Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad. - Aldous Huxley

Ah - Its a Brave New World out there. The bailout plan from what I can see is better than it was - but my questions is - Who will oversee the overseers? Afterall if a program set up by the government fails - then I really have no confidence in them to step in. This is from the Fannie Mae website..

'The government established Fannie Mae in order to expand the flow of mortgage funds in all communities, at all times, under all economic conditions, and to help lower the costs to buy a home.
Fannie Mae has a unique duty to the public it serves -- and the private investors that fuel its service -- to be a model company focused on service, reliability, and value.'

Yeah - and that worked out real well. SO instead we will get more government 'oversight' and control. Yep - A Brave New World.

Targeting a Market

I just got done reading Pleasure to the Max by Cami Dalton - it's from the Harlequin Blaze line. The story involves hottie treasure hunter Max Stone, a hot-to-trot Cassie Parker, and a Gypsy 'lover's box'. It was sinfully good. Cami Dalton write sassy and HOT.

But now I'm wondering if Playing For Keeps (the manuscript I submitted to Blaze) is 'hot' enough. I've read Blaze's before and I don't remember any of them being THIS hot. That is an easy fix if I'm lucky enough to get a revision letter.

But how to proceed with Love By Design? I'll just have to buy some more Blazes to get a better feel. (poor me - ha! ha!).

So tomorrow I'm off to Borders to buy some 'research' material and get a little writing time in - and of course some ice coffee!

And what are you doing this weekend?

Writing Spaces

Here is a picture of my writing space.





















Here are just some of my books.

















Here is a picture of some more books along with my storyboard.
(only 2 chapters so far)



















Hooray for me! I can now post images to my blog!! Now I have to learn links. I'll get a handle on this techno stuff sooner or later...

Beginnings

Begin at the beginning and go on til you come to the end; then stop. - Lewis Carrol - Alice in Wonderland.

Sounds so simple doesn't? If only... Playing For Keeps took me two years to complete and I am determine to cut that time by at least half. Of course, with PFK I had a lot of stops, starts, sprints, and one long hiatus. This time, I vow to spend at least one hour a day writing and 3 hours each Saturday and Sunday. I'm not going to worry about my word count because that will come as I get into a writing groove, but I do hope to have fifty pages completed of Love By Design by the NJRWA conference at the end of October.

SO, I'm checking my e-mail, then getting an hour in before Dancing with the Stars starts.

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

from the backcover blurb... Follwowing a divorce and crushing depression, Gilbert set out to discover three different aspects of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different cultures....

Truthfully, I didn't see what the hoopla was all about. I'm glad the author came through her experience whole and happy. Truly, I am. But I didn't connect with her. Most likely because I never went thru the bone-crushing depression she suffered and hope I never do. Though my husband went thru it as did my father, neither had the luxury of taking a year off to discover themselves. So to me it seemed indulgent - but hey I'm of the school of thought of - 'what ever works for you'. It just didn't work for me.

Here is what I did like...her description of Rome. Italy was not on my list of places to visit, but now I must have pizza from Pizzia de Michele in Naples. Gilbert's style of writing is excellent.

Now, I'm off to storyboard...

Speaking of Blaze....

The fire alarm went off at work today. Thinking it was just a drill I grabbed my purse and left the building with my co-workers. Then the fire trucks drove up - which doesn't happen when its a drill. So do I starting worrying that the building is on fire and if it burns it will cost the county taxpayer money to rebuild it or where I'll be doing my job? No - I worry that I left my binder with the plot and character sheets for my next book inside! I silently told myself that is NOT what I s/b worried about but I couldn't help it.
Fortunately, there was no fire - just a trip on the alarm caused by the city flushing out the system.

Next time though the binder is coming with me!

Have you ever played the game what would you grab if you had 2 minutes to get out of your house? (of course after making sure all humans and pets are accounted for) I'd take my laptop, purse, and any photos I could get at. How about you?

Blaze

As I'm preparing to begin my new book I picked up two books from the line I'm targeting - Harelquin Blaze. I like this line because it's a bit hipper (and has more sex but not erotica) than the other lines. So the first book was At Her Pleasure by Cindi Myers.
This had it all - a pirate queen's autobiography on the art of sexual seduction, a pirates treasure, a deserted island, and a romance. Ahhhh...pure enjoyment!

This weekend I plan to storyboard Love By Design and to fill out any character charts, ect. Then on Monday the 1st draft will commence.

In the meantime I broke down and bought, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Am I the only woman on the planet who has not read this book? And has any man on the planet actually read it?

House and Fringe

15 minutes and counting until House begins and then the new series the Fringe.

TV does interfere with writing time, but I LOVE TV - I feel deprived if I miss the shows that I love. So here is what I've learned to do...

On Sunday I make a schedule of my very favorite shows for the week. I watch only those shows - no mindless channel surfing! Also - no re-runs!!! I schedule in my writing time accordingly.

Quote

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of Library" quoted by, Jorge Luis Borges.

I agree but respectfully request God to include a Starbucks.


How about you...what is your idea of paradise?

