"Our Own Stuff"

"Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it." ~David Sedaris

I found that quote this morning and it made me stop and go, "Huh. How true is that? Each of us does bring "our own stuff" into what we read."

Don't agree? How many times have you started writing something and had to scrap it because the characters just weren't speaking to you? How many times have you started reading a story and put it down because you just couldn't relate to the character?

We DO bring "our own stuff" into what we're reading or what we're writing. As writers, when something interesting happens around us, we frequently stop to think, "how can I use that in a story?" We see something, hear something, and BOOM! We HAVE to use that.

Then, when we're reading something someone else has written, we tend to identify with one particular character. If something bad happens to that character or they do soemthing that we think is 'out of the norm' for them, we can get angry with the creator of that character.

We've all heard stories of authors getting letters from 'fans' angry with them for having a character do or say something that they feel is 'not right' for that character. Even though that character sprang from the author's imaginaion, not the reader's, the reader feels they "own" that character. One of our readers swatted Cai with the second book in our Lusting Wild series because the hero of that book was the villain of book one. She was angry that we made her love him. The first book in that series is Changing Times and the second is Changing Hearts. Luckily, the hero in Changing Focus was never a villain, so we didn't get bruised for writing his story.

We agonize over our stories. We strive for perfection. We work our tails off to get everything right in our work. We hope people will become invested in our characters, our plots, our little worlds. We wait anxiously for that first review, the first time someone says, "Oh, I read your book!" We obsessively check our email for fan mail.

What we don't do is stop to think about others bringing their "own stuff" into our world. And quite possibly, we shouldn't. If we stopped to try to please everyone else, we'd never be able to please ourselves. We need to embrace our characters, give them life, and then turn them loose into the world to see what life they take on for themselves in the minds of our readers.

So what do you think about this issue of control? How does it affect your writing?

Why Writing A Novel Is Like Thanksgiving Dinner

Have you ever thought about the similarities between writing a novel and Thanksgiving dinner?  No? Well, stop and think for a moment. I think we can draw a lot of correlations between the two.

Let's start with our hero – the one who perfectly carves a turkey without tearing a single piece apart. Right. Who likes a perfect hero? Let's give him a few flaws. He can carve the turkey, but he routinely forgets to charge the electric knife. 

Our heroine can set a perfect table but she is usually too busy yelling at the game to remember to get everything out on time so you have to wait for halftime to eat.

Conflict is what happens when your hero's family and heroine's family meet for the first time. In your book, this is the reason they want to stay apart. The holiday is the reason they can't. Great conflict occurs when you put them into a pushmi/pullyu situation.

You can add external conflict as well. What family gathering is complete without at least one uninvited relative who is always cheering on the wrong team?

The whole family relates to your cast of secondary characters. Uncle Joe who eats the last piece of pie while his wife criticizes the use of new china instead of Great Aunt Nonnie's best. 

There’s the big black moment when you realize that nothing you do will ever be enough for some family members while others wouldn't have noticed if you'd bought a rotisserie chicken at the market. Your story comes crashing down around your hero and heroine at this point.

 

Then, just like at Thanksgiving, you realize that the whole reason for writing the book and making the dinner was to feed yourself. Your dreams of writing are what are important and not the criticisms of others. As with every good story, or meal, there’s triumph and tears and everything in-between.

Yep, writing a novel is a lot like Thanksgiving dinner. When it goes well, there’s a happy ending. Your team wins, your pie crust doesn’t burn and your turkey is a gorgeous golden brown. All of your side dishes are perfect, made from old family recipes. Everyone gets along for the duration of the meal and a little while afterwards. There’s a happy ending for dinner and for your novel.

So, at this time of year, let’s give thanks for novels and for our traditions. Even if your family isn’t perfect or your turkey gets burned or if you forget the cranberry sauce in the fridge. There’s always room for a happy ending.

From our families to yours, happy holidays! Cai and Arwen aka Marilu Mann.

Stories That Write Themselves...

"Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say." ~Sharon O'Brien

Stories that write themselves. Sounds a bit spooky. Perfect for this month of October with its ghouls, witches and bats. Is it a new form of ghost-writing? Or is it something else?



Ever have one of those stories? Ever just not want to stop writing because you couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next? We have, and let us tell you what a joy and pleasure it is to have one of those stories. The characters not only speak to you, they speak loudly and frequently and if you try to veer away from where they want you to go, the sudden silence is more than just deafening, it’s terrifying!

"Writing is flying in dreams. When you remember. When you can. When it works. It's that easy.” ― Neil Gaiman

Then, if you start paying attention to them again, the words flow – no, they gush – and the story takes flight again. Neil is so right. When it works, it really works. We want to share how one particular whirlwind story flew for us so easily we both had to pinch ourselves.

Here’s the scoop …one of the authors on our publisher’s author loop got a bill in the mail from Old Dominion Power company. The phone number made her laugh, because it was 888-Dom-Help. She, being an erotica writer, thought it funny that a Dom would need help…then she tossed that out on the author loop and several of us jumped on it with both feet.

We changed the phone number slightly (1-800-DOM-help) so as not to cause problems for the power company, developed a “bible” for the series, agreed on the number of authors to be involved/invited to write for the series, and pitched it to TPTB (the powers that be).

Waiting for approval was excruciating, but neither of us is particularly blessed with patience. When the word came down that we were good to go, the whole group turned quiet as everyone began working on their story. Of course, we had to tweak the bible just a bit to fit the developing stories.

