A Slice of Orange

30 Days In On Planning

February 5, 2020 by Tracy Reed in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed

Author typing on an old typewriter | Tracy Read | A Slice of Orange

Happy February. It’s hard to believe we are 36 days into a new decade. Let’s get started.

Last month I invited you to follow me on my planning journey. One month down and I am in love with planning. Full disclosure, I have not settled on a system, yet. Once I do, I’ll share it with you.

In the past, at this time of the year, I would still be looking for a calendar I liked. I am a huge Kate Spade fan and have been using KS planners for a few years. It’s not to say they aren’t good because they are.

What have I learned from my first month of organized planning? I learned to focus and not beat myself up when I don’t get everything done on my daily to do list.

I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube channels on planning and it’s fascinating. I’m so excited to find channels on writing and planning. I watched another Sarra Cannon video about “Kanban Boards.” I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. In fact, I thought she was saying something else. But when I watched the video, I knew it was exactly what I needed to help me organize my writing life.

A Kanban Board forces you to focus on a few goals and all the tasks required to complete them. To be specific, here’s the Wikipedia definition: A Kanban board is one of the tools that can be used to implement Kanban to manage work at a personal or organizational level.

The way Sarra set hers up was on a board into three months. I like the idea of focusing on three goals. Here are my three: 1] Publish and promote both new and backlist titles to increase average income; 2] Increase fan engagement across social media, blog, BookBub, Amazon and newsletter 10%, 15%, 30% and 3] Complete Unexpected Love #2 and start a KDP Select book. [For privacy reasons, I didn’t disclose the financial aspects of the first goal.]

The goals and their tasks are broken down by 30, 60 and 90 days. My head went into a tailspin and I immediately understood why Sarra suggested limiting the goals to three or maybe two. I chose three. If you’re inclined, you can also add a personal goal. Each month has a different color to help keep things in order. If you’re interested, check out her video [https://heartbreathings.com/how-to-achieve-your-goals-when-youre-busy/].

How did I do the first 30 days? I missed the mark on a few things. Seeing all of the tasks on a board made me face my new work reality. I sort of mixed up my stickie notes…something I’ll correct in the next quarter. This first thirty days, I planned to rebrand a series. I made a set of covers late last year, but when I went back to them, I started having second thoughts and made another set. I’m not satisfied with the new set and will start on another set this month. This indecisiveness, has caused all the tasks attached to that series, to be pushed back. A few of the other tasks for January which I’m carrying over include some minor admin things.

This new plan allowed me to write again. I hadn’t written much the last quarter. I signed up for NANO, but didn’t complete the book. I would like to blame it on the business of life, but after NANO finished, I realized it wasn’t time to complete that book. If I’d stayed with it, it would have meant I wouldn’t get a book out until summer and I felt that was too long of a gap between releases. My last release was in October.

Instead, on January 13th, I know this because I wrote it in my planner, I went back to working on The Good Girl Trois [I had written 2653 words and put it aside]. I made it a point to be consistent. I set a daily goal of 1000 words per day. That first week was hard. There were a few days where I barely wrote 500+ words. And days when I did 2000+. As of today, I made my goal for January, 15,000. My new goal is to complete this book by the end of February. I’m not pressuring myself, but if I stay on track, I’ll make it.

My social media has been up and down, but that’s my fault. I have a plan, which I need to implement.

This year, I really want to put all of the things I’ve learned from courses and conferences into play and develop a marketing plan that’s right for me. This could mean limiting conference attendance and author signings. My goal this year is to publish four books and build up my readership. I hear you saying, “Author events will help with readership.” That is true, but I really want to advance and or complete two of my series.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned so far, is planning is no joke. I also see why, planner girls start working on their plans in October. I don’t like playing catch up, but I am a lot further along this year than I have been in the past. I’m excited to see how I do this month.

See you next month.

Tracy

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POV: Going Deep and Staying There February 2020 OCC/RWA Online Class

February 4, 2020 by Linda McLaughlin in category Online Classes tagged as Deep POV, OCC, Online Classes, Suzanne Johnson

February Online Workshop
POV: Going Deep and Staying There (An Interactive Workshop)
Feb. 11 – March 8

Instructor: Suzanne Johnson

About the Class:

It doesn’t matter if you write first-person narrative or third-person with multiple viewpoint characters—getting deep inside a POV character’s head is the key to writing stories that grab readers by the heartstrings, no matter what genre you’re writing. In this workshop, each participant will have a chance to examine the different expectations of POV within different genres, look at the pros and cons of each POV technique, and then take his or her own work-in-progress, a finished work, or a favorite published work and deconstruct it to take the POV deep and keep it there. Each workshop participant will receive personal feedback through a series of assignments.