Plotting

I met with one of my writing friends last night at Borders to hash out the plot for my next book, Love By Design. It's about two interior designers butting heads on a design show and end up falling in love. I had come up with tag line: Trading Spaces meets Sex In The City. My problem was how to play off the Sex In The City part of that tag line, which I'm happy to say we resolved over ice coffee and a shared chocolate donut.

I plan to pitch this book at the New Jersey Put Your Heart in a Book Conference at the end of October.

Still have a little more work to before I start - maybe by next weekend...
Tomorrow, I'm off to Plattsburgh, NY to visit my son!

Chuck Norris vs. Batista

Chuck Norris - of course - he's the man.
It's unfair to compare Chuck Norris's new book, Black Belt Patriotism vs Batista Unleased (he is a wrestler with the WWE).
Chuck Norris's book is about fixing what's wrong with America and Batista's is an autobiography. I enjoyed both. I learned alot from Norris's book regarding American history, which I considered myself fairly knowledgeable on. Do I agree with everything he says? No, but it's an amazing read.
Batista's book focused on his life growing up and on his rise in the WWE. It was interesting to see the in and the outs of life on the road. He is the first to say he's no angel, but all in all he seems like a good guy who tries. ( He was my inspiration for giving the hero - a football star - in my book a star-burst tattoo around his navel).

What are you reading now?

The Writing Class by Jincy Willett

From Publishers Weekly....Can a class of wannabe novelists solve a murder in their midst? That's the premise of this dark comedy of the absurd from Willett (Winner of the National Book Award), a boisterous satire of pseudointellectuals, impotent writers and the adult extension programs of public universities. The only things Amy Gallup, a once-noted California author, has published in years are blurbs of other writers' work. Amy's only income comes from teaching fiction writing to a motley collection of varyingly talented prepublished adults. Someone in the class is making threatening phone calls and sending extremely cruel notes to other students. When two of the students are murdered, a deep sense of danger takes hold. Yet the class goes on. .. The tension is so strong that readers can hardly resist the temptation to peek ahead and see which student is the killer.

This got some great reviews on amazon. For me it was just okay, but I usually don't read books like this. Got it in a 7 free books and buy 2 over 2 years. This is usually when I try different authors/genres.

I found myself using the speed reading technique to get thru it. There are some really nice touches and the ending is very satisfying.

I've never been part of an ongoing writing class - been to plenty (and I mean plenty) of one to two day workshops. Anyone have a funny story about a class they took or workshop?

The Heroines by Eileen Favorite

from Publishers Weekly: On a picturesque acreage near Prairie Bluff, Ill., 13-year-old Penny Entwistle, and her mother, Anne Marie, run a retreat where literary heroines seek temporary refuge from their tragic destinies. Franny Glass, Madame Bovary, Scarlett O'Hara, Catherine Linton and others find respite from their varied crises, but must return to their books eventually and suffer the fate that awaits. Penny, in the first throes of teenage rebellion, has little patience for her mother and the heartbroken or otherwise distraught women Anne Marie refuses to counsel (lest she change the course of their stories). And Anne Marie lavishes on her heroine lodgers the attention her daughter longs for. But when a mythical Celtic knight arrives, searching for his lost heroine Deirdre, Penny gets caught up in a web of deception that lands her in the loony bin. While the staff diagnoses her fabulous story as an attempt to deal with the long-ago death of her father, her mother commits Penny as a means of protecting her from peculiar goings-on at the house, and Penny must rely on the very fictional characters her mother favors to help her.

The reviews on Amazon were mixed - some loved - some, well, didn't.
I loved it. Tore right through it. Wished I wrote it.

This got me thinking...What fictional heroines would I like to meet?
I would like to have tea with, Scarlett O'Hara, Joe from Little Women, and Marguerite from the Scarlett Pimpernel.
I would like to have a beer with Stephanie Plum.

How about you? Which fictional heroine would you like to have tea with? Or a beer?

Done and out in the universe.

Well, I'm done. I mailed Playing For Keeps out this afternoon to Susan Litman at Harlequin, who requested the completed manuscript from a pitch I did at a conference.
It was hard to let go - still had ideas on how to tweak this, add that - but I let it go into the universe.
I'm looking forward to catching up on my to-be-read-pile. I also will be pulling out my notes for 2 different books I'm thinking of pursuing. One is another romance and the other is more of a women's fiction novel - probably a story of redemption.
I'm pitching to Susan Litman again at the NJRW Put Your Heart in a Book Conference at the end of October -so I would like to have 3 chapters done by then of the romance.
So I'm going to give myself a week of fun reading and looking over notes then I will set a new goal and the steps to reach it.

At the top of my to-be-read-pile is The Heroines by Eileen Favorite. I'll let you know how it is.

D-Day

Did my manuscript get mailed today? I'm sad to report no. But I'm closer to my goal than I've would've been if I did not set those goals.
And I am close. So close. My new date in this coming Saturday.
This is what I've completed...
Synopsis
Cover Letter
Printed out 167 clean pages
Read 2 scenes from the final chapter to my Tuesday night critique group
Here is what I have left...
Make revisions per critque group
Finish revisions / print out - 70 pages
Finish Epiloge

So close.