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Category: General Writing

Stuff in general about writing techniques and genres.

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I don't want this to come off as a "woe is me" post. It's not about the 'woe.' It's about how you know...

I've been in the world a while and for most of that while I've been typing on a keyboard. One thing that's not good for is the wrists. Yep, carpal tunnel.

The funny thing is that it started with my left wrist. And I'm right handed. Go figure. But I went to CVS and picked up a brace for my left wrist. For a while I wore it all day. But it was tough to do things. So finally, I just wore it at night.

Guess what? Today, I finally had to break down and buy one for the right hand. Yep. My dominant hand is playing follow the leader. Seeing a doctor for tests and prescriptions or having surgery isn't an option currently.  Today's about "do it yourself" treatment.     

I tried wearing both of 'em for a while. But you know what? They get in the way. And they get in the way MORE with my right hand. So, I decided I'll put 'em on at night, sometime after my bath, when I'm starting to wind down on writing for the day. Because if it interferes with writing, then it's gotta go.

I joke all the time about how I'd love not to be doing my day job. And carpal tunnel is one of those things that could be disabling. So I could apply for disability. But you know what? That wouldn't be a dream at all. It'd be more of a nightmare. How could that possibly be, you ask?

Well, it's because hurting a little or a lot - I'd write. I'd write whether anyone bought my stuff or not. Because - I'm a writer. It's not what I do. It's who I am.

People in the e-age have some perception that writing is glamorous or that it'll make you rich. Truthfully, writing is not a'tall glamorous. It's something you're doing while the clothes are in the washer. And you're usually in sweats and a comfy shirt. And your world shrinks to the size of a computer. There are no photographers chasing you or fans begging for an autograph. And no Brinks truck is showing up to throw money at you. I'm still tickled every single time a number changes at Amazon or Smashwords. Every sale makes me say a silent "thank you" to the reader.

While I wouldn't mind making a lot of money, I'd sure hate to lose that sense of wonder every time some mysterious person somewhere in the world hit the buy button. And I could think about that reader just starting a journey over the top with a love story by the crazy Duck Lady.

If you're writing because you're chasing fame or fortune - then you're not going to be writing long. Because writing is not a means to an end - writing is the end itself. Writing is not the vehicle that will get you to riches and independence. Writing is riches and independence. It's more than the journey - writing itself is the reward.

Mostly, writing is just me, my imagination, my aching wrists and the machine. And that's better than okay. That's everything.

Although writing full time is my dream job, it's more than that. It's not just what I do - it's who I am. That's what I wish for my sons. Find what makes you who you are and then try to make money doing that. Because whether it's a hobby or a career, your life won't be the same without it. There might not even be life without it. You are who you are and I am who I am. Let's celebrate that. Let's pursue that.

But, if I get stuck in my day job for the rest of my working life, I'll still come home at night, sit down at my laptop and write stories where two people find out that each is the other's happily ever after.

Don't write because you can. Only write if you have to. There are many easier routes to fortune and fame.

Only write if you're a writer.

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A pair of women - a Mormon psychologist and a Wall Street Analyst turned author -  desperately wanted to sell their non-romance books in a romance novel world. Clearly, they'd do better if all those darned women would just stop buying romance. How to accomplish that?  Well, they came up with a bizarre theory - romance novels can be as addictive as pornography. 

Yes, all of us deviant romance readers have been silently suffering under the weight of a horrific and dangerous addiction - reading romance novels.  The diabolically deluded duo say that reading romance promotes dissatisfaction with your real life relationships and may even lead to an affair.  But fear not, say the diabolically deluded duo - they have a plan.   What is it, you ask?

To overcome addiction to romance, you should READ BOOKS OF A DIFFERENT GENRE.   And again, what do the ladies who came up with the theory do?  They write books.  And what kind of books?  Not romance novels.  Yes, Virginia, these authors really did think women were stupid enough to fall for that load of self-serving swill. 

