Alison Kent's Blah Blog

From TOR editor Anna Genoese via Allison Brennan:

What is a pitch session?
A pitch session is a five to fifteen minute (usually ten, actually) meeting with an editor (or agent), during which you “pitch” your project — and yourself.

Click the link to read the rest.

I’ve been working on a Monday post since sometime on Saturday. I found a great conversation on another blog, and wanted to expand on a point the author made, but I can’t. Not now. I’ve tried and tried to be coherent, and it’s not happening. My brain is mush. I’ve got Rennie and Milla pulling me one way, and Ezra and Alexa pulling me another. And then every time I look up at my 3rd plotting board, Miriam and Navar are trying to tell me the pieces of their story I’m still missing.

So, I’m taking off this week. But I am leaving you with a bit of fun (ruthlessly stolen from Rosina Lippi) to keep you busy. Next Monday, March 6th, noon CST, I’ll give away one copy of DEEP BREATH. To be eligible to win, you have to post a comment to a previous blog entry – posting here on this entry does not count, okay? And, as Rosini says, “(…) real comments, not one word hellos (…)”. That means, I’m forcing you to read back through my blog and see what you may have missed and want to chat about. I’ll be around to reply to comments, I just have no creative energy for anything new this week. (Of course, if I find something fabulous to share, I will!) Comments are only open through December, so don’t bother looking further back! Everyone who posts between the time this post goes live and the time of the drawing is eligible.

Oh, and a big congrats later today to She Who Cannot Yet Be Named. (I’m posting at midnight, and she hasn’t yet spilled. *g*) I love me some first sales. LOVE ‘EM!

It sure wasn’t going down easy …

Jack Montgomery is out of his element. The former covert ops hero is now carving out a living as a P.I, specializing in missing persons. Except the trail’s gone stone cold on the Eckhardt kidnapping case just as Jack hits sizzling New Orleans. To top it off some psychic woman is making wild claims—and newspaper headlines—on his case no less.

Though she was easy on the eyes …

Perry Brazille knows her aunt can help Jack—Della has solved crimes before with her unexplained visions. Even Perry herself can glimpse the future and is afraid—she and the mysterious sexy Jack will be lovers … soon. They’ll explore some dark and delicious fantasies together. What Perry can’t see is the kind of future that can build on a hot and steamy fling. One that’s set against a dangerous situation that’s clearly unraveling …

First reader to comment gets a copy!

(For details: Weekend Winnings)

Fab post from Lydia Joyce at Access Romance’s All-A-Blog

This is the argument most often leveled against romance–that it isn’t realistic, and so it can’t be any good. That it’s built on lies. My rather blunt answer to that is that if you think there is no such thing as transforming and lasting love, I pity you your sad, bitter, empty life. A gentler answer is this: Great romances are as true as any great book. Their emotional honesty is precisely why people treasure them. Sure, there are plenty of books about spinster secretaries being swept of their feet by their Greek shipping magnate bosses…but that kind of froth is not enough to create the attraction that the genre as a whole has with its audience. Romance attracts because it resonates, and it resonates not with out-of-touch pathetic women who have never been kissed but with people who are largely in the middle of their own “ever afters.” It resonates because romance reflects the story of overcoming adversity through a mixture of love, self- AND mutual-reliance, and empowerment that isn’t some sort of oppressive fantasy locking women into doomed and delusional marriages but is an inspiration to women to find that truth in their own lives. Romance readers have more sex with their spouses (often considered a sign of the health of a marriage) than non-romance readers not because they are dreaming of Fabio but because what they get from their romances is an affirmation that positive, mutually happy relationships are both desirable and possible for ordinary people like themselves.

If you missed it? You can watch it online here at this link – scroll to the February 23rd date and the Steamy Novels piece. It features Sunny Chen, Liz Maverick, and Avon publisher Liate Stehlik, and I thought was very well done! Good press, yay!

Again, I’m swamped with the writing, so am pointing you toward other discussions I found during my morning coffee rounds on Wednesday. The subject? Sexual tension and body parts.

Author Tracy Montoya asks:

What is UP with fake sexual tension fillers? (…) I’m not talking about love scenes, but rather, about those sentences that have Heroine A appreciating pieces of Hero B in the middle of day-to-day activities. For example, in one of the books-that-shall-remain-anonymous, we start off on page one with the hero noticing the heroine’s “shapely legs.” (Do guys use the word “shapely” in real life? Bleh.) Shortly thereafter, the heroine notices how the hero “fills out his shirt.” A few sentences later, the hero notices how the heroine’s “lovely bottom” moves when she walks. And then, even though we still haven’t turned the page, the heroine notices the hero’s … uh, never mind. I just don’t want to go there. But rest assured, the basic anatomy lesson continues, page by ponderous page, sentence by painfully dull sentence, all the way to the bitter end.

I found Tracy’s rant through Mariann’s post on her own writing and critiquing experiences:

It’s really interesting to me that Tracy brought this up because one of the things I tried to do with my category romance was inject sexual tension in early scenes because I didn’t have as many pages for a more thorough relationship exploration. Sometimes, it was very, very obvious, and I had to answer some questions from people completely unfamiliar with the genre about stereotypes. On the one hand, I got angry with these readers because I’d warned them that there were elements in the first two chapters that would seem, well, formulaic. Based on what I’d read in the genre, admittedly limited in the category class, the body parts observation seemed quite standard and I wanted to fit in.

