Summer Reading

With these long hot summer days, there is nothing better than curling up with a good book and a glass of ice tea. I tend to be very eclectic in my reading. A few of my choices so far, include Dorothy L. Sayers Have His Carcase, A Little House Reader, and Sod-House Days: Letters from a Kansas Homesteader 1877-78, by Howard Ruede.

What are you reading this summer?

Starting Off With A Bang

Right now the trend is start your first chapter off with a 'bang'~something to get the readers attention immediately and make them want to keep reading. After all, we do want them to keep reading.

If it is an adventure story, that's not so hard to do. But sometimes with a romance you have to do a little bit of mulling over the story to come up with something. Is this something that you struggle with?

Weeding

I made a post on my other blog about growing weeds in my flower/herb gardens. I'm more of a brown thumb person than green, so if a weed is attractive, I tend to keep it if it pops up among my flowers.

On the other hand, weeding out words in my work is a bit harder, as it must be done. Sometimes I really love a sentence that I've written. I become attached to it, it just has to be in there. But I know that it doesn't work with the WIP. There have been times that I've stubbornly left it in, only to go back and reluctantly delete it later.

My solution to this problem has been to open a document dedicated solely to sentences that I like, but don't work in the current WIP. This gives me a chance to review them periodically and see if they will work in another project. And it makes me feel better knowing they are still there, just waiting for the right novel.

Do you have trouble weeding out words?

Genesis

Congratulations to all the Genesis finalists! And congratulations to everyone that took the time and effort to enter this year. I hope you received the results and comments that you wanted, or at least the something that you can learn from. Though I did not participate this year, I entered last year and found the judges comments to be very helpful.

Rainy Morning

After a two month break, I am starting to write again. I've had so much to do around the place, that I only wrote a few lines here and there.

I know that Amish books are extremely popular in the Christian writing world and I've noticed that vampires are also starting to be 'Christianized', so to speak. Still, I never expected to see the two together.

While I was surfing around the writing world, I was suprised to find this post.

I've never read a vampire book. On the other hand, I've read a lot of Amish books.

Do you think you will read this? I'd love to know why you answer yes or no.

Tuesday

Hi friends~I've been absent from this blog longer than I thought. Time really does fly! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and are ready to get back in the saddle for more writing in this beautiful new year.

My book that I had out has been rejected by the publisher. Again. I am getting used to it:) I will write on~and keep trying, keep learning.

I am happy to say that I get very few form letter rejections. The editors actually give advice to me--which gives me hope. One of the things that disappoints me most, though, is the fact that all the other things that they are publishing seem to 'break all the rules' that they've chastised me for doing. Especially the 'showing, not telling' rule. I know that it is something that I need to spend a lot of time working on.

Have any of you been studying the deep POV that the editors really want to see in stories right now? It is another element that I am struggling with. I'd love to hear from any of you that feel you have mastered it.

Christmas Reading List

Are there certain books that you read every Christmas? I try to read a new Christmas book every year, but I always make time to read A Christmas Carol~my favorite. I will admit to also watching numerous movie adaptions of the book. No matter if Scrooge is a man or woman, it's always a good story.

I also like to write Christmas stories. I don't mean for it to happen, but it seems like all of my work includes something about Christmas. Do any of you write Christmas stories?

Merry Christmas!