Archive for the 'Book Stuff' Category

July 7, 2008 | Book One, Book Stuff, DA Series, Draven Atreides, Life in General, Miss Snitch Mondays, writing workshops

I had started Miss Snitch Mondays in order to introduce the public to the Draven Atreides series. I began posting the unedited version of Book One in May in honor of its release in April 2009. However, after recently attending a writing class, I realize I still have a lot to learn about writing and being a good writer. I’ll be enrolling in a writing program in September that will take 1-1/2-2yrs to complete. I want the series to be a success and I believe that taking this program will help me to achieve that goal. In light of this recent decision, I’ve pushed back the release date of Book One to April 2010. I still plan to post excerpts (which will end around this time next year) and you will still be able to sign up on the Pre-Order Notification List.

If you’d like to catch up, the Prologue started on May 4th and Chapter One started on June 2nd. This month, you’ll be reading Chapter Two. Enjoy.

CHAPTER TWO

Close to eight o’clock, I drive home after dropping Poe off. I tap my fingers on the wheel to the beat of a Smokey and the Miracles song. Gotta love the oldies. I grew up on Motown and rarely listen to the R&B and alternative stations Ricky and Poe seem to love; but I keep them programmed on my radio for them anyway. Pulling into the parking garage twenty minutes later, I head up to my fourth floor apartment. Closing the door, I hang the keys on a hook near the doorframe and inhale deeply. The faint scent of ocean and lavender wafts under my nose.

“Home sweet home,” I murmur with a contented sigh.

The Victorian Square apartments on Portland Street had been the last place on my list. There was nothing Victorian about the place, but I had taken an instant liking to the airy spaciousness and hardwood floors. I’d never known how claustrophobic I’d been until I’d seen this apartment. It only has four doors, five if you count the front door. The door-less bedroom leads straight past a door-less closet and right into the living room-slash-family room.

The main color scheme is purple, my favorite color, and the different shades are common throughout. From the Volkswagen Beetle in the parking garage, the dishes in the kitchen, the jewel-toned satin comforter and fishnet canopy in my bedroom, right down to my most prized possession: a dark purple, crushed velour padded chaise lounge with a matching foot stool and tassled pillow. Poe loves it just as much as I do and says that it makes her feel like a queen when she lays on it. It’s my favorite spot to chill out, too.

The complex seems to have its own little community as well. The ground floor houses a yoga studio, a small gym, a reasonably priced restaurant and a deli. It’s also spitting distance from the public library and a movie theater. The clincher, of course, is the best coffee house slash deli in the city: CoolBeans Café, which is on my way to school. I’m a frequent visitor and the girls that work there know me by name. Sweeping aside the beaded curtain leading to my bedroom, I kick off my sneakers, toss my backpack on a corner chair and throw my purchases on the bed. I’m glad I had been able to talk Poe out of “vogueing up”. I normally don’t mind dressing up, but it’s not like we’re going to the Academy Awards. It’s the Grand Re-Opening of a spa, for heaven’s sake. I know from experience if famous people show up, they’re going to look like they just rolled out of bed.
Moving into the kitchen, I take down my teapot, fill it with water, set it on the stove, and turn the knob. Moments later, the teapot whistles. I pull down a large heavy mug, pour the water, and repeatedly dunk a bag of Chamomile tea. Cradling the mug in both hands, I shuffle to my desk, boot up my laptop, pull up my journal and begin to type.

11 November
Reflection
It’s been a while since I’ve written in a diary. June 14th 5:31pm 2003, to be exact. My life of late has definitely been diary-worthy, but I no longer trust writing my thoughts down in a book. Books get lost. Or left behind when you have to leave in a hurry. Not that I really left in a hurry, mind you. There was a little planning, but enuff for me to know the meaning of the word “sacrifice.” I left a lot of things behind two years ago. A purple, fur-lined suede coat. Central Park. The FCFH and their dirty little secret. Chevalier’s the name and human trafficking was there game. Need some factory workers? Call up Derek Chevalier; he’ll get you people that’ll work their fingers to the bone for a meal and a chance to bring another family member to the States. Oh yes, and my name. I left behind my name for the second–and very last–time.

Today. This day. The 11th of November, is the anniversary of my new life. The day I left the nightmare of Olivia Chevalier’s life in New York City and took a seat in the offices of The Agency in Arizona. As Miss Snitch. A new life that’s nothing like the Witness Protection Program, because, well, it’s not. A new life that includes a very important job with a certain company that will deny my existence til their blue in the face. No matter how bad those bamboo shoots under the nails hurt.

