What Would You Do?

Here’s a fun one to dream about…

If someone handed you $ 50 Gs and told you to do whatever you want with it–with the only stipulation being you can’t use it to pay bills–what would you buy/do?  

Tell us.

~Elizabeth

Love According to Romance Writers…

Interested in a little behind-the-scenes look at bringing love to the page?  

A few of my agent’s romance authors have put together a very special Valentine’s Day blog! You can check it out by clicking on this link: www.bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/ but remember, on this particular site, I’m referred to as Laura Bradford (that’s my romance writing persona).

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

~Elizabeth

What’s In Your Arsenal?

I don’t know about you, but I have certain comfort items I call on when things happen in life.

For instance, if I’m not feeling so hot, I like to pop in one of a handful of movies–true-blue cinematic friends who are guaranteed to put a smile on my face.   

*Housesitter
*The Devil Wears Prada

Why? I’m not exactly sure. But I know that they make me smile. And laugh.

When I’m struggling with a question or a problem that I just can’t fix easily, I find that a drive in the car with the music blaring helps. A lot. Some of my favorite songs for that…

*Midnight Blue
*Anything by Survivor
*And, really anything with a good beat

So that’s what I’m curious about today. Do you have a favorite movie you tend to pull out and watch depending on a particular mood? Any songs you tend to play? What and why?

~Elizabeth

Stalking 101

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
                                                                                                               ~Tao saying

I’ve been down the writing path for over ten years now. At the beginning, I took classes at a local MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) program. Not wanting to spend $50,000 on an advanced degree, I started searching for cheaper alternatives. I quickly learned that published authors don’t have a lot of time to answer questions when the conversation starts like this: “Hi, I’m Lynn. I’m a wannabe writer. Can I pick your brain?”

Moving sixteen hundred miles cross-country and living an hour away from the day job didn’t help me build new relationships. Add in a year of fighting breast cancer and, well, my world shrank even more. If I didn’t meet you at work, the hospital, or the weekly visit to the grocery store, I didn’t know you. That is until I started blogging.

My blog was read religiously by two people–my sister and my friend from back home in Idaho. And then, one day, I had a comment. A St. Louis author had found her books mentioned on my daily ramble. We shared war stories from the cancer treatment. I had made personal contact with a real writer. I was hooked.

Then fate reached out. I was a faithful reader of the now defunct Good Girls Kill For Money blog. I won a contest. Rather than mail me my prize, Elizabeth offered to meet me for lunch, knowing I lived in the St. Louis area. I bless the day she took a chance that I wasn’t a crazed stalker and made the invitation. There was a point in our first lunch that I swear she started to slide just a little closer to the door…

When we met, I had five manuscripts started, none finished past the fourth chapter. Each time the writing got hard, I would take off chasing another bright shiny idea. Over a year later, my friend/mentor has walked me through finishing my second book. Besides learning how to get to THE END, I’ve been able to watch her in the many stages of being a published author; writing, editing, publishing, marketing, and launching. Elizabeth has been generous with her time, knowledge, and encouragement.

Now that she’s moved away, our monthly lunch meetings have turned into goal setting phone calls.

So what’s a wannabe to do when their mentor moves? Join a writer’s organization! I went to my first meeting of MORWA (Missouri Romance Writers of America) last month as a full member. Now I have contact with a group of people committed to improving their writing–at all stages of success. I’m excited to be a part of such a dynamic group.

And I don’t look like a stalker when I ask–Can I pick your brain?

So now the question for the day is this: Have you had a time when you reached out to learn something new and your teacher has appeared?

~Lynn

Lynn Cahoon’s work has appeared in Grit, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and True Romance. She is currently polishing two romance novels, working on a cozy mystery, and waiting for a call on one of her submissions to the slush pile. She now  lives in the St. Louis area with her husband, three dogs, and acat whose secret name is Mary.

Getting Back Up

If you read yesterday’s post about Sandra Kring’s The Book of Bright Ideas, you know I’m a fan. It’s a book that simply spoke to me. On many levels.

One of the character’s in this book (Jewel) simply didn’t believe in herself. When she looked in the mirror, she saw someone ugly. She didn’t know how to show love. Didn’t know how to find her self-worth.

Then along comes another character (Freeda). Someone who had problems, too, but didn’t let them manifest in quite the same way as the first character. And so she took Jewel under her wing.  Here’s a quick look at one of the conversations between them…

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it, Jewel? Ya took a lot of shit growing up about how you weren’t good enough. Well, honey, I got dished up a whole shitload of crap as a kid, too, but I’ll tell you this. It wasn’t your fault you got knocked down as a kid, but it’s your responsibility to get yourself back up  now. you gotta reach inside and find what you’re made of, and you gotta prove them wrong. You don’t, and you’re  not only gonna grow more bitter and ugly, but you’re gonna grow a daughter just like you.”

