Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

This morning, let’s talk about writing rules, and specifically about the times that authors break them.  In the comments, tell us about a rule, either a grammatical rule, or an unwritten rule or storytelling, or a rule of conventional publishing wisdom, that you’ve broken in your books, and tell us why you did it (include a short except to illustrate, if you want, too).  Be sure to leave a link to your book so we can see for ourselves!

I’ll begin…

 

In the Dream Series, I break several rules on the very first page of the first book, DREAM STUDENT.  I don’t “open with a bang” – the story takes a while to get going.  I open with a dream, which I’ve read is an absolutle no-no.  The first couple of pages are all in italics, which apparently is also something that isn’t (or isn’t supposed to be) done.

Why?  I didn’t know all those rules when I started the book.  But, more importantly, that’s the story that I wanted to tell, and how I personally needed to tell it.  I thought abot other ways to open the book, but none of them felt right.  And I thought and still think the italics are a good way to set off the dreams (and, in later books, Sara’s flashbacks).  I think that in spite of breaking the rules, the book works pretty well…

 

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

This Monday was President’s Day, and we’re in the middle of the 2016 Presidential race, so let’s talk about politics today.  Or, at least, let’s talk about how you deal with politics in your books.  Authors, post in the comments and tell us if you deal with any political themes or characters in your books; or tell us how, or if at all, your own political views come out in your writing.

I’ll begin…

I try to keep my own politics out of my books (if yo’ve read any of the books, you can tell me whether you think I manage that or not!), and for the most part I also don’t deal with politics within the world of the Dream Series.  There are a couple of exceptions, though.  In book three, DREAM CHILD, the plot involves a corrupt Congressman who’s being blackmailed by a mobster.  And in book nine, FEVER DREAM, the antagonist of the book is a (not at all thinly) veiled take on the disgraced ex-Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer.

Here’s an excerpt from DREAM CHILD, where Sara and her daughter Lizzie sit down to dinner with said corrupt Congressman…

“I’m a Congressman.  Do you know what that is?”

Lizzie answers immediately.  “We saw it today!  That’s the big white building with the big round top and the statue at the very tippy-top.”

“That’s where I work,” Pete agrees.  “But do you know what we do there?”

Lizzie shakes her head.  I’m sure she got a running commentary about it from her grandmother, even if it probably all went in one ear and straight out the other.  “Didn’t Grandma Helen tell you about it, when you were out today?”

“She said a lot of stuff,” Lizzie admits, then she concentrates, trying to remember anything that Helen told her.  Compared to ice-skating for the first time, I’m not surprised that nothing else really stuck with Lizzie.  But I’m wrong.  “She said – she said – that’s where they tell everybody in the whole country what to do.”  She fixes Pete with a very serious stare.  “Is that your job?  Do you tell everybody what to do?”

Pete grins.  “It’s a little bit more complicated than that.”

Lizzie has an immediate answer.  “Com – com – comlickpated is what Mommy says when I ask her and she doesn’t want to tell me something.”  I look at Pete apologetically.  I guess I’ve kind of raised a monster.  On the other hand, she is sort of right.  It’s my own fault – if I don’t want her asking difficult questions, I shouldn’t bring her with me to the hospital.

“There’s no getting anything past you, is there?” Pete says, still grinning.  “Let me explain it this way.  Your parents don’t tell you what to do every minute, but they make rules for you so you’ll be safe, and healthy and so you can grow up the way you should.  That’s kind of what the Congress does, except for the whole country.”

Lizzie considers that.  “Like no ice cream before dinner and no running in the street and never ever ever ever touch the ox – oxy – oxygen machine?”

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to a new edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

With Valentine’s Day coming up this weekend, what better time to talk about love?  Authors, share a romantic scene from one of your books in the comments.  Be sure to tell us a little about the book and give us a link so we can read more about it!

