Embarking on a New Year

2010 is now upon us! Many of us are reflecting on our blessings, mistakes, accomplishments, regrets, surprises, and challenges from last year. Some of us are now setting goals and making resolutions for the year to come. And so am I.

I'm not exactly sure what those goals and resolutions will be right now but over the next week I plan to put pen to paper and come with a definitive list. I'm excited about 2010 and all that the year will bring, both good and bad. The good will of course bring me happiness and satisfaction and the bad will make me stronger, physically and spiritually.

Many of my supporters have express anticipation for what I plan to do as far as my writing is concerned. You know what? So am I. I'm a little concerned about what I'll be able to accomplish with my health as an issue but I don't want to bring negative thoughts/fears into the picture. It's been 5 years since I began this pursuit of writing romance fiction and not a lot has happened. But slow and steady will win the race, I'm sure!

I look forward to seeing what my writing friends are going to create in 2010 and will support them through words of encouragement and critiques. Good luck, ladies!

Summer is almost over!!

Goodness!! I can't believe summer 2009 is almost over. Back to the daily grind of dropping off and picking up the kid (who is going to her a ninth grader) from school. Back to afterschool activities and homework and projects and..... Ya know what I mean!!!

Even though I didn't take that luxurious vacation in the Carribbean or have that girls' only getaway at a spa retreat, I did have a pretty good summer. I relaxed like a slug on a rug and hardly did anything but hang out with the kid and my beau. Not only is it time for her to get back into the groove of school, it's also time for me to get off my duff, put my fingers to the keyboard and get to writing. Something. Anything. A short story, a poem, a limrick, darn it!! My brain is turning to mush!

I'm so proud of my fellow newbie writers who are making revisions, submitting to editors and publishers and signing contracts. And there is no good reason why I shouldn't be doing the same.

Granted, the heat and humidity have made my energy level sink like a stone and my motivation grind to a halt. But now that I've gone through a new series of symptoms and I'm on the road to recovery, I can brush the dust of self-doubt from the shoulders and plow forward. I may not plow as fast nor as steadily as my newbie counterparts, but I DO plan to get moving.

Since I said the same thing at the end of LAST SUMMER, wish me luck!!!

AJ

Critiquing Mode

I'm dedicating my time this month to getting back into the critiquing mode. My to-do list is piled high with chapters I owe to my friends Zaynah, Chelle, and Jennifer. Denise, I can't wait for what you have coming down the pipe.

More blogging to come next week........

AJ

It's Nice to be Missed

Hello fellow bloggers, critique partners and friends,

It's amazing how many of you have noticed that I've been missing in action for a while. I've received a few emails and phone calls asking where I'd been.

Well I'm still here! What's been going on with me? Well, for short, not a lot of writing. My muse has simply packed her bags and moved out. And she didn't leave a Dear Angie letter nor a forwarding address. I've been searching for her everywhere, have practically been arrested for stalking, but she just won't come back to me. For weeks, I wrote her love notes, dreamed about some of the ideas she's given me in the past and even tried the Internet to see if I can "re-build" her. No luck! In fact the stress and frustration of trying to write may have even contributed to the MS attack that I suffered recently. After three days of IV steroids, I felt like I've been run over by a truck. No fun, let me tell you!

So finally I decided to live by the old "if you love something, set it free" adage and just chucked the whole search for a little while. I have all the confidence in the world that my muse will return once I relax and give myself the permission and time to appreciate the pleasure she brought to my life rather than continue to work myself into a lather over the fact that she just up and abandoned me without saying goodbye. The little diva!!

AJ

The Summer is OVER!

The summer of 2008 is unofficially over with the passing of Labor Day and I'm both happy and disappointed.

I'm happy because that means the schools reopen and my daughter can get off the couch, out of my refrigerator and get back to the books. I was a bad mommy this summer because I gave in to her plea to do absolutely nothing all summer. No summer camp, no dance camp, no math review workbooks, no eighth grade prep books, no nothing! She got to be lazy all summer and capped it off with a 5-day cruise to the Caribbean just before school started. She came back looking like a crispy critter!



