 and 1973 there must not have been a lot of TV in South Africa.  No, I know what it was.  The internet wasn't sapping everyone's attention.  Then again, people were still writing on typewriters.  Hmm.  However she managed it, Mrs. Faulkner wrote 904 books.  Yes. You read that right - 904 books.

She wrote under a bunch of pen names including Kathleen Lindsay. Her romances include "There is No Tomorrow," "Wind of Desire," and "Harvest of Deceit."  I'm wondering if I checked one of hers out from my local library as a teenager.  I found a book there that I flat out adored and it was shelved near Johanna Lindsay's work.  Years later, before I'd ever written a word, I was looking for that book and emailed Ms. Johanna Lindsay because I thought it was one of hers.  She replied and said that based on my description it sounded very interesting but that it wasn't hers.  She  suggested that I write it myself. 

Some years later I proceeded to write a number of books - but I haven't made 20 yet so Ms. Faulkner's record sure looks safe from me.  But I've never written one based on my faint memories of that earlier book by someone that I'm sure I read somewhere.  Of course, by the time I emailed Ms. Johanna Lindsay I'd read more romance novels that you could shake a stick at and I'd already started mulling over how I'd write one of my own. So Johanna was right on track to suggest that I write it myself - she likely suspected that the plot I recited didn't belong to anyone else.

Now, I'm wondering if my mystery book might have been one of Ms. Faulkner's. They don't seem to be widely available a'tall.  And the truly aggravating part is that when I see them sold somewhere, the stores don't include a description of the book. Why on earth wouldn't they describe the book? I'm not buying a pig from anyone's poke - including the most prolific writer in history.

A man named Lauran (Paine) wrote 850 books. Another, Prentiss Ingram, wrote over 600 books, mostly dime novels.  He wrote a bunch of Buffalo Bill stuff and sometimes wrote a 35,000 word book overnight.  Okay, 35K is a darned short book, even in today's ebook age, but it's still a heck of an achievement.

There's no way on God's little green planet that I'd even touch the last author on the list - L.T.  Meade who wrote 258 children's books.  I could give it a shot, but I'm not sure that there's enough coffee in the galaxy to fuel the effort, and I'm positive the Graham budget wouldn't stretch to funding bionic fingers.

But I'm surely quacking full of admiration for all of the authors who were energetic enough and imaginative enough to make this list.      

......maybe if I mainlined the coffee.......

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I love "bundles."  You know, those ebooks where you can collect several books in a series for a value price?  I've got one up - The Forever Series Bundle.  But this post isn't about my bundle - it's about one by an author I've discovered fairly recently - Susan Mallery.

Susan's got a 2 Bundle set up called The Desert Rogues Part 1 and Part 2.  Part 1 has 5 Harlequin-length stories and I believe Part 2 is similar.  I picked up Part 1 a couple of days ago and I plan to pick up Part 2 today or tomorrow.  I always stock up on ebooks for the trip to Orlando to return my eldest to UCF.  So I'll pick up Part 2 of Susan's and possible Julie Garwood's The Ideal Man because I love her work too. I've missed out on the last book in Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Chicago Stars series - Natural Born Charmer - and I may pick it up as well. 

I am on the 2nd of the 5 stories in Part 1 of The Desert Rogues bundle and I'm loving it.  These are older stories, but sometimes the classics hold up just fine and these stories definitely do that.  The Part 1 bundle is about a family of sheiks but it's not a historical. It's a contemporary.  I loved the first book - Khalil's story and I'm adoring the second - Jamal's story.

For all this mass of goodness, the bundles sell for $10.24 on the Sony Reader store but for only $8.38 on Amazon.  I pay a little extra because I don't own a Kindle but it was still a good deal on the Sony site. 

If you're looking to get engrossed in some hot desert love, I recommend these books!!!

