Archive for the 'Miss Snitch Mondays' Category
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
Posted by Celise @ 6:59 pm | Criticisms
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
Technorati Tags: A Royale Pain, A Draven Atreides, Teenage FBI novel, Orange Crush, Army
Posted by Celise @ 8:00 am | Criticisms
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
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
Posted by Celise @ 9:57 pm | 2 Criticisms
June 23, 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.
I look at her with a raised eyebrow. “We’re going to a spa, Poe.”
“Yes. A spa where there might be celebs,” Poe counters, hands up and eyes wide in her classic “duh” expression.
“A spa where we’re going to be wearing a robe,” I retort, imitating the same pose.
“A spa where there might be celebs,” Ricky interjects.
“What’s the point in getting a new outfit if we’re going to have to take it off two seconds later?” I ask.
“The point is, we’ll be seen,” Poe says.
“Did she mention celebs might be there?” Ricky quips.
“What’s wrong with just slapping on some jeans and a sweater?” I say with a shrug.
Poe pushes her uneaten sandwich aside and leans in close. “This is the Royale Treatment Day Spa, Dray. The home turf of Taffy Royale.”
“And celebs,” Ricky whispers from behind his hand.
“People like us don’t get in to places like that. Tomorrow, we’re going to look like the type of people that get in to places like that. Seen—” Poe starts.
“Celebs with no make-up,” Ricky throws in.
I reach over and slap his arm.
“—and be seen. That’s the name of the game,” Poe continues, ignoring the exchange.
“It just seems a little unnecessary,” I say with another listless shoulder shrug.
“I can practice my acting skills and you can write about it someday. It’ll be fun,” Poe assures me.
“Yeah, what’s not to like?” Ricky offers. “Fuzzy robes and slippers, hangin’ out with Julia Roberts…”
“Or Madonna—”
“—Nicole Kidman—”
“—Nicole Ritchie—”
“—J. Lo—”
“—Jennifer Aniston—”
“—Paris Hilton—”
“—Lindsay Lohan—”
“—Halle Berry—”
“—Angelina Jolie—”
Poe and Ricky stop to stare at one another for a moment. Poe tilts her head to the side and Ricky rubs his chin with his index finger and thumb.
“Y’know, I can’t picture A.J. at a spa,” Ricky says.
“At least, not in this country,” I snicker.
Ricky reaches out and places his hand on my arm. “Don’t you want to go, mija?” he asks with a confused frown. “It’s the chance of a lifetime.”
If they only knew, I think with an inner sigh. “It’s not like I’ve waited a lifetime to go to a spa. It’s not exactly at the top of my To Do list,” I say aloud.
Ricky gives me a look that suggests he might have to slap some sense into me. “Okay, so just to recap, babydoll. You’re going to a Grand Re-opening of a classy spa where famous people…will…probably…show…up,” he says slowly. “Just in case you passed out during the only thing we’ve been talking about since lunch started and suddenly came to.”
I crack a smile and nudge his leg with my foot. “Ha-ha, very funny.”
Poe leans back in her chair and stares at me. “Look, if you don’t want to go, I can ask someone else,” she says. “Not you,” she adds quickly, pointing a finger at Ricky as he opens his mouth. “We already had that discussion.”
“I said I would go,” I say.
Poe claps her hands in delight. “Coolness. So, I was thinking about ditching my last class—kidding,” she says, avoiding Ricky’s fierce glare. “I can wait till school’s out.”
“I thought you said it was tomorrow?” I say, starting to crumple up my trash.
Poe releases a blustery sigh and throws up her hands. I smile at the dramatic gestures and think Poe will make a great actress someday.
“Geez, talk about short term memory. Shopping, Dray. We’re supposed to go shopping for new outfits for tomorrow. I thought we could hit up Charlie’s,” she suggests with a knowing smile.
Useless shopping. Joy. Even if it is at Charlotte Ruse, the clothing store where I work part time. The theme from “Saved by the Bell” filters through the speakers, effectively keeping me from saying something I’ll probably regret later.
“So we’ll meet by your car after school,” Poe is saying now.
“Yeah. Sounds good,” I agree, picking up my backpack. Ricky gives me a one-armed hug before shouldering his own bag.
“Fantabulous.” Poe steps around the table and wraps her arms around my neck in a hard squeeze. “See you later.”
“See ya.”
# Standing in a dressing room at the Charlotte Ruse in Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, I gaze at the outfit Poe had chosen for me.
“So what do you think? Do you like it?” Poe’s voice reaches over the adjoining wall.
“I look like you,” I say with a turned up lip curl.
“No you don’t,” scoffs Poe. “The slightly sloppy schoolgirl is a good look for you.”
“Possibly. But not in this outfit,” I object.
“You don’t like the black corduroy skirt?”
“It’s too short.”
“Slouchy beige sweater boots are the in thing now.”
“It’s November, Poe. In Arizona. Not Alaska, for crissakes.”
“Right. Well, do you at least like the white cami and the green hoodie with the red apple patch?”
I bob my head from side to side, shrug my shoulders and make a small sound in the affirmative.
“I like’em,” I reply.
“So what type of bottoms are you going to wear?” Poe asks.
“I saw some orange low-rise sweats out there with the Orange Crush logo on them,” I say, toeing off the sweater boots.
Poe releases a bark of laughter. “Yeah, I saw those. They’re some brown ones with the A & W logo on’em. Did you see those, too?”
REMINDER:
~ Get to know Draven beyond the book by checking out her blog.
~ Sign up for the мебелиDA Book One Pre-Order Notification List below
Technorati Tags: A Royale Pain, A Draven Atreides, Teenage FBI novel, Julia Roberts, Madonna, Nicole Kidman, Nicole Ritchie, J. Lo, Jennifer Aniston, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, Charlotte Ruse, Saved by the Bell, Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, Arizona, Alaska, Orange Crush, A & W
Posted by Celise @ 8:00 am | 1 Criticism
June 16, 2008 | Book Stuff, DA Series, Draven Atreides, Miss Snitch Mondays
So, we’re halfway thru Chapter One and I hope you’re enjoying the story. I have a question for you all:
What did you think of the blurb about the spa treatment at the beginning of the chapter? Has it added to the story? Do you think it’s irrelevant? Do you think I should remove it or leave it in?
Here’s why I ask. My original plan for the series was to add tidbits or interesting facts at the beginning of each chapter, depending on her case. Since this story is about a spa, I thought it would be interesting to insert the types of treatments that are offered at the Royalty Treatment Day Spa.
My editor told me to remove them, that they didn’t have any relevance to the story. When I explained why I was doing it (to be different, among other things), her response remained the same: take them out.
What say you?
Posted by Celise @ 10:31 am | 1 Criticism
