THE FINAL WEEKEND!!

Now, that I have your attention!THIS IS THE FINAL WEEKEND TO ENTER!!

JUST WRITE A REVIEW OF ONE OF MY BOOKS

ON AMAZON ...

AND YOU GET 5 ENTRIES TO WIN EITHER :

NEEDFUL THINGS autographed by STEPHEN KING!

THE TAKING autographed by DEAN KOONTZ!!

DANSE MACABRE autographed by LAURELL K. HAMILTON!!!

The drawing for the three winners will be held on SEPTEMBER 1ST!!!

***

FRIDAY'S Romantic Challenge_THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

It is midnight. The moon's face of shadows coyly hides most of it from me.

As the ghost chimes from the distant clock tower toll, she masks even that small glimpse with the SMOOTH SAILING of storm clouds.

SMOOTH SAILING. The prompt from today's romantic challenge from Denise and Francine :

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My entry :

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM (from ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM) --

Samuel McCord is alone. Meilori is off selecting her gown for the night's festivities, the Ball of Love and Madness. It is to celebrate the DEMETER entering the legendary Devil's Triangle.

Samuel is admiring the molten, sleepy head of the dawn peeking up over the horizon. Dr. Stewart, the ship's doctor, approaches him.


Footsteps to my left. I turned. Dr. Stewart. He looked gutted.

“Maija,” he said and explained everything.

“What about her?”

“I - I thought we had become --”

“Maija is like the sea. You never know all about her.”

“I was an old fool.”

“Lot of that going around.”

“Lady Meilori is her sister. I thought you would have some idea of how -- I mean -- just what I might have done to offend Maija.”

“How do you know you offended her?”

“She told me not to come to tonight’s Ball.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“She actually does care for you, doctor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Things are set to get awfully ugly tonight at that Ball.”

“Maija knows this?”

“She’s part of it, doctor.”

He paled. “I knew she had a dark past.”

“Her present’s rather black, too.”

He looked anguished off into the horizon. “I sensed that. Good Lord, how can I be attracted to such a woman?”

“People are never one thing, doctor. There are always several faces behind the mask they show you.”

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “One of those faces cares, truly cares, for you. Just be glad it exists -- and that whatever you two share is real.”

He swallowed hard. “But if something criminal is being planned for that Ball, I should be there.”

I shook my head. “No. Let Maija have the knowledge that she saved you, and that in your heart she is still someone worthy of being loved.”

He smiled as if that heart were breaking. “You are not the typical policeman. You are a romantic.”

I put my forefinger to my lips. “Shhh. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

He straightened as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll stand in for you.”

He nodded and walked away. Soft footsteps behind me. I turned. Maija. She looked at me intensely for long moments.

“Thank you.”

“De nada.”

“This changes nothing between us. You will still be destroyed by the end of this evening, and I will play my part in it. Play it most wholeheartedly.”

“I would expect nothing less from a future empress.”

She looked hot into my eyes. “Fool! You will hold back against me for my silly attachment to the good-hearted doctor, will you not?”

“I imagine so.”

“It will be your undoing.”

“Probably will.”

“Then why do it?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know any other way to be.”

She studied me. “I shall feel the emptier tonight after what must be done is accomplished. Yours is a face I shall miss, strong without the cruelty of toughness, kind without the bruise of weakness. When I have rid the world of that face, I shall have deservedly earned the hatred of my sister -- and of myself.”

“Then don’t do it.”

She bled a smile. “I know of no other way to be.”
***
Below is the evocative STANDING THE STORM by the piano genius of William Joseph. Endure the darkness at the beginning, and you will reap the light and beauty of the tune -- much like what happens when you find the courage to "stand the storm." Reading my post to the music adds to the enjoyment I think.
For a fascinating interview with

classical pianist and composer Fiona Hawkins :
http://fabulositynouveau.blogspot.com/2011/08/interview-with-australian-pianist-fiona.html
***

BRUCE LEE, GHOST_THE WAY OF THE WRITER

There are things only the dead know, views only the dead see.

Victor Standish, impudent pup that he is,

asked me to write of them here anyway.

At least in how they shape the art of writing.

What do I know of writing you ask? Each of us is the author of our lives, though many insist upon making them boring, repetitive.