Did anybody fall for it?  Not so much.  However, lots of folks had a really good time with the whole idea that romance is as addictive as porn. One of the best places to express pithy punditry these days is Twitter.  The fiasco spawned its own hashtag, #romancekills.  Below are some of my favorite tweets from that hashtag. I'm listing the author of the tweet as best I can tell - I've told y'all before (on the Marianne's Blog) that Twitter is the "Bing" commercial, on steroids.  It can be hard to follow. If I've misquoted or incorrectly attributed anything, it wasn't out of malice. It was Bing-Bong Syndrome. 

Check out these tweets and if you have a Twitter account (and you should) after you follow me, you should definitely follow every one of these folks!   Now, without further ado - because I've a-done enough already - here are my personal favorite tweets from #romancekills. Enjoy!!

@ChristinaDodd: Every time a woman reads a romance novel, her lover dies…slowly, and with great pleasure.

@JoJosBook Corner: Woot Our she-army of oversexed females shall conquer the Earth. Men shall fear (and desire) us.

@TessaDare: Every time a bodice rips, a kitten cries.

@LimeCello: Know why Thomas Hardy wrote the original cliff hanger? He was reading a romance novel & couldn't be bothered to finish writing

@CourtneyMilan: Romance novels killed the radio store, and blamed it on video.

@LimeCello: You want to know why Atlantis is no more? Romance novels. Sorry archaeologists & historians

@PamelaCayne: For $19.95 I will cast out the romance reading demons from your soul, banishing the bodice ripping monkey on your back forever

@TallStoriesBook: "The Titanic hit that iceberg because the lookouts were too busy reading romance novels," - Amy Boggs

@TallStoriesBook: Jason Pinter : "the destruction of Alderaan was due to Darth Vader reading too many romance novels"

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Romance Novels Can Be as Addictive As Pornography?

The piece cites that romance sells more than inspirational/self help, notes that women prefer romantic stories to porn and points out that some women who read romance leave their hubbys - so it's an addiction.

Absurd.  Completely nuts. And that's the Duck Lady sayin' that!

If you're addicted to romance - DON'T TREAT IT, FEED IT - BUY MORE BOOKS & MAKE SURE A LOT OF 'EM ARE OURS!!

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**Note: This blog is a slightly revised version of one I posted earlier at the Marianne's Blog. The original post is here. I've updated it because Mrs. Santa didn't come through at Christmas. I hope you'll go to the Marianne's Blog and check out all of the fine posts by the talented authors I blog with there. (Clears throat) And yes, this is a bit of shameless self and cross promotion.

But I especially want you to check out the Marianne's blog on Monday, 4/18. That'll be my day to blog and I'm doing something special. Because I'm almost finished with Part 3 of The Duke of Eden, and it and then the full book will be available soon, I'm doing a little preview on Monday. ON 4/18 DUKE OF EDEN FANS WILL BE ABLE TO EXCLUSIVELY READ AN EXCERPT FROM PART 3. So don't miss it. Check out my post at the Marianne's Blog on Monday, 4/18 to get a glimpse of what's ahead for Brand and Adria**

...continue reading "What Romance Novel Hero Should Mother Nature Send Your Way?"

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I know that rainbows exist and people say there are pots of gold at the end. Some people also claim that they do outlines that plot a complete book before they ever type the first word. I'm willing to believe that both things are true. Of the two truths, I'm more likely to find the pot of gold than I am to outline a book. My creative process just doesn't work that way.

 I suspect that the outline method works for organized souls. I imagine those writers entering a state of harmony with the universe as they fill their roman-numeral-bearing outlines from "Chapter One" to "The End." I suspect that on lots of those writers' desks you'll find the Zen Desk Gardens with all the sand and the little rake. Can't you just see one of them building up a little sand mountain as they wrestle with a plot dilemma in the "Chapter Seven" section? Perhaps other of the Zen-organized authors have desktop water fountains or rock gardens. They plot their books as they live their lives - calm, organized and focused. 

...continue reading "The Duke of Eden – Plotting the Ending"

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To the few, the proud, the truly demented - I have Tweet News. Quacking Alone Romances is now on Twitter. You can follow me on Twitter @quackingalone by clicking the blue button in the sidebar. The button, like everything else on this site, was installed and designed by my amazing hubby who hasn't killed me yet - though I know he's been tempted, especially tonight.