Syllabus:
Lesson 1: POV–One of the Most Important Decisions You’ll Make
Lesson 2: POV and Genre (and a few words about head-hopping)
Lesson 3: POV Options, Pros, and Cons
Lesson 4: Hands-On Tips and Tricks to Deepen POV—Part 1 of 6
Lesson 5: Hands-On Tips and Tricks—Setting and Narrative, Part 2 of 6
Lesson 6: Hands-On Tips and Tricks—Action, Part 3 of 6
Lesson 7: Hands-On Tips and Tricks—Visceral Reactions/Emotion, Part 4 of 6
Lesson 8: Hands-On Tips and Tricks—Dialogue, Part 5 of 6
Lesson 9: Hands-On Tips and Tricks—Internal Dialogue, Part 6 of 6
Lesson 10: Balancing Third-Person Multiple POVs (three or more POVs)
Lesson 11: POV Hodgepodge and Wrapup

About the Author:

Suzanne Johnson has written more than twenty urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense novels and novellas from the pastoral setting of Auburn, Alabama. She realized her dream of becoming a full-time “hybrid” author in 2017 after finally leaving a career in educational publishing that has spanned five states and six universities. She grew up halfway between the Bear Bryant Museum and Elvis’s birthplace and lived in New Orleans for fifteen years, including a firsthand introduction to Hurricane Katrina. As Suzanne Johnson, she writes the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series and other urban fantasy novellas and shorts. As Susannah Sandlin, she writes paranormal romance and romantic suspense, including the award-winning Penton Legacy paranormal romance series, The Collectors romantic thriller series, and Wilds of the Bayou romantic thriller series. She also works as a professional copyeditor for other authors.

Website
Twitter
Facebook

Request to join the online classroom HERE.

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Vintage 1960s Automobiles: The Chevrolet Corvair by Will Zeilinger

February 3, 2020 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as 1960s, Car, history, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, Vintage, Will Zeilinger

Manufactured by Chevrolet for model years 1960–1969, is still the only American-designed, mass-produced passenger car with a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine.

Initially, the innovative Corvair was manufactured and marketed as a 4-door sedan.

The compact Chevrolet Corvair was designed to compete with Volkswagens in the US market.

The 1960 Corvair went on sale on October 2, 1959, and was the first American compact sedan with a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine, unit-body construction, three-across seating, and the availability of an automatic transmission. Only four-door sedans were available at first, then came the 2-door coupe, convertible, 4-door station wagon, passenger van, commercial van, and pickup truck body styles.

Though inspired by Volkswagen’s four-cylinder engine, Chevrolet engineers used Porsche engines as a guide.

To stay competitive with the VW Beetle, the new Ford Falcon, and Plymouth Valiant, Chevrolet chose to cut corners right where it showed: on the interior. The basemodel 500 was particularly drab. Everything inside was gray, both the fabric and vinyl upholstery and black rubber floor mats. The 700 models came with three interior colors from which to choose. Extra-cost options on both the 700 and 500 models includedthings we take for granted today, like sun visors for both driver and passenger, armrests, or a cigarette lighter.

The Corvair sales took a significant upturn when the Monza coupe debuted at the 1960 Chicago Auto Show.

Though the Monza would rewrite what everyone’s idea of a Corvair was an alternative to the typical front-engined American family cars of the period.

The death knell for the Corvair came when Ralph Nader’s 1965 book “Unsafe at Any Speed” claimed that the car’s design that incorporated swing-axle suspension created a far greater risk of the vehicle rolling, which he described as “the one-car accident.”

Even though the suspension had been redesigned for much better handling and safety, the damage was done. Nader’s book became a best-seller, but in the consumer’s mind, the reputation of the Corvair was tarnished forever. Chevrolet ceased production of the Corvair with the 1969 model.

