I got a Sunshine Award! :D

Thanks to Natasha Deen for the Sunshine Award:

The Sunshine Award is a lovely sunny flower that bloggers give to other “bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere”.

And like any award, there are rules….

(1) Thank the person who gave you the award in your blog post.

(2) Do the Q&A below

(3) Pass on the award to deserving and inspiring bloggers, inform them and link to their blogs.

Favorite Color: Sky blue or periwinkle blue

Favorite Animal: Cats and dogs for different reasons. I love them both. 

Favorite Number: 23 is my lucky number. So, 23.

Favorite Non-alcoholic Drink: Blood Orange Pellegrino or plain old Coke (I know, they supported the war effort and it rots the enzymes in your stomach). I’m horribly addicted to it. 

Facebook or Twitter: Facebook usually, but Twitter is great for finding small publishers I didn’t know existed!

Your Passion: Writing about intriguing historical topics, real or imagined. Alternately, doing genealogy on the couch while any flavor of Law and Order is on. I LIVE for my donk-donk.

Giving or getting presents: I love getting, but I’m also the Martha Stewart of giving– pretty packages and lots of thought behind it, so both have their appeal. Did that cover my selfish butt enough?

Favorite Day: IS there a different choice than Saturday? Just curious.

Favorite Flowers: Pink and orange tulips, blue hydrangeas, delphiniums

And who shall I tag? Why, how about two of my other Hollywood-head writers?

Michelle Vogel – My muse on Olive Thomas; I owe her so much for her book on Ollie!

Michael Ankerich – A man I definitely need to buy a drink for someday. He’s enlightened us on so many forgotten stars!

 

That Sucky First Draft

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’m a lousy writer, but a great re-writer.

Which is why I finally got inspired enough to power through this first draft of my newest WIP. Nope, not there yet. But I’m much farther along than I was last month. At the risk of alienating my co-workers (who like to go to lunch as a group), I’ve begun grabbing lunch and sitting in my favorite little meeting breakout area. I can get in a half hour in the morning, and if it doesn’t take the cafeteria folk long to prepare my lunch, I can get close to an hour in then.

The research, as usual, is hellish, but I think that’s kind of why I write what I write. Actually, now that I think of it, that’s definitely it. I get off on it. You heard me. I’m a big ole show-off. So there ya go.

My husband, a wonder of a fellow with a goofy sense of humor, and an identical love of books and coffee as me, discovered a wonderful new coffeehouse near our place, and we’ve been going there on Sundays so I can write, and he can draw on his computer tablet. Yes, the salted caramel lattes are also a draw.

So it appears that I’ve finally gotten beyond the winter doldrums that hit me like a Mack truck in November every year. Spring takes far longer to get here to Edmonton, but I feel like that light at the end of the tunnel is approaching. And I don’t hear any train whistles.

Apologies for my enforced absence…

So the new job, as all new jobs do, had a bit of a learning curve. Throw in the hellish commute and the nasty winter weather, and you’ll see why I haven’t been doing much over the last three months but working and coming home to collapse.

Pre-Christmas brought a case of the creeping crud cold/flu that everyone has been fighting. And just when I’d gotten over it and finally felt better, I suffered a relapse, and feared I had pneumonia (again).

Fear not! It’s not pneumonia, just really wussy lungs, evidently. I don’t even smoke. How unfair is that? In the meantime, I’ve received two batches of edits for Love Lies Bleeding. The first have been turned in. The second I’m still trying to finish.

I got a very excited reply from an agent several weeks back who was interested in reading more of The Forgotten Flapper, and requested the full. I’ve never had an agent respond with so many exclamation points. So that really got my juices pumping. It would be nice to see something besides a rejection for a change. Her “I love Olive and want to read more! Your story intrigues!” gave me enough encouragement to devote more time to my current WIP, which is still tiny, undeveloped, and needing more research.