With the series approved and the bible in place, we started tossing ideas around trying to hit on the perfect one to write about. We had several “thoughts” on the matter, some discussion, and then decided to combine two ideas into one story and BOOM – we started writing.

Cai started the story telling Arwen she’d send it to her when she got stuck. Nearly 5000 words later, Arwen got the first installment. The entire story, from beginning to end, took us three weeks to finish. Twenty-one days and we had it polished and ready to send to our editor. She loved it, made minor revisions, and Needing Harte became the first published work in the 1-800-DOM-help series.

By the way, if you're looking for the rest of that series featuring authors Desiree Holt, Francesca Hawley, Michelle Polaris, Delilah Devlin, Christine D'Abo, Samantha Cayto, Delphine Dryden, Kathy Kulig and Allie Standifer, look for the white business card with 1-800-DOM-help on all of the covers.

From a 'germ’ of an idea to an eager group of authors, we dove into that process of discovery. It flowed. We flew. To date, that is one of our best-sellers. That story made writing fun. We were both a bit sad to say good-bye to Harte and Ramey, but it made us eager to see what might come next.

What about you? What has been your experience with stories that write themselves?

Social Networking and Writing...

Social networking is a tool that a savvy writer can use to his or her advantage. The two main avenues that most are familiar with are Facebook and Twitter. Another form that rarely gets tagged as social networking are the email loops. Let's talk about all three today. Some writers don't do anything on the first two because they think it's self-promotion. They don't want to seem forward.

Guess what? It IS self-promotion and publishers expect you to do it. You are your own best publicity. Unless you can afford a publicist, you need to do it yourself. A good publicist can cost you anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000 a month. That's right. A month. So if you can afford $12,000 to $60,000 a year for someone else to promote your work, you can skip this post. If your budget doesn’t allow for that, then let’s talk about Facebook, Twitter and email loops.

Facebook (aka MySpace killer) offers a way to interact with your readers by utilizing a fan page. In fact, Facebook doesn’t like promotion on a “personal” page and might deactivate your account if you use your personal page for promotion. Set up a Fan Page or Author Page instead. First thing you need to do is fill out your profile. If you are published, put up some book covers, share some excerpts and put up a link to your publisher.

Keep in mind that if you’re sharing excerpts you need to be careful about what you put up there and what settings you have if you’re writing “adult” scenes. Link your page and your blog and your Twitter account to this Fan Page. Then tell your friends and family about it. Ask them to let folks know. Don't ask them more than once every 8-12 weeks though. Don't send "like me" notes every week. Consider how you feel when you get hit with those all the time.

Things to consider if you have a Facebook page:

1. Content rules. Even if you just put up a Character Fact Of the Day, change that status 3-5 times a week. People will get used to visiting. They will eventually leave comments. Think of your fans as feral cats. They aren't going to leap in at first. You need to keep leaving things for them. Trust me. They will start to talk to you.

2. Social means just that. You need to interact with others. Say hello to new fans as you can. Pick 3-5 people each day and visit their page. Like one of their statements or, better yet, comment on it. When someone sends a “Friend” request, don’t just accept that request, leave a comment with your acceptance.

3. “Like” other pages. It's helpful to say hello to another author that you admire or know. That does two things. You are showing that you give a fig about someone else's career and their fans may come see who you are. Maybe they will like you too.

Come like our fan page http://www.facebook.com/marilumann

In order not to bite too much into your writing time, I recommend allowing 10-20 minutes three times a week for Facebook.

Twitter has proven to be extremely useful for the Arwen half of Marilu Mann as a Tarot consultant. Arwen says: I've built up my Tarot businesses by using Twitter. Many people do not like Twitter because of the 140 character limitation. It is challenging. You have to learn how to do 'net shorthand. Personally, I used to loathe NetSpeak. Now? I've lrnd 2 lv it.

Arwen does promote both her Tarot business and Marilu’s books on Twitter, but feels that Twitter is more about shaking hands and kissing babies and laughing with friends. Where Facebook is a conference workshop, Twitter is a cocktail party. You can float in and out of various conversations at will.

A mini book club started on Twitter with three people discussing Changing Times: Lusting Wild 1 on Twitter. Since then that group has read the other two books in that series as well and tweeted about them.

Things to consider if you Tweet:

1. How much do you retweet others? It should be 30% or better. This is about SOCIAL networking not being your own obnoxious stage mother.

2. How much do you tweet about just mundane stuff without any real meaning? People want to feel connected. No, they don't want to know what you are having for lunch. They might want to know that your sister called and made you laugh, especially if you share the joke. They want to see you as human.

3. When you do tweet your books/signings/contests/workshops/readings, make it fun. Give something back for those who retweet. Enter them in a contest. Tell them you'll send them some swag. Arwen occasionally does free one-card readings for folks who retweet for her.

4. Don't start and then stop. Having a 5-10 minute a day Twitter fest is perfect. If you have the ability, put Twitter on your phone so you can text quick notes and retweet using your favorite Tweeting application.

Don’t obsess about followers – either who’s following you or who you’re following. But you might be surprised by the connections you make. Cai follows Jeff Probst and had a very interesting Twitter conversation with Jeff and Barbara Vey (Publisher’s Weekly) during last season’s Survivor. Many celebrities have Twitter accounts and though they rarely respond to people they don’t already know, you can sometimes get “inside scoop” on things by following them.

