Falling In Love With Romance: July 2015

Thursday Writing Quote ~ Crusie

Put the computer away, climb into bed and pull the covers over your head and daydream about the story. Forget structure and character arc and all the craft stuff, and just listen to the characters talk to you in the dark. Fantasize new conversations, new actions, whether they belong in the story or not. Tell the Girls they can go anywhere they want, there are no boundaries. Don’t worry if the stuff you dream about is stupid or silly and embarrassing, just dream. Everything is possible. Keep doing that until you fall asleep.~ Jennifer Crusie

Tuesday Teaser ~ Darkness Brutal

Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle) by Rachel Marks was last month's freebie for Amazon Prime member. Since Urban Fantasy is one of my favorite genres, I didn't even read the blurb for the other books. If I tell you that I'm already planning to pre-ordering the second book in the series, will that tell you how much I'm liking this?

Blurb:
Aidan O’Linn’s childhood ended the night he saw a demon kill his mother and mark his sister, Ava, with Darkness. Since then, every three years the demons have returned to try to claim her. Living in the gritty, forgotten corners of Los Angeles, Aidan has managed to protect his sister, but he knows that even his powers to fight demons and speak dead languages won’t keep her safe for much longer.

In desperation, Aidan seeks out the help of Sid, the enigmatic leader of a group of teens who run LA Paranormal, an Internet reality show that fights demons and ghosts. In their company, Aidan believes he’s finally found a haven for Ava. But when he meets Kara, a broken girl who can spin a hypnotic web of passionate energy, he awakens powers he didn’t know he had―and unleashes a new era of war between the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness.

With the fate of humanity in his hands, can Aidan keep the Darkness at bay and accept his brilliant, terrifying destiny?

Opening
The demon is crouched in the corner, between the Cheetos and onion dip. It's a small one, only about four feet tall: a low-level creeper. I flick my gaze over the spot like I don't see it and open cooler door to get a coke.

Teaser:
Right now, it's like the demon's behind glass, on the other side of the Veil that separates the human world from the spirit world. It's only able to influence people, to whisper into their minds, telling them to do dark things.

Would you read on?

Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! To see what others are sharing on the Teaser Tuesdays, check the comments at: http://adailyrhythm.com/

Share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you are reading. Here's the link: Bibliophile By The Sea

Nuggets for July

How to keep your middles interesting
http://romanceuniversity.org/2015/04/27/how-to-save-your-story-from-slumping-in-the-middle-by-the-writers-relief-staff/

Writing a scene set in the woods? This is a must read.
http://dankoboldt.com/things-writers-know-woods/

Have an opportunity to do a guest post but don't know what to write about? Here's some help.
http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2015/05/05/when-is-a-guest-post-like-a-sausage-factory/

I need all the help I can get with twitter, so this hashtag list for writers is interesting.
http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/12/100-twitter-hashtags-every-writer-should-know/

Some great ideas for promotion and selling
http://marketingforwriters.com/12bookmarketingtips/

Wracking your brain for a title? This might help.
http://annerallen.blogspot.com/2015/05/10-tips-for-choosing-right-book-title.html

Someday I'll find a use for cop slang. If you need it, here it is:
http://www.leelofland.com/wordpress/the-language-of-police-cop-slang-3/

Looking for a writer's group?
http://janefriedman.com/2015/06/10/find-the-right-critique-group/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JaneFriedman+%28Jane+Friedman%29

Thursday Writing Quote ~ John McPhee

I get up in the morning, go into the office and tie myself into the chair with the sash of my bathrobe. ~ John McPhee

Tuesday Teaser ~ Found

I don't know how I missed that third book of Harlan Coben's YA was out, but I did, so this week, I'm reading Found: A Mickey Bolitar Novel, Book 3. While I can happily recommend the series (or anything else by Harlan), this series does need to be read in order for it to make the most sense.

Blurb:
It’s been eight months since Mickey Bolitar witnessed the shocking, tragic death of his father. Eight months of lies, dark secrets, and unanswered questions. While he desperately wants answers, Mickey’s sophomore year of high school brings on a whole new set of troubles. Spoon is in the hospital, Rachel won’t tell him where he stands, his basketball teammates hate him . . . and then there’s Ema’s surprise announcement: She has an online boyfriend, and he’s vanished.

As he’s searching for Ema’s missing boyfriend (who may not even exist!), Mickey also gets roped into helping his nemesis, Troy Taylor, with a big problem. All the while, Mickey and his friends are pulled deeper into the mysteries surrounding the Abeona Shelter, risking their lives to find the answers—until the shocking climax, where Mickey finally comes face-to-face with the truth about his father.

Opening:
Eight months ago, I watched my father's coffin being lowered into the ground. Today I was watching it being dug back up.

Teaser:
Ema's real name is Emma, but she dresses all in black and has a bunch of tattoos, so some of the kids, way back when, considered her "emo" and then someone combined "Emma" wit "emo" and cleverly (I'm being sarcastic when I say "cleverly") dubbed her Ema.

Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: Grab your current readOpen to a random pageShare two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! To see what others are sharing on the Teaser Tuesdays, check the comments at: http://adailyrhythm.com/

Share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you are reading. Here's the link: Bibliophile By The Sea

Thursday Writing Quote ~ John Long

In authentic conversation a direct question is rarely asked, and a straight answer almost never given ~ John Long

(And if you don't believe it, just watch any congressional investigation on youtube)

Tuesday Teaser ~ Seconds to Disaster

This week, I'm reading Seconds to Disaster by Glenn Meade and Ray Ronan. It's enough to put me off flying forever.

Blurb:
As with the Air France Flight 447 tragedy, much of the time air crashes are a confluence of events; a cascade of bad luck, bad decisions, inappropriate airline company policy, the failure of aviation regulators, and sometimes insufficient training, or various combinations of all five.

Seconds to Disaster will demonstrate that part of that bad luck is often aided by the airline industry’s own endless and aggressive pursuit of bottom-line profit which contributes to a creeping erosion of safety standards and puts both passenger and crew lives at serious risk.

Seconds to Disaster explores a highly contentious issue: what parts do both the airline industry and the worldwide watchdog authorities responsible for governing that industry contribute in playing dice with passenger lives, through negligence and collusion.

Opening:
Air France Flight 447
It was no night for dying.
In Rio De Janeiro that late May the temperature hung close to eighteen degrees. It was approaching midwinter in Brazil but that night the air was balmy, not a breath of wind whispered in the humid air. On Copacabana Beach, the sea glassy calm, promenades thronged with families and lovers enjoying a stroll, groups of tanned teenage boys and girls lazing in the sand, laughing and playing music.

Teaser:
The US military believe there may be up to 80 percent infiltration of counterfeit parts in its inventory. Some have even found their way onto the United States President's own aircraft, Air Force One.

Would you keep reading?

Sanderson on Fight Scenes

This is an excellent tutorial on writing fight scenes.

Thursday Writing Quote ~ George R R Martin

The most important thing for any aspiring writer, I think, is to read! And not just the sort of thing you’re trying to write, be that fantasy, SF, comic books, whatever. You need to read everything. Read fiction, non-fiction, magazines, newspapers. Read history, historical fiction, biography. Read mystery novels, fantasy, SF, horror, mainstream, literary classics, erotica, adventure, satire. Every writer has something to teach you, for good or ill. (And yes, you can learn from bad books as well as good ones — what not to do).

And write. Write every day, even if it is only a page or two. The more you write, the better you’ll get. But don’t write in my universe, or Tolkien’s, or the Marvel universe, or the Star Trek universe, or any other borrowed background. Every writer needs to learn to create his own characters, worlds, and settings. Using someone else’s world is the lazy way out. If you don’t exercise those “literary muscles,” you’ll never develop them.

Given the realities of today’s market in science fiction and fantasy, I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That’s like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. ~ George R R Martin

Tuesday Teaser ~ The Mirror of Her Dreams

I'm reorganizing my library and I keep seeing books I should reread. The Mirror of Her Dreams (Mordant's Need, Book 1) by Stephen R. Donaldson is one of them. I love his writing. He has flashes of being a wordsmith that utterly captivate me. I especially love the fairy tale quality of the first chapter.

Blurb:
The daughter of rich but neglectful parents, Terisa Morgan lives alone in a New York City apartment, a young woman who has grown to doubt her own existence. Surrounded by the flat reassurance of mirrors, she leads an unfulfilled life—until the night a strange man named Geraden comes crashing through one of her mirrors, on a quest to find a champion to save his kingdom of Mordant from a pervasive evil that threatens the land. Terisa is no champion. She wields neither magic nor power. And yet, much to her own surprise, when Geraden begs her to come back with him, she agrees.

Now, in a culture where women are little more than the playthings of powerful men, in a castle honeycombed with secret passages and clever traps, in a kingdom threatened from without and within by enemies able to appear and vanish out of thin air, Terisa must become more than the pale reflection of a person. For the way back to Earth is closed to her. And the enemies of Mordant will stop at nothing to see her dead.

Opening:
The story of Terisa and Geraden began very much like a fable. She was a princess in a high tower. He was a hero come to rescue her. She was the only daughter of wealth and power. He was the seventh son of the lord of the seventh Care. She was beautiful from the auburn hair that crowned her head to the tips of her white toes. He was handsome and courageous. She was held prisoner by enchantment. He was a fearless breaker of enchantments.
As in all the fables, they were made for each other.

Teaser:
Mirrors had a seductive beauty which spoke to her--but that wasn't the point. The point was that there was virtually no angle from which she couldn't see herself.
That was how she knew she existed.

I love high fantasy and urban fantasy. This is a wonderful blend of the two. Would you keep reading?

Thursday Writing Quote ~ Crusie

Character is the reason the sexiest scenes may have no sex in them at all, while some explicit sex scenes are about as erotic as a shopping list. That’s because actions without context have no emotional impact; that is, unless you’re invested in a character who’s invested in the action and who is experiencing emotion because of that action, you can write detailed sex scenes that leave your reader yawning. ~ Jennifer Crusie