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before. I’m a terrible writer. That may cause you to stop reading this blog right now, but I just wanted to get it out there. I’m a terrible writer, but I’m a kickass REWRITER.

You’ve probably heard the old saying that first drafts are shit. In my case, its quadruply true. For me, a first draft is a couple suggestions of scenes, with utterly horrible dialogue and the merest suggestion of what I want to happen there.

Then, once my research has kicked into high gear, I have to tweak timeline issues and re-arrange things. When I know more about my (real) characters, I develop their voices more. If I’m having problems with things I need them to say, I watch 20s/30s movies or movies relating to the time period, and I listen closely for speech patterns, expressions, and slang. I read my Cassell’s Slang Dictionary, and I finally begin carving David out of that block of marble.

It’s awful, but it takes me a super long time to get going on a story just because the first draft is so freaking painful to write. It’s bad, and I know it’s bad, but I can see some potential there. Now I just have to work up my speed. Agents and editors won’t let you take two or three years to finish a book.

I’m back, with a wheeze only slight less annoying than Darth Vader. Stand over there if you’re nervous about me still being contagious.

A hell of a week!

For those of you following along at home, I started a new job this week, which has made blogging, tweeting, facebooking, or pretty much any other leisure activity something I can squeeze in only when I have time.

In addition, E’Town was pummeled this week with the worst that Mother Nature could throw at it. I was one of the lucky ones–an hour and a half commute in the evenings, and we haven’t had to write off the car like many of our friends and neighbors are now doing.

I’ve been handwriting something new, not necessarily calling it a Nano entry, but I won’t cease crowing about it if I DO happen to come up with 50,000 words by the end of the month either. I’ve been squeezing into either Fife n Dekel, Timmy’s, or a breakout space or cafeteria at work to do my scribbling, and it seems to be working so far.

We’ll see how long this will last. I’m hoping I’ll  be able to get it down to a routine here pretty soon. Right now, it’s still too new. But the fantastic co-workers, great bennies, and fun work environment are proving to be a balm for my soul after plodding along in Edmonton wondering if I’d ever find something beyond unglamorous contracts.

Tag, you’re it!

Alicia Dean has a purty new website up and we’re celebrating by playing author tag,some of my buds from the Edmonton Writers Group and me.

• Hal Friesen
• Natasha Deen

You can see what Alicia posted here. The lovely Natasha Deen tagged me, and here are my answers:

What is the working title of your book? I kept calling it Finger Lakes until I could think of an actual title. 

Where did the idea come from for the book? I was sitting at a microfilm reader at the library in Ithaca, New York scanning clippings from 1916, and ran across a story that piqued my interest (discussed in more detail on my website). “What if?” I asked myself. “What if he was never caught?”

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

• Frank Conley (my hero)- Dennis Farina (ex Law and Order)
• Linda (his love interest) – Annie Parisse (ex law and Order)
• Russ (Ithaca’s town historian) – David Clennon (he played Miles on thirtysomething years ago)
• Libbie – Katie Holmes
• Young Olive – Laura Linney
• Older Olive – Betty White is a little too happy for this role. I can’t decide!
• Tom- Eion Bailey (he played David Webster in Band of Brothers)
• Stephen (Jamie Bamber – He’s on Law and Order UK)

I’ll tag Margaret Lesh. You’ve been tagged, darlin!

Surrey Tidbits

Yesterday, I posted my earthshaking thoughts on the conference that changed my life.