See, until a day ago I was a Twirgin - a Twitter virgin. Not only had I never used the service, I'd never even seen it. But I heard that it was a great marketing and communication tool. In keeping with our plan to build sales and hopefully develop QA Romances into a full-time way to support our family, my hubby and I have been working on different areas. Hubby's busy bundling the Forever Series into 1 ebook we'll sell for $5.99. In the course of that, he discovered some formatting problems with Sixth Sense we weren't aware of so he had to go in and reformat the whole ebook. The bundle should be up very soon at Amazon, Smashwords and all of SW's great partners (Apple, B&N, Sony, Kobo, Diesel, etc.). The revised and re-formatted version of Sixth Sense should be up soon as well.

In addition to writing the WIP (The Duke of Eden), my part of the job is to work on marketing. Twitter was the obvious next step, but I took it with great fear and trepidation. It still scares me because I'm very confused about the whole thing. I got lots of advice that a good way to tweet was to have Facebook feed Twitter or maybe it was that it'd be good to have Twitter feed Facebook. Anyway, I understood something should feed something and I emailed hubby to ask him to work his magibytes and make that happen.

Understandably, he got a little confused by my e-mail and took the bold leap of coming in and actually talking to me about it. Did I want Twitter to feed my personal FB page or the QA page? Or, did I want my personal FB page or the QA page to feed Twitter?

First, I asked him what he thought. He growled and looked around for something to bite. I hid the youngest and asked him to please have the QA FB page feed twitter. He headed off to his magic cave to work his wizardry.

After a bit I thought about it and changed my mind. I grabbed a shield and crept down to the cave entrance and asked hubby to have Twitter feed the QA FB page. He emitted a stream of fire that destroyed the shield and seemed to be headed for me. I quickly thanked him again for the Twitter button on the pages and told him to hold off. For now, we won't have anything feed anything. So Twitter has random thoughts about writing, TV, my life, my insanity and other tidbits that you can't find anywhere else.

In my one day of tweeting, I've found the service is an interesting way to keep up with news and events in the world of romance and in the lives of some newsworthy folks. I'm already following about 53 tweeters, including a whole bunch in the romance world. I'm also following Shonda Sunshine (Rhimes) - the brilliant creator of Grey's Anatomy. This morning she tweeted a wish for everyone to enjoy the weekend. I tweeted an inane reply that I'm sure she never read. But it was a tiny (wee, miniscule and nearly nonexistent) way to communicate with someone I really admire. That's pretty darned neat right there.

I'm following Sarah at Smart Bitches and Jane of Dear Author and both have sent out some informative info. Season4Romance seems to have insight into everything, everywhere. Smexybooks has passed along some good info as has Reviewromance. I've just found a couple of others, including one that sounds right up my alley called Romancingrakes. I had to follow Amanda Hocking because I find her very inspiring (I don't care how much stuff she hoards in her living room).

I have 8 tweeters following me. Perhaps many of you who've been on the service a while find that number pathetically low, but for my first day I think it's okay. A big HOLLA at and thank you to the first 3 tweeter followers of QA - ChickLitandWine, BookClubWoman and Romancemama. I'm following them too. They look like great peeps to follow. Y'all should all check them out as well along with all the fine folks who have updated to follow QA since the blog post went public.

Of course, I'm hoping to connect to a bunch of readers through that great button hubby provided, despite my wishy-washy confusion about the whole thing. I've also added the twitter info to my author page at Amazon and at SW. BTW, the last few QA tweets do feed to the author page at SW. You can check out the rampant insanity there before electing to follow us on Twitter.

As I mentioned above, and yes, thanks to my indecision about having anything feed anything, for now, if you want bits and pieces of the daily zoo that is my world, you should sign up to follow Quackingalone on Twitter.

Come on, you know you want to follow us on Twitter - it's like watching the animals run the zoo.