You can follow us if you like.
http://www.twitter.com/tarotbyarwen (main) or
http://www.twitter.com/tarotscopes (usually only <20 Tweets on Sunday.)
http://www.twitter.com/caismith

We don’t have a Twitter account for Marilu Mann mainly because neither of us truly has the time to maintain that and we don’t want it to be something stagnant.

Again, in order not to take too much time away from your writing or waste too much time otherwise, we recommend 10-20 minutes a day during the week for Twitter.

The last part of this post deals with the email loops. These are trickier because they can be a huge time-suck. They are valuable because you have access to a captive audience. If you position your posts well, you can gain exposure. You need to join a variety of lists. Our publisher has a chat loop that is open to readers. It can be a crazy, free-for-all where the posts fly fast and furious. We have List Mom days that feature one or two authors who share excerpts from their upcoming books as well as excerpts from others. Kate Hill is List Mom Extraordinaire in my book.

So look for lists that are not just other authors. Promoting your work to other authors can become a bit annoying. Yes, you want them to read your books, because authors are primarily readers, too, but you really want to reach a broader audience than just other authors. It's great to chat about the craft, but if you want the real pulse of the reading world, join a readers loop that focuses on your genre. Mind your manners though. Agents, editors and publishers also lurk there.

Things to consider if you join reader email loops:

1. Comment on other people's posts. Reply to them without inserting "my next book" in every response. Have a presence. Try to post to that list at least 3 times a week as a response to what someone else says. One great way to interact is when you respond to someone's "what should I read next" with books by other authors. Again, you are showing yourself to be the nice human you really are and not the READ ME READ ME READ ME NOW author that some come across as.

2. Have a signature line. This is a very simple way of guiding people to you. Common netiquette is to keep it under four lines. More than that and you risk people not reading any of it. They want short and sweet not "War and Peace". Some loops even limit the number of lines you can have in your signature line – and don’t put your book covers in there. Book covers don’t belong on your signature line. They belong on your Facebook account and your website.

3. When you post promotion, try to make it less about the book and more about something else. You can run contests that ask people to like you on Facebook and retweet your book title for a chance to win a $10 gift card to Amazon. That's far cheaper than that publicist.
A reasonable recommendation for email loops is 20 minutes three times a week. Put the busier ones on digest and filter them into a folder rather than having them go straight to your inbox. It might put you a little bit behind in replying to some messages, but you also don’t waste time reading posts that aren’t of interest or concern to you.

If you do it right, you can spend less than 4 hours a week doing easy self-promotion. If you are working a 40 hour week, that leaves 90% of your week to devote to writing.

Final words of advice? All ways chek yur spellin. Otherwise you may lose more readers than you gain. Second, keep the personal opinions to yourself unless asked for them. Though you might think of yourself as a “font of all knowledge,” chances are others won’t. Maintain your professionalism at all times because you just never know when your post might go viral and be seen by editors, agents, and other professionals in the publishing industry. You don’t want to be “that” author.

RULES!

The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it. -Glaser and Way

There are always rules. Don't head hop. Don't use fragments. Don't use run-ons. Show, don't tell.

Elmore Leonard would have you believe you should simply "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."

Well now, that's easy, isn't it? All you have to do is know exactly what every one of your readers likes to read.

But is it really that simple?

Take the Arwen half of Marilu Mann. She loves descriptive passages. Give her lengthy, detailed narratives where every dress is described down to the stitching on the hemline and she's happy. The Cai half of Marilu Mann would rather have her eyes gouged out. She prefers witty, scintillating dialogue and action to propel her story forward.

A well-known "set-in-concrete-don't-you-even-think-about-breaking-it" rule is no head hopping. Basically this means that you should stay in one character's POV (point of view) for at least the full scene. I can easily rattle off several big name authors who trample that rule like it was a small bug in their way as they head to the bank to cash that next six figure royalty check. There are some who stick rigidly to that "rule" with every book they write, but most don't.

And for goodness sake! Don't. Use. Fragments. Right. I'm betting Faulkner could be used as an example of taking that rule a bit too far. Fragments actually work well in action scenes. The sparing use of them can help punctuate better than the ever-dreaded exclamation point. (Arwen cringes here because she knows Cai is looking at her with that look!!!!!) What? (Arwen LOVES exclamation points - AND CAPITALIZATION for emphasis!!!)

The "show, don't tell" is a good one for the most part but there are times when you just need to tell. Sometimes it is okay to say, "the man sat down in the chair" rather than "the man strode into the room as if he owned the place. Eyeing the furniture disdainfully, he hooked a chair towards him with his foot, then straddled it." Hmm. Here is a case of Arwen preferring one over the other. Cai thinks it depends entirely on what comes before and what comes after...sometimes less is definitely more, at others you can draw out the tension in a scene by expanding it in subtle ways.

So what does that mean for you, the writer?

This all comes back to another "set-in-concrete-don't-you-even-think-about-breaking-it" rule. That rule is TELL A GOOD STORY. This is one that really never should be broken. When you're concentrating all your efforts on telling a good story and the reader recognizes that, they probably won't notice that you've disregarded a few rules along the way.

The true take-away from this? Just keep the rules in mind as guidelines rather than boundaries. See them as fences to help corral your wayward thoughts and words but don't worry if you go free-ranging every now and again. Pushing the limits can be a good thing when done with intention.

And when you can't help but break some of those unwritten codes, remember the immortal words of Captain Barbosa from Pirates of the Carribean, The Curse of the Black Pearl "...the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."

