Category: Writing

Observations on the writing life

National Proofreading Day

Happy National Proofreading Day!

This is a day anyone who writes anything should celebrate.

I really try to turn in as clean drafts as I can to my editors, but sometimes things slip through anyway. Extra eyes are always welcome.

The best method of proofreading for me is reading aloud what I’ve written. That’s when I catch the missing words, the double words, the echoing words, and the (I blush to admit) places I’ve used the wrong version of it/it’s, your/you’re, their/there/they’re, and to/too/two.

Sometimes the brain and fingers are racing so quickly the weirdest things make it onto the page. Sometimes I use a word incorrectly and need to look it up to make sure it means what I need it to mean at that moment in the book. And sometimes I simply make mistakes.

So here’s a big THANK YOU to all the proofreaders out there who are on top of the written word.

 

 

 

 

Commuting vs. Productivity

Many authors work a Day Job in addition to writing.

Sometimes I envy people who commute via mass transit because they can read. Or write. But that’s the only thing I do envy (other than not having to drive in a snow storm). I’ve heard of authors who dictate while they’re driving, but I would worry that I would get so caught up in the story I would become a menace on the road.

I feel bad for some of my writer pals who drive long distances every day. After a particularly nasty drive–which is not uncommon this time of year–they are too drained to write.

I tend to have Day Jobs that are less than two miles from my home, so I don’t commute. (I don’t walk or bike either, but I should.) This saves me a lot of time that I use for writing. I can listen to a song or two from my book sound track, depending on how many traffic lights I hit. And if I have a tiffany, I don’t have to fumble for my phone to make a note or  try to remember it until I get home, because home is only moments away.

When I started my current Day Job, my office was located in a suburb. I had a minimum fifteen to twenty minute commute each way every day. I couldn’t dash home for lunch. But I did find a way to rig my car’s cassette player to my mp3 player and listen to RWA workshops, so the commute became educational.

I’ve learned to take advantage of every moment I can.

 

Mask of the King

I have a new novella coming out on Tuesday (Feb 28)–Mask of the King.

Injured baseball player Tag Gentry and caterer Skye Schuyler are both lured to a Mardi Gras house party by false promises of work. Skye is waiting for her contract with the baseball team to be renewed, but the front office is giving her the runaround. No one knows how bad Tag’s leg injury really is, but speculation says it career ending. He’s not telling…and he hasn’t reported to spring training. He’s starting to wonder if there is life after baseball.

When Tag’s reporter ex-lover shows up in New Orleans, Tag pays extra attention to Skye, telling himself it’s only to deflect his ex’s attention. But his ex hopes the truth about his injury will be her next big story, and nothing is going to stop her, not even Tag’s involvement with another woman.

Skye realizes the promises that brought her and Tag to New Orleans are lies and wants to leave before things get any more complicated.

The only problem is they’re both targets for revenge, and Tag’s jealous ex may be part of the plot. Everyone is wearing mask, and not just for Mardi Gras. Tag and Skye don’t know who to trust—including each other.

Available from Loose-Id

National Singles Awareness Day

It’s National Singles Awareness Day.

What does that mean to long-time married me? Well, I write romance. Which is primarily about single people.  And it’s hard to write about single people today when the world is so different than it was a couple of decades ago, when I was a single woman.  So I try to understand them.

I work with a lot of single people. Many are in long-term relationships, but they’re still legally single. Much of what I hear baffles me. It may be the business my current Day Job is in, which is vastly different from my former Day Job. The business itself requires a different kind of individual. (That is not a judgment, simply an observation. After all, I have spent time in both.)

I also have two single twenty-something children. My daughter’s co-workers are primarily single men. The stories she shares with me provide another perspective on being single in the 21st century.

A woman in my RWA chapter subscribed to Cosmopolitan for many years in order to stay abreast of what being a single woman in the USA entailed. (It was also a tax write-off: research for a romance author who wasn’t in the magazine’s targeted demo and who wasn’t single.)

So yes, I am aware of singles, but probably not in the way the organizers of this day meant.

 

National Have Fun at Work Day

Yes! This is a thing–having fun at work.

And, as an author, I can say that frequently I do have fun at work.

  • When something I wrote 5 chapters back suddenly makes perfect sense, and I find I can build off it.
  • When I’m so angry at someone, I name a villain after that person–then do really bad things to them in the story.
  • Daydreaming. Because it’s really plotting. Prove it’s not.
  • Ditto computer solitaire.
  • Losing oneself in research, because learning new stuff is fun.
  • The words flowing, and making sense while they do so.
  • Wearing sweats to work.