The Skylar Drake Mysteries

SLICK DEAL

GAME TOWN

STRANGE MARKINGS

SLIVERS OF GLASS

DESERT ICE

STONE PUB: An Exercise in Deception

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Alice Duncan—Jazz, Gin, and Mayhem

February 2, 2020 by Jann Ryan in category Jann says . . . tagged as Alice Duncan, Anne Robins, Daisy Gummn Majesty, Emma Craid, hystoricals, Jon Sharp, Mercy Allcut, mystery, Rachel Wilson

We’re here today with author, Alice Duncan, or should I say author Emma Craig, Rachel Wilson, Anne Robins or Jon Sharp. A woman who started her prolific writing career in 1995.

In an effort to avoid what she knew she should be doing, Alice folk-danced professionally until her writing muse finally had its way. Now a resident of Roswell, New Mexico, Alice enjoys saying “no” to smog, “no” to crowds, and “yes” to loving her herd of wild dachshunds.

Handy Links for Alice:

Website
Facebook
Daisy Daze
Monthly Newsletter

Jann: Alice, what can you tell us about your writing career and your life in New Mexico.

Alice: I began writing when I still lived in Pasadena, CA. I remember the moment well, actually. My daughter Robin and I were visiting my folks in Roswell, and we decided to drive to Fort Stanton and visit Billy the Kid’s grave (hey, you take your thrills where you find ‘em). As Robin drove, I looked at the bleak landscape, and a scene suddenly leapt into my mind. So I withdrew a pad of paper and a pencil from my purse and wrote it down. This was, I think, in August of 1993. From then on, I wrote down snippets and scraps and, in October of that year, I started to write my first book. It stank, but I kept going. I was mega into historical romances at the time, so I wrote historical romances. My first book, ONE BRIGHT MORNING, set in New Mexico in the late 1800s, sold to Harper on the day of the Northridge Earthquake in January of 1994. It was published in January of 1995. I thought I was on the road to success.

Silly me. However, as I’ve always possessed more determination than sense, I’ve been writing ever since. Once I moved to Roswell (Pasadena being too expensive to live in anymore) my infatuation for the old west gradually faded, and I became nostalgic for good old Pasadena. As the mere notion of writing anything contemporary gives me the willies, I decided to write historical cozy mysteries. So that’s what I’ve been doing for nearly twenty years now. All of them, except for three books in a series called The Pecos Valley books are set in Southern California. Daisy Gumm Majesty, my favorite character of all time, lives in Pasadena.

Jann: Your Daisy Gumm Majesty and Mercy Allcutt mysteries are set in the 1920’s. Why did you select this particular time period?

Alice: The 1920s is a fascinating decade. The War to End All Wars (which, unfortunately, wasn’t) had ended in 1918; the Spanish flu pandemic (which started in a fort in Kansas, but never mind that) wiped out a third or more of the world’s population (in other words, of those remaining after the War) in 1918-1919; the automobile had been invented and was becoming a way of life; young people started to believe their lives meant nothing so they might as well drink, smoke and party; parents were freaked about their children’s loose morals; hemlines were rising; the flickers were drawing people in by the boatload and showing them lives nobody really lived but wanted to live; and, basically, the world, it was a’changing.

Jann: ePublishing Works is republishing your Mercy Allcutt historical cozy mystery series. How wonderful! Who is Mercy Allcutt? Tell us about the world you have created for this series.

Alice: Mercy Allcutt came into being when I thought Daisy Gumm Majesty was floating belly-up in the goldfish bowl of publishing. You see, My publisher at the time, Kensington, said there wasn’t enough mystery in the first Daisy book (in which conclusion they were probably correct), and decided I should take out the dead bodies, add a subsidiary romance since the heroine was already married, and they marketed them as romances. This decision flopped magisterially, which fits the name, but didn’t do the books any good. The first two Daisy book tanked, as so many of my books do, and I had to move on to another name and another historical romance series (my Titanic books which, while perfectly good romances, weren’t what I wanted to write). So there I was, stuck in 19^th century romance, when I wanted to be in a good, cozy, roaring-twenties’ mystery!

Thus was born Mercy Allcutt, a Boston Brahmin who longs to live “among the people,” an opportunity for which didn’t exist in her family’s estate on Beacon Hill in Boston. She bucks family pressure, moves to Los Angeles to live with her sister Chloe and Chloe’s movie-mogul husband, and gets a job, something no other female in her family has ever done before. She wants to become a member of the worker proletariat because she yearns to write books. Gritty books. Books set on the mean streets involving “real” people.

