Happy Hookers Online Workshop Coming February!

February 4-29, 2008 Happy Hookers!

Engaging the Reader from Start to Finish

Instructor: Terry Spear

Cost: $25.00 payable by PayPal

Deadline to Register: January 30th

For more information go to:http://www.pasic.net/classes.html

Slow starts and sleepy endings to scenes and chapters can ruin a manuscript's chance of being published. Conversely, solid hooks can make the sale – as workshop instructor Terry Spear demonstrates, with six publishers currently hooked for six manuscripts. Setting such practical matters aside, what author wouldn't be thrilled to hear someone say, "I couldn't put the book down"? Strong hooks are a vital ingredient in strong writing. In this online class, which features lectures, discussion, practical exercises, and handouts, she'll teach students how to captivate readers with great openings, scene hooks, chapter cliff hangers, and intriguing back cover blurbs. Participants will master the hook in all its environments, from the query letter through the novel.

About the Instructor: Terry Spear has published in many genres, including historical romantic suspense, contemporary, urban fantasy, and under the name Terry Lee Wilde, young adult paranormal and fantasy romances. She's the author of Winning the Highlander's Heart, is a debut paranormal author for Sourcebooks with the urban fantasy, Heart of the Wolf, coming April 1st, and The Vampire…In My Dreams is already out. Deadly Liaisons is coming in November. She also writes nonfiction for numerous genealogy, WWII, teen, and family magazines, and has had romantic fiction published in magazines. Currently, she's working on a sequel to Heart of the Wolf, Betrayal of the Wolf.

Her website: http://www.terryspear.com/

Deadline to Register: January 30th

For more information go to:http://www.pasic.net/classes.html

What Makes a Book Memorable

Do you have at least one bookcase filled with books with which you couldn’t bear to part? Books that are keepers in every sense? I’ve mysteries, romances, historicals, erotica, women’s fiction, medical suspenses, literary classics, etc. But one of the books I read this past fall definitely earned an alphabetized spot in my master bookcase. CAN’T WAIT TO GET TO HEAVEN by Fannie Flagg is memorable in every way. Her keen storytelling ability, humorous fictional “voice” and characters made this tale come alive for me and I couldn’t put the book down. I read this novel from cover to cover in one sitting and plan on re-reading it a couple times a year. Elner Shimfissel ranks right up there with the most well-written, clearly-defined characters I’ve ever read. Her exploits and insights, as well as those of other characters, will tap your emotions on every page. Fannie has also provided her readers with a stellar cast of secondary characters, each a fictional persona you won’t forget. I remember watching Fannie during her guest panelist days on MATCH GAME. While reading CAN’T WAIT TO GET TO HEAVEN, her authorial “voice” rang loud and clear. This is a skill we authors strive to master and one that puts an author on my auto-buy list. Can’t wait to read Fannie’s next novel.

What about you all? What book do you find memorable and pull from your bookshelf time and again?


Blessings and all the best,


Shawna Moore's Website
ROUGHRIDER -- Ellora's Cave
HELLE IN HEELS -- Ellora's Cave
Myspace
Helle's Myspace

Pumping up Boring, Nothing Scenes...Make Them Work!

Watch out for Boring, Nothing Scenes!!!

What makes for a unexciting, dull scene?

By analyzing each and every scene, we can learn to avoid tedious scenes. Or at least recognize it when we're doing edits. Write them, fine, just to get something down on the paper. But edit the "boringness" out in the final phases of the process.

So what makes for a boring scene?

** Doing stuff, but not moving the story forward.
** No conflict.
** Not pursuing a goal
** Not showing something new and different...same old things repeated.
** Back story.
** Making unlikeable characters that we really don't care enough about to read.
** Not showing the motivation for why someone does something.
** Failure to show emotion.
** Failure to show actions and their resulting reactions.
** All dialogue.
** All narration.

Now, have you read published works that have scenes like this? Absolutely. I don't know how many times I've read a book and skipped over pages of boring back story or scenes that just don't move the story forward.

So make every scene count. Make them do double duty, triple duty. What do we want to say in the scene? The point we want to get across?

How can we make it as riveting as the rest of our scenes?

Make sure we show the characters pursuing a goal, changing, strengthening the characterizations, showing something that prevents characters from reaching the goal (conflict), show new twists, reveal new information. Make the reader care about our characters.

What else can you do to make boring, nothing scenes spring to life?

