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Words of Wisdom from the Writers Rock Critique Group

May 27, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

Blog #1: What’s in a Name? or Brainstorming Blitz

When Sandy first asked us as a critique group if we would be interested in contributing blogs for the OCC website, we scratched our collective heads. We being me, Barb DeLong, along with Jann Audiss, Cathy Oliver and our newest CG member, Johna Machak. What would we write about? Would anyone be interested in what we have to say? Who are we, anyway?

We decided to discuss all this over dinner and drinks that very evening at the Taps Fish House and Brewery in Brea. As the meal progressed, we came up with possible subjects for future blogs. Yes, we decided we might actually have a few words to say from time to time, and yes, perhaps because we’re ever so witty and wise, someone might actually enjoy reading them. But first and foremost we needed to name our critique group. It had to be something clever and upbeat. Hmmm . . .

What better way to come up with that definitive name than to brainstorm. As most of you know, brainstorming is a fabulous tool that writers use to list all the possible and impossible plots, scenes, consequences, etc., that will aid the writer in finding that perfect happening, that perfect thing, that will set her book apart from the rest. I pulled the napkin out from under my lemon drop martini and scrounged a pen.

We started off staidly enough with The Creative Quills (too stuffy, sounds historical), The Bookworms (Cathy wasn’t going to be any darned animal), The Red Liners (too harsh), The Wordsmiths (hard to say), The Prose Polishers (ditto). O-kay. This was good. We were all contributing, throwing stuff out there. One admonition: no comments on the names until we were through. Brainstorming means get it down, no matter how bad or good or improbable. Or inappropriate. I grabbed another napkin. Drinks all around.

The Word Pro’s (copyrighted, I think), Word Divas (not bad), Words R Us (can’t get that R to go backward), The Book Babes (Cathy wasn’t going to be any darned babe), Happy Hour Critique Group (now we were getting somewhere). Oops, we just couldn’t help it – the comments and snickers continued.

The Drama Queens (we laughed till we cried), the Quivering Quills (Jann passed out the tissues), The Query Dearies (my fave). By that time we’d begun disturbing the other diners. The waiters gave us dirty looks. We decided to continue this brainstorming activity on-line, where we could make all the noise we wanted.

Well, one month and one dining experience later, we settled on the Writers Rock Critique Group. For now. Subject to change without notice. So, brainstorming is a great tool. Enjoy it over dinner and drinks. Just bring lots of tissues and a designated driver. A notebook is optional. After all, they have plenty of napkins.

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Advice To Myself As A Newbie Author

May 23, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as


by Diane Pershing

Here’s the thing about advice: I don’t like it. I don’t like to get it and I don’t like to dish it out. Now, that’s in theory, of course. In real life I too often tell people what they ought to do in any given situation, even when they haven’t asked for input. And I’m always getting little pointers from friends on anything from where to buy the best shoes for wide feet to which retirement community I ought to be looking into for my aging mom to which of the Food Network shows might appeal to someone who doesn’t eat sugar and is always trying to “cut down.” Having a theory is easy; living it is hard.

See, the thing about advice—the unsolicited kind, that often begins with “If you don’t mind me saying…” or “You should…”—is that it sends a subliminal message saying “The way you are doing it now is wrong.” It can be coated with all kinds of caveats but that’s the one. And I don’t know about you but I’m always thinking that someone, somewhere knows better than I do how to do everything, and advice reinforces it. That’s why my back gets stiff when I’m offered unasked-for words of wisdom, and why when I find myself about to do it—I am human, after all, right?—I try to shut up before the words pass my lips. The thing is no one is doing anything the right or wrong way. They’re doing the best they can and that has to be enough.

Okay, all that being said, if I have any advice for new writers (after all, I’m blogging at the actual request of someone, right?), it’s to say Yes. Yes to writing down a random thought or idea for a book or a character or a scene. Yes to attending classes given by experienced writers. Yes to attending conferences, to submitting your work to contests, to sharing your work with people you trust and respect and taking in their feedback. Yes to incorporating it into your work if possible but not if it doesn’t resonate with you. Yes to listening to the small, inner voice that says to find the time to do this thing you’ve wanted to do for years but have been putting off because you’re guilty about taking time away from family or other commitments, or because you don’t think enough of yourself to follow through, or you have a rock-bottom, core belief you’re not good enough.

