blogosphere « Dee Savoy

Archive for the 'blogosphere' Category

Mar

Appearing now on a blog near you

Categories: blogosphere, entertainment, industry, publishing, weird science and writing

Looking around the blogosphere for some writing/book news you can use, I found a few things:

At long last, an explanation for my glaze cravings. Neuroscience Marketing takes on Krispy Kremes and your brain will love you for it.

Connie Briscoe offers this post on Virtual Book Tours. There’s a lot of good information here.

Editorial Ass tells how not to piss off your editor (before she is your editor).

Elaine Viets waxes humorous (but oh, so true) about the Spitzer debacle.

And finally, Ann Christopher wins my heart with her post at Access Romance titled Die, Winter, Die. I’ve never been too fond of winter, except for the perfectly timed Christmas Eve snowstorm. As we speak I’m twisting the knife in old man winter’s back myself.

Feb

Poke it with a Fork

By writerds Leave a Comment

Categories: blogosphere, writer's resources and writing

Maybe your manuscript is done and maybe it isn’t. In deciding I usually follow the Cantstandit litmus test. When I can’t stand even the sight of the manuscript anymore, then it’s time to send it in. Either that or my deadline is up. But I found an article in the blogosphere to aid those not quite as circumspect as I.

Big Bad Book Blog’s post begins thusly:

Forget all that business about checking a publisher’s submission guidelines before you send your manuscript in. The most important consideration when you’re preparing to take a project to the next level is whether your work itself is ready, fully conceptualized and mature. Who cares about typeface and font size if the content is half-baked? There’s no setting for “masterpiece” on my egg timer, but these guidelines will help you know when to call it done.

To find the six ways to tell if your book is done visit here.

Feb

Hello It’s Me

By writerds Leave a Comment

Categories: blogosphere and writing

It’s great to be back from deadline hell. Just turned in my very sexy Marine story for the forthcoming Soldier Boys. All I can say is that if your fingers or sensibilities are easily scorched, don’t pick it up. By the way, notice my boy on the cover.

Anyhoo, I love to admit it when I read someone else’s posts, especially rookies and see that they “get” what this business of writing is about. I tooled over to Patricia Woodside’s blog to view her entry on beginnings. Very pithy stuff. My favorite part is:

Some writers say, “Jump into the action!” Others say, “Set the scene.” Took me a while but I figured out that one does not negate the other. The scene, or ordinary world, may be established in an active way, using character actions and dialogue as opposed to descriptive narrative. Still, it’s important to ground the reader (unless it’s a murder mystery and someone is shot in the first sentence)!

Most of everything in life is making sense out of dualities and writing is no different. The rest of Patricia’s post is just as good.

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.

Oct

Tagged

By writerds 4 Comments

Categories: blogosphere, entertainment, reading and the secret life of dee

I have been tagged by Elizabeth Mahon to participate in the latest book meme going, so here goes:

Total number of books: Unfair question. I have books on my bookshelves three deep. I have boxes of books I never unpacked after my last move. I have cartons of kids books for teaching. I’m not doing all that counting. Suffice it to say, we are at the point where the hubby and I are buying up stock in shelving companies.

Last Book Read: I’ve always been a much bigger reader of non-fiction than fiction. I am currently reading African Spirituality by Anthony Ephirim-Donkor. Very interesting. Love the matrifocal worldview, thank you.

Last book bought: A great big book on mythology. I can’t get enough of this stuff.

Five meaningful books: In no particular order, here are:

Harriet the Spy- I thought I was young Harriet, writer-to-be. I went on Harriet-like escapades until my mother found out. All I can say about that is, ouch!

Romeo and Juliet-No, not the bard’s but Marchette Chute’s children’s version. It inspired both a love of great literature and great love stories.

Unknown Harlequin Presents-representing the first yet forgotten romance novel I read. I might not have remembered the plot, characters or author, but I was hooked on the genre.

To Kill a Mockingbird -beautiful story that is still one of my favorite books

Spellbound-sorry to throw one of my own in there, but it’s the one that started it all for me. I’d started that book when I was 16 and working on it for all those years was a defining thing for me.

And so I’m tagging A C Menchan, Bettye Griffin, Chicki Brown, Gwyneth Bolton and Caridad Piniero.

