It’s with fondness and a bittersweet “thank you” that I write this and let everyone know that the Happy Endings blog will be coming to a close.  I’ve enjoyed this so much, I’ve enjoyed every post, every comment and the tremendous community that you have all been a part of.  You’ve been a special part of my life and I thank you for that.

My blog authors: You are amazing ladies, and I couldn’t have keep this alive without you through the years.   I wish you so much luck and success in your future, and I know I’ll see you around the net and at conferences! (And of course, book shelves and stores!)

Our guests: Thank you for participating in our blog. Your posts have brought great insight, fun and made us a better place.  I am grateful.

To our visitors and commentators: THANK YOU.

The ladies here can all be found in a variety of places online – their websites, blogs and of course, Facebook and Twitter!  I invite them all to leave their information in the comments below for you.   As for me, I’m taking a break from the blogging world but you’ll see me around.  I’d love to see you on Facebook (fan page or friend) or Twitter.

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart.

August 25th.  That’s D-day at my desk.  It’s when my first independently published book, The Rock Star’s Sheriff, will be available on Kindle and Smash Words and in print — fingers crossed, knock on wood, creek don’t rise, etc. etc.  That’s just the beginning of this roller coaster ride.  Five short stories will follow in September and October.  Check my website for more details.

When I made this decision, I had some idea what I was getting into, but as with any new endeavor, there were surprises along the way.  They weren’t the ones I thought they’d be, though.  I was prepared to deal with book cover art and interior design and the tricks to good formatting.  But who knew I would take to heart that frequent complaint that self-published books are bad writing and bad formatting and bad, bad, bad.  The result was that I crawled through an edit – six effing weeks! – and challenged every detail, every sentence, every plot point.  I reread the thing three times (against my usual once) before handing it off to my beta readers.  Who knew I’d add two people to my already solid cadre of beta readers just so I would get this thing right.  I’m at the point now where I’ve won’t let myself edit anymore.  I’m just on a search and destroy for mistakes and formatting problems.  Book cover is finished after months of fiddling and tweaking and it’ll just have to do.   Back cover blurb is still in progress – refining and smoothing – and probably will remain so until the very last second.

On August 25th, it’ll be out of my hands and in front of my readers.  I’d like to think I’ll relax then, but probably not.  Not until I see how my readers like this new little town and whether they fall in love with the Murphy family and Zach and Leia in particular.

Details.  The little things.  These give our story richness and yet its possible to go into too much detail and not leave enough to our reader’s imaginations.  With my heroine being a rock star, it would have been easy to slip over into complex descriptions of her clothes, her cars, her possession.  I purposely didn’t do that, leading to a comment by one of my beta readers that I didn’t do enough descriptions to do her lifestyle justice.  (Yes, I did go back and add in more – but honestly, I’m done editing!)  One place I did go deep into the details was her music.  I got to mix up/make up song titles and lyrics and blend them with a true affinity with her guitar through the story.

I could have gone further than I did.  At the end of the story, our rock star sings a love song to her sheriff.  I had a particular song in mind when I wrote this scene, even had the title there – expecting that as an avid romance reader you’d be as zealous about this stuff as I am and you’d go look up the lyrics.  By the third time I read it, I decided that kind of details was unnecessary, that saying she sang him a classic love song would let you put your own spin on what would be romantic enough of a song for a finale like this one.

Was I right?  Possibly only reading it will tell, but leave me your comments anyway!

Shameless plug:

Pop diva Leia Shae ventured forth from small town America and made herself a superstar.  After fifteen years of stardom, she’s hollow and lost – so lost that her run in with the law outside Parson Corners, Colorado launches her into a quest for a place to belong.

Sheriff Zach Murphy has a pre-teen rebellious daughter, a meddling family and a wary wounded soul.  When Leia crashes into his life, the instant attraction batters the walls Zach has built to protect himself after devastating losses in his past.  When the media descends on his town looking for their favorite rock star, how will he choose – protect his daughter and his hard-won stability or risk his heart for sexy, loving Leia?

Exactly 15 years ago, I delivered a speech to my Toastmasters Club about my dream and where I saw myself in 15 years’ time.

