Inspiration . . . what inspires you?

Do you need to fill up the well? Jolt that creative side of your muse? What are the things that make your soul sing with joy? What inspires you? Makes you smile when the world is dark and gloomy?
For me . . .

Family!

My dad's 80th birthday party -- and my son getting a royal ribbing for being the red-haired grandson.
My dad.

Christmas is more fun in a cowboy hat.
Vacations really inspire me.

Dogs are family, too!

Friends!

Critique partners -- The Flip-Flop Sisters

Success!

The first book cover.
My daughter's college ring.
My son building his own super-sized, mega computer.

Great Scenery!

The Vitamin String Quartet.

Great Music!

What else?

White chocolate, Macadamin Nut cookies. A tall, frosty glass of . . . orange juice. (Gotcha!) My favorite restaurant (Bob's Chop & Steak House). Spring sunrises. Walks with hubby. The perfect sentence.

What inspires you? Do share.
Drop by the porch again, anytime.
Until then,
~Sandra

Friends . . .

Many of you are working fast and furious for the upcoming RWA convention -- to all of you, I say 'Hats off and may this be a wonderfully successful conference.'

To my lovely critique partner, L.A. Mitchell, who is up for her second Golden Heart, may this year be truly golden and you walk away with the trophy (and more importantly, a publishing contract).

To critique partners Sherry A. Davis, (RWA National PRO Liaison and author of romantic comedy), Here Comes The Bribe, and Mary Karlik, fantasy and YA writer, may the publishing doors swing wide open for you at this conference.

Fellow critique partner, Delores, and I will be sitting this one out. However, we'd better get phone calls when all the good news starts pouring in.

Several months ago, Mary K.'s lovely daughter, Kate, married. Per typical Mary fashion she'd hired the photographer to snap pics of all the wedding antics. Here below are my lovely 'Flip-Flop' sisters, i.e. my critique partners.

It was loads of fun and some truly warm moments for old, er, mature friends to share. For those of us who write, critique partners become our sanity. With all those voices bouncing around inside our heads, it's mandatory to have voices on the outside -- voices of reason and understanding -- who keep we writers grounded.



If you're writing and you haven't found your inner circle for critiquing, I strongly urge you to seek out those who want to spend their days with fanny firmly planted to the writing chair. No one else truly understands this madness called writing.

Cheers for conference good news, and critique partners.

MY CPs new book

I posted about HERE COMES THE BRIBE, a great romatic comedy release by The Wild Rose Press from my CP, Sherry A. Davis.

The cover art is fabulous:

And the book blurb certainly gets it done: A single administrative assistant accepts her temporary boss’s offer to masquerade as his fiancée to keep his matchmaking grandmother out of his personal life and out of the way while he negotiates a high-profile merger for his family-owned company. In exchange, she’ll get the down payment for the loan she needs to keep her ex from selling her condo out from under her.
But neither of them counted on the lines blurring between real and pretend--or for the temporary arrangement to leave them both longing for something more permanent.

NOW: Sherry A. Davis has recieved another terrific review from The Night Owl Romance.
Click on the review, or click straight to Novel Words, Ms. Davis's blogsite for ways to purchase her tremendous book, HERE COMES THE BRIBE.

Congrats, Sherry, all the kudos are well-deserved for great writing.

Hooking the reader . . .

Slowing the pace or resolving the conflict – any conflict, even a little one – at the end of the chapter or scene gives your reader an opportunity to put your book down and turn off the light. Bad news for any author aspiring who has designs on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Make your readers hang around and hang on, forcing them to read through what would be a natural place to break.

How to?

Use strong hooks.

As writers, we want to finish the thought and build to the end always pushing the conflict up the next notch. So resolution is the last thing that needs to happen at the end of a chapter. Break the action right in the middle, leave the reader asking the question, ‘What happens next?’ or even ‘OMG, I’ve got to find out more.’, and you’ll provide all the incentive readers need to keep . . . well, to keep reading.

Answers are a must – but only in small doses. Weave in the answer through the beginning of the next chapter or scene, or leave the thread dangling until the reader absolutely needs to know in order to increase believability.

At this point, my critique group is accessing my WIP, TRICKLE OF LIES, in chunks. Reading through the first 100 pages for posting, I noticed a number of chapter hooks that were designed to keep my readers forging through to the next page.

I picked a random hook: Boston Donavan waited for the first sheet to finish printing from his fax machine before snagging the page. The ‘receive’ light glowed amber as another piece of paper rolled into the printer. Across the cover page, Dump (his deputy) had scrawled notations regarding the origin of the documents.
A second sheet popped free and Boston immediately recognized the Austin police letterhead. It took only minutes to scan the contents then he crumbled the page’s edge in his fist.
With a glare, he focused on his closed bedroom door. As though he could see the woman lying in his bed, he swore. “Son of a bitch, she’s lied to me again.”

Does the reader know what’s on the pages printed from Boston’s fax? Nope, but they know it has to do with a police department and that whatever has been revealed means he’s been deliberately lied to, or at the least, misled and the woman doing the lying is in his bed. Uh-oh. This hook is designed to keep the reader moving forward and pushing toward the end of the book.
Share a hook from your WIP, or one from your favorite book.