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Recent days at Casa De Quack have been a hodgepodge of working on my WIP (The Duke of Eden) and monkeying around with marketing. I've made no secret of the fact that I'd love to write full-time. My last post, Digit Envy, made that pretty darned plain. In a lot of ways, I guess this post is a follow up to that one. It's to tell y'all about my trials and tribulations along the path of making my dream come true.

I think a dream becomes a reality in stages. It's a lot like going to sleep or waking up. Unless there's a real jolt, a real emergency, we don't drop off to sleep the second our eyes close and we don't wake up the second our alarms go off. Both are processes and I've decided that turning a dream into reality is a process too.

Often - but likely not often enough - I give myself a hard time. But part of the process of figuring out how to get enough of it right is to recognize what I got right already. I have got some of it right - stop it; don't make that face; do you want your face to freeze like that? My first step to getting it right was to gather the courage to put my work out there. It does take courage. While your books are on your hard drive, they're still yours. Put 'em out there in the world, and they belong to the reader - not just the words, but whatever the words may reveal about who you are or why you are whatever you've become so far. Writing is an intimate act and every time a writer shares her work with another person, the writer is sharing a very personal, very private experience with the reader. Yes, putting your work out there is the first step. If you haven't taken it yet, I encourage you to try.

Get your book formatted. Download GIMP and design a cover or go to Createspace or Lulu and use their cover formatting software. I was lucky enough to be married to a graphically gifted computer guy. But even if you lack that advantage, I bet you know someone good with art and computers. Offer an illustrator credit for the first cover or give it a shot yourself. You may find another hidden talent. But get a good cover because it matters. And format your manuscript right. Again, my hubby is a big advantage for me, but you can format for Kindle and Smashwords and Createspace. Those three are the keys to the world. They'll get your book everywhere in ebook and paperback format.

...continue reading "Boogling From Dream to Reality"

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I had an experience last week that has me thinking about life in general.  The experience may not have been earth shattering for anyone else, but it sure means a lot to me.  I got my mojo back.

At first I didn't realize it was missing.  I was still writing, wasn't I?  Well, sort of.  I still wrote.  I still opened my laptop and kept plugging along on my WIP, The Duke of Eden. Okay, I was plodding than plugging but I was writing.  Every weekend and a couple of nights a week I made myself write.  Made myself write? Yeah, I did.  I realized that I wasn't writing for the joy of it. I wasn't writing because I had to write.  I wasn't writing because I couldn't NOT write.  That's when I knew it was gone.

But lots of things are gone these days. Perhaps life changes, reduces, contracts, but it goes on.  I think we've all learned to walk away from things.  We've let them go and kept walking because that's what we had to do.  So even if my writer's mojo had left me, I didn't need it.  I'd keep walking and I'd even keep writing.  I'd keep going forward until it got better.  Because if I kept going, it would get better, wouldn't it?

Except lots of time passed and it didn't get better.  I kept moving forward but I never got anywhere.  The holidays went by and I adored having my family together and my eldest home where he belongs.  But there was lots of time for me to write over the holidays.  I couldn't spend every moment in Zack's room staring at him sappily while he played World of Warcraft.  (Eventually he'd kick me out.)

When I'd get evicted from Zack-watching I'd go by and pester John and then stop in to pester my youngest, Sam.  All of them stay fairly ensconced at a computer somewhere. So I'd head back to the den where my Toshiba Satellite sits on a nice little folding table I got for Christmas a few years ago from my hubby.  I'd sit on my end of the love seat and spend more time watching TV than working on my book.  Whole days would pass with me cranking out a paragraph.  On a good day, I might write 2 paragraphs.  That should've been a sharp wake up call for someone who used to laugh at people who said a writer's prime was about 6 pages a day.

...continue reading "Sometimes You Have To Go Backwards To Go Forwards"

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Some of the hot news this week promises hotter sales in 2011 for crafters of HEAs, like yours truly.  Yes, Virginia, Bowker says  it.  The New York Times says it. Even Smart Bitch Sarah Wendell says it. And if the Smart Bitches say it, then it must be true - "Romance is now the fastest-growing segment of the e-reading market, ahead of general fiction, mystery and science fiction, according to data from Bowker, a research organization for the publishing industry." 