Sep

Nobody does it better . . .

By writerds 2 Comments

Categories: blogosphere, reading, romantic suspense and writing

I tooled over to Murderati today hoping for a little blood and guts commentary but got sidelined by a post about sex–not too surprising. Whether sex (the explicitly described variety) belongs in mystery is an age-old debate. Some like it; some don’t. Some like the way some people do it but not others.

Me personally, I enjoy writing romantic suspense and also reading it. I like the suspense dark and the sex hot, hot, hot. Other than that it seems a waste of time. If the sex isn’t urgent, you may as well go out and catch a criminal instead–or commit a crime, depending on your pleasure. I don’t have any problem with gratuitous sex in a regular romance. My motto for writing them is get them in bed as soon as possible, as often as possible. In romantic suspense it has to fit. No making out in the back of the surveillance van that leads to the criminals getting away while you are nookying it up, or whatever. More than I want to read about character’s sexcapades, I want to like them and respect them. Please don’t have them doing stuff that is just plain stupid. But under the right circumstances, have at it.

Well, thats my take on it anyway. I’ll end by asking who do you think writes the best sexy crime stories?

Jul

What You Were Born to (ahem) Read

By writerds 1 Comment

Categories: blogosphere, publishing, the secret life of dee, true crime and writing

I did my blogging thing over at Blogging in Black in the wee hours of the morning since I thought today (Monday) was the 30th only to realize I’d slipped up on my calendar by a day.

Hope you enjoy the post!

Jul

Just What the Editor Ordered

By writerds Leave a Comment

Categories: blogosphere, publishing and writer's resources

For those interested in the craft (writing not witch), Scarletta Press is coming out with the New Writer’s Handbook 2007. The volume is edited by Phillip Martin with a preface by Erica Jong. I found this out by tooling over to Paperback Writer’s blog. As one of the contributors, she’s privy to promo for the new volume which reads like this:

The New Writer’s Handbook 2007 is the inaugural edition of a new annual collection of articles to refresh and upgrade any writer’s skills, with advice on craft and career development. It offers an eclectic mix of expert how-tos, short pieces on creativity, marketing, and professional issues, and other insights on being a successful writer today.

Sound like something you can use? To quote Billy Crystal, (read to yourself in a gruff voice) I knew that you could.

Jul

No more, no more, no more, no more (as in Hit the Road, Jack)

By writerds Leave a Comment

Categories: blogosphere and sounding off

I found this graphic over at African American Opinion, however, I would say the message goes beyond music. It’s time we women stopped playing along every time someone wants to make money off us by making us look foolish. Just one woman’s opinion. Or is it?

Jul

Beyond the Pale–haters of spoilers beware!

By writerds 1 Comment

Categories: blogosphere, romance, romantic suspense and writing

One of the dear readers over at Dear Author is fighting mad because Karin Slaughter, author of Beyond Reach made a choice with the characters in her story to which the dear reader objected–vehemently.

I went through the drama on Ms. Slaughter’s site to see what all the hubbub was about. So, okay, it turns out to be a MAJOR plot twist in a series of stories–one likely to upset or at least impact on many readers. I don’t read the series, so I have absolutely no stake in it. Just interesting news on a rainy New York afternoon.

Then I headed over to Murder She Writes. Jen Apodaca discusses the topic of author obligation to readers. How much consideration does an author owe her readers when formulating her stories?

Here’s the part I found most interesting:

My initial reaction to this hoopla is that it’s the author’s world (she created it) and she has a reason for shifting the plot. And I’m slightly dismayed that people are criticizing the author, making it personal, instead of about the book. Many are saying they will never buy another one of the author’s books.

These days the dividing line between authors and fans is almost non-existent. Readers can reach us not only through the post office, but also through e-mail, chats, instant messages, whatever. There is so much immediacy to the contact that it’s easier for readers to imagine that we write just for them and expect that their specific wishes will be brought forward in the writing. But writers must also take into account the needs of the story, their personal predilections as well as what the publisher wants, as well. Sometimes it feels like a big game of monkey with the author in the middle.

But I have to agree with Jen again that fans are awesome. I try to give them whatever they want whenever possible.


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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.