Great Giveaway

We've got an awesome giveaway going on over the Romance Divas blog today - if you love books and flowers, head over HERE and leave a comment to enter yourself in the giveaway. You could win a copy of Faking It by Elisa Lorello AND a dozen roses! Isn't that cool? I love having fresh flowers in the house and I love free books. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. ;o)

Check it out!

Writer Question

This came up on Romance Divas recently and I thought it made for an interesting discussion, so let me ask you guys.

When do you know a manuscript is dead? When do you stop revising and put it away? Or do you keep them all alive? What's your take on that?

Me? I guess I kind of believe a manuscript is never dead. I know I'm a much better writer now than when I started, but I think I could revise anything I've written and bring it up to my current standards.

Awesome Free Workshop!

Just register in the Romance Diva forum to participate!

Fabulous Free Workshop Starts Tomorrow!

Kick A$$ Characters By Authors Who Know How To Kick A$$September 12-13 at Romance Divas

Featuring:

Bob Mayer
Lori Avocato
Maggie Price
Lindsay McKenna
Barry Eisler
Linnea Sinclair
Larissa Ione
Merline Lovelace

Want to know how to write authentic action, suspense, law enforcement, and military romance? Ask authors who know firsthand! Romance Divas is hosting a 2-day workshop with some of the hottest names in the genre. It will take place at the Romance Diva Forum. All are welcome. To get access to the forum you will need to register by entering the site and clicking on Forum.

Get Out! This Workshop Is Free?!

Everything Old Is New Again – Using Mythology in Romance

May 16, 17, and 18 at Romance Divas

Featuring:
P.C. Cast
Robin D. Owens
Gena Showalter
Lori Handeland
Alyssa Day

Want to know how to use mythology, culture, fairy tales, or folklore in romance? Romance Divas is hosting a 3-day workshop with some of the hottest names in the genre. It will take place at the Romance Diva Forum. All are welcome. To get access to the forum you will need to register.

Free Reads

Dear Author recently talked about the various publishers who are giving away free ebooks and wondered if the romance genre shouldn't jump on that wagon too.

The idea of free books as promotion interests me greatly. It's something I've thought about doing - although not for promotion so much as for giving my seemingly unpublishable books a new life. While I wouldn't giveaway something I thought was absolulte dreck, I might give away a book that I love but is in a sub-genre I'm probably not going to write anymore. I'd also give it away with the disclaimer that it hadn't been through professional edits.

At Romance Divas, we've been doing an annual free ereads program for two years. We usually do it around Valentine's Day. The stories offer are the author's choice. Anything goes, any heat level, any genre, any idea. They're free and with that comes a sort of freeness in the writing. More than once those free reads have resulted in a publishing contract as a result of an editor reading the story and wanting to put out an expanded version. It's an interesting event.

Anyway, what do you think about free reads as promotion? Would it interest you to read an old story of mine? (I'd like to add, it was a GH finalist.) Would you ever consider offering a free book of your own?

Bonus: Noah Lukeman (author of The First Five Pages, The Plot Thickens and A Dash of Style) has decided to make his e-book HOW TO WRITE A GREAT QUERY LETTER free, as a way to give back to the writing community. Get it here: http://www.lukeman. com/greatquery/download.htm

Fun, Writerly, Stuff

Fun:

Gemma Halliday is running a hot bachelor auction! Check it out here.

Writerly:

If you don't think MS Word is the perfect writing tool, maybe one of these is programs for you. Both have free trial downloads. I'd love to hear what you think if you try one of them out!

Scrivener - for Mac users
PageFour - for Windows users

Stuff:

Newsweek carries another take on the Cassie Edwards plagiarism scandal. (And for some really exciting news, Romance Divas will be interviewing the plagiarised author, Paul Tolme, in the very near future.)

Also, a friend and agency sister, Maureen McGowan, has finaled in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest!! Apparently, there were over 5,000 entries and there are 800 semi-finalists and Maureen is one of them! Woohoo!

Please consider voting for her FABULOUS entry here. Thanks!

Diva Withdrawal?

Thanks to our craptastic hosting company screwing up the Romance Diva forum, we're currently without a workable forum while they (we think) try to repair it. Or not. It's pretty hard to tell since their customer service sucks monkey butt.

In the mean time, feel free to catch up on the diva madness, share a brag, get some support - you know, all the diva goodness there is - at our temporary Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancedivas2007/

Thanks for your patience while we deal with idiots.

Deep Thoughts

Just a few random things:

* Recently found a new artist (new to me), Eddi Reader. She's got kind of a Celtic, folksy sound. Very easy to listen to. Check out my myspace page to hear one of her songs, Bell, Book and Candle. If you go and listen to it, I'd love to hear what you think. Oh and friend me while you're there, if you haven't already.

* I've decided that great books, keeper books, shall now be referred to as a DMV. Delicious Mind Vacation. Feel free to use that. (Ex. C.L. Wilson's Lord of the Fading Lands - definite DMV, the recently read Peeps by Scott Westerfeld, not so much.)

