mermaids

06 Jun 2011 9 Comments

Rewriting: the Love/Hate relationship of writing and how we manage it

by Susan Jeffery in mermaids, Motivation

I have a draft open on my laptop right now:  “Lucky Numbers v12 100p June4”.  Tomorrow, the version 12 will be version13.  One hundred pages will have been re-read and minute changes made, for the thirteenth time.  If I can finish those hundred pages tomorrow it will be submitted, along with the synopsis (currently version 14) to an editor who requested it at the WRW retreat in May.

But my secret is, I didn’t write all of it.  I’m putting the final rewrite on a manuscript I’ve been writing with a collaborator for two years.  This is the most recent version of the tale, and it’s been a long and complex production.

How do you handle rewrites?  Is putting the story down a breeze, and the rewriting a slog?  Do you plot as you go, and then have to go back and patch up all the holes you left behind?  Or is it all carefully planned, with minor time needed for…
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04 Jun 2011 20 Comments

The Dreaded Synopsis

by Kerri Carpenter in Kerri Carpenter, mermaids

Tell me, how do you write the synopsis to your W.I.P.? Because here’s how my typical synopsis writing day goes. 

First, I remind myself and anyone within earshot of how much I hate writing the synopsis. Then I open a Word Document. After staring at said blank page for about three straight minutes, I toggle over to Twitter and tweet about how I despise the synopsis.

Then, I eat something. After that, I let the food digest. We’ve all heard our mothers remind us to wait twenty minutes after we eat before working on our synopsis. Don’t want any writing-related cramps after all.

Finally, I go back to the blank page and eek out two lame sentences. I berate them. I judge them. Then I take the time to berate and judge myself. You suck, Kerri!

If there is any time left I send my BFF an email expressing my extreme suck-age. And then she tells me over…
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03 Jun 2011 16 Comments

Expectations, Infidelity and the Terminator

by Robin Covington in mermaids

I am an avid reader (and hopeful aspiring author) of Harlequin Blaze, the hottest and sexiest line of their category line stable.  In it you will find the trademark hot-lovin’ in a variety of positions, locations and with or without accompanying toys.  This line is lava-hot but also promises a happily- ever-after (HEA) or a happliy-for-now (HFN) ending for one man and one woman – an emotional connection in addiiton to the sexual one.  If you want sex with multiple partners of either gender, you need to look elsewhere (like the Harlequin SPICE line).

So, when I picked up and read, ‘Reckless Pleasures” by Tori Carrington (a long-time favorite of mine) I was thrown by my reaction to the plot.  Here’s the blurb from the back of the book:

”Six months apart is a long time. For security expert, Megan McGowan, it feels like forever since she’s felt the strong arms of Darius Folsom around her. Since Dari’s military deployment six…
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01 Jun 2011 12 Comments

Asking the Right Questions

by Alethea in Alethea Kontis, mermaids

Hello, world, and welcome to June!

It doesn’t feel like this year should be half over yet. I know that the older we get the quicker time flies, as each second becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of our overall lifespan…but six months into 2011? Really?

And even more incredibly than that…how on earth did I manage to interview 30 authors on my website in the month of May?

It all started out innocently enough: I had a laundry list of authors on my to-do page that needed to be addressed, and I had my fairy goddaughters for Bring Your Child to Work Day. It was a match made in heaven. We came up with a list of fun and silly questions and decided to send them to everyone.

Yes, everyone.

Within a week I had twenty sets of answers from fiction authors whom I’ve known and respected for a…
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25 May 2011 17 Comments

Critique Groups–Where Talent Abounds

by Loni Lynne in mermaids

So you’ve decided to take that leap and write the romance you’ve always dreamed of writing. Your mother, sister-in-law, husband and best friend all think it’s wonderful–that’s great! But while having them read your story might help with the kinks, your fellow writing peers are the ones who know what editors are going to look for. As it is, Editor X may not even like what you have, just because they did. That is where getting involved with a critique group is so important for a writer . . . on the ‘write’ path.

Being involved with a wonderful critique group (mine meets once a month and enjoys each other’s company) is a blessing when you are serious about your writing career. Critiquing is taking the good with the bad with a touch of diplomacy and a lot of encouragement from others in the same boat as you. Some people prefer not seeing who they are critiquing with at first and building the personal relationships along the way. The internet…
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24 May 2011 14 Comments

Who Are You Meant To Be?

by Dana Rodgers in Dana Rodgers, Kerri Carpenter, mermaids, Motivation, Writing

You know how some things are a secret? Like the chocolate stash behind the canned vegetables at the back of the pantry. Yep, no danger of anyone finding the mini candy bars hidden there in my house.