The way of the writer is the way of water :

Most of you restrict yourselves, limit your vision. Be instead water.

You put water in a cup, it becomes the cup;

You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle;

You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot.

Sometimes it is still like the hush before dawn. Sometimes it is wild like the heart betrayed. But it is always alive to the world around it.

Be water, my friend.

Do not think, feel....it is like pointing your finger towards the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss the stars!

The ghost of Thoreau tells me only that day dawns to which we are awake. Water is always awake. But are you?

A child is acutely aware of his expanding world, for it is new, ever-growing, ever fascinating. The way of the writer is to stay that child.

Most of the living become calloused by their flow of experiences, falling into the sleep of habit.

They wrap their personal problems about their eyes so that they walk blindly through all their days, listening only to the musak of their sorrows.

They put on layer upon layer of habits, clothing themselves in restriction until the water of their souls become stagnant like a swamp.

You living become so insulated in this manner that only the knife of tragedy or great joy can stab through to you.

Most of you have stopped being aware sometime in high school. Have you not noticed men whose fashion sense halted in their mid-twenties?

Since most of you are not laying up new stores of awareness and observations each day, you must go back to the same stale, old ones when you were still awake.

No wonder that so many authors write and re-write the sensations of their early years or childhood. Have you not known an author who seems to be able to tell only one story?

No matter the heroine’s name, the snowflakes will still melt on her fluttering eyelashes. The hero will always be strong, silent, misunderstood.

Ah, but the truth is that all of us remember strongly the things we saw through the clear, warm light of childhood. And when we want to bring a scene to life, we return to those sensations that sing to us of life, of being aware.

But if we endlessly return to that same pool, soon our writing grows stale, repetitive, and lifeless.

The ghost of Henry James just strolled by, saying, “Tell them to be one of the people upon whom nothing is lost.”

You cannot do that overnight.

No. Take ten minutes of each day to practice the innocence of the eye,

to ask how a child would see what is around you. Do this in different locales, never the same.

Taste the breeze. Listen to the robin in the tree to your left. Watch the stroll of the ambling dog outside your window, studying where he stops, watching his eyes, looking at his wrinkling nose and shifting ears.

Turn yourself into a stranger in your own life.

What colors are the things around you? Why would someone paint his house moldy green? What colors are the cars that pass you? Did the persons want that color? Why?

Close your eyes. What are the smells? What are the sounds? What could a blind person tell about the world you perceive this way?

Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety.

In that state of mind, there is perception. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.

Be awake, my friend. Be a child. Be a writer.
***
Don't forget to join Rach's PLATFORM -BUILDING CAMPAIGN!
http://rachaelharrie.blogspot.com/2011/08/third-writers-platform-building_02.html
***

THE SECRET TO SIN_SAMUEL CLEMENS, GHOST HERE

{"A sin takes on a new and real terror

when there seems a chance that it is going to be found out."

- Mark Twain

("The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg")}

Samuel Clemens, ghost, here. You folks have all been so kind to Roland

that I thought I would help you out in an area that means so much to each of you,

especially to Terry W. Ervin in yesterday's comment

{http://uparoundthecorner.blogspot.com/ }

The secret to sin ...

Or should I say ... the secret to a synopsis.

Ain't that the dangedest name?

Synopsis.

Sounds like one of them ancient Greek philosophers, don't it? And I know many of you would rather kiss an ancient Greek than have to write one of those dang things.

But I'm going to show you how to do it as smooth as easy as a politician's lie on election day.

Doubt me? Which one of the two of us is the beloved literary genius here?

1) And that above was my first rule in writing a great synopsis :

Sure, there're a lot of you reading this. But I'm only talking to one of you in my mind. Heart to heart. Like we're sitting at the same table in the dark.

No one-size-fits-all with your synopsis.

Tailor your synopsis to the requirements stated by the agent. No guidelines given? Well, that leads me to the next rule :

2) This, too, shall pass ... like a kidney stone.

Short means no short tempers.

Ever have the misfortune to ask a pilgrim how his day's going only to have the fool actually tell you ... in agonizing detail. Be short. One page.

Yeah, I hear you groaning. But the agent doesn't want all your story.