 Madam Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen

See this elastic? An ordinary household object, inanimate and not very decorative. But see how it can stretch? I believe that, in a certain sense, people are exactly like this elastic. We can – streeeetch. Or – we can slacken. But what’s the point of hanging limply and uselessly, when we can stretch? When we can work harder than we’ve ever worked before?

But why would we want to do that? you may well ask. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to inspire you to stretch to your very limit, almost to your breaking point, in order to fulfil your dreams.

But how can I convince you to do it? My own words seem strangely inadequate. Stop procrastinating, I can tell you. Make that new year resolution, the one you failed to make last year and five years ago, and stick to it, I can say. Time is running out, I can advise.

But what I cannot do is put is as elegantly as Kipling. Let me quote you the abbreviated version of his words of wisdom.

            “If you can dream – and not make dreams your master.

            If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster.

            If you can fill the unforgiving minute

            With sixty seconds worth of distance run,

            Yours is the Earth and everything in it,

            And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son.”

Just listen to what Kipling is telling us: if we pursue our dreams wisely, every single second of our life, the world will be ours.

The book in my hand, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, is a remarkable tale about the most magical of all journeys: the quest to fulfil one’s destiny.

In the book, one of the characters is an old crystal merchant.

            “I dream of going to Mecca,” he says at one stage. “I’ve already imagined a thousand times crossing the desert, arriving at the Plaza of the Sacred Stone. I’ve imagined the seven times I walk around it before I allow myself to touch it… But I am afraid that it will all be a disappointment, so I just prefer dreaming about it.”

Further on in the book, we find the following conversation:

            “My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

            “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse that the suffering itself,” answered the sage. “And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.”

The fear of following your dream is the worst that can ever happen to you. No heart has ever suffered when following a dream. Is this not stronger than the fear of disappointment?

But how do you follow a dream? Let me tell you a parable. A boy came to a wise man for the secret of happiness. The wise man gave him a spoon full of oil. He told the boy that he would explain the secret of happiness in two hours, but that in the meantime, the boy should look around the wise man’s palace, spoon in hand, without spilling the oil. After two hours, he returned to the wise man.

            “Well,” asked the wise man, “did you see the Persian tapestries that took ten years to weave? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in the library? And the artwork in the garden?”

            “No”, replied the boy. “I was only watching the spoon.”

            “Then go back and observe,” replied the wise man.

And the boy saw the paintings and the mountains, the beauty of flowers and the intricate patterns on the walls. But when he returned to the wise man, there was not a drop of oil left in the spoon.

            “There is only one piece of advice I can give you,” said the wise man. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”

This is how we should follow our dreams. With all our hearts, but without neglecting our responsibilities.

Let me take you into the future. Fifteen years from now. The place is Stockholm’s city hall. The banquet hall where Nobel Prizes are awarded every year.

“La-adies and Gentle-men. Tonight it is our pleasure to host in our midst a woman who has written more best-selling books than Wilbur Smith, a woman whose is the second most published author after Shakespeare. Tonight she stands before us to receive the most coveted prize of all, the Nobel prize. This occasion is made remarkable by the fact that it is the first time in history that the Nobel prize for literature is awarded for a crime novel. Ladies and Gentlemen. Please welcome the greatest detective story writer since Dame Agatha, the greatest mastermind of paper crime. I give you: Ms – Yvonne Eve Walus!”

    APPLAUSE

This is my dream. What is your dream? Close your eyes, ladies and gentlemen. The year is two thousand and ten, fifteen years from now. Where are you? Who are you? What are you doing? What have you accomplished? What have you done with your life? What have you DONE?

Don’t be afraid to follow your dream. It will make you a better person. Do it for yourself, do it for those around you. Don’t be stifled, don’t hang in there, make that resolution and GO FOR IT! You are never too old, too tired, too poor or too stupid. If you know what you want, if you really want it, you will get it.

Otherwise, if you chose not to follow your dreams, you may end up thinking like this ninety year old man. In one of his letters, he wrote:

“if I had my life over again, I’d climb more mountains and I’d see more sunsets, I’d undertake more trips and cross more rivers, I’d eat more ice cream. I would not be afraid of making mistakes, I’d have less imaginary problems, I’d have more fun, I’d follow my dreams. If I had my life over again. But you see, I don’t.”

YOU and I do, ladies and gentlemen. The question is, what are we going to do with it?

