Tuesday Tidbits with Veronica Scott
Thanks so much for joining us, Veronica! Tell us about yourself…
I grew up in a house full of science fiction, history, and other books, and when I ran out of things to read, I inevitably started writing my own stories. I got married at 19 to my high school sweetheart, was then widowed quite young, now have two grown daughters, a very energetic 9 year old grandson and cats. I’m always reading, writing or on twitter (except when I’m at the day job or on the freeways!). I’m very happy to be here today, thanks for inviting me!
What made you want to write THIS story?
I enjoy the Egyptian setting and there was a challenge involved in taking a character like the Crocodile God through an emotional arc. He’s been around since the universe was created yet never felt true love, doesn’t really relate to humans until he meets the right woman! Which puts his immortal heart in serious jeopardy of being shattered…
Tell us about your hero – why is he so special?
Sobek is always depicted by the Egyptians as either crocodile or half man/half crocodile. Some legends say he created the universe from chaos but then other gods came along, like Isis, and he took a back seat. He stoically continued his duties tending to the Nile, keeping it flowing smoothly and flooding on schedule. As a writer, I found him and his backstory intriguing. Looking at a painting of him one day, I realized he was a shifter, to use our paranormal terminology. If the half man/half crocodile form was a partial shift, obviously he could shift all the way and take human form if he wanted to. The ancient Egyptians just never saw him do it! But since I now knew the truth, I could write his story. And most importantly for a paranormal romance writer, he could fall in love with the right human woman.
And your heroine; why is she so well-suited to your hero – or not?
What kind of woman would appeal to a Crocodile God in his human form, would cause him to fall in love for the first time ever? Crocodiles are very sensitive to sound, so I felt that Merys’s beautiful singing would be what first attracts him, sight unseen, as well as the fact she enjoys singing the traditional songs he hasn’t heard in a long time. Merys is descended from a long line of priestesses, so she’s not afraid of him. She continues to do her best to keep the abandoned temple in some kind of order, which he appreciates, having been pushed aside by newer gods. Then as he gets to know her, he starts to understand the feelings of a human heart…
What draws you to writing historicals?
I don’t give myself credit for writing a historical novel as such. I do the research but then I shape my version of Egypt 3000 years ago to work with my paranormal tendencies. Once I decided to involve the gods and to create my own pharaoh, I went into a slightly alternate universe. I gave myself permission to tell the fast paced stories in my head, try to be as true to the actual time as I could be but no claims to 100% historical accuracy here!
Ancient Egypt is such an interesting time period – what made you choose that as a setting?
I’ve always been intrigued by ancient civilizations, how we try to piece together the puzzle of their history from broken monuments, tombs and fragments. The Egyptians were so focused on the aspects of the afterlife, yet you can see from the tomb paintings and household items how much like us they were as well. It’s fascinating to contemplate living in another time and place, and the adventures you – or your characters – could have. Did you turn up a detail in your research that really surprised you? I was amazed to find out how much the Egyptians respected the Crocodile God, hand raising large groups of crocodiles at certain temples, feeding them choice tidbits, adorning them with jewelry for the big festivals, even mummifying them. I knew about the Egyptians’ love for cats but had never heard of the crocodiles receiving similar treatment.
What books/characters did you like to read, growing up, and how have they inspired you in writing this story?
Two books in particular stand out for me, as far as Egypt – Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Shadow Hawk by Andre Norton. Both told exciting stories against the rich background of history and left me wondering what happened to the characters next. I loved historical fiction, science fiction – anything that transported me to another time and place and had the elements for adventure!
What are you working on next?
I’ve got more stories in this connected series in various stages of editing and submission. I love Ancient Egypt and the ideas keep flowing. I just finished book #3, tentatively titled “Dancer of the Nile” and sent it to my Critique Partner.
Veronica’s novel, Priestess of the Nile, can be found at Carina Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all good e-tailer sites.
If you want to catch up with Veronica online, here is where you can find her:
http://veronicascott.wordpress.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/vscotttheauthor
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Veronica-Scott/177217415659637
As Andrew Lloyed Webber Wrote, “Love Changes Everything.”
I’ve just returned from 10 days tutoring creative writing at the University of Southern Queensland’s McGregor Summer School, and one of the exercises I had the nine students undertake revealed something rather surprising.