I haven’t told Party Girl or GQ about my New Life Anniversary. I hadn’t really planned on it and probably never will. Well, I shouldn’t say never. I’ve only known them a year and circumstances could change. I mean, it’s not like it’s my birthday or anything. I just kinda have to be careful what I say around them because, well, there’s this one little thing–okay two–two little things that they–maybe three–yeah, three little things…sigh. Okay, let’s just say I have some privacy issues that I’m not at liberty to discuss. And Chief probably wouldn’t care because I’m just a client to him. Hang on. I have an incoming call. It’s Chief.

I stop typing to answer my cell phone.

“I was beginning to worry,” says the voice in a low baritone.

“Not enough to send out the cavalry, I hope,” I reply with a grin.

“No. I would have waited at least another half hour. You are late. Is everything all right?”

“Yeah. Got caught up in the whole Internet thing,” I explain.

“You are usually very punctual.”

“I know. I got home later than usual,” I say.

“Oh? How was school?”

I shrug. “Oh, y’know, same old, same old. But it’s a good same old, same old. I really like this school.”

“You are not bored?”

“Not yet. I imagine I will be soon enough. Some of these classes are still new to me,” I say, taking a sip of my cooling tea.

“Did you hang out with Poe after school today?”

“Yeah. We went shopping, had dinner.”

A deep chuckle filters through the wires, making me smile.

“I know how much you love to shop,” comes the teasing reply. “What is the special occasion?”

“Spa day. At The Royale Treatment Day Spa. Poe was able to get an invite,” I say.

“That’s significant,” he says after a moments pause.

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“Hmm. Well, I hope you have fun.”

“I think I will. This time. It’ll be different.”

“I agree. So, do you know you have been with me for a year as of today?”

I smile and grip the phone tighter. “Really? I didn’t think you cared.”

~ Get to know Draven beyond the book by checking out her blog.

~ Sign up for the мебеликомпютри втора употребаDA Book One Pre-Order Notification List below

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July 4, 2008 | Book Stuff, Life in General

These are the new bookmarks the hubby and I created for Secrets and Kisses and Dance Jam Productions. On the front are the girls, with my tagline, and on the back are their personal stats.

A while back, I went through Vistaprint and had similar oversized postcards created, but instead of the book cover image, it was text introducing themselves: i.e. “Aloha, I’m Mataya Black Hawk”. Let me know what you think.

CLICK ON PICS FOR A LARGER VIEW

Technorati Tags: Secrets and Kisses , Dance Jam Productions, Vistaprint

July 1, 2008 | Book One, Book Stuff, DA Series, Draven Atreides, Life in General, Miss Snitch Mondays, Movie Queue, The 4-1-1 on Me, Weekend Wrap-Up, writing workshops

Saturday, I attended a writing class taught by former university professor and indie pub owner, Pamela Goodfellow of Goodfellow Publishing. She teaches a 3-Level, 8-week program, Crafting the Character-based Novel out of her home. She likes her classrooms smaller nowadays. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to taking the program and her being my editor. Saturday’s session had to do with scenes. I learned so much that I’ve decided to share the highlights with all you writers out there:

1) Get rid of dialogue attributions. These are the words you tag when your characters are talking: she said, she beamed, she laughed, she cried out, she teased, etc. I had no idea those even had a name until I took her class. Unfortunately, I do that a lot. As I’m sure all you other writers out there do, too. Pam says “If you are writing in character, you do not need to use dialogue attributions because the reader already knows who is talking or thinking. To show the reader this you may use action, reaction or emotional responses. You can also set up gestures and tagged responses for the reader to get to know the style of dialogue for each character. It is not easy to do. The simple thing to do is to use and attribution. But, if you want to write in character you must force yourself to learn by never using them.”

2) The 3 stages of human emotional response are visceral (physical), behavioral (instintive and learned response) and chosen (where the story is)

3) Every scene has to have a hook.

4) Use place holders in your scenes. It’s basically explaining something that the reader should already know. Pam says “You use a place holder because you know the reader will understand it; usually a cliché’s or an explanation of something that had happened earlier in the character’s history. If you recognize this in your own work, when you go back to revise and edit, you can take that place holder out and write a scene to set up what you were trying to explain in the original scene. Then when the reader gets to the original scene he/she will already have the information needed and will feel so very smart to understand the emotions of the character he/she has become attached to. It is really a secret to “showing” and not “telling”.”