Industry honchos say that the "discreet power" of the e-book reader mean that "romance novels are now enjoying a renaissance."  The popular wisdom is that e-readers allow their owners to read whatever they like privately, without displaying the covers of the books.  Romance novel covers have long been a platform for showing long-locked bare-chested lads with rippling abs embracing a longer-locked lady with a low cut bodice or a silk gown tight enough to show off her pebbling nipples.

Those-who-know-these-things say that lots of ladies have been hesitant to indulge in lovely, lusty tales because of these cover images.  In the NY Times piece a CFO of All Romance quotes e-reader customers who've said they can now indulge their love of romance novels - without having to "show my husband what I'm reading."  The switched.com piece says mass-transit commuters with e-readers are downloading romances in record numbers because they don't have to worry "about a fellow traveler casting a judgemental glance" at the book cover.   

I have trouble identifying with any of this.  I've never cared what anyone thought of my romance novels - covers and all.  Whatever romance novel I was reading accompanied me to college and law school classes.  The only time I ever had a professor object to a book didn't involve a romance novel. (At Francis Marion University one of my profs made me take me take James Joyce's "Ulysses" outside her classroom and made me promise never again to bring the novel back into her presence.  It turns out the professor wrote her doctoral thesis on the book and never wanted to see it again.)

And women worrying about telling their hubby they are reading a romance or being afraid to show him the cover?  Oh, please.  Who are these women?  Did they poll refugees from the 1950s?  If a woman is that concerned with her hubby's opinion of her reading material, then her marriage has far, far deeper problems than romance novels. 

Besides, in my household Mr. Quack designs the romance novel covers.  All of the earlier book covers were pretty non-offensive and gender neutral, but they were striking covers with very graphic images.  They're killer covers but they don't necessarily sell sex and lust.  We both adore the covers, but the one I'm writing now, The Duke of Eden (it's up as a serial on Amazon BTW), has a much more graphic cover.   Currently in Casa de Quack hubby and I have been talking about him doing some new covers for the earlier books that are more graphic.  Yes, we're talking about adding pebbling nipples and rippling abs. 

Why?  Because we've learned that sex still sells.  And Quacking Alone Romances is very much a joint enterprise.   What's good for the brand is good for our bank account.  And what's good for the brand is what sells.  Some of the very best-selling e-reading material is erotica of the kind that can make me blush - and that ain't an easy thing.  We've learned that the graphic covers grab the eye and we'll never get readers to press the buy button if we don't get their attention first.

...continue reading "Pebbling Nipples, Rippling Abs & Ringing Registers"

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Each year Britain's Literary Review honors a mainstream author with "The Bad Sex In Fiction Award."   The award goes to writers whose descriptions of sexual antics and activity inspire "eye-rolling and disgust." 

This year, Rowan Somerville won the award for descriptions in his book, "The Shape of Her."  Passages like the following secured him the honor:

Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her.

As if that wasn't good enough to secure the best of the bad prize, elsewhere in the book Somerville describes a nipple as "the nose of the loveliest nocturnal animal, sniffing in the night."

Some other big literary names were on the list of nominees, including Jonathan Franzen for his book Freedom which included the following passage:

One afternoon, as Connie described it, her excited clitoris grew to be eight inches long, a protruding pencil of tenderness with which she gently parted the lips of his penis and drove herself down to the base of its shaft.  Another day, at her urging, Joey described to her the sleek warm neatness of her turds as they slid from her anus and fell into his open mouth, where, since these were only words, they tasted like excellent, dark chocolate.

Another nominee was Adam Ross for descriptions in his book, Mr. Peanut.  Including a passage where a husband describes his love for his wife's "giganticness" and said if he made love to her from behind he felt like "an X-rated Gulliver among the Brobdingnags."  Ross writes,

She was not his wife but a giant she-creature, an overlarge sex pet:  his to screw, groom and maintain.

In accepting the award, Somerville was gracious and stated that he felt it was fitting because, "There is nothing more English than bad sex."

...continue reading "Bad Sex 2010: Dead Bugs, Pencils & Giant She Creatures"