Monthly Archives: August 2012

Scoping out locations for your novel #3: Road Trip! (Contes Farm)

Posted on August 11, 2012 | 23 comments

In scoping out locations in South Jersey for my new Novel, I needed a farm that was between point A and an airport.  Last week, we visited the airport, and it was perfect.  Would the farm be that good?

I clicked on the GPS and started driving.  First problem:  It’s too far away.  I need it far away, but not this far.  There is another farm option, but that one is actually too close to its local airport.

Erghhh!  The woes of real-life locations.

As I’m driving though, I figure out a way to make it work.  I just need to tweak something just a little bit.  Yeah, I decided, it will work, and it will be much easier than trying to make the one that’s too close to the airport “fit” into the story.

We headed out into farm country, and I kept repeating:  “Please be surrounded by woods… please be surrounded by woods.”

We turned onto a road, and pulled up to the small farm-stand building. Conte’s Farm.  Hmmm… not as grand as I had expected, but the building is not important.  I dragged all the kids out of the car, and announced we were going out into the fields to pick our own fruit.  Boy, did their faces light up!

It’s funny, with all the things they were guessing as we were driving, I was afraid they would be disappointed.  Wow, were they excited.

We went to the back and got our baskets.  “So, how does this work?” I asked.

“He’ll be there in a minute to bring you out,” she said.

Much to my joy, and my kid’s excitement, a tractor pulled up with a big trailer attached with seats on it.

Perfect, since I’d already written this scene, and there was a tractor in it.  We loaded up and he pulled us out into the fields which were HUGE.  Much bigger than I had written, but that’s fine.  An easy fix.

I shielded my eyes, and scanned the far reaches of the fields.  They were surrounded on three sides with a very thick forest.  Wahooo!  And the woods were even on the correct side, heading toward the airport.

Happiness abounding, we set out to pick our strawberries and had a blast.  “Nice tractor guy” picked us up a while later and dropped us off at the blueberry fields.  The weather was perfect, and we had tons of fun picking fruit.

Note of caution-if everyone in your group has their own buckets, you may be coming home with five pounds of blueberries… Just say’n.

Anyway… next hurdle…

As we checked out, I asked if they have anything fruiting in August (That’s when my novel takes place, and I really didn’t want to change that.)

“Yes, that’s peach season.”

YES!  I’d already written about peaches… and I was worried, because they didn’t mention peaches on their web-site.

Two locations down… the farm and the airport.

Point A would be a little more of a trip… for another day.

My next challenge is to find a hotel within a reasonable distance to this farm.

That, unfortunately, may be the hardest part of all of this.  I might have to make one up.

What do you think of “making up” a location, where all other locations are “real”?  I may be able to fudge it, by being hazy on the address of the hotel.  Whaddya think?

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Jon Gibbs’s Ten things I wish I knew before I was published #5: Please Sir, May I have another?

Posted on August 10, 2012 | 19 comments

Writing and Critique groups are like potato chips – you can never eat just one.

Each writer’s group you find will offer something different.

For example, in my area there is a writer’s group that looks for odd places to write.  They set up folding chairs by the lake, for instance, looking for inspiration.  Is that for me?  Ummmm.  No.  I like my solitary computer, thank you.  But this works for some people.

Some writers groups charge a fee, but they give you great speakers in return.  If you think that the speakers are of value to you, then it is okay to pay extra.  If you are looking just to meet people, you might not want that extra perk.

Look around, and join a few if you can.  The worst thing that can happen is you make a few friends.

Note:  The above are Jon Gibb’s main speaking points, with my rambling opinions attached.

Jon Gibbs is the author of one of my son’s favorite books:  FUR-FACE, which was nominated for a Crystal Kite Award.

Jon is an Englishman transplanted to New Jersey, USA, where he is an ‘author in residence’ at Lakehurst Elementary School.  Jon is the founding member of The New Jersey Author’s Network and FindAWritingGroup.com.