<<<Push the PLAY button on the tape player>>>

I have a dream, a fantasy // To help me through reality // And my destination // Makes it worth the while // Pushing through the darkness // Still another mile // I believe in angels // Something good in everything I see // I believe in angels // When I know the time is right for me // I cross the stream // I have a dream, Madam toastmaster.

Back to reality. I am still waiting for the call from Stockholm….

Recently, I was reading some reviews talking about different books, and words came up that I often wonder, “What exactly does that mean?”  I know I’ve used them, but I always wonder if others who read and write look at those books the same way.  Take the word “gritty” for instance — it’s a word I hear often applies to suspense stories, thrillers, some literary fiction.  I’ve used it.  And in fact, when I think of the type of suspense I want to write, that word always comes to mind.

So I wondered — what does that mean to you?  The reader?

The technical definition of the word “gritty” is “Containing, covered with, or resembling grit.” Another definition: “Showing resolution and fortitude; plucky.”

So does this mean that a “gritty” story is one covered with gravel?   No? Okay, so then what does it mean?  If I walk on a gritty floor, I expect it to be not smooth.  It might hurt at times. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be convenient.  Getting across that floor will take a little extra effort.  (Hence the second description, I suppose.)  But to me, a “gritty” story is about the story, not about the reader.  So how does that translate?

I think it means that the story isn’t smooth.  It means it won’t always be simple or easy to read, that tension will be amped in a way that perhaps makes you, the reader, a little more uncomfortable than say, if you’re reading a historical romance. (Unless said historical romance is considered gritty, too…)   When I think gritty, I think something that pushes the edges a bit and goes a little farther.

And let’s say you are reading a historical romance? What would make you apply the word “gritty” to that?

What other words do you hear as adjectives about books that make you wonder?

I recently wrapped up the first draft of my latest WIP and put it aside for a couple of weeks before tackling the editing process and submitting it to a publisher who made a request for the full. I mentioned this to a colleague at work and he asked, “Now, what do you do? What next?”

Good question.

There is nothing sweeter to me than when I get to type “The End” to a manuscript that I have labored over for several months. Now, I’m a night writer so usually this occurs when the Main Man and the kiddos are fast asleep and since the Main Man usually can’t go back to sleep once he’s been woken up – I leave him alone and wait to tell him in the morning.

So, I do a little solitary happy dance in my writing cave and maybe have a little drinky-poo to toast my accomplishment and then I look at the clock and realize that I need to get up in a few hours for the day job and I hit the sack. Not exactly the red carpet, but we end up doing a little celebrating the next day as a family.

But, what about the following days when my fingers still feel the ghost-touch of the computer keyboard but I’m just not full recharged yet to tackle the next project?

Looking back, I realize that my “downtime” has evolved into a pattern of activity that revs up my creativity and lets me relax at the same time.

1. Catch up on my reading: I am a voracious reader and I find that I start digging in to my TBR pile with a fevered ferocity. I am also a fast reader and I can polish off two-four books per week between my reading the traditional way (you know, with my eyeballs) and having my Kindle read to me when I am in the car.

So far, I’ve polished off “Come Unto These Yellow Sands” by Josh Lanyon, “A Fountain Filled with Blood” by Julia Spencer Fleming, “Destiny’s Bastard” by Hank Edwards and “Perfect Chemistry” by Simone Ellkelles.

I’ll also read writing craft books during this time but lately it’s been all pleasure reading.

2. Scrapbook:  I love this hobby. I get to use my hands, get messy and immerse myself in the memories of my photographs. It gets my creativity a jumpstart since it locks into another part of my brain.

3. I watch movies and catch up on TV: I write at night after the kiddos are in bed so while I may DVR shows I don’t always get to watch them right away. And movies?  Well, with babysitters earning $10 per hour – it doesn’t happen except for our monthly date night.  So, I have Netflix and then I get to see the movies I vaguely remember being in theaters sometime in the last decade.   A recent favorite? “Love and Other Drugs” with the yummy Jake Gyllenhall – naked. ‘Nuff said.

4. Plot the next book: I let my mind start to work out the next book – slowly and organically. I may jot down random ideas, start to work out characters but I’m not actively writing yet. I find things and dump them into my Scrivener file, clip photos and such to inspiration wall in my writing cave (see right – I made the corkboard decoration – cute, right?) and generally let the story percolate.

