A few social media tips

I love Twitter and Facebook. They're great ways to interact with other authors, writers, publishing professionals and best of all - readers. FB especially has allowed me to converse with folks who've read my books and wanted to ask questions. Twitter has given me a chance to get to know other authors better, to get involved in writing-related conversations and to have fun.

But with all that good comes some not-so-good. Here are a few things to avoid when using social media:

1. Don't be Linda Links-a-lot - if all you do on Twitter is post links, you're going to look like a spammer. I'm not saying don't ever do it, but posting link after link isn't really interacting so much as it is shilling. No one knows what those links are until they click them and without knowing you (and trusting the content you provide) people have little reason to click through.

2. Don't add your friends to your groups without getting their permission. This is just rude. It fills their inbox with craploads of FB notifications. How do you know someone wants to be a part of Fluffy Bunny Slippers Rule? Maybe they hate fluffy bunny slippers. (Okay, I'm sure no one hates fluffy bunny slippers, but you get what I'm saying.)

3. Don't be all me me me. Constant self promotion on either FB or Twitter does you zero good. If you haven't taken the time to interact, why should I care about your commercials? I won't. No one will. And don't tell me you don't have the time to interact. You have time to post commercials, you have time for some basic communication.

Here are some great ways you CAN interact on FB and Twitter:

1. "Like" the pages of your favorite authors on Facebook. That's a super easy way to let them know you appreciate their work.

2. Retweet the important info your favorite authors post on Twitter. Are they announcing a release day? Sharing a link to something they're involved in? If it seems important to them, they'll appreciate a retweet.

3. Engage - whether you're on FB or Twitter, people enjoy chatting. Ask questions! You might just be amazed at who answers you.

I can be found on Twitter here and Facebook here. Feel free to share your personal links in the comments. Maybe we can all make some new connections!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

No, not Christmas. It's conference season! Around here, the rest of the year is known as cake eating season, because there's been no cake eating these last few months. Lots of working out and eating right (mostly) in anticipation of fitting into conference clothes.

Today is my RWA Nationals shopping day. I'll be headed out for a little retail therapy with one of my author bffs, who will also be looking for a few good buys. It's a fun way to prepare for the week ahead. Really, it's just a great excuse to shop and spend the day with a friend.

I know some women don't like shopping (I think they have medication for that now), but I love it. I excel at shopping the way some people do math. If shopping were an Olympic sport, I'd be the Michael Phelps of shopping. It's in my genes. If you could see my mother shop, you'd understand.

So, I'm off to peruse the stores and see what fabulous things need me to bring them home. Wish me luck!

The Power of Small Failures

It might seem like the ability to fail in a small way is in no way connected to success, but it is. Here's how:

Have you ever been on a diet, slipped up and decided the day was shot, you'd restart tomorrow and then proceeded to eat everything you weren't supposed to that day?

Have you ever fiddled away most of a day doing everything but writing, then decided the day was basically over so no point in sitting down to the keyboard now?

Those are big failures. They take you in the opposition direction of your goal.

Learning to fail small means eating a candy bar for lunch, but then having a healthy dinner anyway.

Learning to fail small means fiddling the day away, but finding a half hour in the evening to sit down and write 100 words.

So next time something doesn't go exactly as planned, ask yourself if you're going to be a big failure or a small one. Personally, I think small failures are big successes.

Happy Memorial Weekend!

Today Kristen is traveling home from a very fun and successful trip to BEA, therefore she's unable to blog.

So I'm stepping in to wish you guys a very happy holiday weekend here in the US and for the rest of you... I hope your weekend is just as happy :)

Stay classy, San Diego!

"You look stunning, babe."

According to a lip reader, that's what Prince William said to Kate Middleton when she reached him at the end of the aisle in Westminster Abbey. It was quite a sweet moment.

That's my way of telling you that, yes, I've been up since 3 AM. I didn't intend to, but one of the cats woke me up at 2:58 and I decided to pop the TV (telly?) on to see what was happening. Five and a half hours later, I'm still watching. (I'd like to add I've worked out, showered and had breakfast during that time too.)

It's only fitting I watched since I got up to see Diana get married. Kate and Will's day was no disappointment. It was sweet and solemn with some spiritual overtones not always seen in modern weddings. Her dress was beautiful, his uniform resplendent, their love obvious in the most touching way.

One of the nicest touches was the English maple trees lining the aisle. It gave the austere gothic beauty of Westminster Abbey a shot of freshness. Those trees brought down the towering arches without diminishing them. They made the whole ceremony somehow more accessible.

Did you get up? Did you see any of it? What did you think? Personally, I thought it was a romance writer's dream. All in all, I'm glad the cat woke me up.

A Mini Writing Lesson

Today I want to talk a little bit about deep POV (point of view) because a lot of times when I mention it, I get a blank stare. Here's my take on that topic.