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Recently, I ran across this interesting piece from Joy Online written by John Boakye of The Mirror. It asks whether the reader believes in love at first sight.  As a romance novelist, I find the question very intriguing.  The author of the piece, Mr. Boakye,  suggests that we express and experience love "based on our cultural background, age, sex, education and life experiences."

Mr. Boakye recounts his own experience of falling in love at first sight with the lady he later married.  He says he was driving along a road when he saw a tall, beautiful lady standing by the side.  It affected him so strongly that he drove into a ditch and amongst the people who came to help was the beautiful lady.  She said that she'd felt the same sensation when she first saw him.

The piece describes love at first sight as feeling that you've met "the most romantic person on earth" and you'll do anything and everything to capture his attention. You see the person as "flawless," are full of happiness and joy when they're around and will follow him anywhere.  This person came straight into your heart and stole it away.

The piece says that others are more inclined to accept the scientific explanation of the phenomenon. 

 According to scientists, when you see a person of the opposite sex, the brain stimulates a cocktail of chemicals like epinephrine into the nervous system. This gives you a pleasant outlook of life and makes you react romantically towards him or her.

The greater the stimulation, the greater your emotional feeling. People then react differently, depending on their age, sex and self control. What we call love at first sight is, therefore, nothing special because it could happen to anyone at any time.

The piece says that others don't believe in love at first sight and think the strong attraction to one special person is a "false sense of love because true love goes beneath the skin." 

I've written a lot about love, but generally more in the "fated soul mate" sense than in the first sight sense.  It's an interesting point to ponder -- Do you believe that love at first sight exists?

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Published on 1 Comment on Indie vs Self Published: What’s In A Name If The Game’s The Same?

There's been a growing attempt by some authors to make the writing world a society of classes.  Certain status-hungry authors want to define terms as labels.  The labels  allow those writers to cling to the status that apparently means more to them than their relationships with other writers or their readers. In other words, the name game is really the fame game.

Back in the olden days - a couple of years ago - an author was forced into a system where the people who created the work had to act as beggars, supplicants crawling in mass numbers to bow before the altars of literary agents.  The agents functioned as super readers - if they liked your work they might deign to present it to publishers and rake in 15% of your sales for their efforts.  And the publishers?  Whether they were the "Big 6" or smaller, self owned "independent" companies, they generally published only work that was pretty much cookie-cutter - change the name of the author and the cover and send out the same kind of books over and over.

...continue reading "Indie vs Self Published: What’s In A Name If The Game’s The Same?"

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I read an interesting post at Dear Author the other day. It was an interview with Carrie Feron, the Editorial Director at Avon.  That house publishes 8 original print romances and 4 digital first romances each month via Avon Impulse.  Yes, Virginia, it's one of the biggest publishing houses on planet Earth.

When Avon set up a digital first arm, the team thought the books for Impulse would be by unknown authors.  But in today's world, the business execs were surprised when their existing authors wanted in on the digital line.  It turns out that 1/3 to 1/2 of Impulse's ebooks are by existing Avon authors.  (I'm not surprised.  I'm not sure why Avon was either.) Avon's also learned pricing lessons from indies and will sell the digital books for less than $5.00.

Although all of Jane's interviews at DA are interesting, parts of this one were particularly intriguing. Ms. Feron said that what she is particularly looking for is a strong voice.  That means she will know who the author is from reading the first page of a book.  "If you have a strong enough voice, you can make your own niche."  

Ms. Feron also said that she's seen a lot of Regency stuff and is looking for something that hasn't been done before. She thinks readers are jaded so she's looking for old themes spun a new way.  But the most startling thing she said is this:  "She feels that a lot of authors self censor too much."

I'm an indie author but I'm smart enough to know that the big publishers have made fortunes predicting what readers want. (I don't think the big houses always got it right and I think they seriously screwed up when they got too big to take direct submissions from authors.  If you make your money from selling widgets but think you're too important to deal with the companies that make them, then sooner or later you're going to lose access to your product.) But despite all of that, we should always remember that publishers built empires from predictions just like these.  So I think that smart writers would do well to listen when free advice like this is passed along.