She figures a sheltered young lady from Boston knows beans about, grit, real people or mean streets. Therefore, she gets a job as secretary to a private detective, Mr. Ernest Templeton. Mercy and Ernie have several adventures together. One of them involves a woman I modeled more or less after Aimee Semple McPherson, who was a big Gospel preacher in the 1920s and who built the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles. That book was Fallen Angels, which was republished a few months back. It won the Arizona/New Mexico Book of the Year Award for mystery-suspense in 2012, which is weird because I didn’t enter it. Someone entered it for me. I don’t personally care for contests for more reasons than I want to go in to here.

Anyway, I was glad about Mercy, but I was absolutely thrilled when Five Star picked up the Daisy books. Then Five Star closed their mystery line, and I moved to ePublishing Works, a “small” publisher and the only that’s ever made any money for me! Go figure.

Jann: The reissue of Angels of Mercy will be available this month. What has Mercy gotten herself into in this book?

Alice: Mercy, who really does try to live on the income from her job as secretary to a P.I., dips into her Great-Aunt Agatha’s legacy to purchase the Bunker Hill home her sister and brother-in-law own (her parents are scandalized that Los Angeles commandeered the name Bunker Hill, by the way). Chloe and Harvey Nash (Mercy’s sister and brother-in-law) are moving to Beverly Hills. Mercy’s motives are pure. She wants to operate a boarding house for young women who, unlike her, actually have to live on their incomes as working women. All goes well until she allows a cuckoo into her nest. Then things get dicey. Mercy’s apricot-colored toy poodle plays a pivotal role in the book, too. I love dogs.

Jann: What’s the best writing advice you ever received?

Alice: Never give up. I also have a favorite quotation: “Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” That’s by Henry Van Dyke. I’d leave out the “very” if it were up to me, but it isn’t. Anyway, I didn’t write “The Story of the Other Wise Man,” and Henry Van Dyke did, so what the heck.

Jann: In your books, who is your favorite character and why?

Alice: Daisy Gumm Majesty is my favorite character in my mysteries series. Daisy’s me, only with a supportive family and none of my neuroses (she has plenty of her own, so she’s not boring). And she also has a black-and-tan dachshund. I’ve collected dachshunds for most of my life, and it’s not my fault. I think a dachshund magnet was implanted in me at birth. I now belong to New Mexico Dachshund Rescue, but I managed to end up with seventy-billion wiener dogs even before that.

My favorite character from my historical romances is Loretta Linden, a wealthy San Francisco feminist who survived the sinking of Titanic. Her book, A PERFECT ROMANCE, is the middle book in my three-book Titanic series.

Jann: Do you ever run out of ideas? If so, how did you get past that?

Alice: Oh, yeah. I didn’t at first, but I’ve been doing this for 25 years or more, and I’m old and tired. In order to get past that, I ask people for suggestions! They come up with some doozies. I use them and acknowledge the donors in my books. I appreciate them so much, it’s difficult to quantify how much.

Jann: What profession would you hate to do?

Alice: I’ve pretty much hated every day job I’ve ever had, mainly because I’ve always wanted to write books. I wouldn’t have minded being a librarian, but I had to support my two daughters by myself by the time I was 19 years old, and that didn’t leave much room for writing. After my daughters grew up, writing books just seemed so hard. I mean, how do you string 400 or so pages of one story together? A friend of mine recommended historical romances, so I read them and realized that’s what I’d wanted to write since I was five. So I did.

Jann: What’s your all-time favorite book?

Alice: Oy. That’s a big job; finding one book out of thousands. However, I think my all-time favorite book is THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN, by Romain Gary. Contains elephants.

Jann: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

Alice: Not sure about a statute of limitations, but I don’t think I’d better answer that.

Jann: What turns you off?

Alice: Anachronistic language and cultural mind-sets in historical fiction. There’s a PBS series called “Frankie Drake,” which is set in Canada in the 1920s. It’s absolutely teeming with modern cultural sensibilities and modern expressions. Drives me nuts (not a long drive). But people will watch it and think that’s the way it was. It wasn’t. Trust me. I’ve done so much research into the 1920s (especially in Pasadena and Los Angeles) and the American west, and I know that’s not the way things and language were. Gah.

Jann: What’s the funniest (or sweetest or best or nicest) thing a fan ever said to you?

Alice: I’ve received several letters and emails from people who tell me my books have helped them through hard times, and that makes me glad. The most amazing one came from a woman in Australia, who was, at the time she first wrote, homeless and living in her gold VW Bug with her cat, Koto. I used her story (with her permission) for the Daisy book, Bruised Spirits. I’m happy to say she’s doing much better now, although she nearly got burned out a couple of weeks ago, thanks to Australia’s hideous drought and ghastly brushfire problems.