Today, I’ll give you a few more funny things I learned this weekend. While not earthshaking, they are entertaining and added to the experience:

• Sharan Newman is fabulous to talk to about Bernard of Clairvaux. For art history geeks like me, this was fun. I’ve made a note to myself to speak to her more next year. I love her saying, “Never set a book somewhere you don’t want to visit!”
• Sam Sykes has nice dimples, and uses a stuffed walrus for comfort when he gets nervous.
• Andy Ross does not like oversimplification, such as pitching something like “Danielle Steel Meets Finnegan’s Wake.” Give him a little more than that.
• JJ Lee used to be a Dungeons and Dragons geek. Without him, I would not have known about two-handed swords not being able to take out gelatinous cubes.
• Victoria Marini likes Iggy Pop. This was cool, because so do I, and so should you.
• Diana Gabaldon has a thing for dachshunds.
• You can always recognize KC Dyer by her day’s wacky tights choices– multicolor and stripey Wicked Witch of the East were especially popular.
• C.C. Humphreys makes a great morlock.
• Susanna Kearsley wants to ensure that we never call ourselves “aspiring” writers ever again. We’re writers. Period.
• Michael Slade likes the word outre’.
• Don Maas is very passionate about whatever he speaks on, even going to the grocery store and getting annoyed at people like me. Next year, I need to buy that man a drink.
• Jack Whyte’s voice really IS as great as they say it is. Imagine the booming bass of a Blaupunkt in that old GTO driving by. Now imagine it’s a Scottish accent. And giggle a little, because he’s quite handy with the ladies.
• Nephele Tempest doesn’t like body parts described as foods. This automatically rules out one of my favorite lines that I’ve written. So I won’t be querying Nephele.

Let me reiterate here. This past weekend changed my life. If you are a writer, and you have not been to the Surrey International Writers Conference, you must find a way to go. Beg, borrow, or steal, as they say. But do it.

Surrey, how I adore you…

Room party!

It has taken me two whole days of recuperation to coherently put a blog post together.

All I can say is, if you’re a writer, and you have not yet been to a conference, you MUST GO. And while I heard some nightmare stories about several other cons from various folks who’d gone in either amateur or professional capacities, I heard only good things about Surrey. And now I believe the hype.

Imagine a ton of people, just like you, who hear the voices in their heads, who create strange worlds (or like me, visit the one we’re in 100 or so years ago), and who all come together for three or four days. They listen to those who work in the field, they get advice, and they attempt to break into the big time by putting their foot on the first rung of that ladder (using agent and editor pitch appointments…).

It’s a pretty heady place to be. Especially if you get good feedback on your Blue Pencil appointment or a positive response to your pitch. I had both.

The agent I pitched to was honest with me initially, saying she was having a problem with selling something sort of like mine (that really isn’t, but only Hollywood related), but she also wondered if it might be the other writer’s voice that was the issue. I explained that the one thing everyone comments on after reading mine is that they love the voice. She dug my platform, and wanted to hear about the other books I was working on in a similar vein. When I was done, she requested a full. So I’ve been spending my days cleaning it up, and I also tweaked it to include the bit of feedback that I received from my Blue Pencil writer, Susanna Kearsley. If you haven’t bought any of her books, you must. Especially if you like the old gothics like Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, and Victoria Holt.

I had really been at a bit of a low ebb before I went, wondering if it was worth it, and not knowing if my stuff was any good. It’s one thing to have your betas or your writing group telling you something, but when it’s echoed by someone who has been there, and who is able to lend it a discerning eye and still tell you that you have a great voice and that you can write, that means everything. All it took was that little pat on the back, and I was able to take that confidence to my pitch and not freak the fuck out as I was doing it. Susanna’s keynote address also helped with that. I am not an “aspiring” writer. I’m a writer. I have to force myself to remember that sometimes, but it’s true.

Plus, now I know the importance of the bar networking. My first night or so, I was so new, and didn’t know anyone, so I was kind of staying to myself until the sessions began. But I did end up meeting some great gals in the bar, and much wine was drunk. Next year, I will milk every minute even more than I did this year. I still came home with an amazing new bunch of friends, and a thick stack of business cards. Next year, I’m determined to meet EVERYBODY. Or at least say hello to some of the more prominent folk, some of whom I was a little too intimidated to talk to this year. They’re too nice not to talk to!

For those of you considering it for next year…

www.siwc.ca