2008 January « Dee Savoy

Archive for January, 2008

Jan

Lazy Days and Fridays

By writerds 3 Comments

Categories: blogosphere, entertainment, industry, mystery, publishing, romance, romantic suspense, writing and wtf?

Okay, not exactly lazy, just busy. instead of posting I’ve culled a few interesting posts for you to ponder.

The first comes from Editorrent, dealing with story reversals, Charles Dickens and a few other useful tidbits.

Angela Jefferson’s blog pointed me toward NY Times coverage of the Cassie Edwards brouhaha. Personally, I’ve never read any of Ms. Edwards work and have been offended myself by the use of the word savage in many of her bajillion titles (which is why I didn’t read her). I don’t know what she did or didn’t do, but it is an important discussion, since few folks seem to know what the P word is or even if they do, they don’t care. I was pleased the other day, though, when my daughter had a research paper to write for her English class (high school, you know) and her teacher told her that she had to be careful how she paraphrased or incorporated research material so as not to plagiarize. Send that teacher an apple!

Getting back to Angela for a minute. She claims herself to be a font of useless information. I was a font of useless information way before she came around. But I digress.

Don’t know much about the writer’s strike in Hollywood, but Booksquare posts some interesting information on the ramifications of all these indie deals on whatever the major settlement turns out to be. My message to the studios: pay the two dollars and get your houses back in order.

And finally–the Edgars are coming, the Edgars are coming. Or the nominations for the awards have been announced. You can find commentary on who’ll win at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, or if you just want the list of nominees, go here.

Jan

Will the real possible future president please stand up?

By writerds 0 Comments

Categories: mystery, true crime and writing

A small item appeared in the Daily News here in New York about presidential hopeful Barack Obama in which Dennis Haysbert, the actor who played President Palmer on 24, claimed credit for fomenting in the American mind the idea that a black man–the right man–could become president. And I thought hmmm.

Now there’s no doubt in my mind that the actor was not really serious about his assertion, but who knows if that isn’t partly the truth. I’ve heard complaints from both cops and layers that it’s more difficult to prosecute folks now unless you can CSI the jury up the wazoo. Crime writing has been accused of glorifying crime since, at least, the time Truman Capote put pen to paper for In Cold Blood.

So how much of a rap should fiction in the form of film, TV, song lyrics and books take when it comes to forging reality, and is it really a bad thing?

With the pervasiveness of information on the internet, no one needs to look to fiction of any kind for inspiration, motivation or how-to-do-it guides. Where do you think writers get it from? But is it our duty to self-monitor? What do you think?

Jan

Writing Workshops Worth a Look

By writerds 0 Comments

Categories: writer's resources

Wine Country Romance Writers February Workshop
The Language of Liars
Instructor: Lucinda Schroeder
2/4 - 2/29

Registration Deadline: 2/3/08
Cost: $25

It has been known for a long time that criminals lie in a specific
way. Federal agents and local cops are trained to recognize these
signs and use them against their suspect. In “The Language of Liars,
you’ll learn what they know. This is a fascinating course on the
detection of deception and how to make your character an authentic
liar. You’ll also learn how law enforcement cracks the lie for the
sake of justice and how a specialized technique called SCAN is used.

Instructor Bio:
Lucinda Delaney Schroeder has a BA in Criminology and is a retired
federal agent who during her thirty-year career conducted numerous
undercover investigations and was the only female member a
specialized undercover unit. She has taught undercover techniques to
other agents at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in
Glynco, GA and continues to train law enforcement officers through
her private business “Bulletproof Covert Identities.” She lives in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. Lucinda is the author of “A Hunt for
Justice,” (Lyons Press) a true story of one her undercover cases in
Alaska, in which clever deception was her only protection.

Registration information available online at:
http://winecountryromancewriters.com/workshops.htm

PITCH PERFECT with Janet Wellington
January 14 - February 10, 2008

Enrollment Information: http://www.occrwa.com/classes_January.htm
<http://www.occrwa.com/classes_January.htm>

COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members
Enrollment deadline: January 12, 2008
Moderator: Kitty Bucholtz at kittyrosebucholtz@yahoo.com
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ABOUT THE CLASS:

Pitch Perfect: Getting to the Heart of your Romance Novel or Women¹s
Fiction Story (for pitching and for querying)

Everyone needs to learn how to pitch. Okay, maybe everyone except those
few heavy hitters who have the luxury of only having to share a vague idea
about a story with their editors because their stuff always sells well (we hate
them, but let’s move on…).