Writing was one of those things for me.

I grew up in a less than ideal home and I used writing as my outlet. Over time the journal entries and poems of my youth evolved into short stories. Not very good ones at first, but it was still satisfying to see the story in my mind come to life on the page. And yes, for those of you wondering…I do in fact carry on conversations with my characters. In what other profession is it possible to get paid for talking to your imaginary friends? Yeah, in most places they medicate you and introduce you to a little thing called a straitjacket!

But I kept…
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23 May 2011 40 Comments

Who Needs Best Friends?

by Kimberly MacCarron in Kimberly MacCarron, mermaids, Uncategorized

Whether it’s in real life or found on the big screen or between the pages of a favorite book, we need best friends.

Anyone who’s been through either good or difficult times can appreciate the steadfast friend who remains at your side.

As a writer, I can’t imagine having a main character without the benefit of a best friend.  Sometimes they provide comic relief or that voice of reason.  Whether that best friend is quirky, serious or just sweetly loyal, I love best friends!  Love, love, love ‘em!

Where would Lucy be without her Ethel?  Probably not in as much trouble, but, come on, where’s the fun in that?  Can you even picture Fred Flinstone without Barney Rubble?  Or Spongebob without Patrick. 

There are, of course, the stories with best friends that have you reaching for your tissue box.  Beaches.  Bridge to Terabithia.  My Girl.  Fried Green Tomatoes.  Charlotte’s Web.  Those are the stories that make you want a best friend just like the one you read or saw—even though…
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22 May 2011 20 Comments

Look, Ma! No hands!

by Pintip in mermaids, Motivation

My junior year of college, I was sitting in the library, typing away on my laptop, trying to finish up a term paper, when it happened: my hands froze. Not good-God-the-library-is-cold-I-wish-I’d-brought-a-sweater froze. Not even kill-me-now-I’m-never-going-to-finish-this-paper froze. No, I mean my hands physically froze, as in the muscles from my neck through my shoulders through my elbows through my forearms through my hands froze up, so that I couldn’t move them. And they stayed that way for a week. I couldn’t brush my hair. I couldn’t bring a fork to my mouth. All I could do was lie in bed, terrified that my life was never going to be the same again.

And it wasn’t. In the last 14 years, I’ve seen countless doctors, physical therapists, and chiropractors. I’ve tried Western medicine, meditation, and acupuncture. I’ve had a variety of diagnoses. Fibromyalgia. Repetitive strain injury. Myofascial pain syndrome. And my personal favorite, “It’s all in your head.” Yeah, right, Buster. You try…
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20 May 2011 15 Comments

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato…

by Denny S. Bryce in mermaids

I Am Number Four…

And I’m not talking about the bad movie (based on the NYT Times Bestseller by Pittacus Lore – aka James Frey and Jobie Hughes) that hit the theaters less than a month ago, and is already available on Blue Ray. No, I’m referring to this blog. This is the fourth time in the last hour I’ve started my first Waterworld Mermaids blog, and I have drawn my line in the sand: this one will be the one…

So, prepare yourself. The number four has been my lucky number for more than three decades. Who knows what awe-inspiring blogging will happen in the paragraphs below. What key learnings (God, I hate that phrase…so corporate and annoyingly smug) will you walk away with in the five minutes it will take you to read my first Mermaid blog? (And being the optimist that I…
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19 May 2011 8 Comments

She’s Got a Ticket to Ride

by Susan Jeffery in mermaids

Writers talk a lot about finding time to write.  I’m one of the writers who works a full-time job outside the home.  I’m a librarian and not because I love to read (that’s for another blog).  It’s enough to say I have to find time to write.  Or make time.

There were years when I couldn’t make any commitment at all to a writing schedule.  Family, illness (I’m an MS patient), career, and a loooong commute all conspired against a writing career.  Now, though, the kids are grown, the MS is under control and I’ve changed my schedule so I can take the train to my job in the Bronx.  No car, no every 6-week oil changes, no zillion $$ in gas each month.  And almost ten hours a week to sit back, think and (gasp) write.

Riding the train is all about the schedule – the minutes it takes to get from here to there.  My schedule puts me…
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