Jon blogs at jongibbs.livejournal.com

Website: www.acatofninetales.com

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Review of The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan – by the Monomaniacle Middle Grade Reviewer

Posted on August 9, 2012 | 10 comments

The Monomaniacle Middle Grade Reviewer talks up the Last Percy Jackson Novel (What Ever will he read now?) The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

“Total Awesomeness” — even if he can’t spell it… and you can watch Chloe trying to catch the fish in the tank behind him just for grins ans giggles, too.

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Flash Fiction Friday on Wednesday: Trials of the Tooth Fairy- The Fairy Trap-A true story

Posted on August 8, 2012 | 11 comments

What does the tooth fairy do when a little boy sets a trap for her?  Read on!

The tooth fairy peeked around the doorway, tip toeing into the little boy’s room, being careful not to make a sound, but when she made it to the bed, not only was there no tooth… there was no little boy!

Hmmm. She scratched her head and checked her notes.  Yes, there was definitely a tooth lost in this house today.  She tip-toed into the next room, and found the youngest little boy sleeping soundly.  Nope, he was too young to lose a tooth.

Across the hallway, the sounds of snoring rattled behind a closed door.  The tooth fairy carefully grasped the door handle and gently turned it, cringing as the door made a big “pop” sound.  She held her breath, and closed her eyes, not that closing her eyes would keep a little boy from seeing her, but it settled her nerves.

The snoring continued.  She tip toed in the room, smiling over the bed of the oldest child.  No, he hadn’t lost a tooth either.  A small rustle from the other side of room caught the tooth fairy’s attention.  She crept around the bed and put her hands on her hips.

Aha!  A little boy with a missing tooth!

The middle boy lay wedged in the two-foot space between the bed and the dresser.  He slept soundly on a thick fluffy pillow, covered with a full Spiderman comforter. She could feel the tug of the prize tooth nestled below his sweet little head, but how would she get to the pillow?

The tooth fairy scratched her head, wishing she hadn’t left her wings at home.  Is she had them, she could fly over the little boy to his pillow, and steal his tooth.  But alas, wingless, she needed to find a way to thwart this little boy’s plan to catch her in the act, and still run away with that prized tooth.

She took in a deep breath, and balanced one hand on the bed, and the other on the dresser.  Concentrating hard, she slipped her foot along the side of the frame, just beside the little boy.

OOPS!  She jumped as she stepped on something hard.  The little boy’s arm was under the comforter!  Frozen, one hand supporting her on either side, and one foot hovering in the air, the tooth fairy watched as the little boy groaned, and rolled over.

Oh No!  When he turned over, he bend his left his knee and pointed it in the air… just a few inches beneath her leg!

Balancing on one foot, she remained silent, waiting for his breathing to relax.  Certain he’d fallen back into a blissful slumber; she allowed her foot to touch the ground in the few blessed inches of open carpet beside his shoulder.  Using her fairy agility, she jumped over him, and crouched in the few inches of clear space by his pillow… a full grown fairy… in a six by twelve box.  Well, she’d had worse challenges.

Her heart pumped madly, dreaming of the prized tooth she would find beneath his pillow.   She slipped her hand under, only to find a long wire.  A wire?  The cable stretched from under the pillow to a nearby chair filled with toys.  Yup.  A booby trap… set up in the only possible place she would be able to slip her hand in.

Not to be thwarted, the tooth fairy contorted her body, twisting and mashing her large form in the little space provided, and slipped her other hand (upside down) beneath the pillow.  Tapping and feeling, being careful of the wire … she struck gold.  But was it gold?  No!  It was not the prized tooth… but a Nintento DS carefully hidden underneath his pillow.

Hmmmm, the tooth fairy thought.  She would have to leave a note for his mother letting her know he’d been playing games when she thought he was sleeping.

Having come too far to give up without her prize, the tooth fairy dug her fingers around the rest of the carpeting.  A marble, a toy soldier… Where was the stinking tooth!

Her hand touched plastic, and the wonderful sound of a Ziploc bag crinkling excited her ears.  She slipped the bag out from beneath the pillowcase.  The prize tooth!  Slipping her free hand under the pillow, the tooth fairy deposited the required fistful of jingly coins and stood.  Prize in hand.

