BookingIt

My Happy, Smiling face when I met Irritable Mother Karen Hossink ? Click HERE , scroll down. I'm the skinny one with the goofy smile and long hair. LOL I second everything she said. :-)

The winner of Jennifer Shirk's Role of A Lifetime is Jody . Congrats! :-) More News : Jen is giving away a goody basket full of all writer-essential material (read: office supplies and chocolate). All you have to do is hop on over and leave a comment to be entered. Anyone heard of RT and Dorchester's American Title contest? Well, once upon I met this sweet and generous writer in an online critique group. For the past year she has been involved in this American Idol-styled contest. I just found out that she won!!! Congratulations Marie-Claude Bourque ! The prize is a contract. Her book, Ancient Whispers, will be coming out February 2010. You can find Marie-Claude hanging out all over the web. She has a grog with some other great writers, a blog , and tons of other stuff . I hope you all enter Jen's contest and find hope in Marie-Claude's success! Have a wonderful day. :-)

I'll bet some of you are familiar with Jennifer Shirk , Samhain author and fellow blogger. Recently I won her book The Role of a Lifetime . I have to give it away because it was SO good! Seriously, I was laughing while I read it at the gym. People probably thought I was weird. The story hooked me in and I read it in like three days, which is good with my as-of-late crazy schedule. Jennifer has a really strong, perky voice. I loved the humor and the characters. Go Jennifer! So, she was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. Below is the short interview. If you want to be entered in the drawing to win her book, leave a comment. :-) 1. How long did you write and submit before you got your contract with Samhain? Well, I started writing when my daughter was about two--at nap time--then three years and two bad manuscripts later...voila! I finally sold. :) 2. What's your favorite thing about being published? I love having a little part of me to physically pass down to my d...

Last time I'm going to rant about House, I promise. :-) From the very beginning, I have wanted House and Cameron to hook up. I know the age difference is weird, but I always felt they had a special understanding, a trust, and an onscreen chemistry that would enable them to have their Happily Ever After. Chase didn't fit. Not the weak, ambitious Chase of the first three seasons. And now Chase and Cameron are getting married? I've watched the first three seasons more than once. I don't believe for a moment that these two will work. Even though they have friendship and attraction, they don't seem to fit to me. Who are your favorite couples in a book? What is it about their relationship that allows you to believe in their HEA? *Feel free to disagree with me about Cameron and House. LOL*

I'm so excited! My word counter finally says fifty percent done. Whew. I feel like I've made progress. I'm finally halfway through. I think the middle of a book is so important. This is where the tension is upped, where some threads are added to, others are resolved and the main one is complicated even more. Sometimes, this is where the sagging middle comes into play. The midpoint of a story is a good place to look at everything happening and take stock. Is the conflict getting higher and higher? Are the characters different than at the beginning of the story? At a different place, in the process of changing? This is how I look at the middle. What does the mid-point mean to you? What usually happens in the middle of a good book or movie?

Author Intrusion. Just a nice way of saying that the writer is butting into the character's story. Characters need to have their separate worlds, their separate thoughts. They don't have to value the same things you do. They don't have to fear the same things you do. But that's not the whole gist of author intrusion. It's also when the heroine's car breaks down and she knows the radiator broke. But she's a loner librarian who usually rides her bike to work. How does she know it's the radiator? Exactly. In some ways, I think author intrusion is like an omniscient POV. The creator's POV. Have you heard of this? How would you describe it? Better yet, have you ever been an intruder ? Special thanks to Debra M. who suggested a post on this. I hope you stop by Debra! :-)

Last night I watched my favorite show, House. And about had a stroke. The writers killed off a major character in a way that made no sense. I've read the interviews and I understand that they took artistic license by not foreshadowing this event. They were doing what they felt was best for the story and most challenging for the character of House. I can understand this. But what they did was very risky because it had the potential to alienate the audience. This is where the art of foreshadowing comes in. Done right, this technique won't five away the future of the story, but when a twist comes, it will give the past scenes sense and will keep the twist from completely shocking the reader. I really wish the writers would have foreshadowed this death, even if only to the audience. Do you use foreshadowing? Or do you prefer to shock your reader?