DEEP POV

I love Deep POV. I strive for it in everything I write. (Doesn’t mean I always achieve it, but I try.) Is it right for everything? No, but when it’s properly utilized it will help you write tighter. What is it? Deep POV is showing the scene through the character’s eyes, not watching it as it happens to the characters. Let me show you what I mean.

Shallow POV: Betty watched Bob carry the groceries into the house, listening to his grunting and mumbling with a wry smile on her face.

Deep POV: She shook her head. Bob might be carrying the groceries in, but his muttering said it all. His unhappiness gave her a perverse tingle that went all the way to her grin.

Can you see the difference? The first snippet is like you’re watching Betty in this scene. In the second snippet, you are Betty. You’re experiencing the scene right along with her.

*Filtering or distancing words will take your writing out of Deep POV, words like watched, heard, noticed, saw, felt, thought, decided, etc. I’m sure there are a few more you can think of. Do a search for them in your work and see how many you find. How can you rewrite the sentence to take them out?

*Having your characters refer to themselves by name over and over diminishes Deep POV. Do you refer to yourself by name when you’re thinking?

*Lastly, make each character’s descriptions distinct to their personality. Would a military man describe something as a gentle shade of mauve or pink? Would a female kindergarten teacher see a weapon as a Smith and Wesson 9 mil or a gun? Sure, there are exceptions in every case, but make the descriptions ring true. If those characters above answer with the first option, there had better be a reason why.

Make sense?

Look for her!

Our own Kitteh, er I mean, Kristen Painter will be at the Romantic Times Convention this week! Check out all the panels she's going to be on.

Wednesday, April 6th:

BUSINESS: Plotting Your Career
Time: 03:30 pm - 04:30 pm

Thursday, April 7th:

E-BOOK: Wooing the Masses
Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”(Dead Poets Society, 1989)

You can’t sell e-books without getting the reader’s attention. Learn marketing tips for promoting yourself and your digital works online to reach your full potential audience. More to come.

STEAMPUNK: Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?: Gadgets, Gizmos and Automatons
Time: 02:45 pm - 03:45 pm

Rumor has it, she's also going to be involved in a steampunk fashion show while there. All I have to say is there better be pictures!

I'm chicken

I have a hair appointment today - just having the usual done, trim and highlights touched up. But therein lies the "problem" as it were. It's more of the same old, same old. Yes, I've done some out of the box stuff like red and purple streaks, but the hair I think about all the time, the cut that I just can't bring myself to get, is this:

Two things always stop me.

1. It would be the shortest cut I've ever had.
2. What if it looks ridiculous on me?

I know it's hair and hair grows back, but I've got a bunch of conferences coming up and I don't want to go to them looking like a giant mistake from the neck up. (Or looking so different from my author photo - see below - that no one knows it's me.)

Still, I think about how much easier/faster this hair would be than the amount currently on my head. I've ever begun growing out my bangs...just in case.

What do you think? Would you do it? Do you think that cut would look okay on me?

Are you a reader?

I read pretty voraciously when I'm not writing one of my own books. (It's so hard for me to get my characters out of my head when I'm writing that trying to read something else is almost impossible.) There is always a book on my nightstand, more often two or three, plus whatever's on my Kindle. Then there are the magazines scattered throughout the house, usually folded back to the last article I was looking at.

I've always been a reader. One of my earliest memories is winning a blue ribbon in kindergarten for reading the most books. My parents read, my brother reads...books have always been a part of my life.

So here are my non-scientific questions for you:

Have you always been a reader?
If no, when did you start actively reading for pleasure?
If yes, does the rest of your family read?
Where does your love of reading come from?

Friday Funnies

If you're a cat owner, you know how true this is:



Have a great weekend! (And I hope you have a sturdier box.)

Count Your Blessings

There's a lot of crap going on in the world today. Murders, unrest, war, protesting, flood, famine, economic hardship, Charlie Sheen.

I think it would be nice to take a moment to talk about a few things we're thankful for.

I'll start:

My fictionistas - they're a great group of women who I can discuss things with, have a laugh, share a problem, and they always have my back.

My family - I couldn't have asked for a more loving, supportive family.

My health - I see so many people around me struggling with health issues and my heart goes out to them. I am blessed to be healthy.

My cats - yes, I consider them a blessing. They make me laugh, keep me company, and make sure I never think the bed is exclusively mine.

How about you? What are your blessings?

Something tasty to start the New Year with

I've got a new book out - The Perfect Dish!

It's a light, contemporary paranormal with a chef hero. Yum! Here's the scoop:

Texas-born Kelly Spicer is not just one of Manhattan's hottest young chefs, he's also one of the city's most eligible bachelors. Desperate to help his grieving sister, Kelly uses the magic cookbook passed down through his family's generations to conjure up a recipe of chocolate-laced persuasion to enlist the help of the only woman he thinks can reach his sister.