But she could not yet celebrate her victory!  Her eyes adjusted to the light, the moon revealing the true intricacy of the booby trap.  How she hadn’t tripped it was a blessing in itself.  The older boy turned in his bed, covering the one point on his mattress that she’d used to support herself.

Dangit for forgetting my stinking wings!

She gritted her teeth, and placed one toe on the pillow, shifting the fabric beside the child’s head.  With a huge leap, she used her magical fairy powers to sail over the comforter and the booby traps, and landed solidly on the carpet at the edge of the bed.

THOMP. The flooring shook beneath her mass.

She froze.

A cricket chirped outside.

Both children reacted to the noise by turning in their sleep.

The tooth fairy waited, ever so patiently until they’d stopped moving. Whew! They remained asleep. Two steps took her from the room, and a now trembling hand eased the door shut.

Success.

The tooth fairy rubbed her temple, and smiled at her prize tooth.

I don’t get paid enough for this.

 

Writing time:  24 minutes.  Fresh in my mind since it was last night.  J

Yeah, I know there’s show verses tell and all.  It’s speed storytelling, remember? Give a girl a break.

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Write A Story With Me Number 6 Mikeala Wire

Posted on August 7, 2012 | 5 comments

Yay!  It’s time for  A write a story with me update!  There is so much going on that sometimes it makes my tail spin.

My brain had this cute little simple fantasy story in my head, but we have gone through so many twist ant turns I’m having trouble keeping it all straight!

This week we are taking a pleasant little trip over to lovely Rotterdam with My So Called Dutch Life.  Mikaela Wire is a little nervous, because she says she’s not a writer.  I think she did a great job.  Be sure to leave her some words of encouragement after reading!

Click on the link below to be jet-packed on high speed to the Netherlands.

Take it away Mikeala!

http://mysocalleddutchlife.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/write-a-story-with-me/#comment-920

If you need to catch up, you can view previous installments through the link below.

Here are the previous installments:

Part One – Jennifer M Eaton

Part Two – Jenny Keller Ford

Part Three – Susan Roebuck

Part Four by — Elin Gregory

Part Five — Eileen Snyder

Part Six — Mikaela Wire

Stop by next Tuesday to see what happens next!

Vanessa Chapman… TAG You’re it!

Good Luck, Vanessa!

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Road to Publication #11: Coming out of the closet

Posted on August 6, 2012 | 29 comments

“That’s what she looks like? –  Really?”

Part of my marketing plan is coming out of the closet.  For me, that is almost literally.  Well, maybe it’s more like putting down the book that I’ve been hiding behind and showing off my face for the first time.

According to the marketing plan, you can connect with people more when they know what you look like.  Hmmm… I’ve been connecting pretty well hiding behind that book, too.  🙂

I love my book logo, and I don’t think it’s disappearing any time soon, but you will get to see a little more of me as I trod ahead.

So, alas, it is time to come out of the closet and show everyone what I look like.

Step one is splattering my mug on the home page of my blog.  If you’re reading this post in email, click on in.  If you’re already here, please suppress the giggle.  I can hear it now… “That’s what she looks like?  Really?”  Come on … give a girl a break.  This is hard enough!

Step two is my new “About” page.    I couldn’t decide on one particular picture, so I did a few.  The marketing plan says to pick a picture and stick with that to brand yourself with… but me just sitting there and staring right into someone’s eyes is anything but ‘me’.  I wanted to promote a little more fun.

Yes, I can be as boring as anyone else, but I also have a little spunk.  I want to promote my fun side as well as my professional side.

So click on my “about” link and let me know what you think.  If ya hate it, I can always go back to the photographer and ask for some pictures in my granny glasses.

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Do you know something about the military? Calling all Beta readers or “Wanna-be” Beta readers

Posted on August 5, 2012 | 10 comments

I am searching for a few good men, or women, or teenagers who have knowledge of the military and how it works, and/ or live on or grew up on a military base in the USA.

