Month: May 2009

Whipping the WIP

Or is it whipping me?

Lesson Learned: Never announce on a public forum that you WILL have your work in progress finished by such-and-such date. Because unless you’re working to an editor-set deadline and have no choice but to deliver the project by said date, odds are something will happen to trip you up. Trip me up, anyway.

I’m still writing and revising the last few scenes of my mystery romance. No excuses, really, other than Elle Muse kept wanting me to change the villain at the last moment. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to change the villain, but because she kept hankering about it, of course I had to spend tons of subconscious thought time subconscious-thinking about it. Not to mention the additional conscious thinking time. I don’t know about you, but all that subconscious- and conscious-thinking time impacts on my writing progress. In the end, I went with my original villain. Thanks a lot, Elle Muse!

Then, as a result of the crappy economy, My Liege has begun working four-day weeks, using his amassed holidays to enjoy wonderful long weekends every weekend. Which is great! But when everyone else in the family is having a long weekend, it’s much harder to treat Mondays like work days.

Eldest Son returned home from university two or three weeks ago. He started his summer job on Tuesday, and Youngest Son began his college summer session last week. So, as of this week, with both kids absent from the house during the days, and with the little exception of having M.L. around Monday mornings (he usually golfs in the late mornings, so I can get some work done then), I’m finally back to making decent headway on this book. If I weren’t wise enough to follow my own advice, I might even declare that I WILL finish writing/revising this book by the end of next week. But I’m not that foolish, no. You’ll just have to keep checking in and see.

So, about the American Idol finale last night. Kris Allen won, as my buddy Shelinda predicted. I expected him to win, just like last year I expected David Archuleta to win. But I was still hoping Adam Lambert would win, just like last year I hoped David Cook would win (and he did!). I wished Kris had shown a bit more excitement about winning. Instead, he appeared to be in shock and did that Aw-shucks-it-should-have-been-Adam thing. You won, buddy! Soak it up!

Skinning

Happened upon Erin McCarthy’s website the other day. I’ve read several of her Bravas and am a fan of her voice. Noticed something cool on the website. Her designer has enabled “skinning.” That’s when the browser (as in person) has the ability to click a button to change website designs or “skins.” I thought that was very cool. Take a look and tell me what you think (McCarthy’s skinning options are under Mix it Up! below Contact Erin.) I’ve seen this done on blogs before, although usually not writer’s blogs. But I can’t remember seeing it on an author’s site before.

What are your thoughts? Should an author make up her mind and stick with one design? Do you like the option of changing the skin to suit your tastes? I’m asking because I design my own websites, and often I’m very torn between color combinations. Personally, I doubt I would go as far as to change designs completely—too much work on the design end for this puppy. Actually, I have no clue how to enable skinning, either. But on an aesthetic level, I thought it was pretty cool that Erin’s designer did this for her (that’s Liz Bemis of Bemis Promotions, by the way.)

Sunday Walks

My Liege and I love to take long walks with Allie McBeagle on the weekends. We’re blessed with amazing views a very short distance from our house. It doesn’t get much better than this!

lake

lake_dog

She stepped in cactus a moment later… Yelp!

Go, Go, Gokey…Gone!

Le sigh.

I really wanted Danny Gokey to make it to the American Idol finals last night. Alas, it was not to be. I went into the episode expecting either Danny or Adam Lambert to get kicked off. As much as I’m not into Kris Allen, I thought he did a good job this week, and the dramatic thing would be for him to make it into the finals ahead of the two expected choices.

The good thing for me is now I know who to root for next week—Adam. If Adam and Danny had both made it through, I would have had to wait until next Tuesday’s performances to make my final determination, and, honestly, I don’t think it would have mattered to me which of them won the whole smackeroo.

Now, I definitely know I want Adam Lambert to win.

And Gokey will be okay. When you see what non-finalists like Jennifer Hudson and Chris Daughtry have done with their careers, well, I think it’s only natural to assume we can expect the same from Danny Gokey. He’s got a multitude of talent, and his voice is very unique.