She just wants the gist of it, to know that your story has a start, a middle, and a for-sure ending (not just a hope and a prayer.) You're still groaning.

3) This tape will self-destruct in thirty seconds, Jim.

And so will the agent's interest. You have thirty seconds at most, children, to grab that agent and pull her into your story. That's a half page at most.

Can you squeeze your 400 page novel into three lines?

Can you make them convey why your story is unique and absorbing, detailing background and characters?

Sure, and after that, you'll establish world peace.

But you can squeeze your novel into a half page. How?

4) go to http://www.imdb.com/

Type in GONE WITH THE WIND. Look at their short version of it :

A manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Do those words sing? Do they capture the magic, scope, and heartbreak of the movie?

No. They just lie there without life or spark.

Well, put a little spin to them :

My novel is the saga of a selfish woman who doesn't want to admit her feelings about the man she loves, and she finally loses him.


How about tuning up the synopsis in three sentences?

GONE WITH THE WIND is the epic tale of a woman's life during one of the most tumultuous periods in America's history.

From her young, innocent days on a feudalistic plantation to the war-torn streets of Atlanta; from her first love whom she has always desired to three husbands.

She survives going from the utmost luxury to absolute starvation and poverty and from being torn from her innocence to a sad understanding and bitter comprehension of life.

Are you beginning to see how you might be able to pull off the half page synopsis?

5) In my end is my beginning :

I got your attention with the title of this post, didn't I? Well, that is the secret to selling your synopsis.

You have to grab that eye-weary agent by the imagination and shake hard. Start with a one sentence paragraph.

"Samuel Clemens had been dead all of thirty seconds, and he already hated it."

Got your interest, didn't it? How about :

"The situation was hopeless but improving." Another imagination grabber.

6) Last Words :

Is your summary unique and "This is really something!"

Do you include the punch line to your joke? No holding back to tease.

If the agent presents an unfinished turkey to her editors, she gets her hard-earned reputation bruised.

Is your novel in the genre the agent handles?

Her list of agents is genre specific. If she handles techno-thrillers, she doesn't know one editor who would be interested in your Western.

And worse, you've shot your ounce of good will with that agent.

Agents are tired, impatient, and lovers of order.

Agents want your synopsis to be laid out in three orderly paragraphs.

Short ones. Easy on the eye ones.

Any more paragraphs, any longer, chunkier ones scream unprofessional rookie to them.

And they don't have time to be your mentor. They want a partner not a pupil. You are not in the remake of THE KARATE KID.



Here listen to one of my favorite living writers (I sometimes stand over his shoulder and read his pages a'fore they hit the printers!) :
<

/div>

HOW TO ESCAPE THE SLUSH PILE

Be sure to read Wendy's gracious spotlight of me on her fascinating blog :
http://fabulosityreads.blogspot.com/


"You are not judged by the heights to which you have risen,

but the depths from which you have climbed."
- Frederick Douglass


And the 19th century abolitionist should know. He began life as a slave to become the "Lion of Anacostia." And how did he begin that climb?

Reading.

The wife of his owner taught him the alphabet, then the beginnings of how to read.

His owner put a stop to that, saying that if he learned how to read, he would become dissatisfied with his lot.

"The first anti-slave lecture I ever heard," wryly said Frederick later in his life.

Later he would learn how to better read from the white children in the neighborhood and from the writings of the men with whom he worked.

Reading opened a whole new world of thought to the young boy. He read newspapers, political essays, books of every kind, and the New Testament --

which he taught other slaves to read at a weekly Sunday school.

It lasted six months before other slave owners, armed with clubs and stones, broke it up. Why? They feared their slaves being able to read.

To read.

It is an awesome ability we often take for granted.

And writing?

We who take up that task must understand its power. The power of the word to touch one human soul, beginning a rippling effect whose end none but The Father knows.

But before we can do that we must climb out of the dreaded slush pile.

And Scaling Mt. Everest was a cinch compared to climbing out of the slush pile.

Just ask any unpublished writer. Ask me. Ask the marines.

So how do you climb out of the slush pile?

You tackle the task like a professional. Agents are business men and women. You must approach them as such.

In essence, approaching an agent for representation is like approaching a bank for a loan.