Jann: Alice, it has been so much fun talking with you today. Thank you for giving us peak into your writing career.

A Few Books by Alice Duncan

BRUISED SPIRITS

A PERFECT ROMANCE

ANGELS OF MERCY

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Featuring The Extra Squeeze Team

February 1, 2020 by The Extra Squeeze in category Featured Author of the Month, The Extra Squeeze by The Extra Squeeze Team tagged as cry for writing help, editing, Hot Mess, NaNoWriMo, Self-editing

Ever wonder what industry professionals think about the issues that can really impact our careers? Each month The Extra Squeeze features a fresh topic related to books and publishing.

Amazon mover and shaker Rebecca Forster and her handpicked team of book professionals offer frank responses from the POV of each of their specialties — Writing, Editing, PR/Biz Development, and Cover Design.

For the whole month of February, the Extra Squeeze Team will be Featured on A Slice of Orange. Check back each week for more writing advice.

Dear Extra Squeeze Team,

I did NanoWriMo and finished. The result—I have a 50,301 word hot mess of manuscript. What the heck do I do now?

Rebecca Forster

USA Today Bestselling author of 35 books, including the Witness series and the new Finn O’Brien series.

Edit. Seriously. Take what’s good, throw out what’s bad, rewrite, smooth out and polish. Viola, you have a book. I would love to have 50,000 words to work with. Good luck.

H.O. Charles

Cover designer and author of the fantasy series, The Fireblade Array

Do you know what it is meant to become? Is it a series of chapters that form part of a longer book, or a novella? You’ll need to know what the finished product will be and who its audience is before you can begin to shape it. I don’t think there’s a set order to this next bit, but I would say that once you have an idea about final thing, you can start to make it more user-friendly.

Divide it up to make it edible for its future consumers (chapters with titles, paragraphs that don’t repeat the same stuff e.g.). Then start to look at which boxes you’ve ticked: character development, atmosphere, plot twists, no plot holes. Make sure the beginning has the right hook, and the end ties everything up (or doesn’t, if you like cliffhangers).

I’d correct grammar and spelling as I go with each re-read, making sure to change the page size each time (if you’re anything like me, you’ll be blind to certain errors unless the text gets moved around. Something weird and psychological, but it works).

The alternative is to count the 50k words as ‘notes’, and go on to re-write the whole thing in a more structured manner – the nuclear approach. It can produce better results, however.

Once you’re happy, find someone you trust to read through it and ask what they think. I am always surprised at the items that get identified, even when I believe I know my own book inside-out!

Jenny Jensen

Developmental editor who has worked for twenty plus years with new and established authors of both fiction and non-fiction, traditional and indie.

First, take a deep breath. Then sit your calm self down and read that hot mess from a more distanced perspective. Deconstruct. Outline the story. This hot mess came out of your imagination, your creative brain pan. Decide if there is something there to merit a lot more hard work.

What is the premise? Does it hold water? Is the opening compelling and does it carry forward and follow a logical plot? How is it plotted? Who are the characters and do they fill their necessary roles? Are these personalities you’ve peopled the story with interesting enough to carry the plot? Have you set the tale up with some inciting element strong enough to capture a reader in the first two pages and can that moment or situation move the story forward? Does the action rise and culminate and resolve in a natural dramatic arc?

Possibly… probably not. Yet.

There’s got to be some worth in all that effort. It may simply be that you’ve primed the pump and can toss this exercise and go on to a different tale energized by the fact that you know you can get words down on paper. (Sometimes that’s half the battle.) Or it may be that your efforts contain the seed of something that with the proper rewrite and revise, can be great. Only by analyzing it with as critical an eye as you’re able to achieve can you know what you can make of that mad NanoWriMo effort.

If you see the glaring errors of you ways, then get down to the rewrite. If you are overwhelmed by the prospect, get yourself an editor. Most editors, myself included, offer a read and review service for a reasonable fee. That overview from a fresh, professional eye, will help you see your way through trees to the forest. Or is that through the forest to the trees? Either way, you’ll come away with a direction that will help you move your written efforts forward.

Fifty K plus written words is awesome. You can make something of it, learn something from it, or just be pleased as punch that you achieved it.

I recommend you make something of it.