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OCCRWA February Online Class

February 1, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Online Class

COLOR ME BLOGGING
with Suzanne McMinn

February 11, 2008- March 10, 2008

Enrollment Information: http://occrwa.org/onlineclasssignup.html
COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members
Enrollment deadline: February 9, 2008
Moderator: Kitty Bucholtz at kittyrosebucholtz@yahoo.com

ABOUT THE CLASS:

Want to bring more traffic to your website by adding a blog? Or not quite ready for a website but want to start building your name and attracting an audience with a blog alone? This workshop explains how to launch a blog if youâ€™ve never had oneâ€”or how to take your current blog to an all-new level.

Presentation includes: blog basics such as platforms and design, pros and cons of solo blogging and group blogging, blogging ethics and etiquette, and the all-important question of writing and content.

Also included: tips for marketing and promoting on your blog, creating traffic-building interest, developing your unique blogging style, time management for blogging, setting your blogging boundaries, beating bloggersâ€™ block, and how to make money from your blog.

This interactive class will include hands-on blogging with the instructor and your classmates as built-in support, so come join the fun!

About the Instructor:
Suzanne McMinn is the award-winning author of over two dozen novels including contemporary paranormal romance, romantic suspense, and contemporary romantic comedy as well as a medieval trilogy. She lives in a 100-year-old farmhouse in the mountains of West Virginia where she is plotting her next book and enjoying the simple life with her family, friends, and many, many cats. Check out her latest books from Silhouette Romantic Suspense and her blog at http://www.suzannemcminn.com/

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Laughter is the Best Medicine

January 29, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Herding Words

I haven’t written a word towards my WIP since January 12th. That’s an eternity for me. My day job has once again taken over and by the time I arrive home only a couple of neurons are still willing to fire.

When I don’t have much brain power left I can always find a cartoon that will brighten my mood. Cartoons are my intellectual M&Ms and my hips won’t be chastising me later.

One of my favorite cartoonists is Debbie Ridpath Ohi over at Inkygirl.com and willwriteforchocolate.com. Those of you who participate in NANORIMO (National Novel Writing Month) may recognize her work.

I especially liked this one. It reminded me of the first time I actually shared the plot of my WIP out loud.

So, what cartoon strips make you laugh?

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What Inspires You

January 29, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as What Inspires You

The Wedding Picture

by Lori Pyne

Be they in magazines, newspapers or photo albums; be they of friends and family, people I know of or strangers; be they black and white images of a yesteryears long gone or colorful digital shots capturing a moments ago, I love to look at them. The bride in her finery, the groom so proud, wedding pictures speak to hopeful, romantic side of my soul.

Some of the images remain in my memory long after I view the portrait. Beyond the memory of cherished friendsâ€™ and close familyâ€™s special days, and world events such as Princess Diane and Prince Charlesâ€™ wedding, a strangerâ€™s newspaper wedding announcement has remained with me years after I first saw the picture.

At first glance, I barely looked at the groom, a Marine, in his distinct blue dress uniform. The bride, her face shining with joy as she gazed up at her groom, caught and held my attention. She looked so young in years, tiny in stature and radiantly in love. I remember worrying about what the future would hold for such a young girl.

I slide my attention to her groom. He stared straight at the camera. My gaze traveled down the short cropped hair towards his square jaw. I jarred to a stop midway down his face. He had no ear. What I had thought to be a shadow on the side of his face, I realized was scar tissue. He had been terribly burned.

This warrior in his twenties has survived his journey through one of the lower levels of hell and had returned to marry the girl who loved him fiercely.

While I know that a marriage is more than a wedding day, each time their faces float to the top of my memory, I pray that they build a strong life together created on the foundation of her joyous love and his proud, strong spirit.

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Lori Pyne is a member of OCC, and a multi-tasking volunteer. She is currently serving as one of our Online Class Moderators, Guest Reception Coordinator and Coordinator for the Book Buyers’ Best Contest for published authors. She is married with one son, and works full time for an entertainment law firm.