4) A character cannot have the same emotional curve at the beginning than they do at the end. Emotional Curve is the name given to describe the emotional development of a character throughout the story. For instance, a character who starts out cynical and untrusting of men at the beginning of a story can’t remain like that by the end. It doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but you have to show the character as growing and changing emotionally. Pam says, “It is the emotional changes that make the story real and relevant to the reader.”

One thing she did tell me was that I’d have to change it from present tense to past tense. That’s going to be a lot of work. Good thing I’m up for the challenge. Clearly, I myself need to grow as an author still–and as we all know, learning to be a better writer is a never-ending process–and I look forward to working with her.

Saturday night, the hubby and I went to see Wanted. Very. Cool. Movie. We loved it. It even had some supernatural undertones to it, which made it even more interesting. I mean, besides the fact that they were a secret society of assassins, they have this…unusual ability. The hero (James McAvoy) thought he was having anxiety attacks, only to find out it was nothing close. The one thing I’ve discovered lately is that–SPOILER AHEAD–I don’t like it when Morgan Freeman plays the bad guy. I haven’t seen his full repetoire of movies, but this is the third movie (Chain Reaction, Lucky Number Slevin being the first two) in which he’s been the bad guy and I don’t like it. I realize actors and actresses need to mix it up a bit, but he doesn’t appear evil to me. I can’t picture him torturing someone or being the mastermind behind a plot to do harm. Some people have it and some people don’t. He’s one of the people that doesn’t.

On Sunday… (more…)

Technorati Tags: Pamela Goodfellow, Goodfellow Publishing., Crafting the Character-based Novel, Wanted., James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Chain Reaction, Lucky Number Slevin

June 30, 2008 | Book One, Book Stuff, DA Series, Draven Atreides, Miss Snitch Mondays

From now until the April 17, 2009 release date of A Royale Pain: A Draven Atreides, Teenage FBI novel , I will post the unedited version of this book. Every month will be a different chapter, but since the chapters are so long–and unedited–I will post a few pages every week. Keep in mind that what you’ll be reading is the first draft of Book One, pre-editor and pre-spell check. It’s extremely raw, so there will be spelling errors. Comments and opinions are appreciated and may be taken into consideration during the current revision process. If you would like to order this book at a discount, be sure to get on the DA Book One Pre-Order Notification List at the end of this post.

“Yeah. Pretty neat. I’ll probably buy them the next time I work,” I say, unzipping the skirt and stepping out of it.

“Hey, I saw a tan pair of sweats with that same apple patch on the left leg. You should get those to go with the hoodie. You’d look cute,” Poe suggests, her voice somewhat muffled.

I snort as I unzip the hoodie. “I’ll look like a dork. The Orange Crush sweats will at least look trendy.”

“Oh yeahhh,” Poe drawls in a high-pitched tone. “Either way, you’ll look good. You have the perfect figure for those sweats.”

I glance in the mirror as I pull on my jeans. I pause, one leg in, one leg out, and study my reflection. Vian Chevalier had been all about having the perfect figure. It was the reason I had been placed with The Foster Couple From Hell (The FCFH) three years ago. Vian was half Italian and looked it.

My lighter than olive skin tone had been “perfect”, I had been the “perfect” age, and voila: instant, “perfect” family. On the surface, anyway.

Poe’s “chance of a lifetime” had been a weekly outing for me back then. A weekly outing I had grown to hate within a month. Vian had seen it as a time to bond with her new daughter. Of course, it was hard to bond with your new daughter when you were in separate rooms. Or gossiping with your friends in the waiting area.

Maybe this time it’ll be different. It’s a different time, different state, different person, different spa. Maybe the whole experience will be different with Poe. It’ll be like my first time, but better. For three years, I had been someone I couldn’t relate to, “people like them”. Now, I’m back to being one of the group, “people like us”.

I’ve kept the same mantra in my head since I was a little girl: I am me, a beautiful African Queen. Me. Draven Atreides. Pronounced Dray-ven Uh-tray-deez, I consider this to be a symbol of my individuality every time I hear my name. No one in the world has the same name as me, even though it’s not the one I’d been given at birth.

“Dray?” Poe’s voice startles me with a jerk. “Dray? Are you still there? You didn’t leave me, did you?”

Shaking away thoughts I would rather keep blocked out, I continue to get dressed. “Yeah, no, I, uh, I didn’t leave you. I’m still here.”

