What I'm reading: Captive of Sin, by Anna CampbellNo surprise to anyone reading this blog regularly that I'm not much of a plotter. In fact, I'm giving my "Plotting for Non-Plotters" workshop at the Emerald City Conference in a couple of weeks. Recent events made it clear I could never be an architect.
Now that the upstairs of our house is finished (although we still need some furniture), we're moving on to the basement. While the upstairs was purely cosmetic, downstairs is a conversion. The basement is technically "finished" in that it has carpet, heat and finished walls, but it's still one big space with the exception of a bathroom and laundry area. Making it into living space means more than replacing appliances, cabinets, or painting and installing new flooring.So, we turned to an expert, an architect our contractor recommended. He showed up, we gave him our wish list, he quoted a price (ugh), and we agreed. He took some measurements and said he'd get back to us in a few days.
Quick update - A Summer's Eve is now available at the Kindle Store. Hope you'll check it out. 
Randy and Sarah are back in a previously unpublished epilogue to Hidden Fire. Cutbacks in the Pine Hills Police force have increased Randy’s workload, and he’s looking forward to getting some time off to spend with his wife. However, despite all of Randy’s detective skills, Sarah still manages to surprise him, sending their lives down a new path.This story is connected to Finding Sarah, Hidden Fire, and Coping Mechanisms, but it stands on its own as a slice-of-life vignette.
My daughter spent her senior year of high school as an exchange student in Germany. She lived in a tiny village, Belrieth. The nearest 'recognizable' city was Meiningen, noted for its theater. It was an enlightening experience for both my daughter and her host family, as she was there just three years after the wall came down. Several years later, we had the opportunity to travel to Germany with her, and she showed us some of the sights. (Note - these were taken in pre-digital days, and scanned a number of years ago. My skills with Photoshop are lacking, but I hope the images are satisfactory for computer viewing.)
L'Shannah Tovah to those who are observing the New Year. It's 5771.
We all have crutch words--those words that seem to crop up in a manuscript, edging out other, more useful or appropriate words. Some of them seem to be the equivalent of the spoken "um" merely vamping until thoughts coagulate. I have a list, but even after I cull my known offenders, others seem to be sucked into the manuscript--after all, nature abhors a vacuum. 
I've started trying to search and destroy these words as I go, checking every few chapters. Easier to cull 50 appearances of "just" now, than 500 of them later. But sometimes, there's a word that will be repeated simply because it IS the best word, and to start substituting makes things even more awkward. A door is a door. How often do people go through portals? If it starts to sound like your digging through a Thesaurus to avoid repeating a "limited function" word, you might be better off repeating it.
What I'm reading: What Would Jane Austen Do? by Laurie BrownEvery so often, you’re at a gathering and you mention you’re a writer. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book. One of these days, when I’m not so busy, I’ll write one.” 
Well, first, if you wait until you have time, you probably won’t ever write the book. Writers write because for them, it’s like breathing. Something they have to do.But there’s the other side. Publication, and all the business angles. Nobody mentions these when you’re starting to work on the craft. Obstacles abound. Writing the best book you can means learning a lot about the craft. Then there’s the market niche. A good book doesn’t mean it’s a marketable book. You learn that it’s almost impossible to get published by a major house unless you have an agent—they won’t even look at unagented submissions.
Today, author Margaret Tanner visits Terry's Place. Thanks to the magic of cyber-space, she's dropping in from Down Under.You be the judge. Do lucky charms work?I always scoffed at magic or lucky charms. If I couldn’t see it, I didn’t believe in it. Well, that is not until I visited my Dad’s sister, a sprightly old dear in her nineties. It was the 30th anniversary of my father’s death.
After a watery, milky cup of tea and some stale cake, that Aunty said she had baked the previous day, but I think it could have been the previous week, she started telling me about the silver boomerang, which we had found many years ago amongst my late father’s war medals. (A boomerang is an Australian aboriginal hunting weapon). The boomerang bore the words “I go to return.”It was a good luck charm, and my father apparently wore it throughout the 2nd World War. There was magic in the boomerang, the lady who had given to him was convinced of it, as was my aunt. Whether Dad believed in it or not, I have no idea. The original owner apparently survived the carnage of the 1st World War. So, did the good luck charm live up to its name the second time around?