Reviews - Love them or Hate them?

"From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review." Isaac Asimov

It would be not a far stretch to say writers as a whole are a bit schizophrenic in how they react to a review. On one hand, you have those copious bleeders who splatter one and all when they get a bad review. Or you get those who glow so blindingly over a good review that it's hard to believe.

My favorite quote about negative reviews is by Max Reger, German composer, who pithily offers, "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me." It might take a minute or two to register, but you may agree with me that his sarcastic response to a bad review is quite funny. We're probably fortunate that he wrote music and not books.

Even Danielle Steel has this to say about reviews, "A bad review is like baking a cake with all the best ingredients and having someone sit on it." You can probably guess that she was having a bad reaction to a less-than-warm review. Let's face it. Some reviewers seem to look only for what's wrong in a story or they're taking out some personal vendetta against the author. They appear to think their role is to rip to shreds all books except for the crème de la crème. Walter Kaufman, German philosopher, offers that "The first function of a book review should be, I believe, to give some idea of the contents and character of the book." I wonder what he might have made of all the review sites popping up on the Internet

People like to offer their opinions. It's almost as if there is some monetary value in being able to tell someone what you like and having them buy into you enough to believe that your opinion is what they should believe as well. If you find a reviewer who consistently likes what you like as well as consistently dislikes what you dislike, then you've found a match made in heaven. But how often is that? I know I go to movies that professional reviewers trash simply because I, like so many others, want to determine if I like something for myself.

Still, I do agree with Kenneth Koch. "It's enormously cheering to get a good review by someone who seems to understand your work." When I get a good review, I want the entire universe to know. I've had reviewers who saw into the hearts of my characters. They seemed to know my characters as well as I did. And I loved it. When a reviewer tells me that I've moved them to tears, it does my heart good. My job is to tell the best story that I can as consistently as I can. I am trying to touch my readers on several levels, especially on an emotional level. So to hear that a reviewer has been touched? Oh yes, it makes me a glowingly happy author.

How do you deal with bad reviews? What about good ones? And if you review someone else's work, how to you approach it? Do you rip the books you don't care for to shreds or do you try really hard to find something, anything that you can talk positively about, even in books you don't want to read again?

I like to put links to reviews I’ve received up on my website – curious? Check some of them out on my

Tis but thy name that is my enemy

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague,
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d

Romeo and Juliet; Act II by William Shakespeare

No, this isn't a post about Micah Keeps Vigil -- even though he is fond of quoting the Bard. This is about that one thing we all have. Even that artist formerly known as. Names. So…really…what is in a name? I’ve always been fascinated by names. Where parents get them. Why they spell them the way they do. All different reasons for names and all different names that people come up with.

During the course of working ‘the day job’ I frequently come across ‘different’ names. I like to make note of these, keeping them in a special folder on my computer just in case I ever get stuck for a character name. Of course I can't use the exact ones but it's always fun to see what names come through. Have you got some you love? In one half of Marilu's family tree, there is a gentleman by the name of Shepard. Not so bad until you learn that is first name is Germanicus. That's not even the worst. Have you ever researched your family tree to giggle over "those" names?

Some people today name their kids very different names – can you think of a few? What about:

• Moon Unit
• Fifi Trixibelle
• Pilot Inspektor
• Sage Moonblood

I also like to search for “the meaning” of some names – some of the websites I used to find character names are:

• www.behindthename.com
• www.alternativebabynames.com
• www.trendybabynames.com

What draws you to a particular name? Are there some names you feel are overused in fiction? My publisher actually supplies a list of “overused” hero names and strongly suggests that authors find other names for their main characters. Do you think there are names that you never want to see in print again?

Are there names that make you picture a certain person? If I say, “George,” for instance, do you think Washington or Clooney? What about Sean? Connery or Penn? What does a Stanley look like to you? A Stella? Let's play the name game.

You know you're a writer if...

This was written by the writing team of Marilu Mann when we were using a different pen name of Cai Stephan.

You know you're a writer if...
By Cai Stephan

1. You've ever forwarded a joke but only after correcting the spelling
2. You've ever edited your own email to a friend so that it wasn't in the passive voice
3. You've ever used a red pen while reading a book for "fun"
4. You don't know what reading a book for fun means
5. You can't watch closed caption TV because the captioners can't spell
6. You've wanted to go back on this list and correct the missing periods at the end of each sentence
7. You want to go back through this list and rewrite it so it is funnier and tighter
7. Your children won't let you read their math homework because you keep telling them the story problems would be better if the characters had clearer motivations
9. You've actually submitted better story problems to the Math book publishers because HEY being published is what it's all about
10. You didn't know that there are two number sevens on this list because that's a number problem.
11. You know the definition of TSTL and you strive to avoid it.
12. You know the meaning of GMC and can find it in any story you read.
13. Your friends and family delete anything you send them that has an attachment and the subject line of "I want your opinion".
14. You have EVER reshelved books of people you know so that they get a better shelf view.
15. You had any clue what #13 was referring to.
16. You are trying to add more sayings to this list as you read it.
17. You have ever been caught jotting down notes about people in a meeting that were character sketches.
18. You replay snippets of overheard conversations as dialog between your characters.
19. You watch people on the street, in the grocery store, at your kid's soccer games, to get an idea of what people wear when they're just out and about and use that as part of your character sketches.
20. You have EVER been falsely accused of being a stalker because you thought someone was interesting enough to follow.
21. You keep a journal by your bed for those ideas that "hit" you in the.middle of the night.
22. You've been known to tell your family NOT to interrupt your writing time - unless there's blood.
23. Your significant other knows they're going to get some serious ribbing about the love scenes in your most recent book, and they have the grace to just smile smugly when it happens.
24. You still blush when your family members read your books because you just KNOW they're going to read that love scene it took you hours to write.
25. You endure people wondering about YOUR love life when they read your love scenes. and it's YOUR turn to smile smugly.