As always, you’re welcome to drop by my back porch. Actually, it’s cooling off a little here in Texas. BBQ is on the grille and beer in the cooler. Drop on by anytime.

Until next time
~Sandra

Good news . . . no, wait, great NEWS!

This Friday, that's the 27th of June, one of my dearest writing buddies will release her first long contemporary from The Wild Rose Press.

HERE COMES THE BRIBE,
is a seriously funny romp between a too-busy, work-alcoholic, too-gorgeous-for-his-own-good boss who's totally in trouble with his family and his female assistant, who's saved him from drowning so many times it's become habit. When he once again dives into the deep end, it's up to this feisty heroine to keep him from going under for the third time. HERE COMES THE BRIBE is a great read at anytime of the day or night, and a perfect way to spend a little summer down time. Only don't expect to stay cool reading this great book, because the hero and heroine heat up the pages.

You can bet I'll be visiting The Wild Rose Press Friday morning to purchase my own e-book copy. The hardback version will follow later this year, and I'll be back to buy mine then. Oh yeah, I happen to know this author. Guess I'll just ask for my own autographed copy.

Can't wait to pop the cork on this cyber-celebration and read my own copy of HERE COMES THE BRIBE.

Sparkle This!

Want to see what I'm working on these days?

Pop over to Sparkle This!

A group of seven writers, moi included, are enmeshed in our latest short serial -- a rather twisted 'fish out of water' story -- where our modern-day heroine is transported back into regency time in order to solve a murder. There's a time-jumper, a fairy godmother, an evil stepfather, and a hunky hero.

Drop by and read any excerpt under Short Story #2 to follow along. Every few days another writer will post an addition to the story.

~Hope to see you there.
Sandra

Pictures

All right, so I'm fast-drafting again tonight and the blog has to be quick.

How about a few pictures from my recent Barnes & Noble book-signing?

Yep, it was fun. Loads of people showed up and I sold out. How much better can it get?

These are two of my hugely helpful CPs, Delores Shaffer (on left of pic) and LA Mitchell (on the right) They were terrific and kept me calm through all my insanity at the signing table. Thanks girlies!

Oh, and please don't ask me what I was doing in this picture. I know it looks like I was directing traffic and maybe I was, but it's more likely that the camera person happened to be my 19-year-old daughter who can always manage to show her mom's, um, strange side. Thanks, Mary for taking the pictures! *GRIN*

Janice and Terry Higgs (favorite friends back from my Burlington Air Express days -- wow, was that a life-time ago!) This lovely couple has kept in touch and couldn't wait to have a copy of the book. Thanks Terry and Janice.

And my sign . . . in huge Black & White (well, color too) If I could wax surfer for a moment . . . it is, like, poster-size, dude! This is the stuff to make me keep writing when I hate my characters, the plot, the backstory and every little detail. It was truly inspiring to see my name in print.

Top 5

Top 5 reasons I’m possessed to pound on the keyboard or, as it’s known in polite circles, why I write:

5) I can’t stand the voices in my head anymore – best way to silence chatty characters is type them on page.

4) I miss my characters and their shenanigans and/or adventures. I have characters who know how to pilot planes, sail boats, shoot guns, design buildings, paint beautiful landscapes, practice law, run multi-million dollar businesses – nope, I can’t do any of those things, but it certainly is fun going along for the ride with my characters.

3) I might earn some money from doing this. *GRIN* Okay, not much, but I can buy dinner at Sonic.

2) I can’t wait to find out what happens at the end of the story. No, I don’t plot all the way to the end. It’s too much fun to discover how the ‘happily ever-after’ works out.

1) Top reason I write, to delivery another story, in which one reader (more would be nice, but I can live with one) tells me, ‘This story kept me up all night. I couldn’t put it down. Couldn’t wait to find out what happened.’

What did I discover in compiling this list?

That I’m selfish. Uh-oh, not a great character trait, but a true one.

This process of writing is a solitary task. Not exactly the whole single-soul-locked-away-in-the-desolate-tower-until-the-writing-is-done, but it does feel like that at times. When there’s nothing but the blank computer screen, hands posed over the keyboard, and NOTHING in the brain, it can feel extraordinarily desolate.

So, do writers ever use outside help?

Sure. There are plotting sessions – my critique partners and I call them ‘plot-luck’ dinners. If my brain needs to work then food should be involved. Writers also use CPs or critique partners who ask tough plot questions, push for deeper character motivation, and overall better writing. Many writers use a BETA reader (someone totally not involved in the writing industry, but who loves to read – and will read the finished work just for fun). However, those persons claimed, the actual process of birthing words on paper, the creating of characters, building worlds, designing the perfect paragraph, well, that’s all solitary, lonely and oftentimes relentless in order to reach the end.

Maybe it’s not strange, after all, that my motivations for writing are so selfish. If I wasn’t motivated internally, what the psyche books refer to as ‘a real self-starter’ then I doubt I would ever have finished the first manuscript, much less five.

Okay, when there are a thousand great books to read, movies to see, things to do with family and friends, what motivates you to plunk in the chair and stay there until the writing is finished?