ONLY 17 DAYS LEFT!!!

ONLY 17 DAYS LEFT!!!

Just write a review on Amazon on one of my books,

and you get FIVE entries into my FANTABULOUS CONTEST to win

an autographed copy of

NEEDFUL THINGS

THE TAKING

DANSE MACABRE!

How cool is that? KING. KOONTZ. HAMILTON.

What a trio!

ONLY 17 DAYS LEFT!
***

ONLY 2 WEEKS LEFT!! __ I HATE YOU entry encore _ I HATE YOU AS ONLY THE UNDEAD CAN HATE

ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT!!

Actually 18 days left to write a review of one of my books on Amazon to enter ...

ROLAND'S FANTABULOUS CONTEST!!!

See? Even Megan Fox is writing a review.

(Of FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE by the way. She wants to play evil Maija or the revenant, Empress Theodora, or the ghost of Meilori just so long as she gets to play a scene where she kills Speilberg!)

Just think you may actually win an autographed copy of NEEDFUL THINGS, the last Castle Rock story. Someone has to win it. Why not you?

Sandra has already told me that if Megan Fox enters the contest, she is not letting me in the same room as the jar of entries! Sigh.
***


I HATE YOU blogfest entry : I HATE YOU AS ONLY THE UNDEAD CAN HATE!

http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com/

[From the soon-to-be published, THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH :

Victor Standish and his Victorian ghoul friend, Alice Wentworth, have survived more horrors than a Stephen King movie. Almost. It seems Victor has died saving his hero, Sam McCord.

The ANGEL OF DEATH has come for him. Despite his protests to save her, Alice insists on coming along, as do Father Renfield and the mysterious Sister Magda. They are standing at the head of the stairs leading down to the haunted jazz club, Meilori's] :


Everybody and their cousin could read my mind it seemed. Now, it was time to use it for me instead of it being used against me. I focused all the will I had and thought at Father Renfeild :

‘Now, Padre, now! Hold Alice. Hold her tight!’

“Ow, lad,” he snapped. “You didn’t have to shout.”

Alice frowned, “I heard noth ….”

She yelped as Renfield grabbed her from behind. Magda added her arms around Alice, too. I smiled bitterly. My girl sure struggled just the same. Then, she stabbed me with her words as I raced down the stairs.

“I hate you for this, Victor. I HATE YOU!”

She screamed, "I trusted you! Trusted! Do you know how hard that was for me after all these years?"

My steps slowed. "Yes, now you realize what you have done. I hate you, Victor. I hate you as only the undead can hate. I hate you so that there is no pity, no compassion, no ghost of the love you have killed by doing this! My hate will burn long, LONG after you die. I HATE YOU, VICTOR STANDISH!"

I stopped halfway down the steps and slowly turned to Alice, her neon blue eyes flaring and said, “D-Don’t let those be the last words I hear you say, Alice. P-Please.”

Black tears streamed from her strange eyes as she stiffened as if I had stabbed her as she mewed, “Dolt, imbecile, moron, dunce! Of course, I love you.”

I smiled despite my heart breaking. “I like it when you talk dirty to me, Alice.”

She whimpered, then managed to squeak out the words, “You are Victor Standish, and you will find a way back to me.”


***

WHERE IN MYTH ARE WE? _ FRIDAY'S ROMANTIC CHALLENGE_plus I HATE YOU AS ONLY THE UNDEAD CAN HATE!_Tessa's I HATE YOU blogfest entry

The night tolls with midnight's ghost-bell chimes.

It is Friday once again.

Time to meet Francine's and Denise's ROMANTIC CHALLENGE. This week : CONFUSED

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

{My Tessa's I HATE YOU blogfest entry follows this}

My 386 word entry is from BLACK ROSES IN AVALON to blend in with yesterday's post. Blake Adamson traveled to the fabled brothel, THE PRINCESS ALICE

(a "gentleman's club" for the Marquis de Sade at heart),

in Victorian London to whisk Fallen, the Last Fae, away from the sadistic demigod, Abbadon Sennacherib.

Frantic to find some haven safe from Sennacherib, Blake uses an ancient enchanted dagger as a rudder to sail the seas of time and space. But to where?
Trusting an enchanted blade to save the girl I loved from the most evil being I had ever met seemed the right thing to do just a moment ago.

