RWA Nat’l Conference and Book covers

First off, I want to say Congratulations to all of the 2012 Golden Heart and RITA Winners from the Romance Writers of America national conference. I’ve enjoyed reading the updates you all posted on Twitter and Facebook. Hope you all have a safe trip home.

Here’s the list of all the winners. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with both Elisa Beatty and Darynda Jones in online chat rooms during the Winter Writing Festival sponsored by the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood, which they are both a part of.  I’m super excited for them both!

Here’s Alexandra Sokoloff’s take on this year’s conference.

This week has been a little intense. I’ve finally finished the first serious edit on the second book of the trilogy. I’m going to let it sit during August while I work on the third book. I’ve also been playing around with cover designs. I have a whole new respect for graphic artists. I’ve gotten several headaches trying to figure this stuff out on my own. I’ve read several articles that have helped and a friend has been giving me some excellent advice. Now I just have to figure out what look I want for these three books.

Of course, right as I start trying to figure out what I want for my covers, articles and posts have popped up about the hazards of using internet images. I’ve decided to use images of my own so I don’t have to worry about either obtaining or reobtaining the rights or an image sold after I obtained the rights to it. It will take some time and tweaking, but I think I can get it accomplished, it will just take some time and energy and lots and lots of Advil! lol

And I’ve signed up for the August session of Camp NaNoWriMo. I figure that’s the best and fastest way to get the third book completed. Yes, it will just be the first draft, but it will be there to improve. Right now, I don’t have anything written. The story has been stewing for the last two weeks.

I’ve been doing research for another book. I’ve learned quite a bit about the city of Chicago. Things I never thought were tied to that city. George Pullman, Michael Finn – the man they named the drink Mickey Finn after. Now I know the story of how the phrase “slip them a Mickey” started. I’m excited to continue the research. This book is slowly forming, but I’m still not sure exactly what path it will take. Hopefully with a little more knowledge about the history of Chicago, the characters will take over and help flesh out the story.

Sorry for the short post. Too many things going and trying to get back to them. Once I get the covers figured out, I’ll share them here with you.  Have a great week readers!

Melanie

A Banner Week – Two more awards!

Ms. Raelyn Barclay awarded me with TWO awards. And this after getting the illuminating blogger award earlier in the week. I’m blushing and jumping for joy at the same time. It’s nice to know I’ve made an impact/impression on people with my writing.

The Sunshine Award

• Favorite color: Orange mainly. I like most colors, though I cannot wear yellow. Just doesn’t work.
• Favorite animal: Exotic: tiger. Love them. If I’m at a zoo, you’re losing me to the tiger exhibit. Domestic: cats, dogs and if I had acreage, horses.
• Favorite number: 7. Those who know me, just hush   It’s a good number.
• Favorite drink: As much as I love my coffee, I have to say tea. It’s such a versatile drink.
• Facebook/Twitter Locations: Facebook / Twitter
• Favorite passion: Reading. Crafts come a very close second.
• Giving or Receiving: Giving, definitely. I’m copying Raelyn’s answer on that.
• Favorite pattern: Plaid. I love it. Especially if it’s on a kilt. Mmm.
• Favorite day of the week: One where I get to write.
• Favorite flower: I really don’t have one. It used to be carnation, but I’ve grown out of that. Anything orange, I guess. I like the flower in the award above.

Fabulous Blog Ribbon

Five fabulous writing moments:

1. Typing ‘Chapter One’ on a new draft.
2. Brainstorming with the fabulous writers I’ve had the pleasure to meet here online and in the real world.
3. When an audience ‘gets’ the emotion you tried to write and realize you succeeded in writing.
4. Sprinting online with fellow writers and seeing the enthusiasm when they accomplish their goals.
5. Typing ‘The End’ on a first draft.

Five things I love about writing…

1. When the story flows…no feeling like it.
2. Discovering what my characters are like and what they’re doing.
3. The opportunities it has afforded me to meet fabulous people I would have never met.
4. The fact that it forces me to think and grow as a writer and a person.
5. Living in another world for a time.

Five things I hate about writing…

1. Using a thesaurus because my brain refuses to cough up the word I’m looking for.
2. Revisions – necessary yet evil.
3. Not having enough time to do it as often as I want. It’s an addiction!
4. Edits. See #2
5. Characters who refuse to follow and outline. Fun yet frustrating at the same time.

I have to copy this from Raelyn, who shared it from Brinda Berry when she handed out these two awards.

“Why? Because these writers certainly spread sunshine with their words. Their blogs are wonderful, and they are Fabulous Blog Ribbon worthy. They are welcome to indulge us with answers to the questions above if they like. Please go visit these bloggers and see why they are so special!”

 

I have to agree. You all know, I’m a little bit of a rule breaker. To thank every blogger/writer who has visited FP,TD, I have to award you ALL with these two awards. So many people have encouraged me over the last year on this blogging journey. If it hadn’t been for them, I might have given this up a long time ago. We all know, there are times when we just need a little bit of encouragement to make it over that hump.

Have a great weekend.

Melanie

 

 

Illuminating Blogger Award

The lovely Vikki over at The View Outside nominated FP,TD (and me!) for the Illuminating Blogger Award.

Here are the rules for the award.