I’ll begin…

This is from the first book of the Dream Series, DREAM STUDENT.  Sara receives her first-ever gift from Brian…

Brian takes a deep breath, and then looks down at the box in my hands.  I tear off the paper, and it’s a jewelry box.  I slowly, carefully pull it open, and inside it – oh, my God.

It must have cost a thousand dollars.  It’s a necklace, with a very fine gold chain and–at one glance I know it’s real, not just costume jewelry–a small, beautiful emerald.  I don’t believe he–I can’t–it’s the most amazing thing.  My legs are shaking; I don’t know how they’re holding me up.  My heart is racing, and I feel short of breath.  I have no idea what anyone else is doing.  His mother is saying something, and so is mine, but that’s just noise.

“I thought it would set off your eyes,” Brian says, and his is the only voice I can hear.  He takes the necklace out of the box and I don’t even realize I’m turning my head so he can put it on me until I’ve already done it.  He drapes it around my neck, and I shudder at his touch.  He closes the clasp, and the emerald hangs down, and I look at it.

It’s perfect.  He’s perfect.

I turn back to him, look up into his brown, brown eyes, and I throw my arms around him.  I feel the tears start to flow for the second time today and I bury my head in his neck.  I’m not sure how long we’re there like that.  It could be forever.  There’s nowhere else I want to be.

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to a visual edition of Welcome Wednesdays.

We’ve all heard that “you can’t judge a book by its cover” but we also all know that people totally do.  So today, authors, please share one of your book covers in the comments, and tell us how it got created, what you like best about it, or anything else you’d like to say.  And be sure to include a link to the book, too!

Last week we talked about funny moments from books, and this week we’re taking a look at the reverse side of things.  Let’s delve into some more difficult emotions.  Authors, I want you to tell us about the most cruel, heartbreaking thing you’ve ever done to one of your characters.  Did you have their childhood pet run away?   Have their best friend betray them?  Kill their spouse?  Give them a fatal disease?  Blow up their home planet?  Tell us about it in the comments, and be sure to leave a link so we can read all the brutal details for ourselves…

EDITED TO ADD: if you want to embed your cover image and you have a link to it, here’s how to do it.  Use the following HTML code in your comment:

<img src=”IMAGE URL” width=”200″>

I’ll begin…

As some of my readers know, the covers that are on my books now aren’t the original ones.  When I released the first six Dream Series books, I worked with an artist to produce hand-illustrated covers, which I loved.  I gave her very specific directions, and they looked fantastic…but it turned out that they weren’t right at all for the genre and audience of the books.  The artist is Ami Low, who’s a fantastic illustrator and painter, and she gave me exactly what I asked for.  So here’s the original cover of DREAM STUDENT

And here’s the redesigned cover, by another artist, Emma Michaels, who I turned to when I could no longer ignore the fact that while Ami did an amazing job of translating my direction and ideas into wonderful art, the direction WAS the problem!  So for the revised covers, I simply told Emma what the books were about, and let her do whatever she thought best.  And here’s the result:

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

Today, I want to talk about what we, as authors, have learned – the hard-won lessons, the things we wish we’d known when we started writing.  So today’s prompt is simple:

In the comments, tell us one thing that you would want to pass on to a beginning author who came to you for advice about the indie publishing life.  Please be sure to include a link to one of your books, your website, etc so we can get to know you better!

I’ll begin…

 

If there’s one thing I wish I’d known, and that I would tell a brand-new author, it’s this:

The work does not end when you type “the end” or even when you get the final final draft completed after editing, beta readers and so forth.  It’s just beginning.  Selling your books is a whole job in itself, with ever-changing rules, and more things to learn than you could possibly imagine.  So you need to be prepared for that.