One topic the four men in the group had most trouble with was: How do Characters Fall in Love? We had previously covered Characterisation, in which I stressed that a reader must care about your characters, and this would come about because they liked them and related to them. I explained the various aspects of falling in love such as initial attraction, chemistry, emotional connection, mental connection, liking each other, caring, respect, growth, and we discussed what attracted one person to another. I then gave them the following exercise on showing attraction and character traits (keeping in mind that the probability was that these two characters would fall in love):
When Lisa finds her old childhood friend, Jane, pregnant and homeless, she immediately invites her to stay. Jane says her ex-boss, Dan, is the father of her baby, but won’t tell him as it was only a one-night stand.
Lisa is furious that Jane has been left destitute. She has always been very protective of the younger woman whose abusive father often caused her to take refuge with Lisa’s parents.
Without Jane’s knowledge, Lisa confronts Dan. His initial obvious attraction to her is soon squashed when he thinks she is out to blackmail him about Jane’s baby, and he denies having slept with Jane.
Write this scene, subtly showing Dan’s attraction to Lisa and the attraction Lisa feels for him, but which she denies to herself.
Keep in mind that although Dan is angry, he cannot be seen to be callous or arrogant.
When it came time for them to read out what they’d written, I was astounded that the four male writers had written Dan as obnoxious, arrogant, uncaring, and every other negative description I could think of. All of them had Dan thinking that Lisa was a “bitch”, something that went against the character profile a reader would expect of a hero.
The women, on the other hand, had created a character more in line with the brief given in the exercise, but with only one suggesting that Jane might have been lying about Dan being the father.
After much discussion, in which the men realised they had completely missed the purpose of the exercise, I suggested that because they were decent, honourable men, it was obvious that they had instantly been protective of destitute, pregnant Jane, and therefore assumed she was telling the truth and Dan was to blame.
It was interesting to see this difference in the viewpoints of the male and female writers. Having grown up with four brothers, and as the mother of two sons, I was well aware of how male thought processes differ from females’, but it made me wonder if writers realise that they have to discard their own personality traits and inhabit the persona of their character.
It’s the ability to ‘become’ your character that enables a writer to create characters that live in a reader’s mind long after the last page.
This came home to me forcibly when I was writing my first romantic suspense, Dance with the Devil. In one scene, the villain goes to cut out the tongue of the young man he has just knocked unconscious. I was so “in” the minds of both these characters that I couldn’t stand the stress of this scene and had to stop writing it for a couple of hours. I also left the scene at that point and didn’t describe whether the villain continued with this deed or not because I believe readers have wonderful imaginations and I didn’t need to overwhelm them with details. It’s a spoiler, I know, but I have to let you know that the villain changed his mind, but I won’t tell you why!
One reader told me that she was so affected by that scene that she couldn’t read the book for the next three days, but then she started again because she wanted to know what happened to the characters.
In my latest novel, Fatal Flaw, my two main characters, Mark and Julie, have been friends since childhood, but thirteen years apart has changed them in ways that create problems for their developing romance. Although they now realise that they have always loved each other, they have to find out if the people they are now are still worthy of that love. So that provided a different challenge to writing the “getting to know you” phase of a relationship.
Whatever the circumstances of a developing romance are, if the writer hasn’t succeeded in making the reader care about her characters enough that she wants their love to win out in the end, she (or he) might as well be writing a grocery list.
Sandy is the author of six romantic suspense novels, the latest of which, Fatal Flaw, is published by Clan Destine Press. All her novels, including Romantic Book of the Year finalists Dance with the Devil and Until Death, are available as ebooks from Amazon and Clan Destine Press. You can find out more about Sandy’s books at http://sandycurtis.com/blog/
To Epilogue or Not To Epilogue – THAT is the question!
A few Romance Writers’ of Australia conferences back, I had the great pleasure of hearing the fabulous Jenny Crusie speak. I’m a huge JC fan and buy a new book of hers the minute they come out, but one thing that really struck me when she spoke was her complete and utter disrespect (LOL) for epilogues.She hates them. Doesn’t think they are necessary in romance novels if you’ve done a good job during the actual story of convincing the readers that the hero and heroine are meant to be together.
But I have a confession to make… I LOVE THEM!
I was one of the sad romantic fans who loved that J.K.Rowling wrote an epilogue in the final Harry Potter book. I loved that she rounded off the happy ending, especially because it was the romance thread of the series.
In ONE PERFECT NIGHT (Carina Press), I wrote an epilogue. It shows the hero and heroine one year (exactly) into their relationship – how things have changed and how their love has been consolidated. A friend of mine recently read the book and she said she was SO glad that I’d written an epilogue because she’s sick of reading romances that end abruptly at the resolution.