I'm disappointed because I used the eventful days of my summer as an excuse to do hardly any writing. OK, no writing. Instead of writing about romance, I experienced some romance of my own. The details are too precious to post in cyberspace. Let's just say that the fall and winter are looking to be very toasty indeed.



It's good to be able to kick back and bask in the admiration of someone who's genuinely interested in you on so many levels. To be able to laugh at someone's corny jokes, to flirt outrageously via text messages, to cook for someone other than the kid who only wants chicken nuggets and french fries, and to be excited about the prospect of every phone call and the mysteries of the future.



Now, it's time for me to put my nose to the grindstone and get back to work. Yeah, I know. You've heard it before, but I'm serious this time. Of course, I'm not gonna pressure myself to compete with anyone else's goals or achievements which I think was at the root of why my creativity had been stifled. I'm just gonna relax and fun. Write when I feel good and have the energy and take care of my health when I don't.



How was your summer?





AJ

Peaking Out of the Rabbit Hole

Once again, I've fallen off the writing radar because of life's interruptions and all-around doldrums and just wanted to take a moment and poke my head out of the rabbit hole.

How's it going out there in the romance publishing world? Several of my friends have finished manuscripts and gotten publishing contracts and even seen their first debuts. To say that I'm not envious would be a lie, but I have no one to blame but myself. Now don't think this post is about beating myself up! I'm simply taking stock as I do every three months of so and being pragmatic about my efforts, or lack thereof.

The good news: it's summer time.

While she's out of town visiting her dad, I get a break from running back and forth, transporting my daughter to school and weekend activities. I can stay up all night (when I'm the most productive) working on my stories and doing critiques and then sleep late in the mornings. With me eating at odd times, maybe I can lose the weight I need to get into that bathing suit this summer. Of course, I want to take a much needed vacation somewhere. After the year I've had so far (thank goodness mom and dad are both recovering well), I need it.

So don't fret, y'all! I'm still alive and kickin'!
AJ

The End!

I can finally type those two words at the bottom of a manuscript.

Can't Help But Love You is finally, albeit imperfectly, complete. My moment of relief and joy is tempered by the knowledge that it needs a lot of tweaking before I feel it's ready to go out to publishers. Oh, don't get me wrong! I'm not going to hold on to it and labor over it forever. Just until I'm happy with its theme, its premise, its characters and its plot. All of those items have to gel in order for it to work for me. Already, I have new ideas about my secondary characters and their overall usefulness in putting Paxton and Kelis' romance on the right track.

I've received advice to put it aside for a week then get right to work. Well a week has gone by and life has intruded in the form of a laid-up child, whose calls of "mommy" are echoing in my dreams. I guess edits and re-tooling will have to start in another week or two. (sigh!)

AJ

Has it really been a month?!

TIME HAS FLOWN!

It's been a whole month since my last post and so much has happened. Too much to list, really. Needless to say, I'm glad I made it through the end of 2007 unscathed and have limped into 2008. Limped literally. But I'm resting up and recharging my batteries (taking my vitamins and getting plenty of daytime sleep.)

Now it's time to set a few goals for 2008. Let's see....

• Renew my memberships to RWA and VRW.
• Wrap up CHBLY and tackle two new manuscripts.
• Get out of the house more. It's become my cave of sorts.
• Build an author's website for myself, hopefully to coincide with a sale.
• Post to this blog at least twice a week. I've been a real slacker!
• Log in more critique time especially on RAH and RWC critique groups where I am a moderator.
• And take a real vacation, someplace away from Richmond.

Kudos to all my writing friends who have set their 2008 goals!

AJ

When Your Writing Sucks...

What do you do when you know your writing simply stinks up the room?

That's how I'm feeling this week. I just posted a chapter to my critique group and know it's a bunch of garbage. I'm trying to ignore the malaise in my pacing and plot and push through to the end of the book but --gee wiz-- it's all a bunch of drivel!