But now I was having doubts. Big ones. “Too Late” ones.

Our table sat in a small glade bordered by towering, ancient trees.

I tried to swallow and couldn't. Bending time and space had never gone so smooth for me before. And instead of feeling good about it, I started to get paranoid. Had Sennacherib helped me? Had he wanted me herded here? I remembered the rage in his voice and shelved that idea. From across the table, Fallen looked slowly about. She whispered in a dead calm way as if quoting from some scroll she had read long ago.

"Each blade of grass stirs with magic. Each branch sways to the breath of eternity. And each path leads to dream citadels whose misty towers murmur echoes of ancient glories never to be reclaimed, yet never to be forgotten."

I forced my throat to work, "What you said."

I sat back in my chair, tilted at an angle on the uneven grass. So this was Avalon? I could believe it. Webster had mocked me as a little poet, but even I was at a loss to describe what I was seeing.

The very air seemed to shimmer with tiny flecks of stardust as arrows of sunlight shot through the dark, hollow cathedrals of centuries old oaks. The thick branches swayed to a breeze I couldn't feel, as if the trembling trees were alive and startled at our sudden appearance. The low splashing of bubbling water came from the shattered remains of a black stone fountain. One lone, haunted-eyed marble nymph stared at me as if in silent warning. I could almost hear the echoes of Pan's pipes lamenting the intrusion of a mere mortal into this realm of faerie.

Fallen husked a whisper, "You really have taken us to Avalon. I - I have never been here ... at least not in what memories are left me."

"L-Left to you? What are you talking about?"

She smiled bitterly. "We of the Tuatha de Danann also know how to bend time and space."

Her eyes grew haunted. "But unlike you, we are left with minds wiped clean afterwards."
***
I HATE YOU blogfest entry : I HATE YOU AS ONLY THE UNDEAD CAN HATE!

http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com/

[From the soon-to-be published, THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH :

Victor Standish and his Victorian ghoul friend, Alice Wentworth, have survived more horrors than a Stephen King movie. Almost. It seems Victor has died saving his hero, Sam McCord.

The angel of Death has come for him. Alice insists on coming along, as do Father Renfield and the mysterious Sister Magda. They are standing at the head of the stairs leading down to the haunted jazz club, Meilori's] :


Everybody and their cousin could read my mind it seemed. Now, it was time to use it for me instead of it being used against me. I focused all the will I had and thought at Father Renfeild :

‘Now, Padre, now! Hold Alice. Hold her tight!’

“Ow, lad,” he snapped. “You didn’t have to shout.”

Alice frowned, “I heard noth ….”

She yelped as Renfield grabbed her from behind. Magda added her arms around Alice, too. I smiled bitterly. My girl sure struggled just the same. Then, she stabbed me with her words as I raced down the stairs.

“I hate you for this, Victor. I HATE YOU!”

She screamed, "I trusted you! Trusted! Do you know how hard that was for me after all these years?"

My steps slowed. "Yes, now you realize what you have done. I hate you, Victor. I hate you as only the undead can hate. I hate you so that there is no pity, no compassion, no ghost of the love you have killed by doing this! My hate will burn long, LONG after you die. I HATE YOU, VICTOR STANDISH!"

I stopped halfway down the steps and slowly turned to Alice, her neon blue eyes flaring and said, “D-Don’t let those be the last words I hear you say, Alice. P-Please.”

Black tears streamed from her strange eyes as she stiffened as if I had stabbed her as she mewed, “Dolt, imbecile, moron, dunce! Of course, I love you.”

I smiled despite my heart breaking. “I like it when you talk dirty to me, Alice.”

She whimpered, then managed to squeak out the words, “You are Victor Standish, and you will find a way back to me.”
***

BLACK ROSES IN AVALON!

The LOVE LIKE DEATH trilogy concludes :

Not even the eclipse of myth is forever. But eclipses return. And currents exist that are eternal. One such current is Love.

It binds the universe together.

Listen. Can you hear it? Can you hear him?

Blake, son of Man, is calling out across the night skies. What is he saying?

Remember.