In my upcoming June release JILTED (Mira, Australia), there isn’t an epilogue. I wrote one but after a CP said it wasn’t necessary, I cut it. In this book, I think she was right.
In the novel I’ve just subbed to Carina Press (working title: HOLLYWOOD HEARTBREAK), there isn’t an epilogue either, but I’m wondering if maybe there should be.
So I guess what I’m saying is I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules when it comes to writing and reading epilogues. Like many things in life, it really comes down to the individual (in this case book). Some books work well with epilogues and some don’t.
I’d like to leave you with an extract from the epilogue of ONE PERFECT NIGHT. Also, I’d love to hear in the comments section about your thoughts on epilogues. Do you love them, hate them or have never really given it any thought? Is there any epilogue you’ve read lately that really stood out in its brilliance?
Thanks so much for having me Shannon and also your readers for reading my rambles
EXTRACT ONE PERFECT NIGHT
“Don’t look now but that damn-sexy husband of yours just walked in with your cute-as-pie daughter.” Peppa laughed at Izzy and took the glass of champagne she held out toward her. She indulged in one sip but, as she was still nursing Angelina, she exchanged the rest for a glass of orange juice. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she said, leaning closer to Izzy as she surveyed the crowd around them enjoying the annual office Christmas party. Izzy raised her eyebrows in excited anticipation. “He’s damn fine at changing nappies too.” “Ooh.” Izzy pressed the back of her hand against her brow, pretending to swoon. “I just love a man who doesn’t shy away from domestic duties. Perhaps if I found someone with such talents, even I could contemplate the whole white-picket-fence deal.” Peppa was about to proclaim her approval at Izzy’s words—if her happiness levels this past year were anything to go by, she strongly believed everyone should be blissfully married—but Cameron returned with their little miracle and she lost her train of thought.
Book Blurb of ONE PERFECT NIGHT:
Peppa Grant’s fellow employees may call their new CEO Mr. McSexy, but she’s also heard that he’s aloof and distant. Cameron McCormac certainly seems cold toward Christmas when she meets him at the company’s annual party…but he’s also the sexiest man Peppa has ever seen. And when he offers to forgive the damage she accidentally caused to his expensive car in exchange for accompanying him to his family’s holiday get-together, she agrees.
Cameron needs a date to the family party to get his matchmaking relatives off his back. Their chemistry is instant and undeniable, leading to an incredible one-night stand. But Peppa wants love and family, while Cameron’s only interested in temporary pleasure. When their relationship takes an unexpectedly serious turn, will he run the other way—or will he give love a second chance?
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rachael-Johns/260103224001776
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/RachaelJohns @RachaelJohns
Blog: http://www.rachaeljohns.blogspot.com/
Website: www.rachaeljohns.com
To buy links: Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005Z1CF2A/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_alp_sCZRob15EH9MT
and Carina Press – http://ebooks.carinapress.com/262D0727-23A2-4E9D-B75E-249FF29C76DF/10/134/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=5BB8BC4C-4898-4073-8306-FECF92B5DC5B
Rachel Johns’ book, One Perfect Night, has just been made a Finalist in the Favourite Contemporary Romance for 2011 in the Australian Romance Readers Awards. 
Congratulations, Rachel, and good luck!
Tuesday Tidbits: Liz Flaherty, One More Summer
Thanks so much for joining us, Liz! 
Tell us a little about yourself…
Life is new and wonderful for me these days. I retired from the post office in 2011, promptly gained 15 pounds—overnight, I swear!—and promised my grandkids, The Magnificent Seven, that I would make each of them a bed-size quilt. I also planned to write all day, every day.
What was I thinking?
I’ve learned to write when I feel like it, sew when I feel like it, and maybe even to eat a little less. I’ve gone back to school, where, yes, I am far and away the oldest kid in class. I’ve learned to share the house and sometimes even the kitchen with Duane, my husband of, oh, lots of years. And I’m having a Very, Very Good Time.
My fifth book—I’m not an overnight success, but I never give up—ONE MORE SUMMER, is a new release by Carina Press. I am thrilled to the point that everyone I know rolls their eyes as soon as I open my mouth.
What made you want to write THIS story?
Oh, my gosh, I was so lucky. This was one of those that wrote itself. I know how goofy that sounds, but I gave up trying to drive the writing train after the first chapter and just let it go. That had never happened before, nor has it happened since, but it was certainly fun (and exhausting—I was getting up at 3:00 AM to write) while it lasted.
