Homemade Cakes and Literary Chefs
Published December 21, 2011 | 
This picture grabbed me and I purchased it (www.fotolia.com) as soon as I saw it. How could I not? It’s adorable. But what, exactly, was I going to do with a picture about baking? What possible blog post could I draft that had to do with eggs and writing? The picture sat in my downloads file for a, uh, long time. Every time I scrolled by it, I wanted to write something special to really put the picture into both perspective and fun use. I might have come up with a possible solution.
Writers are bakers and books are cake.
There it is. Brilliant, huh? Wait. You don’t get the correlation? What’s missing? How can you not see that the flour is the…oh. Right. It is sort of abstract. Let me explain so we can go back to discussing my brilliant comparison. 
Every book is a recipe of sorts. You have to weigh the dry ingredients, measure the wet ingredients, account for eggs, add spices and flavorings, decide between real and artificial stuff, mix things in the right order, preheat the oven, prepare the pan, get the whole thing to come out of said pan without falling apart, cool it and frost the project. I can see the confusion marring your lovely features, so allow me to break this down. Snuggle in, dear reader, snuggle in.
Consider the author a professional baker, or literary chef. Every time the author decides to cook up another story, she has to first decide what to bake. Genres are like recipe classifications: torte, cake, pie, tart, etc. Choosing the right recipe for the chef’s skill and the audience’s expectation is critical. First hand experience tells me to buy creme brulee instead of making it from absolute scratch. Such is the truth about me and historical romance: I love it but will buy it before I try to write it. It doesn’t mean my skill won’t ever be ready to tackle it, but for now? I’m not there.
Back to baking. So the recipe is selected. Now it’s a matter of going through cupboards and pulling out recipe ingredients to make sure everything is there. This is the author’s outline. She’s setting up to ensure she has everything on hand when she begins to get to the construction phase. It’s not unheard of to come across a great recipe and find you don’t have all the ingredients. That’s when you reach out and put your critique partners to work helping you stock up on the goods you’ll need. Good cp’s are worth their weight in the finest chocolate. Trust me. You can’t easily replace the people who enrich your life. (And really, why would you?) Continue reading
Guest Post: Carrie Ann Ryan — Chemo Brain and Quieting the Voices
Published December 7, 2011 | I’m very happy to welcome Carrie Ann Ryan to the blog today. Carrie Ann is a new author whose first digital release, An Alpha’s Path, is available for purchase now. She’s also generously offering a $10 Amazon gift card to one lucky person. Just leave a comment to enter.
Please give her a warm welcome!
Chemo Brain and Quieting the Voices
Thanks so much Denise for having me here today! I’m super excited about my debut release An Alpha’s Path.
Today I’m here to talk about the road to publication. You know, since I’m an expert and all. *cue hilarious laughter and eye rolling* But really, I’m just a chemistry teacher by day and a writer by night. Am I doing it right? Probably not, but I’m working on it. I’m learning. And that’s what you do. You ask, you watch and you learn.
I’m not going to talk about how to get an agent or deal with publishers. Because there are TONS of amazing people out there who talk about it and actually have good advice. But I will tell you what I did.
I sat down on my couch, pulled out my laptop, and wrote.
I know. Amazing right?
You see it all started about three years ago. I was sitting in the treatment room on my second bout of breast cancer at the tender age of 22 and bored. The last time I went through chemo I was 20, but still going to school full time so I brought my homework. This time I was in graduate school and needed something else to do other than twenty page long Quantum Chemistry derivations on how to find a particle in a sphere rather than a box. (And yes, I know how to do it, but that’s another story LOL).
So my nurse came up to me and said she was in love with Robert Pattinson and I should read Twilight. Now I thought he was cute in Harry Potter, so I borrowed her book. I finished Twilight in about an hour and a half. I read annoyingly fast. Hence my large book collection. After I finished that series, she gave me Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K Hamilton and I fell in love with the adult genre. I read and read. During that time, I continued school, was declared cancer free and yet, I still read.
