May 2007 – Page 2

Thoughts On Writing

Is Blogging For You?

By Nikki Leigh

A reason why many people prefer a blog instead of regular website content is because it’s more casual and personal. Website content can be very impersonal and this is especially true for businesses. Blogs are a casual way to actually communicate with potential customers. A writer’s blog and website should be informational, but never boring or tedious.

A benefit of using a blog to post is that many people don’t update or change their website content on a regular basis. An effective and interesting blog should have new entries on a regular basis. Your posts should be done daily or several times a week. Whatever timeframe you chose, stick to it and people will return to see what you have to say - if your posts are interesting and useful for them.

When you decide to establish a blog, determine your objectives:

·         What do you want to accomplish?

·         Is it only to communicate with customers?

·         Do you want to educate your visitors?

·         Do you want to generate website visits and sales?

When you determine your objectives, you will know how to approach the promotion of your blog.

Why Aren’t You Blogging?

Do you understand the potential benefits of blogging? If you aren’t blogging, then you probably don’t. Before you begin, it’s important to determine the time needed to maintain and promote your blog.

With a blog, you can communicate with your potential customers and keep them coming back to read interesting and motivational content. Each time they visit your blog, you have the chance to drive them to your website and to build interest in your books. Blogging will help keep your books in their mind.

Good content on your blog is an invaluable way to educate your customers. When you give them more information, you have the opportunity to prompt a purchase. Giving potential readers a chance to get to know you and feel comfortable about you and your books can promote their buying decisions.

Blogging Is Easier Than You Think

Something that may stop you from creating a blog is the idea that it’s expensive and difficult. There are many free blogging sites and numerous free ways to promote your blog. (There is a partial list of blogging sites on the next page.) The most popular blogging sites are user friendly. Once you register, the site content walks you through each step of the process. Some blogging sites offer a tour of the site and the features you can use to create an individualized blog.

The Readers’ Station Quarterly

Where Readers and Authors Mingle

May 2007 - Page 3

Let’s Pretend Characterization

By Dorice Nelson

Mild disclaimer--to give credit where credit is due:  Much of the following is my interpretation and how I use Alice Orr’s Workshop on “Writing Characters from the Inside Out.” Ms. Orr has been my mentor for many years and I value her style of working with characters.

The Beginnings of a Biological Life:

            During the course of the six articles on characterization I’ve worked on, the writer must pretend to be the actual character of interest. This particular style of Let’s Pretend to delve deep into characters is perfect for your main and important secondary characters, characters that have the most work to do in your novels. I truly believe that one of the most important aspects of any novel lies in the strength of its characters. Now, let’s pretend as if you, the writer, are really the character of importance to your story.

            The most basic information you’ll need is biographical. It’s impossible to write about a character without knowing certain facts of his/her background. Of importance is the name of character. Each name should be distinctive and fit how you want your characters portrayed. Think of how the mother and father might have named them, depending on what the parents (if there are two and if they care) are like. Also, be sure to use different letters of the alphabet for first and last names of characters. Readers tend to look at the first initials and not the whole name. Two or more characters with the same first initial might confuse. Stop right here, and name your character. Also, fix a chart with each letter of the alphabet and keep track of all the names you intend to use in your novel.

            Next, the writer needs to know where and when the character was born. Different areas maintain different life styles. North and South, East and West have unlike codes of behavior. Make a beginning for your characters. Their ethnic backgrounds are important, including their socio-economic backgrounds while growing up. As we already know from the state of historical and current times, ethnicity, social and economic factors play a large part of every day life, regardless of how we might want to disguise our prejudices or our beliefs. Again, it’s time to stop to figure out how your character’s behavior in the rest of the plot is dependent on the where/when, ethnic and socio-economic factors in the character’s past.

            The members of the characters birth family have a direct bearing on how the characters will act in your novel. The person(s) to whom the characters favor in the family hierarchy gives a clue to the characters in their adulthood—as does the person to whom the character is most distant from or totally estranged from. It’s time to write up a family background for your character. Remember, you are the character and need this familial information in order to function in a consistent manner throughout the story.

            How would the writer—as the character—describe his/her relationship with each parent? The description of the relationship also has a bearing on the character’s behavior in the future. If there is a loving mother and an abusive father, how might a character react in the future? If the relationships were reversed, and the mother was abusive and the father kind and loving, how might that affect a character’s future? We are all products of our upbringing to a certain degree. Not being a scientist, I can’t go into DNA evidence, but I’m sure it plays a large part—so make it up.