Of course, I can’t talk about tension without mentioning one of the best posts I’ve read on what it should really be where agent Jennifer Jackson asks:

Am I the only one who sees a difference between sexual tension and romantic tension and what they accomplish in the story? Where do you stand?

So, dear blog readers, what do you think about body parts? About forced sexual tension? About the injustice such a focus does to the romance genre by substituting for true characterization?

I, personally, handle the body parts and sexual tension issue by focusing on what matters in the moment and in the scene and to the point of view character. Because, really. No matter Tracy’s rant, men and women notice one another physically. That’s basic Human Attraction 101. I agree with her that it can be overdone and overdone poorly. But no matter how much chemistry and attraction happens in the brain, there is a physical element that can’t be overlooked. It’s what makes us human. Bu it’s what we (or our characters) notice and why that can make or break a scene.

Here’s the first attraction/meet scene in DEEP BREATH from Georgia’s viewpoint as she’s riding in her brother Finn’s pickup.

Read the rest of this entry �

Many of you may have received an email from Lori Foster about donating books for auction to Christie Goldenberg to raise money for her son’s ongoing medical expenses. I thought I’d post it here as well so everyone who visits can hop over to Eyes for Josh. Lori says:

If after reading this, anyone has any questions, just let me know. My idea is to get published authors to send her a book or two that she can auction, and at my June event, I’m going to collect more books that Dianne and I will ship to her. I’ve been so blessed with 3 healthy sons, and now a healthy grandson, that I can’t ignore something this meaningful. I hope you’ll feel the same. So authors… if you want to help out, and you have a book, especially one that is hard to find or out of print, please consider sending it to Christie. (But any book will do!) If you’re unpublished and just want to contribute, that would be wonderful.

No real time today, so pointing you to a great post on professionalism at Allison Brennan’s blog.

Also, courtesy of Allison, Agents Share Their Secrets.

A hilarious post (link courtesy of Holly Lisle) on the peckerhead known as the apostrophe.

And then Robert Gregory Browne asks (it’s best if you hop over and read his whole post):

I think most of us have to have a certain confidence in our work. Otherwise, why on earth would we keep writing? (…) Or are those of us who believe we may have something special a victim of our own egos?

Paris at Night in 360 (Because I bookmarked the link after seeing it on Tamara Siler Jones’s blog recently (check out her faboo post on point of view) and it’s gorgeous!)

Do I have to say the words?
Do I have to tell the truth?
Do I have to shout it out?
Do I have to say a prayer?
Must I prove to you how good we are together?
Do I have to say the words?
– Bryan Adams

A reader posed the question to me this past weekend, and I got her permission to post it here:

I just posted on your blog about contemporary romance. Someone else mentioned Judith McNaught’s books. I recently picked up one of her books, Until You, at my local library. After I read a book I occasionally go to Amazon to check out reader reviews. While skimming through the first couple of reviews I came across an interesting statement. One reader said she agreed with other reviewers in that one of the problems in the book was that the hero never told the heroine that he loved her. He said, “Until you…” which the heroine understood and interpreted as “I love you”. However, the reviewer complained that he never actually said the words and I quote from the review, ” Like other readers, I was upset that Stephen never uttered “I love you” in the novel. The author made it clear that he did in fact love Sherry, but the readers want to read those three little words anyway. His uttering “until you” instead of “I love you” wasn’t good enough for me.”

So my question for you as an author, do you think that authors have an obligation to make the hero say those three little words to make the story as a romance complete? Have readers come to expect the words to be said aloud to make the story believable? I didn’t really think about it until the reviewer brought it to my attention. To me, in this instance it seemed to be out of character for the hero to say the words. I, myself, was content with the “until you” uttering.

I thought it was an interesting question to ponder. It might also be an interesting question to pose to your other readers as well.

So, dear blog readers. Do you need your characters to say the words?

I stuck with my determination not to watch this season of AI until they got to Hollywood week. I watch AI for the singing. Meaning, I don’t enjoy watching the singers who can’t. It has nothing to do with the snark or the humiliation. I just want to hear the good singers, the voices that imbue so much emotion into the songs that I get the same feeling I get from reading an emotional scene in a book.

(BTW? I never get emotional when writing. Nope. Never. Don’t cry. Don’t feel the characters’ panic. Don’t sweat through getting them out of a tight spot. Rarely laugh. Not sure why, but I’ve always found it interesting that so many authors talking about crying through the writing of a scene, because for me it just doesn’t compute!)

I can read music. I can pick out songs on the piano. I can carry a tune. I took music classes as a teen in both church and school. I even tried out for The Sound of Music in high school and got a call back to be a nun, heh. So, I can sing, but I don’t have a singing voice – if that makes sense. The big belt ‘em out voices that I love, or the unique gritty voices that just make me shiver. I’m just your bland shower singer. If I didn’t write, I’d want to sing. Except I can’t.

There are only two voices this year in the AI top 24 that do it for me. I think 85% of the finalists at this point are really really good. But there are only two that I would buy an album from right now. Chris Daughtry and Taylor Hicks. And if you like Taylor Hicks as much as I do, you can now download 3 songs from this radio station.

American Idol Underground (Because it fit the theme of the day!)