Eventually I read so much that my own brain would not shut down and I needed an escape that was slightly different. As they say, the voices in my head wouldn’t shut up. So I sat down and wrote. And wrote. I met some great friends through Twitter and found a crit group. Oddly enough, those ladies and gents actually liked my work. And then told me how to make it better by crossing everything out in glaring red. Love them. LOL
I don’t have anything wise to say about becoming a writer. Other than the fact that I HAVE to write. I may complain on twitter that I pulled those 400 words by the skin of my teeth, but those are 400 words that wouldn’t leave me alone. I love it.
I love it so much that I’m now sharing An Alpha’s Path with the rest of the world. Scary. When I started the novella I didn’t really think that I would write more about it. I thought that would be it. Now I’m working on Book 2, A Taste for a Mate and Book 3, Trinity Bound. There will be seven books in all, and other than An Alpha’s Path will be full length novels.
I started reading because I needed to escape the chemo wracking my brain. I started writing to quiet the voices. I love what I do, and if you want to join the fray of crazies to do the same, just sit down and write. Do your best. Find friends. And be happy and proud of what you do.
Why do you write? Why do you read?
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An Alpha’s Path
Melanie is a twenty-five year old chemist who has spent all of her adult life slaving at school. With her PhD in hand, she’s to start her dream job, but before she does, her
friend persuades her to relax and try to live again. A blind date set up through her friends seems like the perfect solution. Melanie can take one night away from the lab and let her inner vixen out on a fixed blind date - a chance to get crazy with a perfect stranger. The gorgeous hunk she’s to meet exceeds her wildest dreams – be he is more than what he appears and Melanie’s analytical mind goes into overdrive.
Kade, a slightly older werewolf (at over one hundred years), needs a night way from the Pack. Too many responsibilities and one near miss with a potential mate made Kade hide in his work, the only peace he can find. His brother convinces him to meet the sexy woman for a one night of fun. What could it hurt? But when he finds this woman could be his mate, can he convince her to leave her orderly, sane world and be with him and his wolf-half, for life?
You can buy your copy of An Alpha’s Path here: Amazon or Barnes & Noble
The Mythic Mojo
Published December 3, 2011 | 
We know it exists, this mythic creature. We’ve seen it in passing from the corner of our eye, felt it as it stalked us and the hairs on the back of our neck rose, smelled it like rain on drought-parched earth. Of what do I speak? If you’re a writer, you know there are several answers, but only one that is as wily as this.
Writers’ Mojo
What is Writers’ Mojo? Define it, bottle it and distribute it — legally or illegally– and you’ll be an instant gazillionaire. You’ll be sought for the best parties, newest movie releases, front row concert seats and more. It’s such an illusive substance, immensely heavy with a body like fog, that you’ll never be able to contain it properly.
Some people say they find it drugs. I’m sorry to disabuse anyone of that notion, but it’s a lie. All you find there are allusions. BIG difference. Hallucination versus creation? I’ll take creation every time…for the win.
Some claim you find it in solace. I’ve looked, and all I found was a stand of poisonous mushrooms, mysterious scat and an old penny. I won’t be looking to solitude again.
Some are certain you find it in crowds, the energy they create. I’ve looked there too, and all I found was a domestic dispute, a gaggle of Revlon-sporting, hormone-emoting, giggle-spouting, nausea-inducing pre-pubecent teens. I won’t be going back to crowds either.
Some persist in looking inward, breaking down your own walls and barriers to find that piece that cries, “Literary prose lies here!” I’ve looked. My “literary prose” is not. It’s too violent. It likes darkness and sick humor and sex far too much to be literary. But it brought me one step closer.
I believe Writers’ Mojo is found within the causeway between spirit and mind. It lingers near the surface of reality, dipping into impossibility often enough to give us the “What if’s…” from which every story is born. Our Writers’ Mojo is an intensely personal thing that may be stimulated to surface at any one of the above-mentioned areas but that is not where it is found. Yes, it may be stimulated by its surroundings, but it is more than that. It is a fiercely personal piece of us that insists on being expressed as the written word. It is the piece of us that demands we stand aside and let our words entertain. It watches with animalistic hunger as readers devour our words, longing to bring into the pride those who seek to understand. It banishes those who don’t by turning a blind eye and dismissive back on them. “Let them find their own definitions and their own thoughts elsewhere,” It thinks.