Quite honesty, the problem could not be with the writing but with my mood. I'm down in the dumps and blue this week. Why? I don't know. So my critique buddies are going to have to suffer through and for that I apologize in advance. I promise, things will get better.

AJ

Nose to the Grindstone!

Hey All!

I haven't posted in a while because I've been very busy with my WIP, outlining my next story, critiquing and life in general. I'm making great progress in Can't Help But Love You. The story is wrapping up nicely and now it's time for editing. I'm not looking forward to that because I know how difficult pulling a cohesive story together can be.

My daughter's 12th birthday was Saturday and I can't believe how much she's grown and changed. Gone are the days of Bratz dolls, cartoons and cuddles with Mom. Now she's talking on the phone with her friends as soon as she gets out of school (mind you, they just saw each other ten minutes before), wanting big-ticket electronics, watching music video, and mumbling under her breath how much I get on her nerves. Calgon take me away!

Well that's all for now. Hope to have more later this week. What are you working on?

Happy Birthday wishes today to Shaniqua and Charlotte!

AJ

Studying the Market

Last month I subscribed to Reader Service to receive monthly editions of Harlequin Blaze novels.

Why?

I wanted to study the market. Ideally, I'd like to write novels that fit into this genre and needed to find out what the publisher was publishing. Likewise, I subscribed to Harlequin's Kimani line, their African-American genre, months ago. The stories I'm working would definitely fit that market. Call it market research!

Do you study the target market for your manuscripts? If so, how and how often?

The Results are in....

Can't Help But Love You placed second in the Virginia Romance Writers Fool for Love First Chapter Contest. To see my name in lights, click here.

Needless to say, I am thrilled! I was so excited to be a finalist but to know that I placed second on my first contest submission on my first manuscript....Let's just say that I am over the moon. Over the next few weeks I plan to FINISH the manuscript and start on my edits. Then it's on to working on a synopsis and query letter to agents and publishers.

Wow! What a way to hit one of my goals!

Write Tight: A 10 Step Diet for the Verbose Writer

Below is an article by Lois Winston that I found quite helpful and hopefully my writing friends will too.



Write Tight: A 10 Step Diet for the Verbose Writer © Lois Winston


THE END. What a sense of accomplishment to type those words upon completion of your manuscript. After months or maybe years of labor, your baby is ready to leave its cozy Microsoft womb and fly off to that “A” List of agents and/or editors. Except for one problem. Somehow your bundle of joy wound up tipping the scales at 20,000 words over your targeted line’s weight limit. Now what? You curse. You cry. You stamp your feet. You reach for the chocolate. Feel better? Probably not. Baby is still a porker. However, all is not lost. Put baby on the following diet, and in no time she’ll shed that excess word weight.


STEP ONE:

Reread your manuscript. Is every scene essential to the plot or the goals, motivations, and conflicts of your characters? If not, no matter how much you love what you wrote, ax the scene. Each scene must serve a purpose. No purpose? No scene. Yes, I know it hurts. So instead of hitting the “delete” key, cut and paste the scene to a Loquacious Blubber file. You may be able to use it in a future manuscript.


STEP TWO:

Repeat STEP ONE for all dialogue. If the dialogue is nothing but chit-chat which neither advances the plot nor tells the reader something essential about the characters, exile it to the Loquacious Blubber file.


STEP THREE:

Do a search of “ly” words. You don’t have to omit all adverbs, but wherever possible, substitute a more active, descriptive verb to replace your existing verb and the adverb that modifies it.
· Blubber: Joe walked purposefully across the room.
· Tight: Joe strode across the room.
· Savings: 1 word


STEP FOUR:

Instead of using many adjectives to describe a noun, use one all-encompassing adjective or a more descriptive noun. If certain information isn’t necessary to your story, omit it.
· Blubber: Elizabeth grew up in an old, large house with twenty rooms that sat on four acres of land.
· Tight: Elizabeth grew up in a Victorian mansion or Elizabeth grew up on an estate.
· Savings: 11 or 12 words


STEP FIVE:

Say it once, then move on. It’s not necessary to repeat an idea or image in different words in the next sentence, the next paragraph, or on the next page. You don’t need to beat your reader over the head. She’s intelligent enough to “get it” the first time she read it.
· Blubber: A kettle drum pounded inside Elizabeth’s head. Her temples throbbed. Her skull pulsated with pain.
· Tight: A kettle drum pounded inside Elizabeth’s head.
· Savings: 8 words


STEP SIX:

Identify needless words and eliminate them. Every writer has at least one or two pet word she overuses.
· Blubber: Elizabeth just wanted to know Joe better before she dated him.
· Tight: Elizabeth wanted to know Joe better before she dated him.
· Savings: 1 word


STEP SEVEN:

Avoid laundry list descriptions by substituting more descriptive nouns and adjectives.
· Blubber: Joe wore a blue and green plaid threadbare shirt with a missing button at the cuff and a pair of frayed black jeans torn below the knees.
· Tighter: Joe wore Salvation Army rejects.
· Savings: 22 words


STEP EIGHT:

Do a search for was. Wherever it’s linked with an ing verb, omit the was and change the tense of the verb.
· Blubber: Elizabeth was listening to Joe.
· Tight: Elizabeth listened to Joe.
· Savings: 1 word


STEP NINE:

Choose more descriptive verbs and omit the additional words that enhance the verb.
· Blubber: Joe walked with a swaggering gait.
· Tight: Joe swaggered.
· Savings: 4 words


STEP TEN:

Omit extraneous tag lines. If it’s obvious which character is speaking, a tag line is unnecessary.
· Blubber: Joe turned to face Elizabeth. “You don’t understand,” he said.
· Tight: Joe turned to face Elizabeth. “You don’t understand.”
· Savings: 2 words


NOTE:

The above word diet is part of a healthy writing style and recommended for all authors, whether or not they need to drop 20,000 words from their manuscripts.

http://www.loiswinston.com/article7.html

A Tiny Bit of Success

Guess what?

I received a good news phone call last week announcing that my first chapter of "Can't Help But Love You" had placed as one of three finalists in the long contemporary category of Virginia Romance Writers' "Fool for Love" First Chapter Contest. Talk about excited! I was on cloud nine. This was my first ever submission to a contest and to have a tiny bit of success felt awesome.

To see my name in "lights" check out the link below.

http://www.virginiaromancewriters.com/Contests/fflwinners.html

Now I'm so motivated that I've already come up with a tentative name for my next project, "Do You Dream About Me?"

What do you think about a question as a title?

One of my crit partners, Denise "Chicki Brown" Jones uses a question as the title for one of her WIPs, "Have You Seen Her?"

AJ

The Great Outline Debate

I am constantly struggling to find the answer to the question of whether to outline versus not outline your story. I found Deirdre Savoy's blog entry on Blogging in Black today both timely and thought-provoking. As an analytical person, I want to outline my stories and plan out my plot and only deviate from the "plan" when necessary. However, new ideas and character input often get me off track and frustrate me. (Sigh!) On which side of the issue do you fall as a writer?

Here is what Dee had to say:


One of the most asked questions of professional writers by aspiring writers is “Do you use an outline and if you do what kind?” I hate that question. You see, I’m a pantser. I figure out as much as I need to know about my plot and characters, sit in the chair and have at it. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in chapter 23 because I don’t know. My story and my people evolve as I write about them. I find plotting should be spelled p-l-o-d-d-i-n-g, because by the time I do it, I have lost all interest in writing the book.
Should you or shouldn’t you have an outline? The answer is really up to you. Do you need one? My answer is no, but here are a few pros and cons of each way to help you make up your mind.

Outline:
Pros: provides immediate structure and focusless chance of going off on tangents or painting yourself in a corner
Cons: more up-front workcan lock you in if you’re afraid to deviate from plan

No Outline:
Pros: just jump right ineasier to let the story develop as you write
Cons: can feel like “flying without a net”can lead to the sort of writer’s block when you don’t know what happens next

But, in truth, neither method is better or worse than the other. It depends on what works for you, not any other writer. Try it one way and if it doesn’t work try something else. Try different degrees of outlining—say having a rough idea of what goes on in each chapter as opposed to a scene by scene description. How you work should reflect your needs as a writer. Also, don’t be surprised if those needs change over time. You may start out as either a pantser or a plotter then gravitate the other way. My advice? Go with the flow and let the words flow.