And we know we are a writing team when we can happily announce our eighth story with Ellora's Cave. All Tied Up is part of the Merry Kinkmas story. This book is a Ménage à trois featuring Japanese rope bondage.

Blurb:

Wendy has a kinky fantasy—she wants to be tied up. Not just spread-eagle in bed, but with rope all over and around her body. She shares that with her lover Peter who arranges a session with local Kinbaku Master, James.

They learn that having sex at someone else’s direction while completely restrained is more than hot. Can they repeat their experience? Do they want to without Master Darling, who would like to make their arrangement more permanent?

You can learn more about this story here.

What to do when your Characters WON'T behave...

You know what I'm talking about. You're writing along, happily involved in your plot, perfectly content with your hero and heroine and everything is going smoothly...

Then that one character, the one you had fully intended to be a secondary, sort of throw-away character, pipes up...

"Hey you. You there with the serious look on your face. Yeah, you. Writer. What about me?"

"What about you? your story line ends in another chapter."

"Oh no it doesn't! I'm not going to go quietly!"

"What does that mean, 'you're not going to go quietly?' I created you. If I say your storyline ends in the next chapter, then it ends in the next chapter. Now, go sit over there and be quiet. I'm at a pivotal plot point and need to concentrate!"

"Oh yeah? Well, concentrate on THIS!"

And that character does something you hadn't really planned for him to do and suddenly your story has changed. Oh, not that he's going to come in and take over completely, but let's face it - he's made a difference and now you're going to have to deal with that.

Sometimes that is more than an author can handle and they allow that secondary character to take over, to become another hero in their story line. Sometimes the author solves this problem by killing that character off. That's all well and good - IF it fits in with the plot. Then again, some (most) authors try to develop that secondary character into his or her own story - promising them the sequel if they'll just behave long enough for the first book to be written.

That's what happened with my first book, Changing Times, where the very bad guy suddenly got a heart. What was I going to do with him now? I had planned on a bloody massacre where the hero got to pummel him into a pulp, but now what? I had to go back and ease up a bit on his villainy, but I've still been smacked by readers.

No, really! I mean someone walked up to me and HIT me with my second book, Changing Hearts, because I made them love the villain they had hated.

Handling unruly secondary characters is a fine art. You want to develop your plot and your main characters to the point that they seem like real people To that end, they need friends, families, co-workers and not just as plot devices.

Keeping a tight rein on those characters without totally stifling them means walking a very fine line. You have to make them believeable and you have to make your readers care about them - just not as much as they care about the main characters. At the same time, you cannot allow them to take over your story. What do you do if that starts to happen?

You can let them have their moment in the sun, let them take over for a little while and see how that works for your story. You can stifle them, pushing them to the background and ignoring their pitiful cries to be heard. You can also open a new document, start writing their story, and see if that will keep them quiet long enough for you to finish what you started.

What do YOU do when those secondary characters try to take over? How do you handle them?

After all those years in Asia, I don't have to do promotion anymore. We just release a Jackie Chan movie and - Boom! - people go. ~ Jackie Chan

I do promotion when it is necessary, but I always want to get back to the music.~Enya

Oh how I wish I could be like Jackie Chan or Enya. To be able to release a book and – Boom! – people reading…it would be lovely. Sadly, that is rarely the case for most authors. You have to build your audience. You have to encourage them to read your words by promoting yourself. There are many ways to do this.

One thing published authors must take into consideration is promotional materials. I'm not talking about promo where you talk about your latest book. I mean the tangible stuff sometimes referred to as SWAG. That's a slang term for free promotional items. SWAG, aka Stuff We All Get, can be anything from bookmarks to t-shirts.

I've used pens, coffee cups, bookmarks and postcards in the past. Honestly, however, paper promo is not really SWAG per se because it is paper. Consider things like beach towels, lunch bags, jump drives, water bottles, stress balls and jar openers instead. You want something the reader will keep using so that they keep seeing your name. This is part of that old marketing adage sometimes called the Rule of Seven.

“The customer needs to see an advertisement seven times before it is effective.”

That generally means seven times but in as many different mediums as you can afford. So a book video, a bookmark, a good review—all of those are marketing in terms of being seen. If you can get something physical in the reader's hands, then you've upped the ante considerably!

Pens are one of the most common swag items. I personally like pens that work. I still have pens I got at RWA conferences three years ago.

One enterprising author put her name and book cover on water bottles. While this is a great idea, it's temporary. Raise your hand if you did NOT throw away the water bottle once it was empty.

That's what I thought. But sometimes, that's okay. I still remember that author's name (Kresley Cole for those who are curious - LOL) and even that the book cover had a ship on it so it must have worked, right?

One difficulty is finding the right source for your promotional items. I want the most bang for my buck just like everyone else. So I find 500 jar openers at one site for .50 each. What about this other site where I can get 650 jar openers for .35? Get your calculators out, darlings. This is where that high school math comes in handy. 500 jar openers at $.50 each is a grand total of $250.00 whereas 650 for $.35 is $227.00. Houston, we have a winner!

