Winter weather got you down? Then maybe you should check out my guest post on Mysti Parker’s blog about reading romance and how copious amounts of sugar can ruin your memory.
Category: Reading
What’s Love Got To Do With It? Everything!
Love’s got everything to do with everything in my life. I love books so much I became a librarian so I can build forts out of them on my desk and pop out from behind them whenever anyone comes into the library. (If that doesn’t wake the students up, nothing will).
Chocolate and the Foo Fighters and Firefly all put a smile on my face because I love them/it so much.
So, yeah, love is huge in my life. But why do I feel the need to write about it in most of my stories? I’ll answer that question with another story. Don’t worry – it’s short.
Lightning struck my heart when I first got to know my BF eighteen years ago. No, not literally, but it sure felt like it. Every time I thought about him, which was all the time, my cheeks heated, a smile would dance across my lips, and I’d lose my appetite. Oh, yeah. I was falling for him. Big time.
Fast forward to now. The lightning that struck me has fueled a raging fire, and me and the BF are still ridiculously in love. We leave love notes for each other. We call each other cute nicknames. We walk each other to the door before work for one last kiss goodbye. It’s almost sickening how cute it is, isn’t it?
But that’s why I write about love. I want to capture that feeling for my characters because that feeling will stay with them forever, even if that particular love doesn’t last. Plus, as a reader, I enjoy reading about characters who find first love or long-lost love or love in the strangest place. I feel what they feel all over again.
Now, because I love all of you, here’s a gigantic contest! The winner gets a $250 e-giftcard to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, your choice. The contest is international and ends February 19th, so hurry! Enter the Rafflecopter below to win and good luck!
If you want to hop around to other Crescent Moon Press authors’ sites to see what they think love’s got to do with it, you can start here.
Books I’m Itching to Read
Books! There are too many of them! Two that I’m absolutely itching to read and will have to be bumped up my TBR list are:
Check out the blood splatter on This Is Not a Test! Wow! I’ve loved the cover since I first saw it. It’s about the zombie apocalypse, so hopefully it will help me prepare my zombie apocalypse survival plan. I’m sorry, what? You don’t think the zombie apocalypse will ever come? Are you sure? Have you heard about this???
The second book, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, is a must-have if you’re tired of having your characters smile and grit their teeth and smile through gritted teeth. I rely on the authors’ blog A LOT!
This Is Not a Test is on my kitchen table. The Emotion Thesaurus is waiting for me on Amazon. I just have to keep plowing through Fifty Shades of Grey (umm, pun intended), then I’ll get started on both of these!
What books are you dying to read? Do you have a zombie apocalypse survival plan?
I’ll Have Mine Medium Rare With a Dash of ‘Why Should I Care’
I just finished reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. Just typing that made me feel like an egotistical ickypants, but yes, I would like to write a book that makes me millions. Who doesn’t? Maass analyzes why certain books hit the bestseller lists while others don’t, and what those books have in common.
One of those things is steaks. Gah! I mean stakes. Darn empty stomach. Maass says breakout books need to have both personal and public stakes. In other words, what happens if the main character doesn’t achieve their goal, both personally and publicly? Will the main character lose a loved one? Will a loved one come back? Will the world erupt into chaos if the main character fails?
To raise personal stakes, Maass recommends asking yourself, “How can this matter more?” Why should we care about the main character? Hopefully the author will show you why by creating someone you want to root for.
Maass says to raise the public stakes, ask, “How could things get worse?” This makes sense. In really good books, don’t things usually go from bad to worse? That keeps us riveted! We have to know if the main character, whom we are now rooting for because of the personal stakes, succeeds with his/her nearly unattainable goal.
Great advice, Mr. Maass! So, how does everyone like your steaks? Better yet, how do you like your stakes?