Psychologist Meredith Black has buried two husbands, an experience which has made her an expert in grief and pushed her to pen two books that landed her on the Oprah show and the best seller list. A cynic in matters of the heart, her success does nothing to ease her belief that she's a jinx. She vows never to love again and when she makes that sentiment public, dating Kelly becomes her best damage control.

Buy it for Kindle or Nook or any other format - for just $2.99! A print version should be available in a week or two. If you read it, I'd love to know what you think.

Sugarcat

So I just found out one of my cats, Sam, is a diabetic. I was only vaguely aware that cats could be diabetics. Now I'm going to have to learn to give him a shot twice a day. Since we also have an asthmatic cat that needs an inhaler twice a day, I figure how hard can this be?

Pets are really something and an incident like this (Sam went into ketoacidosis, an often fatal-for-cats diabetic shock and is actually still in the hospital as I type this, making a remarkable recovery) makes you conscious of how much company they really are. When I'm at my desk, so is Sam, sprawled next to my lap top, his watchful eyes occasionally opening to see if I'm working or just shopping online.

Animals are a comfort. They are a source of unconditional love. They don't care if you're having a bad hair or you haven't brushed your teeth after eating garlic or that you're still wearing your pajamas at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. They love us the way we should love each other. Except I don't think jumping on someone when they walk through your front door to see if they're carrying food will ever catch on.

I can't imagine not having pets. No matter how many litter boxes I have to clean or vet bills I have to pay. They're just great additions to life. Do you have pets? I'd love to hear about them.

Now where did I put that...

I'm not an organized person and have never claimed to be, but that doesn't mean my stuff is all over the place either. I have my own system, like most people probably do, and thankfully it works okay. I do sometimes wish I was more organized. I have friends that label things, filing them in color-coded files with the precision of a drill sergeant. I have other friends who make spreadsheets for fun and recreation. Those people boggle me. I admire their skill the way one might look up to a pro-athlete and know that I will never compete in their league. I'm actually not even qualified to sit on that bench.

My husband asks me if I'm filing receipts. I always nod and smile brightly and then as soon as he steps out of my office, I shove them all into a folder and scrawl something across the tab in black Sharpie marker like Writing Exp 2010. I have no doubt that this will, indeed, some day be the death of him as he likes to proclaim.

I do what I can organizationally and while I dream of better things, I know my limitations. What are yours? Are you uber organized or furiously stuffing papers in a shoebox when no one's looking?

PS. That is NOT my office. No matter what my husband may have told you.

______________________________________
ETA: The winner of the copy of "Morning Glory" from Amanda's Wednesday post is...drumroll, please...Andy!
Please email amandabrice (at) romancedivas (dot) com to collect your prize!

The end is near

No, I'm not talking about the Mayan apocalypse. I'm talking about the end of the book I'm currently writing. I cannot wait to finish it. This book has not been a "gimme" for me, it's been a real labor of love at times.

A gimme book, as most writers will tell you, is one of those rare novels that just pours out of you, every character nuance and plot decision coming as seamless as silk. Some writers have never had one of those, some have them periodically, but most writers have had at least one. Ask a writer what their gimme book was and their face will light up and their eyes sparkle with a faraway remembrance. They'll nod and smile and start telling you about it, how it issued forth in six weeks and had no revisions or some such fantastical thing.

I've had one. It's called The Perfect Dish and I wrote the first 60 pages in about five days. It really did spill out of me, so fast my fingers could barely keep up. It was a risky book, featuring an older woman/younger man scenario long before the word cougar had really entered the vernacular. (He's a hot young chef with a recently widowed sister, she's a grief counselor who's meteoric career is suddenly spiraling downward due to her own unresolved issues. Also, he's got a magic cookbook and isn't afraid to use it.)

The Perfect Dish opened doors for me. It proved to people that I could write, that I was growing as a writer and that I was a talent worth noticing. That book got me my agent. It eventually sold, but the publisher closed, leaving the book homeless again. (I've decided to put it out there myself via the Kindle route, but that's a story for another post.) Still, The Perfect Dish was a gimme book that made a difference in my writing path.

Have you had your gimme book yet? What was it? What happened to it? Are you writing it now?

Remembering September

October is the 10th month of the year (it was the 8th month in the Roman calendar, hence the Octo part of the name that stuck) and one of seven months with 31 days. By now most of us are pretty settled into Fall. Here in Florida, it means we're starting to leave our doors and windows open in the morning and evening to take advantage of the first few cool breezes.

During October we celebrate such things as Columbus Day and Halloween, but also lesser known days like Apple Day, Freethought Day and Leif Erikson Day.

But today, on the first of October, people will look at each other and say, "Where did September go? Can you believe it's October already? It'll be Christmas soon!"