We owe it to our readers to hook them so much, they can't put the book down. Out with the boring scenes, in with the riveting. :)

Terry Spear Heart of the Wolf coming April 1st from Sourcebooks!
http://www.terryspear.com/

Winning the Highlander's Heart available now on Amazon.com!

Nita Wick tells us How Faerie Dust is Made

Today we have a wonderful guest here, my friend, Nita Wick, talking about her book, How Faerie Dust is Made... released today!

NN: Welcome, Nita! Thanks for being a guest at Fierce Romance! What a beautiful, creative cover. Please tell us about How Faerie Dust is Made.

Nita Wick: Hi, Nicole! Thank you so much for inviting me. How Faerie Dust is Made is part one of The Roscommon Faerie Tales. In the series, a colony of faeries lives among the lush green forests of Roscommon, Ireland near the Arigna Mountains. Their lives would be peaceful were it not for the humans who live in the area with them. The humans dislike faeries and their magic, and the two races are often at odds. But faerie or human, love makes no distinction. And both will soon find that love is the greatest magic of all.

In How Faerie Dust is Made, Conall may be human, but he is Aisling’s life mate. She’s certain of it. After all, a faerie knows these things. Can her magic end the feud between their families? And just how is faerie dust made?

NN: Sounds like a fun, entertaining, romantic story! Please tell us more about your faeries and their world.

NW: The faeries of Roscommon have the ability to be both human size and small. With their magic, they can take their smaller form which is about six inches high. In this form, they have wings. Their magic can be put to many uses such as helping plants to grow and healing arts. Some faeries are more powerful than others. And some even practice other, darker forms of magic like witchcraft. Just like humans, the faeries have their faults as well as virtues. Some of them are very nice people you’d love to befriend. A few you might want to avoid.

NN: They sound charming! What a unique world. Please tell us more about the hero, Conall.

NW: Oh, Conall is one handsome Irish man. He stands well over six feet, has auburn hair and blue green eyes, and that lilting Irish brogue that makes a woman’s heart flutter. If he weren’t so blasted opinionated and stubborn, he’d be almost perfect.

NN: He sounds yummy!! What inspired you to write this story?

NW: I’ve always been fascinated with stories of faeries. I suppose like all my stories this one began when I was daydreaming – again. I imagined a very handsome hero stumbling across a lovely, petite woman in the forest. I didn’t understand at first why he was so upset to discover that the woman was faerie. Turns out, the humans of Roscommon don’t much like faeries.

NN: Interesting! Which element of this story was hardest for you?

NW: I can’t say that any of it was really hard to write. I loved my characters and my imaginary world so much I didn’t want to leave it. So I didn’t. I’m about half finished with part two and I’ve begun an outline for part three.

NN: Wow that's super! I'm sure everyone will want to visit this world again and again. Do you have any advice for unpublished authors?

NW: Hang in there. Don’t give up. And write what you enjoy writing. Don’t force yourself to write what’s hot in the industry right now. By the time you get it written and submitted, the trends will have changed anyway. You can always tell when an author has put her heart and soul in a book. That’s the kind of book a reader remembers. That’s the one on their Keeper Shelf.

NN: Great advice!! Would you like to ask blog readers a question?

NW: Yes! Do you like faerie stories? Did you ever imagine yourself as a faerie princess?

Oh, and I’d also like to ask everyone to stop by my web site. I have several pages with more information about The Roscommon Faerie Tales. You can learn more about the characters, the setting, Irish Gods & Goddesses, and some Gaelic words used in the book.

I’ll be having a contest to celebrate the release. There will be a print copy of How Faerie Dust is Made as well as other prizes! Every member of my newsletter mailing list will automatically be entered to win! So sign up for my newsletter at www.nitawick.com! You’ll find more info about the contest on my site soon!

Available in ebook and print – http://www.thewildrosepress.com/

Direct link to purchase: How Faerie Dust is Made

Guilty Pleasures

Oftentimes resolutions and goals are about giving things up, which is why they usually fail. Why should we give up things that give us pleasure? OK, if they're truly harmful, we definitely need to give it a try. But what about those guilty little pleasures that don't hurt anybody?

Some of my guilty pleasures include: checking out people.com and even voting in the polls of who wears it better; coming home at lunch and watching All My Children; Nacho Doritos; singing very loudly in the car (and sometimes holding my cell phone as a microphone); and panting over David Beckham's Armani underwear adds.