Thanks a million to Dear Author for the post.  If you're not already reading the site - shame on you.  You should check it every day and you should pay attention!

Now, what the Avon digital guru said of import was that she wants a strong voice and writers should tell take all the risks necessary to tell their stories full throttle.  I believe that means that writers should keep it real and be sure the voice that comes across on the pages is their own.  Trying to pretend to write in a way that doesn't come naturally or to "copy" the style of another successful author won't work for me and it won't work for you either.  A fake style comes across as fake to the readers. If they don't believe your voice they won't like your story. 

But Ms. Feron had more to say - she felt that too many authors censor themselves.   And it's flat out wrong for a writer to fail to tell their story exactly the way it should fall naturally.   Anytime an author fails to listen to her muse, the author is going off track.  Inspiration likes risk and risk takers.  Why take the risk of putting a story out there but refusing to tell the whole story? 

The way the book comes to you from your muse may be risky in theme.  It may barge right into a supposedly forbidden area. Or it may be tee-totally shocking.  So you draw back as you write or edit.  You change the book and make it "safer."  Oatmeal is safer than a steak but which would you rather have for dinner?  Playing it safe puts a book right in the middle of the pack - and it's a big ole' pack. 

When you write a book that takes risks, you will offend some people and you will turn some off.  Not everyone will like it.  But some people will love it. All of my books take risks and not everyone agrees with some of the things the characters go through.  But in every case the story went the way it should have gone.  My voice is over-the-top and the characters who populate my stories are going to go through some traumatic events on their way to their happily ever after.  But they'll get there - every time.  

Frankly, I think that Ms. Feron's advice isn't just good for writers when they're writing. It's also excellent advice for the best way to approach life. The person I am may not be everyone's cup of tea. But I am who I am and what I am and I don't change that for anyone.  And I always say what I think.  Life is too short for me to worry about saying this to person A or offending person B. 

So in writing and in life, I think we'll all get farther if we take the risks that need to be taken, do it in the way that feels natural, and take it all the way.

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Published on 2 Comments on The Road to “Discoverability”

Those like me who struggle at the keyboard, turning out book after book, used to be travelers on the same highway - the Road to Publication.  In the digital age, writers are still travelers, but we're walking a different road. Today anyone and everyone can publish so it's not about publication any longer.  Now writers travel the road to discoverability.

It's a major change that took the explosion of an industry to craft.  But the change has been so sudden that writers recently attending The Writers League of Texas Agents' Conference were shocked when keynote speaker Jane Friedman began her speech on the state of the book by showing an image of a giant mushroom cloud. The title of Friedman's address was "Is The Book Dead? Who Cares?"

Friedman's speech tracked the revolutionary changes in the book industry. Borders is bankrupt. The biggest bookseller on the planet, Amazon, announced May 18th that it now sells more ebooks than paperbacks and hardcovers combined. Friedman says that the book as we have known it is dead. 

Who is Jane Friedman to make such an epic pronouncement?  She's the CEO and co-founder of Open Road Integrated Media.  And from 1997 to 2008 Ms. Friedman was the CEO and President of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide - one of the biggest publishers in the world.  She's credited with having invented the "author's tour" which "became a staple of the industry."  That background gives Friedman the platform to make any prognostication she wants to make about the book industry.

...continue reading "The Road to “Discoverability”"

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A new study conducted by Northwestern University's Kellog School of Management & the Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign asked 307 adults between the ages of 19 and 103 to describe their regrets.  Specifically, participants were asked to describe in detail one decision that they came to regret.

Regrets about romance led the list and women were much more likely to have romantic regrets than men.  Around 44% of women described relationship regrets as compared to only 19% of the men. 

"It speaks to something psychologists have known for a long time. Women are typically charged with the role of maintaining and preserving relationships, so when things do go wrong, it's very spontaneous for women to think, 'I should have done it some other way,'" said senior study author Neal Roese, a psychologist and professor of marketing at Northwestern. "It's how men and women are raised in this culture."