Mark Twain said that banks were like those folks who were willing to lend you an umbrella when it was sunny.

When you don't need the money, banks will loan it to you. Why? Because they know you can pay it back.

Often it feels as if agents are silently saying with their rejections, "If I don't want your autograph, then I don't want your manuscript."

If you're Stephen King, agents will kill to represent you. Well, maybe not. But then again, one never knows.

But you're not Stephen King. So what do you do? No. Identity theft is out of the question.

Think bank loan. What do banks want from you? A good credit rating for one thing.

And what does an agent want from you? Credentials. Like what you ask?

Awards or achievements. Professional associations. Education. Related work experience.

How do you get those?

Attend local writers' workshops, taught by professional writers.

Politely get to know as many professionals there as you can. Very, very diplomatically ask them if you may use their names when inquiring of an agent.

Hey, all of them were where you are now. Most of them are quite kind. I will help you bury the rest. {Just checking to see if you were paying attention.}

Have your novel FULLY completed. I saw a friend lose her shot at a great agent because she submitted it only half done.

He wanted to see the full. She had to tell him the truth. End of a wonderful window of opportunity.

Have the first 30 pages so polished and suspenseful you would bet your life on them. You are certainly betting the life of your career and of your novel on them.

Write a killer query letter. How? Show her something that she very seldom sees.

Brevity.

Be Hemingway in your query.

Give yourself three sentences to convey the plot, characters, themes, and emotional impact of your 400 page novel.

IMdB is a good source to see how summaries of classic movies are written in three sentences.

Be an adverb stalker.

Stalk them and send them packing. No adverbs allowed. Or darn few. No first names for your target agent. No self-depreciating comments allowed either. People tend to take you at the value at which you place yourself.

We are drawn to confident people because we unconsciously accept that they have something about which to be confident.

If they are sure, it sets us at ease. They are competent. And who doesn't want a competent person at their side?

You're applying for a loan here. Be professional.

Be aware of the requirements of the specific agent that you're approaching. See you from her side of the desk. What is she looking for?

For one thing :

a novel that is unique but born of what is selling for the publishers. And what sells? Primal. Primal appeals to the unconscious mind of the reader, including the agent.

Primal hungers. Primal dangers. Primal drives.

Sex. Money. Safety. And threats to all three.

Give the agent the first three lines of your novel. Make sure they are great hooks. Sentences that reach out and grab the reader.

They will more than likely be the only sentences any agent will ever read of your submitted manuscript before coming to a conclusion of the attractiveness and saleability {is that a word?} of your work.

Submit to the agent EXACTLY as she requests.

This indicates that ... 1.) You are literate and can follow simple instructions. And ... 2.) You are a professional and are in this for the long haul.

If the agent asks you to change the ending or get rid of a character, remain calm.

This may simply be a test. Use some imagination, some deep-breathing exercises, and do what the agents requests.

She wants to see how you handle criticism. She doesn't want a tempermental prima donna on her hands. The one she sees in the mirror is quite enough, thank you.

{Just checking if you're paying attention again.}

How you handle these requests will show her your degree of professionalism. These requests are a good sign.

She's interested. She's been around a lot longer than you in the business. Try it her way.

Write it her way. Then, if the ending or character is pivotal in your thinking, present a reasoned, item by item defense. But be flexible. It is better to bounce than to break.

I know. I have the bruises to prove it. Good luck to all my fellow climbers out there.
***********

FRIENDSHIP BEATS SEX!

FRIENDSHIP BEATS SEX!

Yes. It surprised me, too.

I keep track of what countries visit me and what key words on Google led them to me.

SEX. DOMINATRIX. SEDUCTION.

They were all popular. But every day my post “WHY FRIENDSHIP?” is a magnet for visitors.

FRIENDSHIP.

We yearn for it,

For we are the Hollow People.

Science will tell you that. Inside an atom is a nucleus, composed of flying neutrons and protons.

The nucleus is orbited by electrons, travelling so fast, they seem to form a solid shell. In between them? Empty space.

Squeeze all the empty space out of each of our atoms, and we would be but a handful of dust.

Like an atom’s nucleus, many of us fly through life so fast, we project the illusion of solidity.

But like the atom’s nucleus, we are hollow.