            Think of a memorable or significant experience in the life of a child. What might change the character’s life if the childhood experiences were traumatic? How would your adult character face up to an unusual childhood? There is a major difference in a child who was dragged around the country while the parent is fleeing from the law than a child who was able to go to school in one area and was surrounded by friends and relatives. Give your character childhood feet on which to walk.

            Adolescence is a time of great trauma for most teens. Those of us who have been through that traumatic period know that many of our attitudes as teen-agers have shaped the rest of our lives. Some of us never grow out of that life, others shun it. How would an adolescent experience in the life of your character help, or hurt, him/her conquer the challenges facing them in your novels? Write up an extended biographical experience for your character’s adolescence. Make it significant enough to have a lasting effect on the character. You might want to include a sexual experience—good or bad—as a factor.

            What is the character’s educational background? As we all know, statistics tell us the college graduates make more money in their lifetime than those folks who do not finish high school. This plays into the socio-economics of the character’s background. Does the character quit high school? Does s/he go on to college? Do they take the course they want, what might interest them? Do they finish with a degree that means something to them in a status, financial or emotional way? Now is the time to figure out what is important to your characters in those learning years—preferably before they embark on their journey through your novel.

            One last thing that might give you a hint to your character’s character is the few mementos s/he might have saved from their childhood, their adolescence or their college-age years.  Was it a picture of the father they never knew, the lace handkerchief from their deceased mother or a physical ailment that ran in the family? Each individual aspect of life, you, as the character, can remember will affect your character’s actions when s/he starts out in your novel.

            It is time for the writer to figure out these biological aspects for your main and secondary characters, before going on to the next section, which will include your character’s physical description of him/herself. Write on, authors!

The Readers’ Station Quarterly

Where Readers and Authors Mingle

May 2007 - Page 4

Writing About Sex

By Bryn Colvin

With the romance genre increasingly blurring its boundaries with erotica, and sexual images growing ever more present in other media forms as well, is it true that you can’t write a successful book without including sexual content? How do you tell if your book needs this type of material in it? How do you handle it?

In the last few years, I have written everything from anonymous porn on commercial websites to gentle romance with next to no detail. All of it sells. More important than your content, is making sure that your book is described in the right way to readers and pitched to appropriate markets and reviewers. Briefly, pornographic writing is entirely about sex, and usually has little plot or characterization. It favors short, Anglo –Saxon terms, seldom includes romance and may include all kinds of kinks, deviations and multiple participant scenarios. Erotica tends to have a narrative in which sex plays an important role, while some characterization is to be expected. Language use is more creative, but direct. In erotica, you are more likely to find sensuality, and emotion as opposed to ‘who put what where’. In romance writing, if sex plays a part it is secondary to the emotional content and largely used to illustrate said. In romance, the sex normally occurs only between two people as part of a growing relationship.

So why put it in? If you think it will help you sell books, you probably shouldn’t be writing in any of these genres. Sex, like any other activity you might feature in a story, should help move the plot along, or express something about your characters and their relationships. If you write in a great deal of detail and then fade to pink as the bedroom door closes, you may miss out on an important part of the relationship. You can add significantly to the emotional intensity of a book by exploring the complications of sexual relationships. It doesn’t have to be all enthusiastic fantasy – writing about insecurity, impotence and the difficulties of sexual relationships can add a lot of depth to a story.

Sex is one of the most natural things we do. As a consequence, sexual activity can be used to show characters at their most natural, perhaps revealing parts of their natures that are hidden at other times – tenderness, fragility, need, fear, dependence etc. Drawing a reader into the world of your character’s emotions, their passion and desire can be powerful indeed.

When should you leave the sex out? If you don’t feel comfortable writing it then it shouldn’t be there. If it isn’t a part of the story you are trying to tell, or it seems contrived or inappropriate for the tone of your book, then leave it out. As in all things, write what you know about, and if you don’t know, do your research. If you aren’t comfortable with researching the topic, its best not to try and write about it.

When writing sex, you must decide whether to describe things literally, or be euphemistic. Overblown euphemisms can ruin a mood. I think it works better to call things by widely recognizable names, but in the romance genre this generally isn’t the done thing.

It isn’t enough just to describe a physical encounter between two people, and books doing this tend to get dull very quickly. Characters need to talk to each other – perhaps before or after if not during. I think good verbal exchanges are about the sexiest things you can include, and they help define your characters. It is also important to explore the emotions of at least one participant, and to consider including how they interpret the words and actions of the other. Make your sensory details as broad as possible – sound, smell, taste, touch and sight all have a part to play.

 Fiction for Summer 2007

Available in Print from Nikki Leigh

Lady Lightkeeper - Misty Cove Chronicles - Book Two

Lilah and the Locket - Cape Hatteras Series - 1954

Anne Whitfield - Long Distance Love – print from Samhain Publishing, May 15th.