Men were more likely to have regrets about work or education. The work regrets centered on failing to take a risk and accept a different job or working at an occupation that they didn't feel passionate about.

The most interesting part of the study is that the long-term regrets were much more often about what participants didn't do. Yes, Virginia, the long term regrets centered on the risks not taken.  And the study noted that the biggest basis for the regrets were that people didn't try - what people rember are the times they failed to go for their dreams.  

Yesterday is over and none of us can change the past.  However, we can and should think about our regrets and learn from them so that we can change our future.   

"Regret is an essential part of the human experience," Roese said. "You should listen to the lessons your regrets tell you, which is quite often how you could have done things differently or how you could change things."

This is something that we can all change - starting today.  If you're single or single again and regretting the one that got away - look him or her up. Facebook and Twitter have made the world a much smaller place.  Finding that someone and giving them a Holla' won't cost you a thing.  If you regret that you didn't go for your Masters or that you didn't study psychology instead of business - get online and enroll in a class now. Even if you can't afford a big education budget, you can probably afford to take that first step.

And if you're like me, and your regret is not working hard at your writing so that you could become a full-time author, then today is the day to dedicate yourself to that too. Work on your writing every day. Make progress - at least some progress- on your WIP every day.  Don't let a single day go by without being active on Twitter, Facebook, Your Blog. 

And if you have a book or two out now - market by doing all of that social networking, but don't forget the best way to market - track down blogs - lots of blogs- and comment.  When some of your thoughts hit home with another reader, they're likely to click your blog and check out your list of books. Before you know it, you may have made another sale.

Today is a good day to turn a past regret into a future success.  Let's all give it a shot and see how far we can go.  If we try, we may fail. But if we fail to try, we'll always regret it!

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Is this a list that no one wants to be on or what?

The first author to inspire me was one who surely inspired more future romance authors than any other.  The late, great, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss who unfortunately passed away in 2007 is considered by many to have created the historical romance genre.  Her book, "The Flame and The Flower" came out when I was only 10. Even I wasn't that precocious.  It was a few years later, when I was 16 or 17, that I first read TF&TF.  I found it in my library's paperback collection but soon bought my own copy. I went on to read all of the author's work, over and over.

TF&TF is a book that stays with me, even today.  Now the politically correct police try to denigrate it as a bodice ripper.  I always saw it as a tale of female power.  For most of the book Brand danced to Heather's tune and by the end his fire was tamed by her tenderness.  That's the lesson I took from Ms. Woodiwiss and recall in all of my books.

Another author who inspires me is fortunately still with us. Johanna Lindsey. I'm reading one of hers on my ereader right now.  She wrote her first book in 1977 and has published over 40 novels. I've read most of them.  I've enjoyed many of her works, but the ones that inspire me the most are 2 of the early books in her Mallory Series - "Gentle Rogue" and "The Magic of You." GR is James and Georgie's tale and TMOY is Warren and Amy's.   

...continue reading "A Quack Of Gratitude To Authors Who Inspire The Strange Duck Lady"

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Jessica Galbreath, fairy artist and founder of Fairy Day says:

"This holiday is for everyone who believes in the magic of fairytales. It is for those imaginative souls who dare to dream impossible dreams. It is for the children of the world, wide eyed and open to the magic that surrounds them. It is for adults too, who long to capture a bit of that magic they remember from thier own childhood."

If you want to capture some fairy magic, I suggest you pick up my novel - A Faerie Fated Forever or that you get the whole 3 book series - available in a bundle AT A BUY 2 GET 1 FREE PRICE - The Forever Series.

Everyone who reads romance must believe in fairytales so this is our day.  Today, we all get one of the magical sprites to ease our way and change our impossible dream into our inevitable reality.  Inhale the fairy dust and dance amidst the sparkles and watch your special fairy send you a wonderous wave of good fortune and magic joy.