* Blog and ye shall receive. I am ECSTATIC to tell you that there is an ARC of C. L. Wilson's Lady of Light and Shadows on its way to me. Sometimes, it pays to express one's self. I'm also thrilled to tell you that C.L. Wilson will be our Author of the Month at Romance Divas this coming October! Woohoo!

* Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'm going to see Annie tomorrow! Myself, Lara Santiago, my sis-in-law and the niece are off for a girl's night of the Cheesecake Factory and Annie. Can't wait! It's a hard knock life, but somebody's got to live it.

Not going to Nationals?

Don't worry...Romance Divas is doing the next best thing! Romance Divas announces the first annual "Not Going to Nationals Cyber Conference" from July 11-15, right on the forum. And it's all free! http://www.romancedivas.com/

July 11:

Workshop: PC Cast and Kristin Cast (topic TBA)Workshop: Character Development with Sophia Shaw NEW WORKSHOP! Q&A: TBA (either with an agent from the Larsen-Pomada Agency or a panel on multi-cultural romance)

July 12:

Workshop: Book Signing 101: Tips to Help Make your Signing a Success by Jackie Kessler

Q&A: Legal Issues for Writers by Amanda Brice

July 13:

Workshop: What to Expect After You Sign the Contract by Marley Gibson

Q&A: Erotic romance with Portia da Costa and Madelynne Ellis

July 14:

Workshop: Writing Novellas and Short Stories by Sasha White

Q&A: How To Write Both YA and Adult Romance by Berta Platas

July 15:

Workshop: Trim That Fatty Writing! by Rhonda Stapleton

Q&A: TBA (either with an agent from the Larsen-Pomada Agency or a panel on multi-cultural romance)Plus, Deirdre Savoy will also be doing a workshops for us (topic and date TBA)! So there will be two days with not one, but TWO fabulous workshops, plus a Q&A!!!!!

Additionally, the fabulous and funny Mary Janice Davidson is our Author Of The Month and will be doing a workshop and chat!

Monday Update

* My "So You're Going To Conference" article in this month's RWR is getting some great responses. If you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? It's my pick for article of the year. *grin*

* I've lost a total of six pounds so far on my quest to tighten-n-tone in time for Nationals. 38 days and counting! And if I keep up this pace of losing (doubtful - I know a plateau is in my future), I'll be looking better than ever in Dallas!

* If you haven't heard about it yet, Samhain has announced some really interesting info! Congrats to them! Also, they're running a first line contest on their blog.

* Not going to RWA's National Conference this year? There's a new reason not to feel left out! Romance Divas will be running an online conference for those "left behind." If you're an author and would like to get in on this by offering a workshop, doing a chat or Q&A, email me for more info.

Monday, Monday...

Today is the calm before the storm. This is going to be one of the busiest weeks ever. I leave for the Romantic Times Convention next Monday and between now and then I have MUCH to do.

To Do:
* Finish first draft of Date With The Devil
* Get hair highlighted
* Get spray tan (don't worry, I plan to blog about this)
* Sew fairy costume
* Finalize vampire cowboy costume & Moulin Rouge costume (which may be nothing more than a fancy hat)
* Prepare brief handouts for the topics I'll be talking about at RT (Dialogue, Plotting & Rejection)
* Pack for RT
* Prepare some frozen meals for Hotrod so he doesn't eat Steak-n-Shake seven nights in a row while I'm gone
* Send out last batch of review books to the Romance Divas reviewers
* Attend the Volusia County Romance Writer's one day conference on Saturday (I'm a glutton for punishment, aren't I? I'm going because my super marvelous agent, Elaine Spencer is speaking.)

I'm sure there's more, but those are the highlights. It's enough, don't you think? On a rather triumphant personal note, I wrote 21 1/2 pages on DWTD yesterday! That's an all time personal best, my previous record being 18 pages in one day. Considering I had a cold over the weekend and was doped up on meds, this is even more impressive. Clap for me. After all those pages, I realized there is still more story to be told. So, once again I've extended my estimate on the final word count, this time to 98k words. Will it be done then? I don't know. DWTD may go to 100k. I'll know when I type The End.

Shout Out: My fabulous friend, Lara Santiago has had a book final in the Passionate Plume - The Lawman's Wife!

So...what do you have planned for the week?

Free Writing Workshop at Romance Divas!

Today begins RITA winner Linnea Sinclair's workshop at Romance Divas. To participate, you just need to register in the Forum section of the website. Registration cost the same as the workshop - nothing! Here are the details on the workshop this fabulous author will be presenting:

Feb 19th - 23rd

CHARACTER TORTURE 101

Writing Guru Dwight Swain said that it's the author's job to manipulate the emotions of the reader. There's no better way to do this than for the author to put his characters through one roller coaster episode after another, taking the reader along for the ride. But how much conflict, how much character angst is too much? How can an author keep the action from becoming cartoonish? Bantam Spectra author Linnea Sinclair answers those questions and more in this fun and fast-paced (because torturing students is good, too!) workshop that explores the importance of conflict in today's commercial fiction novels.