By the way, the other thing I tell new writers is to say No. No to people who are toxic to your dreams, no to people who love to criticize but have no solutions, no to the negative inner voices that may be part of us all, but when we listen to them we give them the upper hand, and I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like giving power to anything that tells me I’m not good enough. Gets my back up, you know?

As you can tell, I don’t have any ABC-type pointers today; there are lots of teachers and writers out there with excellent ones to share, so make use of them. Instead I’ll close with some random thoughts I have about writing in general (taken from a recent on-line class I taught) and I hope worth something to someone somewhere:

Writing is not easy; it’s the hardest work I’ve ever done.

If I fall in love with a phrase or a sentence or paragraph and am having to re-write a whole section just to be sure to keep that phrase or sentence or paragraph in, it probably has to go. I always get sad about this, but I always get over it. For this purpose I have created a MISC. REJECTS file. All of them go in there, and I am always determined I will use these brilliant phrases or sentences or paragraphs one day in something else. So far, I never have.

When dealing with editors and agents, I try to be warm and open, but I always keep in mind that this is a business and we are not friends. I try to have very few expectations or fantasies about them; inevitably they will disappoint me if I do.

When others ask me, uninvited, to help them “get published” I cordially tell them it’s not in my power to do so. If they ask me, uninvited, to read their stuff, I cordially tell them my own writing takes up too much of my time to deal with other people’s writing and suggest they join a writer’s or critique group. I try never to act put out. If they are displeased, it’s not my problem; I am responsible for my actions, not other people’s reactions.

I always hope my editor will accept a manuscript exactly as it is; this has never happened.

For all of my nineteen book sales, I have had at least twice as many rejections. Over the years, they hurt less. I just keep plowing on.

I have an answering machine instead of voice mail. That way I can monitor my calls while I’m writing. I am not guilty when I don’t pick up the phone.

I am about to embark on a Single Title Woman’s Fiction novel—some romance but more about other relationships, and as much sex as I feel comfortable writing. The last time I tried I was turned down by six prominent editors; it’s taken a while to get up the courage to try again.

I am a strong woman. I am a feminist. I love reading and writing romances. If I didn’t—if I had any shame or discomfort about it—I wouldn’t be doing it.

Sometimes what’s on the page is doo doo and I can only hope tomorrow will be better. It usually is.

I love words, always have. I love books, always have. I raised my children to love words and books and, thank god, they do.

Most of my ideas come from dreams or random thoughts that begin with “What if?” As the years go on, there is more of a direct connection to my creativity/unconscious and I am less and less in my own way. It wasn’t like this in the beginning, not in the least. I used to tie myself up in knots over what I wasn’t getting down on the page. I am so glad time has passed and I’ve gotten older. No kidding.

I hate a lot of my books’ covers, and a great many of their titles, but I’ve learned that I don’t have a lot of control in that department. Argggghhhh.

I love other writers. I laugh more in their company than I do with any other type of human being.

I despise envy. I especially despise it when I sense it in myself, but, alas, it does come up. I work on it.

I give thanks every day that I am not a perfectionist. If it’s 90% there, I’m happy.

I never have writers’ block; every time I sit down to write, I do. It’s getting me to that chair that can be a huge problem. I wish I were more disciplined; never have been, most likely won’t be.

If I didn’t enjoy the act of writing, I wouldn’t be doing it. Hope you feel the same way.

Diane Pershing’s May release from Silhouette Romantic Suspense, ONE COOL LAWMAN, received a “4 ½ stars, Top Pick” rating from “Romantic Times.”

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Starting a New Manuscript

May 18, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

Writer’s Word
by Jenny Hansen (aka Jen Crooks)
How can you make it easier, every time, to open a new document and start a new manuscript?

I have friends who angst every time they do this over things like margins, font, headers and footers and the dreaded 25 lines per page setting that we covered last month. Note: I finished up and submitted last month’s article before I began my work day (read: before coffee), which was NOT good. That article has been corrected of all the embarrassing errors I make when I’m under-caffeinated so feel free to go back and read the April 20 article at http://occsliceoforange.blogspot.com/search/label/Writer%27s%20Word. The April 20 article gives advice about all the things you can do in Microsoft Word to make your manuscript look prettier.

My goal for you after reading this month’s article: no more fretting about setting up a manuscript properly!