So…any Danny lovers out there who wished he hadn’t been kicked off? Who will you vote for/root for now that he has been? I don’t vote myself. Being Canadian, I don’t feel it’s my place. But I do “root” for a finalist. This year, that’s Adam Lambert.

Go, Go, Lambie!

Welcome Guest Blogger Christy Reece

SERIES: LOVE THEM OR HATE THEM?reece_pic

Hi Cindy and everyone! Thanks for having me on the Muse Interrupted blog. I’m excited to be here and look forward to a good discussion. Since RESCUE ME, the first book in my back-to-back trilogy just came out a couple of weeks ago, and the second book, RETURN TO ME, comes out on May 19 and the third one, RUN TO ME, is out on June 23, I thought I’d blog about series. Why we love them or hate them. I have to admit, I’m more in the ‘love’ category. And not just because that’s what I’m writing, though that does help.

Here are the reasons I love them:

1. The continuity of a storyline or theme: If it’s a storyline I love, I want to know what happens next. If the series revolves around one particular person, I love sharing their adventures. Or if there are different characters each time but have some kind of link, I love the familiarity of knowing other characters and their storylines. It’s like a good television series. You get close to a character or characters and want to visit them frequently. You can do that in a series.reece_rescue_cover

2. Secondary Characters: I don’t know how many times I’ve read a book and have fallen in love with a secondary character and wished I could read his or her story. Creating characters can be hard work and making them interesting and likeable even harder. So when an author creates a secondary character that captures my attention, I feel a bit cheated when I don’t get another story.

  1. 3. Saying goodbye hurts: I have to admit, when I love a book and its characters, I often don’t want to let them go. That’s one of the reasons I love epilogues. I want to extend my happy ending as long as possible. I don’t have epilogues in any of my upcoming books, but I think that’s because most of my characters make an appearance in the next book in the series. If they weren’t so closely connected, I’m sure I’d be tempted to write an epilogue. It’s just so hard to say goodbye, but with a series, you don’t always have to.

4. Predictability: And I mean that in a good way. When I read an author I’ve read before, I have certain expectations of what the book will be like. I recognize the author’s voice and know what type of book they write, so I’m rarely surprised by a completely different kind of story. However, with a series, there’s no doubt. If the book is connected, whether it’s through a relationship, an event or in my case, an organization with a common purpose, you have an assurance that even though it will be a different story, there will be similarities to the previous books. If you liked one, more than likely, you’ll like the others.

5. The anticipation: This kind of goes back to the first point of falling in love with secondary characters. I love looking forward to a book of a secondary character I’ve liked. There’s just something about the excitement it generates. Will it be as good as the book before it? Will it be better? Will it live up to your expectations? Will you be glad that character got their own story? Will you be happy with who the character ended up with? And if it’s by one of your favorite authors, the anticipation blooms even bigger.

6. Back-to-Back Trilogy: Okay, I admit, this one’s a bit different, but it does often apply. More and more publishers are putting out back-to-back trilogies. And I love that they are. Of course, since that’s what I’m doing, I’ll admit I’m a bit biased. However, I love reading back-to-back from other authors and here’s why. Almost immediate gratification. How often have you read a book you’ve loved and found out that indeed there’s another one coming out in the series but you have to wait months, perhaps a year or more to read it? The wait can be agonizing! That’s the great thing about back-to-back releases. Almost no waiting. How cool is that?

So what about you? Do you love or hate them? Why do you feel that way? What are some series that you absolutely adore? What are some upcoming series books you’re anticipating?

Thanks again, everyone. Now let’s talk series!

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Please leave a comment to enter to win a copy of Christy’s RESCUE ME. Entries accepted until midnight PST.

To read Christy’s bio and the back cover for RESCUE ME, please see yesterday’s post. To learn more about Christy and her books, please visit her website.