Walk the streets of any large city and look into the eyes of those you pass. Slip through the veneer we put up to keep the predators at bay,

and you will see the hollowness of their spirits,

yearning for friendship, for connection with a kindred spirit.

To no longer be hollow.

That is why friendship plays such a large role in all of my novels, as in this scene from CREOLE KNIGHTS when Meilori’s is re-opened after Hurricane Katrina :

I was standing by the oak door and appreciating the colorful exit of the sun, off to see what the other half of the world had been up to. There was a rustle of satin cloth to my right.

I looked away from the sky and saw Sister Magda already by my side. She was one of the few people who could sneak up on me. Personally, I thought she teleported.

Looking more like Diana the Huntress than a nun, she smirked, “Teleport? Me? How far males will go to protect their prides.”

“Hello, Magda. You know there are goddesses who are envious of your beauty.”

She smiled, and it was a sight De Vinci would have been hard put to do justice to on canvas.

“I insult you, and you compliment me. Is there no end to the depths of your depravity?”

“Apparently not, since I’ve irritated the hell out of the mayor, the governor, and the President, his teeny tiny self. And I’ve not even let out a third of the secrets I know about them.”

We both laughed. Grief was an undercurrent to it. But so was a deep friendship.

I tried to ignore the grief and to lay fast to the friendship. It was a way to live. A good way I think.

Her smile faded. Mine did, too. Shit, here it came.

“I have come to talk to you of Renny.”

I sighed. “I’ve stayed away these past days. I’ll keep on being scarce.”

Her fingers lightly touched my cheek. “You are a fool.”

“I hope you’re not expecting an argument from me.”

“Do you know what keeps my Renny going?”

“Reckon I do. Your love for him and his for you.”

She sighed as if it were a wound. “That and one thing more.”

“What more could there be?”

“You believing in him. Your friendship.”

“I - I don’t know what to say.”

“Say that you are glad to see him when he comes in later tonight, that you have missed him.”

“I have missed him.”

“Then, tell him so.”

“Do you think it is such a good thing for him to come here?”

“No, it is a terrible idea. But it would be a worse one for him to stay away from his best friend.”

Her long forefinger prodded into my chest. “Can you ‘reckon’ that?”
Seeing the fire in her eyes, I forced out, “If I can’t, I’ll lie and say I can.”

***
NINE DAYS LEFT!
***

THE COST OF YOUR CHOICES

There is a cost to your choices.

Take my FANTABULOUS CONTEST!

ONLY 10 MORE DAYS LEFT!

Just write a review on Amazon of one of my books and you could win :

NEEDFUL THINGS autographed by STEPHEN KING!

THE TAKING autographed by DEAN KOONTZ!

DANSCE MACABRE autographed by LAURELL K. HAMILTON!

Let these 10 days slip by. OUCH! You've lost your chance to win.

THEN ...

There is the cost of what you choose to do with your life ...

Few actors go to the movies. For one thing ... like seamtresses, they can see the seams in each part of what makes up the movie.

In like manner, writers tend to see the seams, too.

I've been reading Jim Butcher's GHOST STORY ... and I'm seeing the seams.

He wanted to write epic S.F. and Space Fantasy. He backed into Harry Dresden.

I think he wants out, just wrapping up loose ends and going through the motions. But when a great writer goes through the motions, he can still tell a great story.

The seams just show.

In the beginning, you can see him pushing against the inertia of his heart not being in the novel :

He stretches the beginning as if forcing himself to write.

He introduces new characters, putting off bringing in the family of characters that the reader has been worried about since the cliff-hanger ending of the last novel.

He's almost a fourth of the way into the book, and he is just now getting to the stuff loyal fans have been waiting to find out.

You lose readers like that.

Eric, a friend at work, tossed the book, saying, "He's lost it. He's just writing to fulfil a contract."

GHOST STORY took months and months longer than was promised. I can see why. The fire is gone.

The story is building momentum finally. But I feel like I've been pushing a stalled car with Jim.

Have you ever felt like that with a writer? Has your enjoyment of the read been spoiled by spotting the seams, by being chilled by the lost fire of the author?

That has been said of Charlaine Harris. I gave up on the Sookie Stackhouse books a few titles ago.

Tell me of your similar experiences.
***