I know where my September went. I wrote 35,000 words that month. Celebrated my dad's birthday. Enjoyed the company of my visiting family. Saw a friend get married. Watched my niece perform in Cinderella. Took a trip with my husband and made some new memories.

All in all, September was a good month and while it did go by fast, it went by packed full of good times. My September feels well spent. How about yours?

Like balls in the air

As you may or may not know, I'm working on the third book in my Blood Rights series that releases next fall from Orbit books. The series is being billed as gothic urban fantasy and involves a lot of characters and a lot of story lines.

Basically, they're complicated. I don't think they're so much complicated to read as they are to write, though. See, while the reader will have all the story lines laid out for them, I have to keep them all in my head, all moving along, all traveling toward the same interwoven end.

It's a lot like what I imagine juggling to be. Thinking not just one but two and sometimes three steps ahead. What happens halfway through one subplot will impact the ending of another. A bad beginning and the ball drops. A wrong choice and the ball drops. Information given too soon - or not soon enough and the ball drops.

And that's just one book. The kicker is the series on the whole works the same way because the same characters are featured in every book. There are character arcs to consider, larger plotlines, growth, development...lots and lots of balls in the air. (And I'm a pantser. Scary, huh?)

So like a juggler, I keep moving, keep writing forward, keep pushing through each subplot, weaving and layering as I go because if I stop? If I forget to keep one going? It all comes down. Or at the very least, leaves a gaping hole. But there's a frantic energy to it as well and that energy is what motivates me to get on the keyboard every day and see what's going to happen next.

What are you juggling? How's it working for you?

A week of firsts

Almost three weeks ago now, many of us came home from the Romance Writers of American National Conference. It was a great week for me and several "firsts" happened that week.

1. I was part of my first workshop panel. One thing few people know about me is that speaking in front of crowds gives me wicked nerves. This surprises most people because I'm such an out going person, but it's true. Even when I taught college, I would get shaky hands and an elevated heartbeat. It's just one of my "things" but I got through my panel and feel like I did a good job.

2. I ran my first mile. Yes, I know this isn't conference related, but it happened while I was there, so I'm including it. I've been running for a while now, off and on on my treadmill at home. I think the longest I'd gone before was maybe 8 or 9 minutes. Something came over me on that fitness room treadmill and I just pushed it until I ran that full mile (12 minutes). What a great feeling! And I've since duplicated it at home, so it wasn't a fluke.

3. I participated in my first RWA Literacy signing. Every conference, RWA holds a massive literacy signing where the publishers donate the books and all the proceeds go toward literacy. This was my first year and I sold almost all my books. As you can see from the pic below, I was a pretty happy camper just to be there.What firsts have you done lately? Share!

Dude, it's Friday

Fridays are the best, aren't they? You've got the promise of a whole weekend in front of you, the chance to have fun, relax, get something accomplished or do nothing at all. You might be staying home, you might be traveling, you might be entertaining friends or enjoying some solitude. The possibilities are endless and whatever you make of them.

Fridays can be Good Fridays, Black Fridays or Casual Fridays. (And occasionally Freaky Friday.) We Thank God It's Friday but hope it's not Friday the 13th. Friday was named in honor of the Norse goddess Frigg, but to the Romans the day was sacred to the goddess Venus, and was known as dies veneris.

In French, Friday is vendredi. In Italian: venerdi; Spanish: viernes; German: Freitag ; Dutch: vrijdag. How ever you say it, it still means most of us don't have to work tomorrow. How are you spending your Friday and what are your plans for the weekend?

Changing things up

You may have noticed that the blog has recently gotten a mini-facelift with a new background. The lockers are gone, replaced by a mosaic of all the Fictionistas bookcovers. And no, they're not all YA books.

See, we had a little 'nista heart to heart and we realized that we're more than just young adult writers and that the YA focus of the blog wasn't fully serving our purpose as cross-genre writers. To be honest, getting a YA book published has moved to the back burner for me at the moment. Not because I don't want to write YA, I do, it's just that my schedule is pretty full with other writing projects.

In case you don't know, next fall (2011) the first three books in my gothic urban fantasy series, Blood Rights, will be coming out from Orbit. I think it's safe to say that's my main focus at the moment as I'm currently writing book 3.

Then there's my steampunk romnace novella coming out from Samhain this October. The other two books I have out right now are All Fired Up (paranormal romance) and Heart Of Fire (fantasy romance). Not young adult by genre definition, but in my eyes, perfectly acceptable books for a younger person to read.

Let's face it, what person under the age of 21 sticks solely to YA books? Did you as a young reader? I know I didn't. I read everything I could get my hands on, regardless of genre or target market.

And so Fictionistas, in respect of that truth, has decided to become a more fully rounded blog. From now on, you'll be hearing about all aspects of the Fictionistas' writing life and our books. Should make for a more lively place to hang out.