Tell us about Dillon, your hero – why is he so special?
He’s just a nice guy, you know? He’s the one who can be as bad as he needs to be, but he’d just as soon not. He’s a good friend, the kid who lived next door your whole life and one day you woke up and realized he was the man of your dreams and there he’d been the whole time.
And Grace, your heroine; why is she so well-suited to your hero – or not?
I’m not so sure they’re well-suited in a lot of ways. My husband and I, even after 40 years, have virtually nothing in common (other than the Magnificent Seven and their parents, of course) and we have managed to disagree about every single thing that’s ever jumped into our paths. And I wouldn’t trade a minute of those 40 years. I think Dillon and Grace are more like us. Only she’s slim. Sigh.
What draws you to writing in the romance genre?
First, last, and foremost, happily ever after. I love relationship books, and romances are the ultimate in that.
What books/heroes did you like to read, growing up, and how have they inspired you in writing this story?
Well, Louisa May Alcott was the one. I literally read the covers off Little Women when I was about 10 or 11, and there was no looking back. I knew I wanted to do what she did. There were others who spurred me on, too—Jane Austen anyone?—but she started it all.
Heroes? Oddly enough, I have to go to the movies to answer that. Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, James Arness, John Wayne. They were bigger than life and I saw them as loving men who would not only protect and love their women, but would accept love and protection, too. I loved the heroes in books, too—oh, Mr. Rochester—but I learned how I wanted to write them from the ones in the movies.
What are you working on next?
Blogging! LOL. No, I’ve started a new manuscript, working title, Desperado, but it’s going slowly and I’m not sure it’s going to fly. Mostly, I’m having the aforementioned Good Time, and if that means starting over again, that’s okay, too.
Thanks so much for having me here today. I’ve enjoyed it.
My book—you knew there’d be a commercial, didn’t you?—is available at the following links.
http://ebooks.carinapress.com/19C28077-E8B2-400A-ACBF-FAE0579EE2F0/10/134/en/Default.htm
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-more-summer-liz-flaherty/1107412429
http://www.amazon.com/One-More-Summer-ebook/dp/B006BE6HAG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324908781&sr=8-1
I’d love to have you visit my website http://lizflaherty.com or http://wordwranglers.blogspot.com/ where I hang out with some of my best writer friends.
Excerpt from One More Summer
by Liz Flaherty
It was no use. Grace had taken her lengthy bath in the claw foot tub, shaved her legs and nicked her ankle right on the bone where it hurt most, and put on her chenille robe. She’d poured a tumbler full of the expensive wine Steven had brought a case of and sat on the couch with the book she’d gotten at the library when she’d read to the kids earlier in the week. Louisa May slept on the couch back, twitching her tail occasionally and smacking Grace in the face with it. Rosamunde dozed contentedly in the baseball cap Dillon had left on the lamp table. The window behind the couch was open, affording Grace a cooling breeze scented by the rain that had fallen that evening.
She’d already gotten up once and closed the pocket doors between the living room and the dining room. But she could still hear it.
Laughing. There were Jonah’s guffaw, Maxie’s theatrical trill, and the husky whoop that was always such a surprise coming from Promise’s soprano throat. Now and then another laugh slipped in, quieter than Jonah’s but no less gleeful. Dillon was there too. They sat on the screened porch, a good forty feet from where Grace sat with her feet up, and still she could hear them.
They were playing Monopoly. Grace hadn’t played that since the day before her mother died. She remembered that last game, the board balanced on a bed tray across Debbie Elliot’s legs in the room that smelled of Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder and sickness and medicine. Faith had sat on one side of her mother, Promise on the other, and Grace at the bed’s end.
“Sit on my feet a little, baby,” Debbie had said. “You keep them so nice and warm.”
Grace had won the game, and the next day—when Debbie was dead and life for the rest of the Elliots had irrevocably changed—she had hated herself for buying Boardwalk and Park Place and forcing her mother into bankruptcy.
“I made her die,” she’d told Steven.
“Her heart made her die,” he’d responded, but Grace hadn’t really believed him until he became a cardiac surgeon.
Sometimes, she still wondered. If Debbie had napped in the evening as she often did, would that hour of rest have made the difference? If Grace hadn’t sat on her mother’s feet with her eighty-five pounds of almost-twelve-year-old exuberance, would the final heart attack not have happened?
But she refused to think about those things now, nor would she consider the game of Monopoly with an inward shudder of dread. She thought instead of the laughter that was dancing along her nerve endings, and wondered if anyone else was using the little iron as their token for moving around the board. The iron had always been her favorite. She liked the way it felt between her fingers.
