WRITE ANGLE
September 16, 2007 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster tagged as Rebecca Forster, Write Angleby Rebecca Forster
“We’d like you to blog,†Michelle Thorne said.
“What would I write about?†I asked.
“Anything you want,†she answered.
Okay. That was kind of like bobbing around in the middle of the Ocean of Whatever hoping to spy the Land of Interesting. The choices were endless. My day? My mother? The darn screen that keeps popping out of the upstairs window? Thankfully, choices can always be narrowed. For instance, when the phone rang I was in the middle of a choice: start a new book or stick my head in the oven. Both had valid reasons for being viable. Thinking about that led me to consider point of view.
Was I a half-empty kind of girl or half-full?
Would I really stick my head in the oven or was that simply an expression of boredom.
If I did stick my head in the oven, would I be overcome by the need to clean it before I was overcome by fumes?
Was I emotional, irrational, impulsive or a critical and creative thinker?
Was I too lazy to type?
Was I a tough guy or a quitter?
And all that got me thinking again! This time the word that popped into my head was angles – which point of view invariably becomes. Like in the old movies when someone asks “what’s your angle, buddy?†What they’re really asking is “whaddaya want? What’s in it for me?â€
Okay, so what did I want? I wanted to do something concrete and didn’t feel like doing it. From my point of view, the day was a bust until Michelle presented me with another choice. Write a blog.
Cool. Different. Manageable.
If stuck my head in the oven the payoff was lousy. If I started a new project I might actually hit the jackpot and write a bestseller. Still, that was a tall order and it wasn’t a tall order kind of day. A blog, however. That I could do. It sparked my imagination. What would be my angle? Whatever it was, it had to be right. Write Angle (don’t you just love it when the road leads somewhere?)
Engineers and architects use angles to create solid foundations, strong walls, perfectly peaked roofs and expansive bridges. Artists use angles to form new shapes that please the eye and fire the imagination. Think of a dancer, body laid flat in space, feet planted firmly on the ground. Writers use angles to keep the story interesting.
We’re all angling for something. Mostly we’re angling to feel productive and happy and creative. We’ll have days where we’re bored stiff and others where we’re revved up. We’ll have ideas that go nowhere and others that we have waited for all our lives. Me, I’m just angling to keep things interesting. Sticking my head in the oven is out. Blogging is in. And that bestseller? That looks good from any angle.
Rebecca Forster
Rebecca Forster
http://www.rebeccaforster.com/
HOSTILE WITNESS
SILENT WITNESS
PRIVILEGED WITNESS
BBB Awards in Dallas
September 14, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Confessions of a Podcast GoddessEnjoy a video clip of the Book Buyers Best Awards!
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September 12, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Confessions of a Podcast Goddess
THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO MMMRUH!
September 10, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Things That Make Me Go Mmmruh
Help!
by
Geralyn Ruane
In High School Musical 2, (mmmruh!) blonde teen queen Sharpay tells Troy, “We can all hold hands around the campfire later! Right now we have a show to do!†But Troy chooses decency to his friends over fame and fortune with her.
Gosh, I wish everyone were like Troy Bolton!
Because I don’t think we can wait until later to be nice. The world is going to hell in a friggin’ huge shopping cart NOW. Know what I mean? Can you feel it? A bloody quest for nothing noble. An election with no hero on the horizon. A bridge that collapsed because nobody bothered. Sports records broken by cheaters. Animal cruelty defended as status quo. Another year another size. That rejection letter in the mailbox. Everything is so messed up, and I can’t fix it all! Neither can you.
But I can help. And so can you.
All we have to do is be nice. Seriously. Just because living history throbs with the cadence of “Screw or be screwed, screw or be screwed,†doesn’t mean I have to march to it. And neither do you.
Help whenever you can. However you can. Some people look at the big picture and drive hybrid cars or picket on behalf of neglected Katrina survivors. But it doesn’t even take that much energy. Be friendly to the waiter even after he forgets the garlic bread AND the ketchup. Let the over-processed diva who thinks the world revolves around her go before you in the checkout line just so she doesn’t bite off the cashier’s head. Get out of the handicapped stall right quick when somebody disabled comes into the restroom. Don’t flip off the jerk who nearly side-swipes you. Give the one-armed guy offering to wash your windshield a buck or two. After all, how can he shoot heroin with only one arm?