Elena Bowman - Sarah's Landing-III- The Barbarians – e-book from ebooksonthe.net April, 2007 ISBN# 1-59431-514-0

Non-fiction for Summer 2007

Non Commercial Food Service Manager's Handbook – Shri Henkel

Restaurant Manager’s Handbook 4^th Edition – Updated by Shri Henkel

 New Reviews

Gatekeeper’s Realm by Elena Bowman reviewed at http://www.onceuponaromance.net/GatekeepersRealmReview.htm

 Widow’s Walk by Nikki Leigh, reviewed at http://romanceatheart.com/review/widowswalk.html

 Lady Lightkeeper by Nikki Leigh- www.nikkileigh.com/llk_-_reviews.htm

 Lilah and the Locket by Nikki Leigh – www.nikkileigh.com/lilah_-_reviews1.htm

 Kitty McKenzie by Anne Whitfield - http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781599982625&itm=1 

Reviewed By the Reader’s Station

Jeanette Stevens From Both Sides of Darkness and Shri Henkel’s Successful Meetings reviewed by Bryn Colvin http://www.myspace.com/brynneth_n_colvin

Works in Progress 

Dorice Nelson is still working on her suspense, Vengeance Is Mine, which gets bigger and bigger by the day. Dorice says, "Changing a novel already written in order to up the suspense is more difficult than just doing a novel in the first place.”

Book Promo 101 - Basics of Book Promotion

This is the first book in a series by Nikki Leigh. Book Promo 101 includes many aspects of basic book promotion. Chapters include tips and suggestions from a variety of authors. They share promotional techniques that work for them. Each chapter includes questions at the end to help the reader glean even more from the text. Nikki plans to release this information packed e-book during the summer of 2007. For more information - visit - www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo.htm. To learn how you can share your promotional suggestions - email bookpromo101@consultant.com

Bryn Colvin will be revising her two erotic fantasy novels ‘Illyan Daughter’ and ‘Strange Fruit’. These are no longer published by Venus Press and will hopefully have a new home soon.

The Readers’ Station Quarterly

Where Readers and Authors Mingle

May 2007 - Page 7

 Author’s News

Readers Station Anthology

Your Readers’ Station tour guides are busy compiling an anthology of fiction and non-fiction to be released soon.  Watch the Readers Station website and message board for details as they become available.
www.readersstation.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WelcometoReadersStation/

Chats & Events

On the afternoon of April 25th, Dorice Nelson will be doing a home visit. She's going to speak at a small Book Club meeting. The women have bought Saratoga Summer:1863 and will have questioned prepared for Dorice to answer. She will bring her stories and the rest of her novels for their perusal. It should be a relaxed and fun time.

Saturday afternoon, at 2:00 pm on April 28, 2007, Elena Dorothy Bowman will be one of the featured authors at the Chelmsford Public Library, where she will speak about her books. Light refreshments will be served as each author moves to their assigned tables where they will have the opportunity to sign and sell their books. The event will be publicized in the local media and on the Library's website.

Nikki Leigh will be visiting bookstores, gift shops and museums along the Outer Banks on the coast of North Carolina the first week of May 2007 to promote her new release Lilah and the Locket - a mystery set in Buxton, NC at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

Awards and Recognition

How to Open a Financially Successful Pizza & Sub Restaurant, Shri L. Henkel & Douglas R. Brown, The Atlantic Publishing Group received a “notable mention” for the Eric Hoffer Book Awards.

Nora Peterson's Retire Rich With Your Self-Directed IRA: What Your Broker and Banker Don't Want You to Know About Managing Your Own Retirement Investments has been named a finalist in the ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award. Winners will be announced at a special program at Book Expo America on June 1, 2007.

Shri Henkel’s 365 Foolish Mistakes that Smart Managers Make is a finalist in the Foreward Magazine’s Book of the Year Award. Winners will be announced at Book Expo America on June 1, 2007.

New Contracts and Future Releases

Anne Whitfield sold another contemporary short story, Avenue Of Dreams to The Wild Rose Press, for the Champagne line.

Bryn Colvin’s erotic romance novel Late Night Sessions has been sold to Romance Divine and will be coming out as a paperback later this year.

Other News

You can catch up with Nikki Leigh in a couple of interviews posted online - http://darkicegoddessmusings.blogspot.com/2007/02/nikki-leighs-author-day.html

http://www.historicalromanceclub.com/index-I.html 

The Bryn Colvin and Emy Naso’s novel Victorian Taboo has been re-released and went straight in at number 5 in the Renebook charts. www.renebooks.com