Remember the strangled dreams, the shattered illusions that dropped from your bruised fingers long ago as a child. Still Time can be transcended. If you but remember ...

that love is forever,

that love cannot be taken from you,

that wounded hearts and minds but cast it from them in despair.

Listen.

Listen as Blake tells of haunted Avalon, broken by bloody Civil War. Of his love for the moon and the sun : the Last Fae and the alien drinker of souls.

Listen to his memories of BLACK ROSES IN AVALON :

The orphan, Blake Adamson, has been running for his life … or has he been running from it? One part of his mind says he is delirious, dying in the burnt ruins of his orphanage. Most of his mind insists what he is seeing and enduring is all too real.

His heart wants to believe the world he sees is real. A heart that is torn between an alien drinker of souls and the Last Fae. Loving both the sun and the moon may be his death. But Blake Adamson cannot help himself.

In an attempt to escape the enraged demigod, Abaddon Sennacherib, Blake and Fallen, the Last Fae, have left Victorian London by bending time and space,

using an ancient enchanted blade as a rudder. The two fugitive lovers find themselves far in the past … to Avalon.

Avalon, where life is illusory and deceptive, as are its inhabitants. In Faerie, nothing is as it seems, and even the simple act of uttering a name can be fraught with danger and death.

Blake and Fallen have appeared close to the Crystal Castle at the bottom of Lake Sayrade. The Dancers of the Myst float on their icy blue crafts upon that lake. And their Queen is Danis Nokkes, punisher of all false lovers.

Blake insists he is not false … just over-committed.

The distinction is lost to the sadistic Queen. To the Sidhe, mortals are but toys and pawns in their power games. They love to make the epitaph small and the death large.

In escaping the sadistic Queen, Blake and Fallen clash with the feral Wyldaelfen. And blood and destiny ensues.

In the midst of enemies in Broceliande Forest, they fail to skirt the Shadows of the Erinnyes and their dark queen Dinselle of the Golden Skin.

Atop the King and Queen of Avalon’s unicorns, Blake and Fallen evade the Wild Hunt as they race across the flying boulders of the fabled River Sambayton high in the skies of Avalon.

Until in the crystal and gold palace of Caer Wydr, Blake and Fallen endure the dark ritual, Diathke, ending the Avalon Civil War by paying the fearsome cost for love eternal.
***
http://www.amazon.com/BLACK-ROSES-IN-AVALON-ebook/dp/B005GQN03C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1313029711&sr=1-1
***

TALKING SIN

TALKING SIN …

Of not taking these writers’ advise :

Hilary Mantel :

Read BECOMING A WRITER, by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself.

This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don't ­really need any others,

2 Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

3 If you have a good story idea, don't assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play, a screenplay or a poem. Be flexible.

4 Be aware that anything that appears before "Chapter One" may be skipped. Don't put your vital clue there.

5 First paragraphs can often be struck out.

6 Concentrate your narrative energy on the point of change. This is especially important for historical fiction.

When your character is new to a place, or things alter around them, that's the point to step back and fill in the details of their world. People don't notice their everyday surroundings and daily routine, so when writers describe them it can sound as if they're trying too hard to instruct the reader.



Michael Moorcock (Author of the Elric fantasy series)

1 My first rule was given to me by TH White, author of The Sword in the Stone and other Arthurian fantasies and was: Read. Read everything you can lay hands on. I always advise people who want to write a fantasy or science fiction or romance to stop reading everything in those genres and start reading everything else from Bunyan to Byatt.

2 Find an author you admire (mine was Conrad) and copy their plots and characters in order to tell your own first stories, just as people learn to draw and paint by copying the masters.

3 For a good melodrama study the famous "Lester Dent master plot formula" which you can find online. It was written to show how to write a short story for the pulps, but can be adapted successfully for most stories of any length or genre.

4 If possible have something going on while you have your characters delivering exposition or philosophising. This helps retain dramatic tension.

5 Carrot and stick – have protagonists pursued (by an obsession or a villain) and pursuing (idea, object, person, mystery).

Lester Dent’s Master Plot Formula :

Lester Dent (1904 - 1959) was a prolific pulp fiction author of numerous stories, best known as the main author of the series of stories about the superhuman character, "Doc Savage."

http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html

Sample :

THIRD 1500 WORDS

1--Shovel the grief onto the hero.

