Writing Wednesday: Reviews

Authors live for reviews. Especially new authors. I check my Amazon and Goodread pages every day, looking for reviews. (And if you’ve read my books and haven’t left a review, why not?)

So imagine my delight when I opened my email a few weeks ago and learned Night Owl Reviews had reviewed my first book, Moonlight Serenade. The review is now up. You can read it here. If you don’t want to do that, here’s what the reviewer wrote:

The scenes and details are well written and capture the imagination and the intriguing events certainly arouse the reader’s curiosity. The author has created a fascinating setting full of intriguing and sexy characters with some interesting elements. I was completely caught up in the story from the very beginning and I am looking forward to visiting with the Toke Lobo and the Pack band again.

Doesn’t that just put a smile on this face.

mybookwasreviewedonnorsm

Slice of Life Sunday: The Madness without Me

1 Comment

It’s NCAA Basketball Tournament time again. In years past, I would take the afternoons off from work; I would have a tuna sandwich bar party; I would watch men’s college basketball until I dropped.

That habit gradually changed. The tournament was no longer exclusively on broadcast TV (and Superman help you if you refuse to pay your local cable monopoly for the higher tier channels, and I’m cable-challenged anyway.) Last year, my team left the beloved conference (ruined by football), so that dampened my spirit. And this year, my “home team” isn’t in any post-season at all.

This year, all the madness of March means to me is . . . baseball is right around the corner!

I watched college basketball—it’s practically a law in Syracuse—but it was tiring. There was no space or time to breathe the way there was in baseball. Baseball was spiritual, like yoga.

I could really use some spirituality right about now.

 

WIP Wednesday: Staying in the Story

15 Comments
Image credit: andrejad / 123RF Stock Photo

Image credit: andrejad / 123RF Stock Photo

Writing is hard work. When you’re trying to fit it around a Day Job and family, it’s easy to lose track of the story.

Here are some of my tricks for staying in the story.

  • My Day Job computer passwords are story related. Whether it’s the subject, the working title, or character names, every time I open a new program, I have to think about the story.
  • I create a sound track for every book I write. It’s on a CD in my car, it’s on my mp3 player. Listening to those particular songs remind me of story nuances.
  • I listen to RWA Conference Workshops on my mp3 player at Day Job. You’d be surprised how much a Chat with Nora Roberts can be inspiring.
  • Sticky notes. I have pads of little sticky notes and when something strikes me, I jot it down and stick it to the back of my cell phone (I don’t have a smart phone). When I get home, I transfer the note from my phone to my desk or open up the Scrivener file and type in the idea.

Do you have any favorite tricks for keeping in the story when you can’t be at your desk?

Those Compton Sisters

My brother and his family frequently make comments about the Compton girls or the Compton sisters, referring to his three daughters.

nieces

 

Please. While they are lovely young women, they didn’t invent being the Compton sisters. That honor belongs to my sister and me.

julieBut then I realized my father’s siblings were the original Compton sisters. I was lucky enough to get a photo of them together (with my sister and me) a few years ago. That’s Aunt Arlene on the left and Aunt Leona on the right.

COMPTON GIRLS 2

Apologies to Uncle Roy’s daughters Denise & Erika, the only other Compton girls/sisters of our generation.

The next generation continues the Compton sisters tradition (in addition to my nieces): my cousin Bill’s daughters Jennifer & Jessica, my cousin Mike’s daughters Sarah & Nicole, and my cousin Gordon’s daughters Patience & Pearl. Also Kevin’s daughter Elaine, Pete’s daughter Rose, and Gerhart’s daughter Marisha.

Beyond that generation, I am clueless.

There are a lot of us “Compton Girls” around. We rock.

(Further apologies to anyone I missed.)

 

Love at First Sight: Not a Myth

3 Comments

A few months ago, one of my friend’s teenage daughter watched While You Were Sleeping and snorted in disbelief because the heroine married someone she’d known for only a week.

One criticism I often hear about romance novels is the “unreality” of how quickly romantic relationships develop.

Short courtships don’t bother me. I believe in them. My parents knew each other 3 months before they got married–nearly 61 years ago. I started dating TV Stevie at the end of March; our wedding was August 8 of the same year. That was 27 years ago. But those were long relationships . . . compared to my sister.

On August 5, my sister met the roommate of a cousin’s boyfriend. On August 29, she married him. That’s twenty-four days.

While that is amazing enough in itself, you also need to know that in 1976, there was a ten-day waiting period from the time you bought your marriage license until the time you could actually get married in this state.

She lost him last month, suddenly and terribly. After 38 years of marriage, she loved him as much as she had the day she married him, if not more. The depth of her grief is unimaginable to me.

But the depth of their love for each other is the reason I firmly believe in love at first sight.

So to all the naysayers out there who don’t believe a week is enough time for love to take root , I give you this proof.