“I never say mean things to Evelyn!”     

“You don’t have to say them. That kid looks just like you, Jewel. And if your looks aren’t good enough for you, how in the hell is Button gonna think they’re good enough for her?”

I think, in life, we give other people the power to affect how we see ourselves. Sometimes that’s okay, because the people looking are full of love. But, sometimes, the ones looking aren’t full of love and that’s when wounds begin to grow. Deep ones.

If you’ve ever seen the movie, Pretty Woman, you may remember the moment when Julia Roberts’ character is in bed with Richard Gere’s character. And she says, “the bad stuff is easier to believe.”

And I think that’s true…if you don’t have those full-of-love eyes in your life.

So here’s what I want to do today. Tell me something special about you. A gift you think you bring to the world. And…while you’re at it…tell us something you think is pretty about you on the outside, too.

~Elizabeth

The Book of Wow

I was in Wal-Mart a few weeks ago, for the sole purpose of eye-balling my new romance novel on this giant retailer’s shelves, when I stumbled across the book we’re going to talk about today.

I first plucked it off the shelf because of the title. Throw in the cover and the backjacket copy and, well, I was intrigued enough to buy the book.  I brought it home and set it on my nightstand with the hopes I’d get to it soon.

A few nights later I picked it up and read for about twenty minutes, the first few pages tipping me off to this author’s amazing ability of setting a scene…and characters…and story.

Wow.

The Book of Bright Ideas, by Sandra Kring, is a can’t-miss in my humble opinion. For a ton of reasons, this book spoke to me in a way few have in a very long time. In fact, I found myself folding over pages as I read simply because she said things in such a way I knew I’d want to refer back to them… 

Not as a writer, but as a person.

Here’s the bookjacket copy that sucked me in…

Wisconsin 1961. Evelyn “Button” Peters is nine when Winnalee Malone and her sister, Freeda, blow into town–and from the moment she sees them, Button knows this will be a summer unlike any other.

Much to her mother’s dismay, Button is fascinated by the malone sisters, especially Winnalee, a feisty scrap of a thing who carries around a shiny urn containing her mother’s ashes and a tome she calls “The Book of Bright Ideas.” It is here, Winnalee tells Button, that she recors everything she learns: her answers to the mysteries of life. But sometimes those mysteries conceal a truth better left buried. In this summer of dry heat and family upheaval, loyalties will be tested, unlikely alliances formed, and devastating secrets revealed. And when it’s over, no one–from Winnalee and her sister to Button and her family–will ever be the same.

That’s the back jacket copy.

To which I would add one word…

Wow.

There’s so much I want to say about this story, but can’t because I don’t want to ruin it for any of you who opt to go and get this (you should). But there are a few things I have to say…

Throughout the story, Winnalee and Button add things to their “Book of Bright Ideas.” Observations about life through the eyes of nine-year-olds…lessons that are both sweet and tender yet make you wince at times because they’re the kind of lessons you wish they didn’t have to learn.

Near the end of the story, Button learns a few more–though they aren’t ones that make their way into the special book. Nonetheless, they stood out to me (how could they not, the writing is spectacular)…

**”We looked around the room some more, not talking. I think Ma and Aunt Verdella felt like I did. Like a pumpkin after the insides have been scraped away. Ma and Aunt Verdella walked in front of me down the stairs, moving slow, just like me. I guess at that moment I learned that there’s nothing heavier to carry than emptiness.”

And then there was this which brings me to our topic…

**”It seems to me that after someone sweeps across your life like a red-hot flame, peeling back the shutters that sat over your heart and your mind and setting free your sweetest dreams or your worst nightmares, after things cool down you’ve got two choices.  You can either slip back into your old life, tucking those things you were too scared to look at back into hiding, or you can keep those parts of yourself out until you get so used to them that they don’t scare you anymore and they just become a part of who you are.”

Wow, huh?

So here’s my question for today–a tough one to pick as this book stirred up many for me:

Have you ever had someone enter your life who simply made it better? Someone who taught you things or shared special moments with you or changed you in some way…only to have them disappear?

~Elizabeth

What Do You See?

If you could remove all your limitations, what would your life look line in five years?  Give us a day-in-the-life look at this “revised you” and an overall view as well.