“Good, because I think I’m going to get this outfit.”

I barely get my shirt over my head before the curtain is dramatically ripped aside and Poe enters, striking a pose. “This outfit” turns out to be brown suede crochet boots, jeans that look like she patched them up herself, a striped wine-colored dress shirt with a low-waist tie belt, and an olive green corduroy Army uniform cap.

“Very hippie-chick,” I observe. “The boots are definitely you.”

“I agree. Let’s beat a hasty go-go. I’m starving,” says Poe, turning on her heel to head back to her dressing room.

I laugh, stuffing my feet into my sneakers.

“Let’s.”

In July: Chapter Two

REMINDER:

~ Get to know Draven beyond the book by checking out her blog.

~ Sign up for the мебеликомпютри втора употребаDA Book One Pre-Order Notification List below

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Technorati Tags: A Royale Pain, A Draven Atreides, Teenage FBI novel, Orange Crush, Army

June 24, 2008 | Book One, Book Stuff, DA Series, Draven Atreides, Life in General, Miss Snitch Mondays, Movie Queue, Must-See DVD, The 4-1-1 on Me, Voracious Reader, Weekend Wrap-Up

Saturday morning, my BF and I attended a business mtg. I needed a consult and seeing as how my BF owns 20% of my company (she’s the V.P.), I thought she needed to be “in the know”. Afterwards, we were supposed to hit up a coffee shop and talk more business, but I wasn’t in the mood. So, instead we hit up Ross, where she bought me a most wonderful belated birthday gift: a Buxton Womens Laptop carrying case in Sage

sage.jpg

Isn’t it great? I love it. It’s to replace the one that got destroyed during a PMS moment.

Ahem

Moving on…we then moseyed on over to Chandler Fashion Mall to check out this new store called BareEscentuals. I wanted to check out their Bare Minerals line of make-up. All natural make-up. I’m all for natural. Their foundation even has SPF 15! That’s plus when you’re living in It’s-So-Damn-Hot-It-Feels-Like-A-Blow-Dryer, AZ. Seriously, I think they just need to change the name from Phoenix, AZ to Damn Hot, AZ. I just scoped it out, wanted to eyeball the products up close and personal. I didn’t buy anything, but I plan to.

We then hit up my other favorite place…The Body Shop, where I bought some Moringa Body Scrub.

Have you smelled this stuff? It’s absolutely wonderful. I happened to see it online and knew, without even smelling it, that I would like it. When I got a GC to this place for my birthday, I hotfooted it over there and bought the shea body butter. That was the first time I smelled it and I LOVE IT. My BF bought me some Perfume Oil in Sequin Sparkle as another birthday gift

It smells great. A very light floral scent. She thought the name sounded whimsical (my BF is pretty whimsical herself) and ended up liking the way it smelled. The fact that it was on sale for $2 (and I get a 10% discount with my card) was a bonus. Speaking of discounts…we came into the mall through Barnes and Noble. The plan was to hit up Starbucks and then check out that other store.

“As long as I don’t end up in the romance section, I’ll be fine,” I tell her.

We ended up sharing some kind of S’Mores treat (that really wasn’t all that good) and chatting for a little bit.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she says.

And it was all over but the cryin’. I ended up in the romance section. Had no intention of buying any books because I’d just bought 7 books online at eHarlequin.

Until I saw these

And it was all over but the cryin’. Again.

I’ve read every book in Lynsay Sands’ Argeneau Vampire series except for Book One. I just got finished reading Books 7, 8 & 9. I hadn’t read these two yet. They were on my list. I couldn’t pass them up.

The next thing I know, I’m snapping them off the shelf and beating a hasty retreat to checkout.

“I really need to find my friend-” (lost in the New Age section, BTW) “—and get the hell outta here.”

That night, the hubby and I watched this movie

Breach, with Ryan Phillipe. Have you seen it? Very good movie. It’s based on a true story about an FBI agent wanna-be who was instrumental in getting his boss, Agent Robert Hanssen, convicted for selling secrets to the Soviet Union. Yeah. I know. Deep.

On Sunday, (more…)

Technorati Tags: Ross, Buxton, Chandler Fashion Mall, BareEscentuals, Bare Minerals, The Body Shop, Moringa Body Scrub., Sequin Sparkle, Barnes and Noble, Starbucks, eHarlequin, Lynsay Sands’ , Argeneau Vampire, Breach, Ryan Phillipe