2--Hero makes some headway, and corners the villain or somebody in:

3--A physical conflict.

4--A surprising plot twist, in which the hero preferably gets it in the neck bad, to end the 1500 words.

DOES: It still have SUSPENSE?
The MENACE getting blacker?
The hero finds himself in a hell of a fix?
It all happens logically?

These outlines or master formulas are only something to make you certain of inserting some physical conflict, and some genuine plot twists, with a little suspense and menace thrown in. Without them, there is no pulp story.

These physical conflicts in each part might be DIFFERENT, too. If one fight is with fists, that can take care of the pugilism until next the next yarn. Same for poison gas and swords. There may, naturally, be exceptions. A hero with a peculiar punch, or a quick draw, might use it more than once.

The idea is to avoid monotony.

ACTION:
Vivid, swift, no words wasted. Create suspense, make the reader see and feel the action.

ATMOSPHERE:
Hear, smell, see, feel and taste.

DESCRIPTION:
Trees, wind, scenery and water.

THE SECRET OF ALL WRITING IS TO MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT.


FOURTH 1500 WORDS

1--Shovel the difficulties more thickly upon the hero.

2--Get the hero almost buried in his troubles. (Figuratively, the villain has him prisoner and has him framed for a murder rap; the girl is presumably dead, everything is lost, and the DIFFERENT murder method is about to dispose of the suffering protagonist.)

3--The hero extricates himself using HIS OWN SKILL, training or brawn.

4--The mysteries remaining--one big one held over to this point will help grip interest--are cleared up in course of final conflict as hero takes
the situation in hand.

5--Final twist, a big surprise, (This can be the villain turning out to be the unexpected person, having the "Treasure" be a dud, etc.)

6--The snapper, the punch line to end it.

HAS: The SUSPENSE held out to the last line?
The MENACE held out to the last?
Everything been explained?
It all happen logically?
Is the Punch Line enough to leave the reader with that WARM FEELING?
Did God kill the villain? Or the hero?

Wasn't talking SIN fun?

***

THE 5 DEADLY SINS!

THE FIVE DEADLY SINS …

YOU DON’T SEE IN YOUR WRITING!

1.) REPEAT THAT … NOT!
Just about every writer unconsciously has a SECRET AGENT word that creeps in on every page it seems.

Hillary Clinton’s repeated word is “eager” (can you believe it? the committee that wrote Living History should have their typing fingers slapped).

Cosmopolitan magazine editor Kate White uses “quickly” over a dozen times in A Body To Die For.

Jack Kerouac’s crutch word in On the Road is “sad,” sometimes
doubly so – “sad, sad.”

Ann Packer’s in The Dive from Clausen’s Pier
is “weird.”

SECRET AGENT words are usually unremarkable little critters. That’s why they slip under the editorial radar –

they’re not even worth noticing, much less repeating,

but there you have it, pop, pop, pop, up they come -

like that rodent in the golf course in CADDY SHACK. Readers, however, notice them, get irked by them and are eventually distracted by them,

and put down the book never to pick it back up. Ouch.

2. PANCAKE FLAT WRITING
“I wanted to know but couldn’t understand what her face had to say, so I waited until Alice was ready to tell me before asking what she meant.”

Victor Standish is trying to say something in this sentence, but who cares? The writing is so flat, limp, listless it just dies on the page. Talk about a "bad hair day" for prose!

You can’t fix it with a few replacement words – you have to give it depth, texture, character.

Flat writing is a sign that you’ve lost interest or are intimidated by your own novel's scope. It shows that you’re veering toward mediocrity, that your brain is fatigued,

that you’ve lost your inspiration.

So use it as a lesson. When you see flat writing on the page, it’s time to rethink, refuel and rewrite.

3. LIFELESS, UNDEAD ADVERBS

Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally –

these and others are words that promise emphasis, but too often they do the reverse. They suck the meaning out of every sentence.

I defer to People Magazine for gilding its articles with empty, valueless adverbs. A recent issue refers to an “incredibly popular, groundbreakingly racy sitcom.” That’s tough to say even when your lips aren’t moving.