So, that’s what I do in an nutshell. What do you do in between book projects?

Robin

I’m away at the moment, in the beautiful upstate mountains of New York, but I wanted to share this with you. I’ve finally discovered the exact definition of awkward.

Awkward: having a discussion with your 88 year old aunt about the sex scene you wrote in your book.

Now that was a fun phone call! But on the bright side, she thought the scene was tasteful and she loved The Chase is On, so all is right with the world.

I know this is a short post, so I’ll leave you with some other reading. Check out my interview at Fierce Romance and find out what my most embarrassing moment was!

~Maggie

The last few days have been hectic for me. I had to finish some edits for my holiday release, and then I was trying to write a partial and synopsis for something else.

Synopsis. The dreaded Synopsis.

Not fun.

I can’t even function now. I don’t know what it is about writing a five page summary of a book that kills me, when I know exactly what happens and what needs to be said. But it makes me so miserable every time!

My only recourse is to hopefully save some of my fellow writers some time and heartache by sharing these two resources that were recommended by members of my RWA Chapter and which have really helped me:

This query letter and synopsis package is available from Lisa Gardner for free, and I thought it was fantastic. Halfway down this page on her website, it’s called Conquering the Dreaded Synopsis: A Series of Ten Lectures (She also has a ton of other great resources available for writers and you should take a look around.)

There’s also this article by Joan Leacott, called The Unrejected Synopsis. It focuses on writing synopses for contest entries, but it’s wonderful reading and has some really good tips for synopsis writing in general.

I shall now go and lick my wounds.

J.K. Coi
www.jkcoi.com

One of the things that writers find can be difficult is the time to actually sit at your computer and work on your WIP.  Time is always of the essence, and when you add jobs, kids, family and other obligations and places you need to be to the mix, those 24 hours in a day just aren’t always enough.  But with the nifty inventions of smartphones and the iPad (which Oprah believes to be the best invention of this century… and in our current 11 years in, I think I agree, though I don’t imagine that will last for long. , you have the option of taking notes, working on things on your own time away from the computer.

And there is a way to take that a step further.  There’s been a website out for years that allows you to connect to your computer from another computer, with just an internet connection and an account on the website.  Which, of course, you have to pay for.  And then this weekend, I discovered the remotepc.com app.  It does exactly the same thing, for just the effort of a download on my computer and a $0.99 app for a PC.  And voila, I can access my home computer on my iPhone.

Pic from Remotepc.com

While writing on an iPhone isn’t ideal, the big news in this for me is that I can access my MICROSOFT WORD files on my iPhone.  Which means I can read, edit, makes notes and yes, keep writing directly to the file that’s on my computer at home. Any time, anywhere.   For me, the lack of integration with Microsoft Office on the iPhone has been something I’ve hoped for for a long time.  And yes, I get why it will probably never happen.  But this works just fine.

It couldn’t be more simple to download the file and install it on your computer, and it gives you exactly the information you need to be able to set it up on your iPhone or iPad.  Now when the day comes when I get an iPad (which I covet along with the rest of the world…), writing on the larger surface will so much more simple.  It will mean that taking my laptop for writing is a thing of the past.  Have iPad, will travel.    I can access ALL my applications directly now.

And as a writer, it means that excuse of “well, I had to sit in the dentist’s office waiting for an hour….” isn’t going to fly any more.  All I have to do is whip out my iPhone, log in at home, and get to work.  Sometimes, technology is just really, really cool.

This morning I participated in a 1K1H challenge on Twitter with a couple of other writers.  (1K1H = 1000 words in 1 hour) I’ve done 10K in a week challenges, National Novel Writing Month’s 50K in a month, but I cannot remember every doing one in an hour. I REALLY enjoyed it!

I ended up with 1919K, and the other writers who participated also wrote over 1K in that hour of time. I was motivated to write because others were writing at the same time–and I didn’t want to be the one who came back with low numbers either… lol. I admit the challenge spurred my fingers and my muse!

Have you ever participated in a 1K1H challenge?