So, the rest of us need to be able to present our story ideas within query letters, synopses, and during frightening agent and editor appointments at writing conferences!

Can you use a 3-word phrase to describe your story? How about in one sentence?
Can you capture the essence of your tale in 25 words or less?
When your listener wants to know more about your story, do you know what to say and, more importantly, what NOT to say?
Do you know the biggest benefit of having an agent or editor appointment at a national or regional writing conference?

The main goal of this class is to help you understand the different types (and lengths) of pitches you need to prepare, and for you to learnseveral ways and styles of organizing your pitch (that you can utilize in query letters as well as agent/editor appointments).

What do you get? If you read and comprehend all the lectures plus complete all the assignments, you will create your very own pitch that you can utilize for query letters, synopsis blurbs, and/or as a verbal pitch to agents and/or editors at conference appointments. Or, this process will clearly point out where you need to do some more work on your story. It
might be a painful awakening that you have some serious revising to do, but it will be time well spent.

Either way, you’ll have gotten to the heart of your story.

About the Instructor:

After much hard work and the help of many other published and unpublished writers, Janet Wellington sold her first romance manuscript in 1998. Now, in addition to her own writing, she also teaches writing workshops at conferences and online. And she believes in giving back to the writing community and coaches other writers on craft and how to navigate the
publishing maze through her business called Wellington Word, where she offers line-editing and manuscript critiquing.

Her favorite mantra is: If you’re going to dream, dream big…and do it! And she adds, “Getting published is a miracle achieved by four things: (1)Courage, (2) Perseverance, (3) Luck, and (4) Talent…usually in that order!”

PITCH PERFECT with Janet Wellington
January 14 - February 10, 2008

Enrollment Information: http://www.occrwa.com/classes_January.htm
<http://www.occrwa.com/classes_January.htm>

COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members
Enrollment deadline: January 12, 2008

For more information, please see the website
http://www.occrwa.com/classes_January.htm
<http://www.occrwa.com/classes_January.htm> or email moderator Kitty
Bucholtz
at kittyrosebucholtz@yahoo.com

Heart of Dixie Online Workshop:

Inside the Minds of Serial Killers and Those Who Track Them Down
Instructor: Greg Moffatt

Date: March 13-17, 2008

Cost: $20

Questions? Email online@heartofdixie.org online@heartofdixie.org

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

Want to write the spine-tingling mystery that has been in the back of your
mind? Need to learn more before digging in? Then this course will give you
the much-needed look behind the scenes, so you can add key elements to your
book.

This course will address the process of homicide/violent crime profiling.
It will cover how serial killers think, what motivates them, how to identify
signature, and it will address the specifics of how profiling works. Among
topics to be addressed will be crime scene analysis (i.e. photos, blood
patterns, staging), assessment of autopsy information, witness statements,
and police reports and how these aid profiling and cold case study.
Finally, the class will address the many mistakes that crime scene
investigators make that create problems for profilers and cold case
investigators.

INSTRUCTOR BIO:
Gregory K. Moffatt, Ph.D., LPC is a counselor, college professor, and public
speaker.

Dr. Moffatt has been in private clinical practice for nearly twenty years.
During that time he has worked with individuals, families, couples,
adolescents, and children. For over a decade he has been a regular lecturer
at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia and he has consulted with
Delta Airlines, U.S. Airways, Westinghouse Corporation, Johns Manville, law
enforcement agencies, and numerous other businesses and schools. He has
assisted law enforcement in the investigation of unsolved homicide cases and
specializes in the assessment and prevention of homicidal and violent
behavior. He currently is a regular consultant and profiler with the Atlanta
Cold Case Squad.