But do we, really?

Let's say the second site has an art set up charge of $90 plus shipping and handling BUT the first one is only $40 and if you order by Friday you get free shipping. Well that just bounced the 650 up to $317.00 which brought them up to $.48 a piece. So they are still cheaper than the first site per item but it may be a win for your pocketbook to stick to the $250.00. Or you can team up with another author and cut your cost even more!

For the Romantic Times Booklovers Conference in 2009, I joined forces with Ashlyn Chase to purchase 1000 coffee mugs.

By splitting all the production and shipping costs we were able to get a nicer swag item. It was popular for sure!

Other authors have also combined their money to come up with bigger items for that conference. C.T. Adams & Cathy Clamp offered the cutest lunch bags that were handed out at the 2009 RT Awards that were just stuffed with books. I use mine on a daily basis - good advertising for them, right?

Some good sites to look for promotional items are:

1. http://www.4imprint.com/
2. http://www.motivators.com/
3. http://www.gopromos.com/

You can also ask your fellow authors who they use. Pay attention if they tell you that the customer service was not good. Bad customer service is never worth the money you save.

For my publisher's convention, RomantiCon 2010 this October in Ohio, I will be offering mini bottles of Tabasco with my name, website and tagline.



Here is the actual size.



My plan is to put these out with my business cards and some postcards featuring my latest book, Needing Harte, with the tagline "Add a little Spice to your Life." This story is my first novella-length M/M set in a BDSM world and will release on October 6. You can find that here.

Needing Harte

Harte Donovan has a problem. A murder leads him to wanting a sexy stripper bound and naked in front of him. He can’t let his secret desires ruin his career as a detective. When he’s given a mysterious business card, Harte discovers a side of himself he intends to fully embrace.

Ramey Nichols strips for a living and he’s not willing to pretend to be something he’s not. When this sexy submissive meets the closeted cop and unwitting Dom, something has got to give. That something might just be Ramey. Ramey knows what he wants, and more than that, finds himself Needing Harte.

This is part of a brand-new series called 1-800-DOM-help

So what kind of swag do you like to get? Do you still have anything from conventions past? If you have a great promo place, please share it with us.

The Inspiration Club

Jack London said,
"Don't loaf and invite inspiration. Light out after it with a club."

Isn’t this being a writer thing an interesting gig? We get to make up stories and entertain people. We also get to blame our Muses for those periods of drought, and inactivity. What if it isn't your Muse who is to blame though? What if it really is you?


One thing we've learned is that you can't just invite inspiration. As Jack London said, you really do have to go after it—guns blazing, clubs swinging, full-tilt boogie! Sometimes the club we use is a writers' weekend. We model this after a weekend our friend and fellow author, J.L. Wilson put together. That weekend at Turtle Lake Casino is a twice-yearly event and involves a lot of work, some fun, and copious amounts of inspiration – sometimes accompanied by several glasses of wine.

Our weekends are now in Texas since we both live here. The lovely city of Waco is the halfway point between us. We’ll find a hotel that has affordable prices and split the cost. We try to find a room with a mini-fridge and microwave in addition to an internet connection. We find that bringing our own food helps defray the cost and allows us to spend more time writing and less time worrying about having to get dressed up and go out to get something to eat.

Once in the rooms we get serious. We unpack the wine, the chocolate and the computers—usually in that order. Generally we have decided what we are going to work on beforehand, though sometimes we’ll find inspiration on the way to the hotel and start on something completely different than we’d planned. One of the pluses of being a writing team is that we can work on more than one manuscript at a time.


The last weekend we had resulted in:

• Over 7K being written on two different manuscripts
• Plotting an entirely new series
• Defining characters for this new series
• Refining some ideas on the new series like who the villain is and who kisses whom—or not
• Inspiration that carried over to the next week

Just like a good book, you have to pace a writers' weekend. Otherwise your Muse may go into Cranky Toddler Mode. That's where she sits and whines if she is not allowed to do anything else. So we do take breaks. We hop on the treadmill. We go soak our heads aka take a dip in the pool. Checking email is a HUGE distraction so we try to limit that—that means Twitter, too, Arwen!


Then when the writing begins, we are ready. Email, the TV and all other distractions get turned off. Cai puts on her headphones for her music because Arwen is one of those who needs silence to write. This is our version of “lighting out” after that inspiration with a club…but the “club” in question is sometimes just the two of us bouncing ideas off one another.

So…how do YOU light out after inspiration? Do you actively seek ways to inspire your Muse to new and greater heights? Do you find your inspiration in music? Poetry? Art? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

By the way, you can read the first chapter of our most recent release here.

Who Is Marilu Mann?

Marilu Mann is a multi-published author with Ellora's Cave. Her latest release, Sex And Trouble, features a brand-new witch and her sexy demon butler. Her next release is part of a multi-author series titled 1-800-Dom-help. Marilu's story, Needing Harte, is a M/M BDSM that proves love sometimes overcomes control.

Cai Smith and Stephanie Lynch comprise the writing team of Marilu Mann. One email series kicked off their first manuscriptwhich they finished as a rough draft (VERY rough draft) in three and a half months. Stephanie attended the RWA National Conference in Denver in 2002, and had the opportunity to pitch that first novel to an editor who requested a full. Not bad for a first pitch,eh? Though it was rejected, they were started on a quest for publication.