Here is what I propose:  If you are up to it!  Today at 1PM EST, I am going to do a 1K1H challenge here on Happy Endings. We will keep track in the comments section, and I will post a big “GO”.  When 1 hour has passed, I will write, “STOP”

In that one hour, sit your but down at the computer and WRITE.  If you can’t do the whole hour start with us, and leave a comment when you had to stop, but at least WRITE.

To prepare, make sure you have your document up. Know what scene you want to work on. Have all your notes, resources, etc… ready, so you don’t have to stop to find something — or do what I do — I put in () what I need to find later and highlight it, so I don’t have to stop writing.

Let’s see if we can’t bust out a ton of words together!

See you at 1pm EST.

Cheers!

Eliza

Eliza Knight is the multi-published author of sizzling historical romance and erotic romance. She is the owner of the blog, History Undressed, and was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal as a self-styled expert on historical undergarments. Visit Eliza at www.elizaknight.com

As a writer, I know that inspiration comes from many sources.  It can be the lyrics to a sad song, a stunning picture or a vivid dream.  Some of these ideas come to fruition and some of them lack enough depth to make a truly good story and are discarded.   Sometimes we write half a story before we realize the idea is dead.  But when we are truly inspired, the idea blooms and grows and evolves becoming an inspiration of its own.

Recently I did some research on William Hogarth.  You get extra points if you know who he is.  I did not before I started researching his work.  Small sketch:  Hogarth was a prolific British painter.  Born in 1697.  Died in 1764.  He painted in a time of upheaval for Britain.  The nobelity’s grasp on English society was dying.  The middle class businessman and merchant were gaining power.  People were moving from rural Britain into the cities.   The Industrial Revolution was about to sweep Britain.   Hogarth was apprenticed to a silver engraver at eight years old and learned the printing business from the bottom up.  Yet his greatest talent was painting.  Sounds like every other painter from that time, right?  Except Hogarthwas the first painter to paint with vivid strokes and pointed criticism in single and series paintings.  Then he would engrave his work to copper and print for the masses.  A deep sense of duty to society and a need to support his family drove him to look widely for ways to do what he loved and profit from it.  Hence, the concept for the political cartoon and the comics section of the newspaper was born.  He is considered the father of this industry.

He painted portraits and scenes for many years.  Finally, he had this series brainstorm and he launched into his first series of paintings. The Harlot series was painted during a time when British officials had decided to clean up the streets of the unholy temptress prostitutes.  Hogarth’s series of six paintings portrayed one such harlot – a victim of circumstances with no other choices.  From there a whole new genre of paintings were born.  My favorite is a series he calls Marriage a la mode.  The target was marriages of convenience for money or power and supported the idea that the only reason to marry was for love.  Are you surprised?  I’m a romance author after all.

Take a look at this stunning series at the Tate Britain Museum.  Gorgeous, rich colors combined with a vivid depiction of people’s emotions.

Yet, that still isn’t why Hogarth fascinated me so.

The reason he fascinated me is because he painted in details.  Every single image he placed in his paintings had a reason for being there.  Some were to comment on society, some were whimsical, but each item deepened the texture of the work, leaving layers and layers of meaning.  Whether he did this with deliberate care or let his subconscious rule, it doesn’t matter.  The end results are works of art as lasting as any Shakespeare play.

We are artists of sorts, aren’t we?  We don’t use paints or a camera, but we do paint pictures, tell stories with our words.  It occurred to me if we all used the same deliberate care with constructing those words that Hogarth used in painting his images, we’d all have best sellers.  I’m editing right now, so this may be why this struck me as so vastly important.  I know I’m not the only one who has used Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook to get down to the very core of my characters.  I can’t be the only one who has read Sol Stein’s On Writing chapters on using editing triage to cut the fluff, or even Randy Ingermanson’s snowflake concept to refine an idea from elevator pitch, to blurb, to outline, to manuscript, or even Margie Lawson’s workshops.   Hogarth’s work just inspired me to dig deeper into my editing and have the patience to put in place what my imagination intended to be in the words.  Hogarth painted what was in his soul, but he used what he did wisely, ultimately understanding his responsibility to his patrons.  His work has lasted for centuries.  In this new world of ebooks, where the potential for work to exist forever in cyberspace, every attempt should be made to write and edit with that same verve, don’t you think?  After all, isn’t that the true legacy we’d like to leave for future writers?