I am going to openly admit that I’m writing fiction that has a lot of military activity in it, and I am taking a lot of wild guesses since my father never talked about the service AT ALL.

I’m looking for a few people who know more than I do who can take a look at my novel and say “Yeah, that’s possible” or “No, you are completely off your rocker… that would never happen in a zillion years.”

In a nutshell, I don’t want to ruin what I think is a pretty good story because of my lack of military knowledge.

The novel is Fire in the Woods — a sci-fi based in New Jersey on the East Coast of the USA.  It starts off at McGuire Air Force Base, and then runs through several South Jersey locations.  The target audience is YA (teen) girls, although there is a strong male character at her side that I think will appeal to everyone.

I have visited each location and mapped out the story.  Now I just need to know if I have to change any character’s military ranks/titles/positions, or embellish/change things to make it at least somewhat plausible.

If you’ve never done a beta read before, and know about the military, that’s fine.  I have people who can smack me around for writerly-mistakes.  I just need a few “military content editors”.

When completed, I expect it to be 50,000 words (200 pages).  I would need it read and critiqued within 30 days of starting it. (That’s about seven pages a day.  Easy breezy)

I will most likely send it in 50 page sections (One week per section) so I can work on your comments for one section while you are reading the second.

Please let me know if you are interested.

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Scoping out locations for your novel #2: Road Trip! (The Airport)

Posted on August 4, 2012 | 25 comments

While I was researching sites in Southern New Jersey, I needed a farm that was close enough to point A and also within 20 miles of an airport.  I found many farms in South Jersey, but one was perfect.  It was right smack dab between the two other locations, and it was surrounded by woods (which I also needed.)

I was alone with the kids that weekend, so I figured we’d make a day-trip out of it.  I didn’t tell them where we were going.  What we did is drive the route that my characters from “Fire in the Woods” would be running. We went in reverse order and visited the airport first.  My oldest son and I jumped out of the car.  At that point, I told him that I was scoping locations for my book.

Yes, the Monomaniacal Middle Grade Reviewer was totally into it.  The two younger ones were already “over it.”

I was a little nervous, because I had already written a lot of my story just from Google Earth and other sky maps.  Would the location be as good in real life?

The first thing that struck me was the chain link fences surrounding the runways.  I guess I should have thought of that.

“No problem,” I whispered.  “The tanks with just run right over those.”

“Tanks?”  my son asked, a big smile on his face.  “What are you gonna do, Mom?”

I just smiled.

He laughed.  “You’re gonna blow it up, aren’t you?”

Yeah, my son knows me pretty well.

I couldn’t get out to the runways, although I probably could have gone inside and asked for a better look, but I didn’t have my business cards or anything.  I could see all I needed, though.  Long runways, surrounded by a thick forest on one side, and a lot of trees on the other… out in the middle of no-where.  It was perfect.

There was something else fun, too.  A big re-fueling tank.  Ah, the joys of hundreds of gallons of gasoline, just sitting there, waiting for me to…

Yeah.  This location was perfect.

We were only there for a few minutes, snapped a few pictures, and then it was off to the farm.  Excited now, I was hoping the farm would be as good.

Have you ever visited a location for your novel?  How did it go?

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Jon Gibbs’s Ten things I wish I knew before I was published #4: The End is Just the Beginning

Posted on August 3, 2012 | 15 comments

Boy, did he nail this one the head for me.  I spend 80% more time editing my work than actually writing it.  In my last novel, HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT, it was my own fault for pantsing it, and then having to go back and make major edits.

However, even with LAST WINTER RED, which I outlined, I spent several weeks of intense-high pressure edits after writing the bulk of it over a weekend writer’s retreat.  And for all that work, I didn’t really change much.  I added three small scenes (by small I mean 100 words or so) but the rest of it was fixing grammar, spelling, flow, etc.

Jon’s suggestion is to get your story down first, and do the editing when you are done (Yay, I did it right!)  If you edit constantly, while you are writing, you will probably go back and make changes before you are even done.

Note:  The above are Jon Gibb’s main speaking points, with my rambling opinions attached.