So how about it? Care to shelve those New Year's resolutions and tell us about your guilty little pleasures?

What Did I Do Today??? More on Goals~~

I posted a note about goals the other day, to make them quantifiable and doable. Also, it helps to keep oneself honest by either having a friend or family member making you accountable, or by keeping track of your own progress.

Take for instance, Betrayal of the Wolf, the sequel to Heart of the Wolf. I started writing it 4 weeks ago. The holidays cut into it a bit, but I was able to manage 89,000 words. I'm now uploading some of the chapters for critique, getting it ready to send to my editor. How did I manage to write so much in such a short amount of time?

First, I set a goal of 5,000 words a day. Some days I made it. Some I was far short of--mostly because of the holidays--but other days I wrote even more. Every single day I noted how many words I had left to write, and how many I had written. So on the first day 5,200 done, 84,800 left to go. Sounds horrible, right? But I kept whittling it down, day after day.

And now I'm nearly finished. I'll go beyond the 90,000 while I'm doing revisions and will no longer worry about the word count but about the quality of the story, adding more conflict, characterization, hooks.

Every day I told my family, I've finished such and such and have only so many more words to go. Lots of rolled eyes and laughs for the first 45,000 words, but as I continued down the road, my mother was asking when I was sending it to my editor. Monday?

Not ready yet. I need to finish editing it. But at least now I have a novel to edit.

So whether it's writing a book, losing weight, or doing some other project you've a mind to accomplish, make yourself accountable. Even with losing weight, if you keep track of all the calories you've eaten in a day, it can be astounding...making yourself aware of how much you're accomplishing can be all that it takes to make it work.

What about someone who wants to be more productive at anything? How much time is wasted on tv? Emails? Phone calls? Daydreaming?

By making yourself accountable, you can reach your goals. :)

Terry Spear

http://www.terryspear.com/

Heart of the Wolf will be released April 1st from Sourcebooks!!

If you're looking for a sexy, urban fantasy with hot alpha males and alpha females who stand up to them, take a look. Best selling authors~~Joy Nash, Cathy Clamp, and Patti O'Shea~~along with Tess Mallory, Deborah Macgillivray, Sandy Blair and new Red Sage author, Nicole North have endorsed it!

Happy New Year & New Contest!

Some writing friends and I are holding a new Contest for Valentine's Day! Enter before Feb 13.

THE QUEST FOR PASSION CONTEST: 13 Authors & 21 Prizes

In honor of our readers and in gratitude for choosing the various stories we love to write, we are hosting a special contest. Win prizes dedicated to love and passion: jewelry, romance books, chocolates, gift certificates, and perfume ~ all those things we’re hoping our sweethearts will sneak in for a Valentine's celebration! With 20 prizes and 1 grand prize, what do you have to lose in playing?

How to participate:
Visit each of the following author websites:

Skhye Moncrief http://www.skhyemoncrief.com/

Anna K. Lanier http://www.aklanier.com/

Tarah Scott http://www.tarahscott.com/

Kyann Waters http://www.kyannwaters.com/

Alisha Paige http://www.alishapaige.com/

Nicole North http://www.nicolenorth.com/

Andrea Snider http://www.highlandlassiesreviews.blogspot.com/

Crystal Adkins http://bookreviewsbycrystal.blogspot.com/

Masha Holl http://www.mashaholl.com/

Sky Purington http://www.skypurington.com/

Bess McBride http://www.bessmcbride.com/

Hywela Lyn http://www.hywelalyn.com/

Corrina Cowan http://www.chicksofcharacterization.blogspot.com/

Find the word *heart* in one of their book’s titles, cover blurbs, or excerpts. OR, in the case of book reviewers who are joining us this month, find the heart (graphic) they leave next to one of their reviews as an indicator of the book title you need for the contest.

Make a list of the book title (for the blurb/excerpt or for the title of the book reviewed) from each site and email the entire list to happyendings2007@aol.com.

The contest ends midnight CST on February 13, 2008.
Winners will be posted on Valentine’s Day 2008 (unless there is an emergency and we must delay notification!).
Good luck!

The Prize I'm offering is handmade sterling silver and semi-precious stone earrings. Entering my portion of the contest is easy. Just go to www.nicolenorth.com, click on my "Books" page from the menu. You will easily find the info you need on that page.

While you're there, please check out my excerpt which I just added.

Thanks & Happy New Year!!