Visit the Blog who awarded you and thank them.
Tell everyone who nominated you, thank the blogger and include a link back to their site on your blog.
Share a random thing about yourself.
Select five or more nominees — and notify them on their blogs.
Put the award on your blog somewhere.

Hmm. One random thing about myself.

I wrote three songs back in the ’90s which are on a compilation CD with yours truly as the singer.

Seems I never could get away from writing, it just took me a while to really get ‘serious’ about it.

Here are the bloggers I would like to nominate.

Raelyn, Raelyn Barclay

Deniz, The Girdle of Melian

Nadja, An Author’s Adventures

Jenn & Stacey, MuseTracks

Come on, did you really think I would completely follow the rules? lol

Please check out the nominated blogs. These are some fantastic bloggers and they’ve been very supportive in my writing/blogging adventure. I’ve been lucky enough to meet three of them in person!

 

Time for Randomness!!

Been a while since I did a randomness post. Think it’s time mwahaha.

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1) Most people I know who’ve read 50 Shades or has a spouse reading it, haven’t reaped the, um, benefits. What’s the purpose of reading it then? LOL

2) Short hair cats still shed. And the hair loves my kitchen floor for some reason. No more 5 second rule at my house.

3) Photo tags on Facebook. I read an article that said most women only post unflattering pictures of their female friends. Why? What’s the purpose? This jealousy between women has to be dialed down a notch. I’ve been guilty too and am working on it. (Of both, unfortunately. I had only good memories of that time in the pic, my friend didn’t think it was nice. I’ve since taken it down.)

4) Inter-library loans are awesome!! And Free! What’s better than Free? Ask, they just might find you just the book you need for research or entertainment.

5) Felt pen ink appears to come off the hand easier than regular ink. Why, I don’t know, but it’s a good thing considering I’m editing with a red felt pen :/

6) Flowers can drown. We had tremendous, nonstop rain here all last week. Half of my flowers died from drowning. It was probably root rot, but I’m sticking with drowning. Sounds more dramatic.

7) Blueberry bagels are the bomb! Yes, I know my age is showing with that. Don’t care. They are and are now banned from my diet because they’re soooogood, but I really don’t need to eat them every morning for breakfast.

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8) The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.  I like pickles.

9) Each of the suits on a deck of cards represents the four major pillars of the economy in the middle ages: heart represented the Church, spades represented the military, clubs represented agriculture and diamonds represented the merchant class. -What I find interesting about this is that the “upper” class really isn’t represented here unless you take into account that they had a big influence in the church.

10) The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado. You know I had to go straight to the web and Google Earth to check this. I won’t spoil it for you, for those who want to check this themselves, hehe.

There’s your bit of randomness for the week. I could go on and on, but I know you all have other things to do besides read crazy things from the mind of a writer.

Have a good weekend peoples!

Melanie

Just in case you do have time, here‘s where you can find more randomness.

 

Just one of those crazy things

Happy Tuesday readers! It’s a jam packed month with August not looking any better, but in a good way. Meaning if I had the ability to quit my full time job I’d have more than enough to keep me busy

Anyway, I finished the edit/rewrite of When Love Waits and the first draft of When Love Lingers thanks to the June session of Camp NaNo. I’ve been going back over them one more time, finding typos, inconsistencies and tweaking sentences to make them stronger. A week ago, I had a working title for the second book that I wasn’t in love with. So, I posted to my friends on Facebook and between my beta reader for the first book and my cousin’s husband, who’s also a writer, I came up with the title above.

As all Facebook discussion tend to, the title search went off on a tangent. Two people said it needed to be a trilogy. Wait, what? It wasn’t even supposed to be two books? I don’t have characters to use in a trilogy! Needless to say, I freaked out. After further discussion with the cuz’s hubby, it hit me that Idohave two characters I can make a story with. It means revisiting the location of the first book, but I figured out a way to get the main character from that book out of the picture even though she works with these two at the same office. Viola! Story outlining itself in my head, freaking out minimized and now, I’ll be doing the August NaNo session, even though I didn’t intend to do it.

Now, I’ll have a trilogy. I’m excited about the prospect but nervous at the same time. I have another dilemma. Deep down, I have a feeling these stories won’t be picked up simply because the main character in the first book is a football player.

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Apparently, athletes aren’t real big sellers in the romance community. I think partly it may be because of the fact most people really can’t relate to the lifestyle a professional athlete leads, but I think it would be in the same vein as the prince or millionaire sweeping his heroine off to exotic locals.  I have that personality that if you tell me something can’t be done, I’m going to try it anyway because I simply don’t believe you. Because I’ve done it in the past and gotten the thing that “didn’t work” to work. So yeah, I’m a little stubborn. (okay, a lot stubborn)

I’ve gotten fantastic advice from two self-published authors and I think I’m going to go that route. Now I get to learn two more languages! Cover design and book formatting, yippee!! I know I can do it, it’s just sitting down long enough to do it. Sometimes I wonder if I am a little ADD because there are days where I just can not focus no matter what I do. Give me a good book, on the other hand and I’m a couch potato until I hit that last page.

So, to borrow a phrase from a friend, I’m “sending it out into the universe” that I can get this trilogy written, packaged and up for sale by the end of year. By hook or by crook. Hehe. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Not to mention, I know there are other women out there who still find a man in a football uniform sexy.

Melanie

Just because…

I apologize to any Steeler fan, but as a Broncos fan, this was an unforgettable play. I still get chills watching it