Dana, one of our OCC e-zine editors has titled me the “Word Dominatrix” (in fact she wanted to change the title of this column from “Writer’s Word” to “Word Dominatrix.” I guess that’s better than “Software Slut,” the undercover title most of my software trainer friends go by). Since it’s probably bad form to cuss on OCC’s blogosphere, without further ado, we will open a whole new Happy Place for you as a writer and discuss the easiest way to set up a new manuscript.

Make a template.

How do I do that, you ask? When I told one of my writing friends I was doing an article on templates, I was appalled at her response. She said, “Templates are for people like legal secretaries or whiz kids like YOU, not for an old computer klutz like me.” Do you know she actually gave me the hairy eyeball? Like I was insulting her by suggesting that she and her word processing program could be friends.

I will tell you exactly what I told her (though you get the cleaner version): “Horse Pocky! Templates are HUGE for writers and I’m going to show you ten (10) easy steps to make one in Word.”

Step 1 – Open your current work in progress.
Make it look pretty. (See the link above for tips on this.) It is so much easier to format a document with a few chapters in place than it is to format an empty document where you can’t see the results. When you are done formatting and you have completed the next step, you can delete all the text (after you have completed Step 2).

Step 2 –Save these great changes to the current work in progress, before following the rest of the steps to create a template. This document is going to be the basis of your new manuscript template but you have to be certain that you’ve saved your writing before you proceed.

Any of the following three methods will allow you to save your changes to this document – pick the way you like best. 1) Hit the Ctrl + S buttons on your keyboard (you don’t type the plus), (2) click on the little blue disc icon (third button from the left on your Formatting toolbar) or (3) go to the File menu and choose Save. Be certain that you have saved all of your writing before you delete it!

Step 3 – Go back to the File menu and choose the Save As command. If you are a keyboard person, hit the F12 key – this takes you to the Save As dialog box (shown below).

Step 4 – Click the drop down arrow in the “Save as type” drop-down list.

Step 5 – Choose the Document Template (*.dot) option.
Word will automatically take you to the place on your computer where Word templates are stored. For my computer, which has Windows XP Professional, this is where my templates are stored.

Step 6 – Name your template and click Save.
Now comes the most important part, mainly because this is the step where people think they are home free so they leave the next four steps off! You are still in your template…don’t forget this. Everything you do from this point on is done to your new template, which is still open.


Step 7 – Save any additional changes you want to add and close the template.
You must close this document before you begin to use it or all the things you type will be part of your template. You have NO idea how many times I’ve forgotten this and pounded my forehead against my desk in exasperation.


Step 8 – Go to the File menu and choose the “New…” command.
This is usually the first choice and will help you get to the template you just saved. In older versions of Windows, you will see the list of templates and the name of the one you saved will be right there. If you use Windows XP, as I do, the New Document Task Pane will come up and give you options. You want to choose “On my computer” as shown in the example below.

Step 9 – Choose your template that you have saved and click OK. This will open the template that you previously saved.

Step 10 – Save the document you have just opened as the name of your new manuscript, the same way you would any document.

You may now begin creating your new bestseller without fretting about all those pesky details like font and whether you have the 25 lines per page setting done correctly.

By day, Jen manages the sales and marketing for a national training firm. After 12 years as a corporate software trainer, it’s nice for her to be able to sit down while she works. By night, she writes women’s fiction, chick lit and short stories as Jenny Hansen. She has been a member of OCC since 2001 and has served on OCC’s Board of Directors in a variety of capacities. She is currently the Contest Coordinator for the 2007 Orange Rose Contest for Unpublished Writers.
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Confessions of a Podcast Goddess

May 17, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

Part 3: “Girls Just Want to Have Podcasts”

by Jina Bacarr

When podcasting burst onto the scene, they said it was a man’s world. The stats backed it up: “Wired magazine noted that at last week’s [November 2005] Portable Media Expo in Ontario, 15 percent of the 2,000 attendees were female and that users of Yahoo’s new podcasting directory were 85 percent male.” OC Register

Not anymore. Girls rule the airwaves with podcasts featuring women hosts talking about everything from caring for your animals to astronomy.

So what are you going to talk about? Here at OCC, we have published authors as well as pre-published. How about a show with a writing theme? Good start, but to gain a following you must give listeners and viewers a “hook” for your podcast. For example, romancenovel.tv interviews romance authors, including Nora Roberts, Rebecca York, and Christina Dodd, while Grammar Girl’s podcasts consist of five minutes of grammar tips each week.

