Today, I'm over at author C. Patrick Schulze's blog. He was a guest here not long ago, and he's invited me to his place. I'm talking about "Needlepoint Plotting". Hope you'll pop over there.Meanwhile, since it's Friday, here at my blog, I've got some pictures to share. Last weekend, we went up to Florissant for their Heritage Days – the pancake breakfast at the firehouse convinced hubster we should give it a go. Across the road, they set up craft booths and had other offerings. Definitely small town, and definitely fun.We took the back route home, and this time stopped at the Hornbek Homestead, something we'd passed several times before. In honor of the Heritage Days, they had costumed interpreters and were even baking bread in the wood stove. Which smelled scrumptious, I might add.
OK - first things first. The New Kitchen! If you want to see a bunch more pictures, including some "Before" shots, click here.
I thought I'd continue with my POV notes as I get ready for tonight's Savvy Writers chat. Yesterday, I gave a brief "definition" of the basic point of view options. Today, a little more detail about each one. And again, any suggestions are appreciated.
What I'm reading: First Cases, Volume 3, edited by Robert J. RandisiThanks, Jacqui for your great advice yesterday. Definitely some good takeaway truths.
And just because this is my blog, I thought I'd share a picture of another visitor to our home yesterday. I'm sure I could have figured out a clever tie-in to today's topic, but--I didn't. Feel free to suggest one.Right about now, a few thousand writers, agents, publishers and assorted book people will be in Orlando for the annual Romance Writers of America Conference. Of course, thousands more won't be making the trip, myself included. A writing site, Savvy Writers, is holding an on-line symposium for those who won't be at nationals, and I volunteered to host a one hour chat on Point of View. At the time, it seemed like fun. POV was one of my first writing "lessons" and I'm probably overly aware of it when I read. Now that the chat is looming, I'm trying to figure out how to handle information exchange during a live chat. For the most part, you can only post a few lines—a short paragraph at most—and it's a "chat" not a lecture or a workshop. I'd love some help
I'd like to welcome paranormal author Jacqui Jacoby to Terry's Place today. Working in both the fiction and non fiction world, Jacqui is a retired martial artist, as well as a workshop teacher, and student, having returned to school for a second B.A. Today she's talking about moving forward.“Try starting on the second paragraph …” ~Lucien CarrForward motion makes the world go round in a very real, astronomical way. All that gravity and stuff … spinning planets, etc. It’s not something we really think of as we sit down to our computer to open our Facebook, check Twitters, open the day planner and then, finally, open that file we either love or hate, depending on the day of the week.Forward motion creates and maintains a writer’s career, it writes the books in that file. It moves us in the right direction every time we start to type.
If you are a writer, just starting out, that new cursor blinking at you, waiting for you to type the first words can be scary. You have that whole novel in front of you and do not know what to expect.If you are close to finishing your first story, then you have entered it in a few contests. You are awaiting the results, hoping for the agent or editor to say you did this right.
Updates: I'm now the proud recipient of an award for the top 45 mystery book blogs. I never applied for it, so it came as an out-of-the-blue surprise. 
As for the house, the contractor hooked up the kitchen sink, garbage disposal, water line to the fridge and most of the dishwasher Friday. I'm hoping that by the time you read this, he'll be well on his way to getting the stove installed, and the bathroom sinks plumbed. The end--at least of this phase--is in sight.When I began writing, my crit partners would often return my pages with passages labeled R.U.E.--Resist the Urge to Explain.. I think it's a common "beginner's" mistake and I thought it might be worth a mention.Anyone who's undertaken writing has heard "Show, Don’t Tell"—probably more times than they've wanted. This isn't a hard and fast rule, because often telling is more efficient than showing, and done well, gets the point across. But too much telling, especially when it comes across as author intrusion can put the brakes on the pace of your story, and can do exactly the opposite of what the author intended.
First - before you head off on today's Field Trip, please pop over and say hello to me at The Romance Studio blog. Then come back, grab some coffee and enjoy today's pictures. Mark Danielson, a future guest blogger included a slew of pictures with his post. Way too many for a guest slot, but he agreed to share them for a Friday Field Trip.Mark is an airline pilot and has covered a lot of ground over his career. I'll open the comments to folks who want to identify (or try) the locations of the shots he's sharing this week. #1
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What I'm reading: Murder Most Frothy by Cleo CoyleI want to thank everyone who came by my launch party yesterday. Welcome new blog followers, and thanks to those who are now following me on Twitter. The winners of my drawings were:JessLanae T.RaynaK.M. WielandMaryann MillerMatt BilleJemi FraserIf you haven't already emailed me with your contact information, you have until Saturday to do it without forfeiting your prizes.But wait. There's more. If you respond now...
Welcome to the virtual launch party for Nowhere to Hide, plus a celebration of surpassing the 200 follower mark. I've decided to make things easy. All action will take place in the comments, but I'm going to post several separate excerpts, etc., today. Comments in any of them count toward winning one of my giveaway prizes. Headers will all say "Launch Party" so scroll down to join in. 
What are the prizes? I've got bookmarks, post cards, notepads and other miscellaneous swag I picked up at RomCon. I've got books (some gently read). To enter: leave a comment. For an extra chance to win, be one of my blog followers, either through Blogger/Google or Facebook Networked Blogs. Another chances to win by following me on Twitter. Also, enter my Swag contest (see the tab) for yet another chance.The only "catch" is that this blog system doesn't collect your email address when you leave a comment, so you're going to have to check back to see if you won a prize.If I draw your name, you'll have until Saturday to e-mail me with your snail mail address. Due to legal and postage issues, any snail mail prizes will have to be limited to US addresses. But if you're out of the US, there are still download type prizes, so don't go away!
A HUGE Thank You to everyone who's dropped by to party. I will be drawing the last name at 8 PM Mountain Time, so make sure you've left a comment somewhere on one of the party posts to be eligible.
Things are winding down, but I'm still accepting entries. Plenty of time to bring more food, scroll through all the excerpt posts, read the 'behind the scenes' at my website, as well as a couple of reviews. This scene shows some local setting to give readers a quick sense of place, as well as show something about Graham--both as a cop and as a man. He's off to question one of the players in the case he's investigating. It's his first solo interview as a detective.