What I'm reading: Hangman, by Faye KellermanIt's Labor Day, a holiday for those of us in the US, and I'm taking the day off from 'serious' blogging. Our plans include a drive into the Springs for an outdoor Arlo Guthrie concert with our kids. Back in the day when our daughters were dating, any serious prospects were subjected to listening to his version of The Garden Song. We have the "Precious Friends" CD, a joint concert with Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and the version of the Garden Song on this CD has Arlo teaching the audience the words, and having them sing along. If the boyfriends didn't join in and sing along when prompted to do so on the CD, they flunked.(I tried to find a clip of this version, but it was recorded in 1981--too early to record and share on YouTube.)However, this is a fun version as well, albeit far more recent.As for writing - copyedits are done, but I'm obsessing over the back cover copy. The publisher insists that authors deal with it. A lot of you helped me choose an excerpt (thanks!) but now I'm stuck with balancing the value of an excerpt vs the value of author cover quotes--and I have a maximum of 175 words in which to do it. Readers prefer excerpts, but the book buyers (and Five Star targets the library market) want to see reviews and endorsements.Come back tomorrow for my guest, Margaret Tanner. Her topic: The Magic Boomerang. You won't want to miss it.
Hubster started photographing mushrooms a few years back. When we go out, he's always on the lookout for them. And he's trained me to watch out for them as well. Then he goes home and tries to match his pictures to the mushroom book(s). (Of course he has more than one). The names of the ones in today's Field Trip aren't guaranteed. As a matter of fact, different books give them different names, and they're not always identifiable at all. If anyone knows for sure, feel free to post them. Although some are edible, we haven't been brave enough to try. So, here are some of his fungus photos. Hope you enjoy them. 
Puffball
Dye Polypore
Normally, I eschew too much self promotion. But because this is my blog and I get to make the rules, here’s a review snip from Long and Short Reviews for NOWHERE TO HIDE (But don't worry--we'll get to writing in this post. Promise.)
Terry Odell creates characters that the reader can empathize with and cheer on as they cope with overwhelming challenges. She also writes a love scene that makes one apt to agree with Colleen that “sex rocks”. Her writing style is so smooth that she seems to disappear and the characters come alive so the reader is in the moment with what is going on.Nowhere to Hide captivates and keeps one turning pages. But, since it wouldn’t be right to spend the whole blog talking about a nice review, let’s look at it from the author’s standpoint. Anyone care to gander a guess at what line in the review makes me the happiest?
What I'm reading: Sizzling Sixteen, by Janet EvanovichThanks again to Mark Danielson for yesterday's post and photos. Double-duty today. I'm also over at Author Expressions, so you get two blogs for one! Picking up from Monday’s post:Quick recap. Some differences between submissions, first-round, and copyedits. Once your manuscript hits the editing phase, you should be fixing things, not changing things. This isn’t the time to do your searches for overused words, or clunky construction. That should have been done before you sent the manuscript off. When your first round editor sends comments, focus on what she’s said.What do you do if you DO find a word or phrase keeps popping up as you’re dealing with first round edits? If you’ve got an understanding editor, you can probably make the changes. But do everyone a favor, and make sure those types of problems get noted so you don’t make them again. (Although you’ll find new crutch words will replace the vacuum you’ve created.)Your first round editor might ask for more significant changes. In When Danger Calls, I’d carefully written around a scene I didn’t want to show on the page—a combat scene, and I wasn’t sure I’d get it right, so I had written a generic “seven minutes later when the gunfire stopped” kind of transition.Nope, my editor said. She wanted those seven minutes on the page. That required writing, not fixing.Back to the copyediting. Here’s my process (and it’s pretty much the same for both first round and copyedits):
Now that the upstairs of our house is finished (although we still need some furniture), we're moving on to the basement. While the upstairs was purely cosmetic, downstairs is a conversion. The basement is technically "finished" in that it has carpet, heat and finished walls, but it's still one big space with the exception of a bathroom and laundry area. Making it into living space means more than replacing appliances, cabinets, or painting and installing new flooring.