I write erotic fiction so my podcasts, both audio and video, have a sexy theme. This often leads to my podcasts getting “banned” from video sites because they assume I’m promoting . This recently happened to me on Google Video re: a PSA (Public Service Announcement) podcast I did a few months ago in response to a letter “Dear Abby” received from a mother who was concerned her teen daughter was reading “trashy” romance novels.

In my video podcast, “Dear Jina”– An erotic fiction writer speaks out about what teens are reading, I talk about how romance novels reflect a positive attitude toward sex for teens. My video has received nearly 15,000 hits, but someone took offense and complained, so Google de-activated it, deciding it was “.” After a few anxious emails back and forth to Google, the problem was resolved and my video is once again “live,” but you have to be prepared for anything in podcasting.

For my audio podcasts, I want my podcasts to reflect a certain sophistication. I decided on “In the Zone with Jina Bacarr: Hot topics with a cool point of view” because it doesn’t limit what I can discuss. So far, I’ve talked about the sensual world of the geisha (I get email from listeners who tell me they’ll never look at a geisha in the same way again after hearing they don’t wear panties), strippers and the art of the tease, the history of erotic fiction from the Greeks to Fanny Hill to Spice Books from Harlequin.

I also record audio podcasts for OCC each month. I call it Romancing The O.C. I talk about our upcoming meeting, guests, local authors, book signings, contests, as well as conduct author interviews.

I always end my podcast with my sign-off: “And don’t forget, put a little romance in your life. Read a romance novel.” That’s important. Come up with a slogan that reflects your show and your personality. And don’t worry about the length of your podcast. It can be five minutes or thirty minutes, but the longer the podcast the more megabytes it will take up on your computer hard drive and your website. You can also “park it” on video sharing sites like Google and Daily Motion [we’ll talk about these sites in future blogs].

So, what’s your podcast about? Book reviews, writing tips, interviews? Do you have an interesting hobby that plays into your writing like Debbie Macomber and her love of knitting? Do you love to travel then use your experiences in your books? Are you a techie with weekly tips to help writers? The possibilities are as endless as words in a dictionary. Pick out what interests you and people will be talking about…your podcast!

Tune in next month for Part 4 of Confessions of Podcast Goddess when I’ll be talking about shooting video on location–I’ll be in Venice, Italy speaking at La Biennale arts festival.

Jina Bacarr is the author of The Blonde Geisha and coming in July 2007, Naughty Paris. Jina writes erotic adventure for Spice Books. “Get Caught in the Act!”

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The Write Way (because there is no ‘right’ way)…

May 16, 2007 by in category Archives tagged as

by Maureen Child

Writing a proposal is probably the most important thing you’re going to do in your career. Your proposal is the ‘howdy do’ of publishing. It’s your foot in the door. It’s your ‘Hey, I’m over here, read me’, way of getting an editor’s attention.

I’ve known several writers over the years who had one proposal. They sent this proposal out over and over again any time they’d hear an editor might be looking for something. They’d get feedback on this one proposal, make changes in it and then send it back out again.

Eventually, this wear and tear on a proposal shows.

And it wears on the writer, too. How can you be excited to work on a project you’ve been laboring over for five years? Nope. Once a proposal has made the rounds of everyone you can think of, put it away. I’m not saying you should never take it out for a ride around NYC again. But let it rest then go back to it with fresh eyes later.

When I was trying to sell to Silhouette Desire, I’d already written nearly forty western historicals. Didn’t mean much at Silhouette. Sure, they liked the fact that I was published, but Westerns didn’t mean I could write contemporary Desires! I was determined, though. The editor I was submitting to at the time took three weeks to turn down my first proposal.

But I was ready for her. When I got that first rejection, I had the next proposal in an envelope ready to go out. She was impressed that I’d kept working on other ideas. I asked her how many proposals I could give her at once. She said she didn’t want any more than four proposals on her desk at one time.

Within three weeks, she had three more proposals from me sitting on her desk. By doing that, I told her some very important information about me. She now knew I had lots of ideas. She knew I was determined. And she knew I didn’t give up easily.

So do your proposals. Your first three chapters and a synopsis. Make them sing. Make them shine. Send them out. And while you’re waiting…write something else.

Maureen Child is the author of more than ninety romance novels and novellas. And right now she’s working on…you guessed it. A proposal.

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