Happy Dreaming!

~Elizabeth

**A big thank you goes to blog reader Lynn for this “Dreamer Monday” suggestion! If you have a question to throw out for an upcoming Dreamer Monday, email me at:  ElizabethLCasey @aol.com.

Okay, Spill It…

It’s Friday and time for our weekly “Bits & Pieces” questions.  And since my curiosity is in overdrive at the moment, I shall skip any further chit chat and get straight down to business…  

1) Did you ever play a part in a school play? What was it?

2) What do you miss most about being a kid? What do you miss least?

3) If you were stuck in a jail cell for the next year of your life, what would you want to do/teach yourself to pass the time? And for those extra creative souls out there…amuse us with what you did to get in there.

4) If you could go back to high school and learn a different language, what would it be and why?

5) You’re about to get dumped off on an island for the next six  months. You must go alone. You can only take three things with you…what would you take?

Okay, bring ‘em on…

~Elizabeth

Striking a Balance

It’s Thursday and time for a look at the mail…

This question is from blog reader Chris C:

How do you know the right amount of ’story’ to create? i find many books way too long for the story being told, while others leave you begging for more either in backstory or depth of interactions.

This is a good question, Chris, and one I’m going to *try* to answer the best I can.

When you sit down with an idea for a novel, you have to know the story you’re going to tell. This doesn’t mean you know every nuance yet (some of us don’t…until we start writing), but you know the basic idea of what’s going to happen and why.

The key, then, is figuring out what needs to be said in order to convey that to the reader. Good writers don’t heap backstory in because it can take a reader out of the story they’re trying to tell. Good writers weave backstory (but only that which is important for the story being told–whether in plot or character development related to the plot) as they go along.

If you’ve ever watched the TV show, Lost, the way they do backstory (at least in the first two seasons) was awesome. You could see why the characters made the choices they made because of experiences in their life. The whole episode wasn’t non-stop backstory, rather it was woven in at parts that made sense.

The same should hold true for books.

When I’m writing–or reading my own work–I try to pay attention to how I feel. If I become bored with what I’m writing (or have written), it’s a pretty safe bet it’s not necessary.

It might be fun to give a character a funny quirk, but if it doesn’t play into the story or explain something about the character pivotal to the plot…it’s a waste of time. For the writer and the reader.

When I first started writing fiction, I wrote very lean. Too lean, in many ways. I suspect some of that was because of my journalism background–get to the facts, that’s all that matters. But as I continued to write, I found that I was able to strike a better balance and I hope that’s showing in my  newer work.

My rule of thumb is this. If it matters to the plot, use it. If it doesn’t, don’t.

Here’s an example from an earlier book of mine, Forecast of Evil (written under the name, Laura Bradford). I did a lot of research on what Mackinac Island is like in the winter. How’s it’s accessed, and when/ how they handle storms, etc. During the course of my research, I discovered that old Christmas trees are used on the lake to guide snow mobilers home during a white-out (blizzard). I thought that was a very cool piece of information. One I would have loved to have used…only it didn’t work with my plot. My characters needed to be stranded. Which meant the lake couldn’t have been frozen yet. Therefore the trees were a non-issue.

Does that answer your question, Chris? Anyone else have anything to add? Another question about this topic we can discuss today? Or a new question to add to the line-up for future Writing Thursdays?

Ask away.

~Elizabeth

If I Can Make It There, I Can Make It Anywhere…

If you’ll remember from last week, I was asked to give a talk during a President’s Circle event for the Multiple Sclerosis Assocation in New York City this past weekend.

Well, I did it. And can I just say–oh. my. gosh?!?!?!?!?

The event was held at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum on 42nd Street. The room it was held in was essentially a wall of glass overlooking Times Square (the New Years Even ball, the lights, the billboards, you name it). And then there was me, standing at a podium with this stuff behind me.

Talk about surreal.

I only spoke for about seven minutes, but I felt good about it–the telltale I’m-giving-a-speech-in-front-of-a-roomful-of-strangers dry mouth thing not too noticeable.

I shared with them a small handful of moments that stand out in my life. I talked about a moment of awe as a child, the moment my dream to be a writer was born, the day I saw my very first book cover, the day I got my Agatha nomination call, and, finally, the day the doc broke the news.

I shared with them the good that’s come from that not-so-great moment and I got to say “thanks” for this organization’s help at a time I needed it.

It was exciting. And memorable. And the backdrop???? That was a moment in and of itself.

So how about you? What’s a moment that stands out in your life as being tough-to-top?

~Elizabeth