If she just got off her couch and wandered toward the porch like she was bored with her own company—which she was—would anyone make a big deal out of it? If Promise or the others acted surprised by her presence, Dillon Campbell would think she’d joined them just because he was there. Which was nonsense.
Of course it was.
She remembered how Dillon’s hand had felt when he pulled her to her feet the night before. She’d avoided unnecessary touch all her adult life, and one squeeze of Dillon Campbell’s fingers had her wondering if that hadn’t been a mistake.
More nonsense.
She tried again to devote full attention to the book, but finally gave up and laid it aside. She sat in the harsh light from the reading lamp and sipped her high dollar wine and listened to the laughter of the others. Isolation and loneliness wrapped around her, not new feelings by any means, but somehow deeper and darker tonight.
Maybe this time, as Promise often accused, she was excluding herself and the loneliness was of her own making. Maybe if she stepped onto the back porch, no one would make a fuss and no one would make her feel as though she didn’t belong. It was, after all, her porch.
Carrying her glass, she whispered open the pocket doors and strode barefoot through the deserted dining room and the kitchen with its ever-present light over the sink. After a moment’s hesitation, she pushed open the door to the porch.
“Replacement power. Just in time.” Promise’s smile was wide and brilliant. Welcome to the human race. Grace heard the words she didn’t say. “Now that I’ve been trounced, Grace can take my place while I make popcorn. No one’s using your iron, so have at it.”
Grace sat in the chair Promise vacated, taking the little metal iron from the Monopoly box. It still felt nice between her fingers.
“I’m the banker,” Jonah informed her, passing money around the table. “Since I’m better at losing money than anyone else, I was unanimously elected.”
“I don’t even know why I play.” Maxie sighed, fluffing her blond hair with heavily be-ringed fingers. “I seem to spend all my time in jail. Unless Dillon rescues me with his ‘get out of jail free’ cards,” she added with a flutter of eyelashes.
“I’m just a soft touch for a pretty lady.” Dillon smiled at her, his eyes glinting silver in the dim, yellow light on the porch.
Grace’s heart hammered against her ribs.
Geezy Pete, Grace, grow up.
Liz has generously contributed a copy from her backlist to a lucky reader. Leave a comment, and enter the draw! Winner will be announced 16 Jan.
Whenever Never Comes
I’m completely normal. Seriously. Statistically, a whopping 75% will still be sticking to our New Year’s resolution by 14th Jan. Alas, by 1st June that number drops to 46%. I’ve almost gotten to the stage of making a resolution with the expectation of breaking that resolution by March. At the latest.
Let’s take a look at my last year’s resolutions (cringe!):
Drop 4 dress sizes and be fit and fabulous.
– Didn’t quite work out. As in, I didn’t quite work out.
Get two romantic suspense books written and published.
– Actually, this one kind of worked. My first book, Viper’s Kiss, was released July 25, 2011, and my second book will be coming out May 2012 – but was accepted for publication within 2011.
Finish my middle grade fiction.
– Did that. Have learned there is a big step between finishing a book, and getting it published – which leads me to the purpose of this post – S.M.A.R.T. GOALS.
I’ve actually presented on this very topic with my fabulous critique group, the Writer’s Coven, and kick myself that I haven’t used the same philosophy in my New Year’s Resolutions. Well, this year, I will.
A S.M.A.R.T. goal is:
Specific – no generalisations, be specific about what you want to achieve, when and how.
Measurable – when you’re specific, you can see whether you achieve your goal, or not.
Achievable – within your control. Your goal can’t rely on another’s actions to be achieved.
Realistic – within the bounds of reality. Don’t set yourself up for failure with an unrealistic goal.
Time-bound – put a limit on your goal, so that you can measure your success. No use saying you want to give up smoking, by whenever. Whenever never comes.
My S.M.A.R.T. writing goals for 2012:
Finish writing and submitting two more romantic suspense novels by Dec 31st 2012.
Complete and submit two novellas by Oct 31st 2012.
Plot out a trilogy, and start writing Book 1 by Nov 1st 2012.
My S.M.A.R.T. personal goals for 2012:
Create a personal timetable by Feb 20th 2012 to better organise the home life.
Lose 15kgs by July 1st 2012.
Read 3 fiction books that have nothing to do with my writing, purely for enjoyment, by Dec 31st 2012.
Have a date night each month with my husband.
What are your goals?
Writer's Ink 