Jon Gibbs is the author of one of my son’s favorite books:  FUR-FACE, which was nominated for a Crystal Kite Award.

Jon is an Englishman transplanted to New Jersey, USA, where he is an ‘author in residence’ at Lakehurst Elementary School.  Jon is the founding member of The New Jersey Author’s Network and FindAWritingGroup.com.

Jon blogs at jongibbs.livejournal.com

Website: www.acatofninetales.com

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Wow. I hated this book. I mean, I REALLY hated it.

Posted on August 2, 2012 | 37 comments

My son (the MMGR) asked me what I was reading yesterday.  I gave him the title.  He asked if it was good.  I laughed and said, “No, actually it is really bad.”

 

“So why are you still reading it?” he asked.

I smiled and said:  “I am taking notes to make sure I never write like this.”

I am going to save the writer the pain of giving you the title of the novel or the author’s name, but I thought this experience was worth mentioning.

I picked up this novel for free from the author.  It was one of those things where the author gives away book one, with a teaser of another book at the end, and links (in Kindle) to where you can buy the next four books in the series if you liked this one.

Did I buy the rest of the books?  Ahhhhhh…. No.

Giving away Book One is a perfectly sound practice to drum up an audience to buy more of your work and get your name out there… IF YOUR WORK IS GOOD.

This was so sad.  Really, it was.

This was a self-published novel.  Now, self-publishing is fine… IF YOU ARE READY.  This novel read like a third or fourth draft that had never had a beta read.  There were a few typos, missing dialog tags, etc.

I can forgive that.  The big problem here was the Show versus Tell issues.  I never really became immersed into the story.  I always felt like I was reading a book.  I never had a problem putting it down, because each page was kind of dull.

The story revolved around an orphan girl, who finds out on her eighteenth birthday that she is a witch.  A male witch takes her from her “normal” life to train her and teach her the ropes.  He is handsome.  You know what?  He is handsome.  Oh, yeah, did I mention… he is handsome.  That’s all I know because she never said anything else about what he looked like.

These two characters don’t like each other to begin with.  Then suddenly, out of the blue, he mentions that he’s engaged, and he doesn’t want to get married.  They decide (in one page) to pretend they’ve fallen in love so he can get out of it. The next page, in a big tell section, she falls for him, and then BOOM he says he’s fallen for her and they end up in bed together.  From dislike to bed in two pages.

Then in the last few pages the fiancée (I guess the bad guy girl) materializes and is ticked about the relationship.  Where’d she come from? I’d never even heard of her until about six pages ago.

This was a short story/novella.  If it was written properly, it could have been a solid novel, and very exciting.  I felt like I was reading an elongated synopsis.

Was the story good?  Well, yes, it could have been great.  It just was not ready for publication.

This is what scares me about self-published novels.  So many are just not ready.  If you want to self-publish, go ahead.  Good luck to you… just PLEASE pay your dues.  Get at least five hyper-critical betas and LISTEN TO THEM.  You don’t need to change everything, but get lots of opinions.

NOTE:  The betas CANNOT be your Mom or Dad.  Let’s be real, here. Get yourself an editor, too.  Get opinions on your story arc.  Develop you characters and your story.  Don’t rush things just to get something “out there.”

I feel bad, because this story had a lot of potential, and could have been great if it was actually finished before it was published.

If you are going for traditional publishing, the publisher will tell you if it is ready or not by giving you a contract.  For me, that nod is priceless, because I know then that my story is ready, and I won’t have someone blogging about me (and maybe not being as nice as me, and using my name **GACK**)

Please don’t get caught in this trap.  Give your story the attention and work that it deserves.  Pay your dues, and make sure you are ready.

And by pay your dues – I don’t mean that traditional is the “only way”.  I mean don’t skip the steps that will make the difference between a really bad review… and a slew of awesome reviews.  Give your novel the time and attention it needs in the editing phase before you publish.

Enough said.

Related articles – these are just articles that deal with the same issues.  I am not taking sides for or against any form of publishing.

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