 

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

Last week we talked about funny moments from books, and this week we’re taking a look at the reverse side of things.  Let’s delve into some more difficult emotions.  Authors, I want you to tell us about the most cruel, heartbreaking thing you’ve ever done to one of your characters.  Did you have their childhood pet run away?   Have their best friend betray them?  Kill their spouse?  Give them a fatal disease?  Blow up their home planet?  Tell us about it in the comments, and be sure to leave a link so we can read all the brutal details for ourselves…

 

I’ll begin…

This is an obvious one for me – it’s chapter 2-3 of DREAM FAMILY, when Sara is mistakenly arrested and put through a hellish day and night in jail.  I actually lost sleep while writing this, I was so upset over what I was doing to Sara.  Here’s a brief excerpt:

Lizzie is sitting right where she was when I walked in, in front of the couch, staring up at me.  She looks – I’ve never seen this expression on her face before – angry.  Not childish “I want ice cream and I can’t have it” anger, but genuine, heartfelt, burning adult anger.  And betrayal.  Emotions a five-year-old shouldn’t ever feel.  And it’s all directed at me.

Then she looks away from me, turns her feelings on her father.  “Daddy, you lied!  Mommy didn’t go to the hospital yesterday.”  That’s not a five-year-old’s voice anymore.  That much pain shouldn’t ever come out of a child’s mouth, and it’s spewing out of my beautiful daughter’s.

…I’m naked.  My legs are squeezed together.  The deputy digs into my arm, orders me to spread them, to step back into the footprints.  I keep telling myself there’s nothing more they can take away from me, and I keep being wrong…

…Brian tries to answer Lizzie, but she doesn’t give him a chance.  “I saw it.  I dreamed it!  Mommy told me to always tell you, but I didn’t, because you lied!  I saw you in the dream, Daddy!  You were all sad and angry because Mommy was in jail, where all the crooks go!  She was chained up, and she was in a jail cell with bars and everything!  I saw it, Daddy!  But you told me she was in the hospital.  You lied to me, Daddy.  Only bad people go to jail, and only bad people lie.  You and Mommy say that all the time.”

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

Today we’re talking about humor.  Authors, I want you to share sometihng funny from one of your books.  A joke, a humorous description, or even a funny story ABOUT the book – something that happened at a book signing or a really funny reader reaction to one of your books.  It can be anything you like, as long as it’s funny.  And be sure to include a link tso we can learn more about the book, and about you!

I’ll begin…

 

This is from book seven of the Dream Series, DREAM HOME.  It’s a joke between Sara and her brother…

“You saw the lights flicker.”  He nods, still unsure where I’m going with this.  “I want you to look at the emergency generator.  I want us to be prepared, if we need it.”

“I’m a doc…”

I cut him off with a shake of my head.  “Bob, that stupid ‘Star Trek’ joke wasn’t ever funny.  You do know that, right?”

“Dad always laughs,” he says, giving me a heavy sigh.  Yes, Dad always does laugh when Bob starts to quote Dr. McCoy, then slaps his hand to his head, turns to me and says, “Oh, right, I’m not the doctor, you are!”  But Dad’s sense of humor was always a little bit off, too.

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays, and welcome to 2016!

This week, I don’t want you to talk about yourself.  Instead, I want you to tell us about someone else.  Share a little bit about a deserving fellow author.  Tell us about one of their books, tell us about one of their characters you especially love, share a paragraph or a fantastic one-liner from their work.  Be sure to give us a link so we can follow them, too!  And while you’re at it, do leave a link for yourself as well!

I’ll begin…

I’ve got a great author to share.  She just released her debut book last month.  She’s C. Rose, and her book is called Posh Bytes: BeautyWorld Tales of Whimsey & Woe.  It’s set in a future where computer implants are everywhere, and everything you see might be an illusion.  It’s a novel-length collection of seven stories, all of which are fantastic.  Here’s the description:

FALL INTO POSH BYTES, WHERE EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL… In a universe where anyone can choose to be beautiful, who really is? Appearances can be deceiving, and usually are. When reality is shaped by illusion, anything can happen. Science and art converge in the luxe glamor of BeautyWorld. These loosely connected Tales of Whimsey and Woe explore the concept of perceived beauty, and how the lives and loves of Posh Bytes‘ colorful characters are affected for the better or worse because of it. In a world where everyone appears to be perfect, what can possibly go wrong?