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A Fantasy Life – Part 5

January 28, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category A Fantasy Life by Janet Cornelow tagged as Janet Cornelow, Janet Quinn

By Janet Quinn Cornelow

Alternate life forms living within our bodies that cause gallstones. MRIâ€™s that can tell what we are thinking. A gay gene. Footprint casts of Big Foot.

Fantasy? Reality?

Sometimes itâ€™s hard to tell anymore. As writers we have to be careful abut writing certain things because they wonâ€™t be believable â€“ unless weâ€™re writing fantasy.

Iâ€™m getting ready to start on my fourth set of Augeas stories set in a fantasy world filled with magic. Dyna, the picture for the month, is a young Ancient One with the power to see what is happening around her in her mind. I talking about seeing things outside on the street when there are no windows or on the next block over. Her power saved her grandmother, Carissa, and several other Ancient Ones from Dorjanâ€™s thundering hoards.

When I wrote the first stories, I was in a hurry to finish them. A story of 8,000 words seems like not such a big undertaking. After all, it isnâ€™t a 100,000 word manuscript. Wrong. Short stories arenâ€™t as easy as they seem. I came up with an idea and hurriedly built the world of Augeas and the Ancient Ones. I came up with the name Ancient Ones because they lived to be several hundred years old. However, thatâ€™s really not a good reason. There were a few other things I had to change with the second set because I hadnâ€™t planned ahead.

So why are they called Ancient Ones? They arenâ€™t all old. They have to start as babies because they donâ€™t get to come into the world full grown. They are all magical, but that doesnâ€™t make the name fit.

As I start on the fourth set of stories, I decided it might be time to explain why they are called Ancient Ones. Just as soon as I figure it out. Are they an ancient culture that the humans started calling Ancient Ones? One story mentioned they came from the mountains, except Gideon comes from the mountains and heâ€™s a human. Are they aliens who came from another planet? Did they come from an alternate universe? Why did they come from either? Were they explorers who couldnâ€™t get home? Were they outcasts running for they lives? Or, were they an ancient civilization around Augeas before the humans who had to leave the area because of war or pestilence and have now returned to help the humans? And who knows the answers?

When starting these stories, I probably should have figured this out before I started. Itâ€™s harder to build in things once certain parameters have been established. I know who knows the answers. A very ancient Ancient One who is the keeper of the stories. He hasnâ€™t told me what the stories are yet, so Iâ€™m not sure why they are called the Ancient Ones.

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Everybody Votes

January 26, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Pop Culture

by Sara Black

Here’s how it works. There’s a question with two possible answers. You vote on your own opinion, then you vote on how you think the general population will vote. A few weeks later the results are in, and you get to see how many people voted the same as you, and whether you were right about popular opinion. You also get to see breakdowns in percentages, how the sexes, states and countries differed.

Welcome to “Everybody Votes” a surprisingly fun part of the Nintendo Wii experience that involves dropping a miniature version of yourself onto a pie graph. There is no real game play here, just the amusement of trying to predict how other people (well, other Wii owners) think in comparison to yourself.

A few random picks:

National Poll: What do you think of sushi? Delicious or Uncooked fish?
Delicious: 45.3%
Uncooked Fish: 54.7%
Men: 46.0% said Delicious
Women: 43.9% said Delicious
Unsurprisingly the states with the most “delicious” votes were on the Pacific (California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii). While the rest of the country was anti-raw-fish, the sushi lovers in Colorado and Delaware surprised me.

National Poll: Which is luckier? Four-leaf clover or Horseshoe?
Four-leaf clover: 86.4%
Horseshoe: 13.6%
Men: 87.0% said Four Leaf Clover
Women: 85.2% said Four Leaf Clover

Worldwide Poll: Do you have a cell/mobile phone?
Yes: 77.7%
No: 22.3%
Men: 77.1% had cells
Women: 78.7% had cells
Finland, home of Nokia, had the most cell phone owners. What caught my attention though, was that Canada, Japan and USA had the least. I imagine a group of kids hip enough to own the latest video game technology, but not old enough to sign binding contracts.

For more results check out this blog.

Sara Black has a degree in Cinema/Television from USC. She watches far too much television, eats way too much sushi and is always writing a romance novel. This is the ninth in a series of posts on Pop Culture.