Yes, It has evolved to a proper noun. It takes on a life of Its own. Because it does, It is often unavailable as It travels, reads, grows, seeks nourishment and, yes, rests. It is like a muscle, often abused by intensive workout but stronger for it.
It often does not want to come out to play, no matter the coercion we lay at It’s feet.
Writers’ Mojo is best teased and taunted by a good tale and great doses of faith, on which It thrives. “Show me faith, I’ll show you what you’re made of,” It whispers.
Even now, sitting in front of this computer as I get ready to delve into my most recent work, I feel It, twining around my legs like fog on a fall sidewalk, swirling, moving, clinging, and letting go. It’s up to me to make the most of this before It is burned off by whatever noonday sun finds It.
Is It a benign or malevolent entity? I’m not sure. All I know is that if you ask a writer, you’ll get a different answer every time.
Two Toe Tags and a Public Burial
Published December 2, 2011 | 
I’m not dead.
Yes, I’ve been silent, but when you’re (proverbially) buried on Main Street down by the county square, you’re alright. There’s still air. There has been a great deal of activity on my side of the screen, and I’m going to bring you back up to speed so you know where I’m at (and where to send flowers).
It’s been a wild and crazy year and, with the Christmas holiday bearing down on me, I fear it’s far from over. My husband will be going to see his family. I’ll really miss seeing my munchkins (hi Alyssa, hi Alex!) and their parents. And if certain Tides of Fate had worked in my favor, I’d be going. But you know how it is. That leaves me to ring the holiday bells on my own for about 9 days. Interesting times, those. The dogs tend to hide behind furniture and the birds like to play with throwing their voices and scaring the crap out of me. Pass the eggnog.
The writing has been…hm. Yeah. “Wildly productive pockets of time” might best describe what I’ve been up to. I didn’t realize when I began to write how much time editing would occupy. In my mind, a writer wrote. Yep. I’m simple that way. But alas, this is not entirely true. A writer actually writes in order to have the honor of rewriting and editing. This, dear reader, is what a writer really does. So I’ve been writing and rewriting like mad, following the guidance of a couple of industry professionals whom I’m wildly fond of, and really revising Raising Cain. I’m so crazy about this story that I want it to be at its absolute best when it makes it foray out into the “subjective” world of rejections, considerations and, ultimately, publication. I’m going slow, doing my absolute very best and hoping — something I haven’t done in ages.
While I edit Raising Cain, I’m also endeavoring to do the impossible: work on two other books at the same time. Now, by “same time” I mean that neither is shelved. I work on them randomly, not keeping to any schedule. The books are Vengeance, the third book in The Niteclif Evolutions, and The Ruin of Souls, the second book in The Key Guardians series. Frankly, both are absolutely awesome stories to work on, but I’m so wrapped up on editing Raising Cain that it makes the sequel there easier to write. The good news for fans of The Niteclif Evolutions is that the third book is already 2/3 done and shouldn’t take much more to finish. Just a little brainstorming to work my way out of a seemingly impossible corner I’ve painted myself in to. I just need to rediscover my writers’ mojo and get back to it.
Life? Well, life goes on. I’ve been sick — so sick I’m not even going to go into it — for the last week and a half. Sick enough to keep me off the computer. Sick enough to make me check my will. Sick enough to quit drinking Dr Pepper. Yep, two-toe-tags sick. Antibiotics finally kicked in and I woke this morning and, for once, it was the dog puking and not me. She seems fine. I’m recovering. All’s well.
Great things are brewing on the professional front. It’s a slow, slow, s…l…o…w brew cycle, but doesn’t that often yield the best results? I know Raising Cain is going to end up in good hands.
So I’m back. I’ll be posting on a variety of strange and odd-ball things over the next few days, plus I’ll have a great guest post by the new author Carrie Ann Ryan next week. Thanks for keeping the faith, dear Reader. You’re loyalty shall be rewarded with…fortune cookies? Chocolates? Puppies? You pick. I just appreciate you hanging around.
Next post: Something to do with Writers’ Mojo
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Coming 04/03/12