Dr. Moffatt is the author of three books on aggression and violence.
Blind-Sided: Homicide Where it is Least Expected (Praeger Publishing, 2000)
and A Violent Heart (Praeger Publishing, 2002) both address violent
behavior, the development of aggression, homicide, and homicidal profiling.
His book entitled Wounded Innocents and Fallen Angels (Praeger Publishing,
2003) addresses child abuse, sexual abuse, child abduction and child
neglect. It also addresses aggression committed by children - homicide,
sexual assault, vandalism/arson, and paricide. Find out more at
http://gregmoffatt.com/ <http://gregmoffatt.com/>

Jan

Wrong Said Dee

By writerds 2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

Loafing around the ’spere I wandered onto Mrs. Giggles site to find this bit of Right Said Fred video. Normally I’d appreciate the sentiment in this song’s title–Don’t Talk Just Kiss, but am I the only one that finds this video, for want of a better word, oogie?

One word of advice should they ever decide to re-re-jumpstart their career–please, please no more with the dorky bouncing hip movements. My squicometer was sent into overdrive.

Jan

Baby, remember my name . . .you know the rest

By writerds 0 Comments

Categories: entertainment and the secret life of dee

My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dressed respectably.

George Bernard Shaw said those words some time ago and I suspect his tongue was firmly in his cheek when he said them. Shaw, private writer, was also a public figure, as are most published authors. Even if you aren’t recognizable to the masses on the streets, your readers know you and it’s impossible not to let bits and pieces of the personal you seep into your manuscripts or the many tools we use these days to promote ourselves, like the blog you’re reading now. Ask most writers and they’ll tell you they wouldn’t eschew a little notoriety, enough to sell a few more books, anyway. That real heavy-duty sort of fame? That’s a different story.

Even when writers achieve fame, it doesn’t come at one tenth the level that movie or film folk do. No phalanx of photogs are dogging Stephen King’s every move; no one is following Nora into the supermarket. I’ve been recognized a couple of times, but my fans only had well wishes for me. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be someone like Britney Spears and have millions of people watching my every move, hoping, more often than not, that I will embarrass myself in some way, appear without my underwear, endanger my health or jeopardize my career or my right to raise my children–anything that will make me a more interesting dinner table conversation.

In the last few months while people have been consumed with Britneywatching, labeling her a “pop tart” to other names I can’t print here, I’ve wondered where our compassion has gone as a people. There used to be a time in this country where you wouldn’t have published a negative word about a celebrity without risking being labeled a scandal sheet. Now, this kind of nonsense is on the front page of some the most, ahem, respectable papers in the nation. And rather than see her behavior as an enormous, nation-wide cry for help, even more ridicule is heaped upon her. And how old is this child? 26?

I know I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground at that age. And thankfully, I’ve always had a tremendous support system around me, to ground me, to pick me up when I’m down, to laugh and to cry with. People to pull me back from the edge when I’m standing too close. People I look out for as well.

That’s all you can ask for as a person, public or otherwise. And maybe what we owe each other is just a bit more kindness. That’s my take on it anyway.

Jan

What becomes a laureate most?

By writerds 0 Comments

Categories: industry and publishing

In the case of Jon Scieszka, it’s a string of crazy fairy tales and an eye for the absurd. I have been delighting classrooms of children with Mr. Scieszka’s work ever since I discovered the TRUE story those three rotten pigs didn’t want you to know. Who better to serve as an ambassador for kids than a man whose work kids actually want to read?

When discussing reading Mr. Scieszka (pronounced SHEH-ska) says:

Kids see it just as a school activity or something that just can’t compete with a Nintendo Wii or just hanging out and text messaging your friends. Parents and booksellers and teachers are dying for some help.

Can I say amen to that? For more info, go here. And while you’re at it, pick up a copy of the Stinky Cheese Man. You won’t be sorry.

Jan

What hump?

By writerds 2 Comments

Categories: career, my work, publishing and writing

The hubby and I ventured into the city on this frigid, frigid night to see Young Frankenstein on Broadway. Frankly, I didn’t think they’d be able to pull off turning the movie into a musical, but I was wrong. I absolutely loved this show! A particular surprise was Megan Mullally whose pipes nearly blew down the house. I’d heard her sing on Will and Grace, but man!

Another grand surprise was the ending. I won’t give away what happens, only to say that it was a bit different, and I must say better. But at the same time it was so natural that I couldn’t remember the movie ending at all. It’s as if Mel Brooks rethought a few things before putting on the show.

This idea intrigued me, since I have the opportunity to have my first books reprinted. To be honest, I can’t remember anything egregiously wrong in any of my books that I would want to alter, but who knows. Maybe when I read them over again something will smack me in the head with the need for fixing. I hope not.