In Still Life with Crows, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (experts at needless filler to pad a book) describe a mysterious row of corn in the middle of a field:

“It was, in fact, the only row that actually opened onto the creek.” Here are two attempts at emphasis (”in fact,” “actually”), but they just junk up the sentence. Remove them both and the word “only” carries the burden of the sentence with efficiency and precision.

(When in doubt, try this mantra: Precise and spare; precise and spare; precise and spare.)

In dialogue, empty adverbs may sound appropriate, even authentic,

but that’s because they’ve crept into American conversation in a trendy way. If you’re not watchful, they’ll make your characters sound wordy, childish and dated.

Look at this hilarious clunker from THE DA VINCE CODE by Dan Brown:

“Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino.”

Puke! “Almost inconceivably” –

that’s like being a little bit dead, isn't it?

Hopefully, that “enormous albino” will ironically go back to actually flogging himself while incredibly saying his prayers continually as we regretfully heave the book into the thankfully empty trash can.

4. DEADLY DIALOGUE

Be careful of using dialogue to advance the plot.

Readers can tell when characters talk about things they already know, or when the speakers appear to be having a conversation for our benefit.

You never want one character to imply or say to the other, “Tell me again, Batman: What are we doing next?”

Avoid words that are fashionable in conversation.

Ann Packer’s characters are so trendy the reader recoils. ” ‘What’s up with that?’ I said. ‘Is this a thing [love affair]?’ ” “We both smiled. ” ‘What is it with him?’ I said. ‘I mean, really.’ ” Her book is only a few years old, and already it’s dated.

Dialogue offers glimpses into character the author can’t provide through description.

Hidden wit, thoughtful observations, a shy revelation, a charming aside all come out in dialogue, so the characters *show* us what the author can’t *tell* us.

But if dialogue helps the author distinguish each character, it also nails the culprit who’s promoting a hidden agenda by speaking out of character.

Setting your own high standards and sticking to them is the mark of a pro.

Be one, write like one, and don’t cheat.

5. SUFFIXES EXIST TO BE MADE EXTINCT.

Don’t take a perfectly good word and give it a new wardrobe, so it serves as something else. The New York Times does this all the time.

Instead of saying, “as a director, she is meticulous,” the reviewer will write, “as a director, she is known for her meticulousness.”

Until she is known for her obtuseness.

The “ness” words cause the eye to stumble, come back, reread:

Mindlessness, characterlessness, courageousness, statuesqueness, preciousness –

you get the idea. You might as well pour ball bearings into your readers’ mouths.

(Not even Victor Standish would do that!)

Not all “ness” words are bad – goodness, no – (couldn't resist; LOL) but they are all suspect.

The “ize” words are no better – finalize, conceptualize, fantasize, categorize. The “ize” hooks itself onto words as a short-cut but stays there like a parasite.

Policemen now say to each other about witnesses they’ve interrogated, “Did you statementize him?” Some shortcut.

Not all “ize” words are bad, either, but they do have the ring of the vulgate to them –

“he was brutalized by his father,” “she finalized her report.” Just try to use them rarely.

Use them too often is like jabbing your reader in the eye repeatedly. Guess what that reader does with your book? Ouch.

(Many thanks to Pat Holt for the wisdom of these pointers.)

*) MORE SINS TOMORROW, ROLAND

***

5 GREAT WRITERS TALK WRITING

5 GREAT WRITERS TALK WRITING :

1.) Elmore Leonard :

A. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.

B. Avoid prologues: they can be ­annoying, especially a prologue ­following an introduction that comes after a foreword.

C. My most important rule is one that sums up my feelings: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

2.) Neil Gamain :

A. Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

B. Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.

C. Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

3.) Roddy Doyle :

A. Do not place a photograph of your ­favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

B. Regard every new page as a small triumph.

C. Do spend a few minutes a day working on the cover biog – "He divides his time between Kabul and Tierra del Fuego." But then get back to work.

4.) Margaret Atwood :

A.) Hold the reader's attention.

(This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.)

But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates X will bore the pants off Z.

B.) There's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.

C.) Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

5.) Helen Dunmore:

A. Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

B. Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.

C. Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite some more. If it still doesn't work, throw it away. It's a nice feeling, and you don't want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.
***