A homeless guy I met last February refused the soup and sandwiches I’d brought him saying he had food already. He told me to go to the park and give the food to the homeless folks there. Gotta say, there’s a wrenching kind of clarity in a man with no shoes telling me to go help others.
A few weeks ago, as my guy and I were changing the tire to our twenty year-old tank of a car, the jack slipped.
Rrrrrr!
A truck screeched to a halt, two men jumped out to help us catch the car. Thanks to them, the whole shebang didn’t crash to the ground in a tireless crunch of sparking metal.
Mmmruh! They saved us! For no other reason than that they were THERE and they COULD! Do I think these two guys helping us was some sort of karmic payback for the blankets we’ve given homeless people or for stray cats we’ve fed? Does what goes around, come around?
Doubt it. I don’t think the cosmos is that fair. But at least each one of us can make the world GO around. Even if it never swings back our way, at least we can tilt it in the direction we want.
So go ahead. Give it a push.
Geralyn Ruane’s favorite Hardy Boy is whichever one Parker Stevenson played, and these days she writes romance, chick lit and women’s fiction. Last year her short story “Jane Austen Meets the New York Giants†was published in the New York Times Bestselling anthology The Right Words at the Right Time Volume 2.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
September 7, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Author Interview
JANET QUINN’s Life Balancing Act
Janet Quinn has wanted to be a published author since she was seventeen. Despite the demands of her “other life” as mother, teacher, and active OCC volunteer, she’s managed to accomplish her goal and garner ten sales to her credit.
Q. Janet, you are one busy lady. I know that you work as a Director of Education, are a mother of three boys, an active member of OCC, and you still find time to write. Can you give us some idea of how you manage all this so well?
A. Luckily my sons are grown and don’t take a lot of time now, though all three of them are living with me again. My youngest does most of the cooking, shopping and housework, which helps. I only work a 30 hour week, which is more than enough. When I get home at 5 p.m. on Thursdays,I become a writer instead of the Director of Ed for Sylvan. Thursday night through Sunday night I write and do promotion. I usually write during the afternoon and evenings since the boys go out and it’s just me and Chewbacca, the dog. He likes to help me write. He thinks if I’m at the computer, I must want to play ball.
Q. Do you ever have trouble keeping up with it all?
A. Yes, sometimes I don’t manage so well. There are days I just sit on the couch and watch TV or read a book. Then the next day I’m back at it. Everyone is allowed days when they can’t cope and I figure I’m allowed a couple a month.
Q. I agree! I personally take several! Looking back, is there anything you wish you’d done differently after publishing that first book?
A. I’ve always wished my first editor and I had a better relationship. I’ve had a couple of agents I wished I’d never hired. Otherwise, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve managed to accomplish.
Q. You should be. So what’s the best writing advice you ever received?
A. Sit my backside in the chair and finish the book.
Q. Yeah, sitting is good; finishing the book is even better. But what inspires you to get past the hard times?
A. My sons inspire me. They have always been very supportive. My middle one said to me once, “I tell everyone you’re a writer. It would be nice it you sold something.” A week later I sold my first book. A lot of my inspiration also comes from within. I love telling stories. I always have since I learned to talk and I just can’t imagine not putting them down.
Q. I know that THE KILTED GOVERNESS is available now, and you’ve sold a contemporary
that should follow soon. So what can we expect to see from you after that?
A. I have a witch book and an alternative universe book I’m working on. Those are both fun, though the alternative universe is a challenge to make it different than a fantasy. I’m also working on a sequel to THE RIVER’S TREASURE which is my first sequel and an underground railroad story. I think I’m moving more to the fantasy side because I find it so much fun to create worlds where my rules are the only ones that count.
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Available now by Janet Quinn at her website: www.janet-quinn.com –
WHISKEY SHOTS Vol 7 from Whiskey Creek Press,
WILD HONEY
Available from Whiskey Creek Press –
THE IRISH COUNTESS, THE LUCKY LADY and A MOMENT IN TIME
Available at Amber Quill Press –
THE KILTED GOVERNESS, ARROW OF THE HEART and THE RIVER’S TREASURE
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(Sandy Novy-Chvostal aka Sandra Paul loves interviewing OCC’s talented authors. To read more of her interview with Janet–and to learn Janet’s thoughts on writing for e-publishers compared to a traditional house, check out the OCC interview in the September ’07 issue of the Orange Blossom.)
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