Again, on which side of the issue do you fall as a writer?

What I've Been Doing this Week!

Can you believe it's already Thursday, the first week of May? Gosh, time is zooming!

This week I have picked up some critique work but mostly I've been restructuring the plot of my story. Last week I received some daunting insight from a friend on why she thinks I've lost momentum in my story. Overall, we agree that I've put too much information about my characters' background and motivation in the beginning chapters and left very little to sprinkle at crucial points throughout the story. Pacing is so important, apparently. New writers, I've heard and read, tend to make the mistake of putting everything and the kitchen sink in the first few chapters and overexplaining character motivations, settings and stage direction in the first act of the story. I'm now working on the skill of slowing down and understanding that as the writer, I know the characters, settings, actions and reactions but must show the readers these things instead of telling them. And telling takes time, patience and skill.

As you edit your work, do you find that you've put too much out there in the beginning?

Oops! My Bad....

Some of my friends assumed from reading my last post that I'd finished Can't Help But Love You. But alas, I haven't! I'm still plugging away and trying to keep my end of the month deadline.

Please keep your fingers crossed and I'll keep my fingers flying.

All Men Are Sculptors....

This weekend, I was watching Bravo's "Inside the Actor's Studio" with Eddie Murphy as a guest and heard about the quote he wrote for his Roosevelt High School yearbook that states:

"All men are sculptors, constantly chipping away the unwanted parts of their lives, trying to create a masterpiece."

What a wonderful quote! So life-affirming!

The same can be said for writers, particular writers of romance and women's fiction. Our stories begin with characters in crisis or in transition or living an intrinsically unsettled, unfulfilled life. Their story is a journey to chip away the parts of their lives that are not adding to the essence of happiness and acceptance and to augment their lives with love, peace or spiritual wholeness. Each plot twist acts as a cog in the rotary wheel that "chips" or "augments." By the story's end, the writer has what he/she believe is a masterpiece in the ultimate development of the characters. Some choose to leave the "what-happens-next" to the readers' imagination and others write an epilogue that provides a snapshot of what the characters' life is like in the future.

I haven't decided on whether to write an epilogue or not. But I'm leaning toward writing an epilogue for Can't Help But Love You. Most epilogues that I read are satisfying and what I envision as the happily ever after. I enjoy a glimpse into future. It's the icing on the cake.

The masterpiece is complete!

30 Days and Counting

Enough is enough!

It's been two years and I am quite sick of Kelis and Paxton. That's why I am setting a goal to finish their story, Can't Help But Love You, by the end of this month. I am so ready to move on to its sequel, Can't Get Enough, Briallen and Nathan's story.

I mean, how long should a long contemporary take to write? Certainly not two darn years. Throughout this two-year odyssey, I've gotten so much advice to not worry about the rules and just write. Advice I've had a difficult time following because I am such a perfectionist and worry-wart.

Well enough of the pity-party! Perfecting the story will occur during the editing process. Now my nose if to the grindstone.

Story Climax

Throughout my research on plot development, one of primary topics that resonates with me is the importance of building a climax, the point when a story's conflict comes to its moment of greatest intensity. According to Building Better Plots by Robert Kernen, a successful climax is impossible if the rising action that leads to it has been a failure or if the climax is poorly timed.

Could that be the issue with my story? Today I'm alloting time to carefully examine my scenes and evaluate whether the action serves to advance the plot and unleash the climax. I've written 200 pages and still don't have a firm thumb on the crisis Kelis and Paxton will face, individually and as a couple. (Grrrrr!) By the amount of time I spend agonizing, uh-hum, thinking about their story, I know I'm right on the cusp to a breakthrough.

When you write, do you know what the climax will be or does it just comes to you as you write?