You can find the book on Amazon (FREE on Kindle Unlimited!).  And her website is www.poshbytes.com

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays! And Happy New Year, too!

With a new year coming up, it’s a great time to look ahead to new books.  So what I want all you authors to do is give us something nobody else has seen.  Show us a sneak preview, a paragraph or two or three from a work-in-progress.  And tell us a little about this new work that we’ll all want to buy the moment it’s published!

When you share, be sure to give us a link to your website or to your Amazon Author Page or your Facebook page (or all of the above) so we can find out more about you!

I’ll begin…this is from my next book, tentatively titles “Queen of the Idiots”.  It’s a romantic adventure tale starring Jane, an archaeology student in England who’s delivering her professor’s new Land Rover to him in Spain, when she gets mixed up in the theft of priceless ancient artifacts…

Jane signed as she was instructed.  “Here you go,” she said, handing the clipboard back.  The man reviewed her initials and signatures and nodded.  He pulled off the bottom sheet from the clipboard and handed it back to Jane.

“That’s your acknowledgement.”  He led her over to the car –the larger one, of course.  “You agree it’s the correct model?  Land Rover Discovery, Series I, five doors, chromatic blue exterior, sand interior?”

Professor Welldon hadn’t actually told her any of that.  He said it was a Land Rover; that was it.  Jane just had to assume that he had actually ordered the five-door model in chromatic blue; if he hadn’t, he was going to be in for a surprise on Thursday morning!  “Yes, sir,” Jane answered.

The man handed her a keyring.  “Enjoy your vehicle, miss,” he said, turning to leave with his fellow.  They piled into the smaller car, and were gone a moment later.  Jane was left behind with this insanely large vehicle that she really didn’t know how to drive.

The hour of practice Jane had had Saturday in Melanie’s brother’s Jaguar had done nothing for her confidence in her ability to drive a stick.  The poor man was in tears by the end of the session, thanks to the unnatural sounds that Jane had coaxed out of the transmission in her attempts to master the art of shifting gears.  Afterwards, Melanie had laughed at her brother’s reaction, “That was quite an accomplishment, Jane.  You should be proud of yourself.  No Harrington man has cried in public for a hundred and thirty years, but a few laps around the car park and you drove him to it.”  Melanie’s comment did nothing to reassure Jane.

Staring at the pristine Land Rover, fresh off the lot, Jane folded the form she’d been given and stuffed it in her pocket.  She guessed that the cost of the vehicle was noted there somewhere, and she had absolutely no desire to know what it was.

And here’s an artist’s rendering of Jane…

 

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays! And also Merry Christmas!

Since Christmas is only two days away, let’s talk about it.  Share a paragraph or scene from one of your books that has to do with Christmas (or, if none of your books take place at Christmastime, pick another holiday and share that).

When you share, be sure to provide a description and link to the book so we can find it!

I’ll begin…this is fromDream Student.  It’s just a quiet moment with Sara and her family enjoying one of their holiday traditions:

At eight o’clock, Dad calls everyone into the living room.  He’s got the fire going nicely.  The pizza he ordered got here a couple of minutes ago.  And the VCR is warmed up with the annual triple-feature: Charlie Brown, the Grinch and then Year Without a Santa Claus.  This is one thing Bob and I do agree 100% on–it wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

It’s a perfect evening.  We watch Charlie Brown pick out his sad, scrawny little tree and learn the true meaning of Christmas; we watch the Grinch plot and scheme and then have his epiphany; we watch Heat Miser and Snow Miser do their big musical numbers, which is my favorite part from any of the shows.

Afterwards, we all drink hot chocolate and, following longstanding family tradition, we each open one small present.

And now it’s your turn!

(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)

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