One thing I don’t want to do and hope other authors don’t do as their contemporary books get reprinted is to start updating them as far as technology goes. It seems now that half my character’s problems would have been solved by the presence of a working cell phone, but they were not as predominant when I wrote my first books as they are now. Then again, I don’t really want my books to feel all that dated either. What’s an author to do?

How about you, how do you feel about authors reprinting and revising their works? If you’re an author, how far would you go to revise/update/revamp your work for a reprint?

Jan

New Year, Old Me

By writerds 0 Comments

Categories: blog stuff, industry and publishing

If all the people I know could reach one consensus, 2007 was a pretty lousy year. So much going on in the world, not to mention the publishing industry, is bad, bad, bad. We couldn’t even close the 12 months without an assassination to tear the victim’s homeland apart.

It’s enough to make folks wonder, where do I belong in all this? At least it made me ask myself that. In the last year, I find this blog has ventured far afield of what I originally intended for it–commentary on the publishing industry interspersed with insights on other matters. I can’t remember the last time, apart from earlier this morning, that I wrote anything that would help young writers get published or help more advanced writers hone their craft.

So in this new year I am going back to that old me that had plenty of advice, inspiration and wisdom for writers (at least that’s what my aging brain remembers). I’ll leave the commentary on Todd Bridges and La Lohan to those who actually know what they are talking about.

Happy New Year to you. It’s good to be back!

Jan

Start it off on the Good Foot

By writerds 0 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

There’s nothing like starting a new year off on a positive note, so here are the Romantic Times nominees for all kinds of excellence in African American fiction. Please join me in congratulating these authors on their work.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN FICTION NOVEL
_IN FIRM PURSUIT_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=30879)
Pamela Samuels-Young Kimani Press/Sepia (January 2007)

_PLEASURE SEEKERS_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=30880)
Rochelle Alers Kimani/Sepia (January 2007)

_WHAT A WOMAN WANTS_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=31137)
Brenda Jackson St. Martin’s Griffin (January 2007)

_NAPPILY MARRIED_ (http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=32869)
Trisha R. Thomas St. Martin’s Griffin (August 2007)

_DELIVER ME FROM EVIL_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=32992)
Mary Monroe Dafina (September 2007)

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ROMANCE
_YOU ONLY GET BETTER_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=31486)
Connie Briscoe, Lolita Files and Anita Bunkley Kimani (March 2007)

_RISK_ (http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=31490)
Ann Christopher Dafina (February 2007)

_STRANGER IN MY ARMS_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=31742)
Rochelle Alers Kimani/Arabesque (April 2007)

_GETTING SOME OF HER OWN_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=32812)
Gwynne Forster Dafina (August 2007)

_NOT HIS TYPE_ (http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=33328)
Chamein Canton Genesis/Indigo (October 2007)

KIMANI ROMANCE
_FOREVER, FOR ALWAYS, FOR LOVE_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=31347)
Kim Shaw Kimani (February 2007)

_JUST ABOUT SEX_ (http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=31590)
Ann Christopher Kimani (March 2007)

_RISKY PLEASURES_ (http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=31851)
Brenda Jackson Kimani (April 2007)

_WORKING MAN_ (http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=32669)
Melanie Schuster Kimani (July 2007)

_A CINDERELLA AFFAIR_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=32950)
A.C. Arthur Kimani (August 2007)

Career Achievement nominees

AFRICAN-AMERICAN
_Sharon Ewell Foster_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/authors_profile.php?author=9401)
_Anita Bunkley_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/authors_profile.php?author=1035)
_Candice Poarch_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/authors_profile.php?author=3116)
_Alice Wootson_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/authors_profile.php?author=9080)
_Karen White-Owens_
(http://www.romantictimes.com/authors_profile.php?author=11364)
_Lynn Emery_ (http://www.romantictimes.com/authors_profile.php?author=124)


Get into your most comfortable reading chair,
take off your shoes,
turn off the phone
and let Ms. Savoy's incredible talent take you away.


  --Debra Ross,
     Romance in Color

A skewed sense of humor has kept me sane through 10+ years of teaching and almost as many writing. I invite you to come in and look around. Leave a comment if you like. My goal is to leave you with a smile on your face and a few new thoughts to mull over. If you like the blog, please tell your friends. If not, tell your enemies.