Taking the pre-published contest plunge in 2005, they finaled in six contests and won two others with Changing Hearts. That manuscript was requested by two editors and two agents and was eventually contracted by Ellora's Cave along with its prequel, Changing Times. Those are the first two books in Marilu Mann's Lusting Wild series.Visit them at Marilu Mann - Escape Into The Fantasy.

Edits, Edits, Who’s Got The Edits?

What is your editing process? As a writing team, ours is probably different from what you might do. Basically, Arwen starts a story – writing 1500 words. She happily sends it off to Cai then sits back waiting for the accolades to roll in. (Of course, it could be Cai who starts the story, in which case, just reverse all the names below. LOL)

Cai whips out her proverbial red pen and proceeds to edit the snot out of Arwen’s clichés and grammar mistakes. She then adds 2500 brilliant words and sends it back to Arwen just knowing that Arwen is going to delightedly accept the changes and breeze through her additions.

Arwen growls as she admits to 75% of Cai’s changes as being good, but fights back on 25%. Then Arwen hauls out her tarot deck to heavily correct Cai's plot gaps and character flaws. She then adds the best 500 words of her life and hits “send.”

Cai accepts 10% of Arwen's rejections on her original edits. Then she sighs and accepts 75% of Arwen's edits while massaging her temples and fighting back on 25%. She reads the minimal effort from Arwen and decides to wait a day or so before adding or editing any more. Adding another 2500 words after a few days, Cai sends the whole shebang back to Arwen and waits with bated breath for Arwen to read/edit and send it back again.

By the time we reach the end of the first draft, we've got a pretty good handle on what is working and what scenes need to be completely re-worked. All silliness aside, this is how we edit as we go without rewriting the same three pages ad infinitum. We find that this gives us a fairly clean first draft. Then we can spend time going back over the whole manuscript tightening character development and making sure our GMC (Goal, Motivation, Conflict) for each character is fully developed.

When we're both ready to call it “done,” our next step is to find a beta reader or two. We think we know where the weak spots are, so we ask our beta readers to concentrate on those areas, but also to point out anything else they come across in their reading that jars them out of the story for whatever reason. With their suggestions in mind, we read the story with fresh eyes and make whatever changes we feel will strengthen the story. In the end, that is what is the most important. What makes the story truly work.

Then and only then are we ready to send it off to an editor with a query letter attached. So what is YOUR process? Do you write, edit, write some more? Or do you write the entire manuscript then go back and edit each scene, each chapter, etc., Let us know, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

So you want to write a series…

Whether with another writer, a group of writers, or just your very own special series just for you (well, and your readers!), there are certain things you must be prepared to do. World building is a must – whether you’re working by yourself or with others. Your first consideration should be continuity. What time period will you be writing in? If you’re working with other writers, you must decide on what commonalities your works are going to have – are you going to set all your stories in the same town, in the same hotel or restaurant, or nightclub? Are your characters going to interact with the characters of the other stories? If so, you have to come to some understanding of the other author’s writing process and figure out how your characters are going to interact and how often.

You need to track when a character mentions parents, hometowns, siblings, etc. A series is really a type of soap opera when you think about it. Characters in the same place who may or may not interact with one another. An interesting example of a crossover is J.R. Ward's new Covenant series. In the first book, a character from her previous series makes an appearance. It's subtle and you have to have read the first series (Black Dagger Brotherhood) to get the reference. But trust me, if you have readers who have read the other books, they will notice when the heroine of your fifth book is the sister of the hero of the first book who said in book one he only had brothers.

If you’re doing your own series, there’s still plenty of world building that must be done. You have to decide on the “rules” of your world and then stick to them or the readers WILL call you out on that. Want to write a vampire story with a twist? Better use that twist but don’t forget what it is! Want to set all your stories in the same town? Don’t move any building from one story to the other unless it’s part of your plot to have disappearing buildings or blow something up!

One thing to do to preserve continuity is to have a character from a past book do a cameo in another book. This will do two things at the very least. It anchors your new book in your world. Plus if someone is reading out of order (and we all do that at some point), it will alert them to past books hopefully encouraging them to pick up some backlist.

Series shouldn't try to reinvent a wheel that was created in the first book. That's why a bible is important. No, not that Bible. In this case a bible refers to important story pieces that you need to remember.

In our Lusting Wild series, we have a several groups of shifters. Our bible includes listing who is in which Pack. For instance there's the Compound Pack who cause quite a bit of trouble in Changing Times and Changing Hearts, books one and two in the Lusting Wild series. But by book three, Changing Focus, the Compound Pack has shifted (you should pardon the pun) towards a more law-abiding pack although they still have one or two control issues that the hero of Changing Focus, has to deal with.

When you are writing a series, you really want to make sure that you provide enough clues for the next character's story as well. We recently got a comment on our publisher's page regarding a supporting character from book three. The reader was hoping his story would be next. We have good news for that reader. Gareth's story is definitely one we will be working on. Book three also re-introduced a were-leopard lawyer character who had a small role in book one and a minor character from book two, a member of the Compound pack, who is a wolf as well as a lawyer. The interaction between them intrigued us enough to start plotting their romance as well.

Currently, we are working with a group of fellow Ellora's Cave authors on a new multiple-author series. This particular series will have only two common elements-a phone number and a private club. The stories will be contemporary erotica with a BDSM twist. We have all worked on the concept and common characters as well as shared our synopses for each of the books. The next step is putting a proposal together to pitch to The Powers That Be aka our Editor-In-Chief. Our hope is that she will like the series idea enough to give it the thumbs up. Then we have to write the books individually. The process will be the same in that we have to submit them to an editor, but because they will tie into one another, we plan to have a group marketing effort.

A good example of this type of multi-author series is the Crimson City series. Authors Liz Maverick, Marjorie Liu, Jade Lee, Patti O'Shea and Carolyn Jewell all wrote manuscripts within this world. Their paranormal world featured a cast of races that allowed the authors to delve into their favorites while pulling in cameos from other characters in other books. It was so well-done that there is a rumor that Crimson City may be making a comeback.

So do you read series? If you do, what do you like best about them? Do you catch small mistakes from a secondary character's emerald green eyes suddenly becoming ice blue in the fourth book? Why do you read series? Do you prefer single titles to series? Considering all of this will help you become a better series writer if that is your goal.

Highway to Hell...or Cai & Arwen's Very Unexcellent Adventure

Ain't nothing I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too
I'm on the Highway to Hell...
Lyrics by ACDC

The hero of my latest story is a big fan of ACDC, so I felt it appropriate to start my blog off with those lyrics. In Sex and Trouble, Rosier escapes his boredom with captivity by blasting heavy metal. I knew when I set off to Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention 2010 in Columbus, Ohio, that I wouldn't be playing a lot of heavy metal, though. You see, I am two people - Cai Smith and Arwen Lynch. One of us, Cai, loves the headbangin' stuff while the other, Arwen, is more of a folkie. We compromise on music and both adore audio books.

When we left Fort Worth, Texas at 5:30 AM Monday morning, we fully expected to arrive at the convention hotel by midnight at the latest since both the GPS and Google Maps told us it was a 15.5 hour drive. Little did we know that the Universe had other things in mind for our journey...

We cruised up the highway to Arkansas--pleased with the time we were making and the journey itself--then on through Tennessee and into Kentucky. And that's where the wheels started to fall off. We stopped regularly for gas, potty breaks and to walk around a bit, stretching those traveling kinks out. On one of those stops at some very nice but nameless roadside rest stop, Cai decided to take her contacts out. Her eyes were tired so it was time for glasses.

Unfortunately, one contact decided not to cooperate. Cai scratched her cornea trying to get the darned thing out. Arwen took over the wheel, but drove only until we reached Elizabethtown, KY. We hit the local ER so Cai's eye could be checked out. Sure enough, she'd injured her eye badly enough to need an antibiotic cream. Two and a half hours later, we were back on the road with Cai behind the wheel once again.

We have a great friendship that goes back many years. One of the things we knwow is that Cai is the driver and Arwen is the passenger. Some day we'll tell you the story of how Arwen nearly drove into a mountain when she saw some unusual animals on the side of the road. "Look! Buffalo," is how that story starts. Cai prefers to arrive alive so she drives the bulk when we go on long trips.

If we ever go on a long trip after this highway to hell excursion, that is! So, there we are in the car, plotting our next book and laughing about the ER being the worst part of the trip. OOPS! Never say that where "They" can hear you. In the darkest part of the night, on one of Kentucky's (and possibly the USA's) most dangerous stretches of highway, we hit a pothole the size of a Newfoundland...I kid you not.

BOOM!

The car shakes and shudders like a bronco on speed as Cai curses and guides the car to the narrowest piece of shoulder we've ever seen. She's so close to the guardrail that Arwen can barely squeeze out of the passenger-side door. Eighteen-wheelers are zooming past so fast and so close that the car vibrates violently. We have blown a tire on a hill about 31 miles south of Cincinnati. This is on Highway 41N and we're also on a bridge. Can you say, "perfect horror movie setup?"

We could.

Once Cai managed to stop shaking, we called AAA. This is when we received the worst customer service EVER! The operator manages to make us feel like the worst idiots in the world because we're on a stretch of highway neither of us has ever traveled before and we don't know what exit we passed last or what the next exit coming up might be. I know it's hard to believe that we didn't mark each exit on the highway that neither of us has ever been on before as we passed it, right? This woman expressed nothing but contempt and irritation while by-passing even the smallest bit of sympathy for our nightmarish situation. The fact that we were calling her with this "emergency roadside issue" at nearly 2AM seemed to have escaped her notice entirely.

She even told us she could not send someone out if she didn't know where we were. Luckily, Arwen and Cai both have GPS phones. We were able to give her the nearest coordinates. AAA will be receiving a very irate letter about that woman's lack of empathy! But she did manage to send us our knight in a shiny roll-back wrecker, Gene! He was our senior by many years.

Gene towed us down the mountain scolding us about our tires and where we were on the road. You felt like your granddad has just told you off! He was a real sweetheart and our hero. After he put the spare (one of those blasted doughnut tires!) on, he assured us we could make it to Columbus if we only went 60MPH. So we did...

When we reached the convention hotel in Columbus, it was 6:30AM EST Tuesday. We collapsed in our hotel room thanking our personal Higher Powers for seeing us safely there - albeit with a tad more excitement than we might have liked.

Have you ever had a "Highway to Hell" road trip? We'd love to hear YOUR adventures!

And, if you like steamy paranormal romantica, check out our hero Rosier in Sex and Trouble, available digitally from Jasmine Jade Publishing--http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-8274-444-sex-and-trouble.aspx His adventure involves being released from captivity by a very nice, albeit newbie witch!