Alison Kent's Blah Blog

I totally stole this from Wendy, SuperLibrarian! Cracked me up. The husband, probably not so much, but he loves me anyway. ;)

Just in case there is someone out there reading this who doesn’t already know: Reputable agents work on commission. Commissions are based on selling your work. They make money if you make money. It’s a motivational system.

Read the rest at my agent’s blog: Et in arcaedia, ego.

So, #1 daughter is moving home for awhile. She’s been gone about 7 years; was, in fact, the first of my kids to leave the nest. #2 daughter came and went a couple of times while trying on work vs school vs roommates, and for now is settled out on her own. Casey didn’t leave until he and Taylor got together, and they were married not long after. I don’t anticipate he’ll be returning. If #2 ever did, it would be for the same reason #1 is doing so now – to get her finances in order and finish her degree.

We have a three bedroom house. When the kids and I moved here in June 1997 before the husband and I married in December, Casey as the only boy got the smallest bedroom, I took the medium bedroom and gave the girls the big master as it had an attached sitting room. #1 used the main part of the bedroom, and #2 used the smaller area. It gave them their own space, though it lacked the privacy of closed doors.

Eventually, all the moving out was done, and the only people left living here were the husband and I, and Snickers. Though for awhile we were in the master suite, we decided at some point to make the middle room our bedroom, and leave our bedroom television in the bigger room that we turned into our shared office. The idea was, the bedroom was for . . . bedding. ;) Though, at the moment, there are ten paperbacks, a portable DVD player, a laptop and a netbook in there, along with a treadmill.

Anywho, Casey’s old room became the sewing / storage / book / junk room. When I didn’t have time to deal with something, that’s where it went. Since he moved out three years ago, the room has run the gamut from being completely organized to trashed. At one point I had my storyboard for MAXIMUM EXPOSURE hanging in there, and I remember doing my revisions to NO LIMITS on the table we’d put in there for the sewing machine. Lately, though, especially since Christmas and since I’ve had deadline after deadline the last year and a half and no time to do anything resembling deep cleaning, this is what the room looked like when #1 came to clean it out last weekend:

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Going from “Hello” to “How was it?” doesn’t have to take long!

“A LONG, HARD RIDE *(4.5 – TOP PICK) by Alison Kent:* Trey Davis takes time off as crew chief for a race-car driver and returns to Tennessee to sell his late father’s home and to find out what made his father attack a pillar of the community. It was Cardin Worth’s grandfather that Trey’s dad attacked, and
now her entire car-racing family is fighting because her grandfather refuses to explain anything. To unite them, she pretends she’s engaged to Trey, knowing her parents, who won’t want her following the racing trail, will join forces against the engagement. Soon the attraction between Trey and Cardin deepens, but will a secret destroy everything? This very sexy, emotional story has strong and wonderful characters who make it a memorable read.” ~ Page Traynor

I’m blogging at GenReality.

Going from “Hello” to “How was it?” doesn’t have to take long!

That’s the tag line on Harlequin Blaze’s FROM 0 – 60 miniseries that launches in March with my book, A LONG, HARD RIDE, continues in April with Julie Miller’s book, OUT OF CONTROL, then concludes in May with Jennifer LaBrecque’s book, HOT-WIRED. There will be a prologue to the series, too, available in February: Lori Borrill’s free online read FAST AND FURIOUS. I believe that goes live on February 2nd, and I’ll definitely post a link to it when it does. FROM 0 – 60 is Blaze’s contribution to the year long celebration of Harlequin’s 60th anniversary.

I’ve shared miniseries with other authors in the past. Jo Leigh, Isabel Sharpe and I wrote the original MEN TO DO stories (mine was THE SWEETEST TABOO) during 2001/2002, and then in 2004, the three of us along with Jill Shalvis, Nancy Warren, and Debbi Rawlins wrote the first books in the DO NOT DISTURB series that took place at the Hush Hotel. I wrote an online read for that one called KISS ME, KATE, and my Blaze release was KISS & MAKEUP. (BTW, Lydia Joyce is the one who came up with that title for me!) Writing miniseries with author friends can be so much fun. It can also be trying as we work to integrate shared elements and make sure we maintain continuity from book to book.

In the FROM 0 – 60 series, Julie, Jennifer, Lori and I decided to share as little as possible to make things easier on us, but we ended up sharing quite a lot! We set up a spreadsheet in Google Docs and would input various features: character names, descriptions, relationships, goals, motivations – location descriptions – plot points, etc.

My heroine, Cardin Worth, went to school with Julie’s heroine, Alex Morgan. One of my secondary characters, Winston “Tater” Rawls, works at Morgan & Son’s Garage, which is a big part of the setting in Julie’s book. My hero, Trey Davis, has come home to our shared town of Dahlia, Tennessee to sell his property there. While on the road with the Corley Motors racing team, Trey has paid Beau Stillwell, Jennifer’s hero, to keep his property from falling apart, while Cardin shops for a party dress in the boutique on Dahlia’s town square owned by Beau’s mother, Miz Beverly.

Lori’s heroine, Bonnie Bristol, owns a B&B where my heroine’s mother, Delta Worth, considers taking a room, and my heroine’s grandfather, Jeb Worth, owns an icehouse named Headlights that characters from all our stories visit – and if I remembered to put it there *g*, there’s a copy of High Velocity, the magazine owned by Lori’s hero, Drake Whitley, on display near the entrance. Of course we all used the drag racing track, the Dahlia Speedway, as a prominently featured focal point.

I loved Dahlia, Tennessee SO much, and think it would be a kick to revisit it and set another story there, but I’d want Julie, Jennifer, and Lori to come back, too, because we had so much fun! And check out Julie and Jennifer’s covers! Wowza!

Quickly, before I dive back into the deep end of ONE GOOD MAN, there’s a complete set of my connected SG-5 books up for auction to benefit author Sharon Cullars.

My first post at GenReality goes up later this morning. It’s intimidating being first, talking to a new audience. Over here, I’m comfortable opening a vein and bleeding all over the blog. I know you guys won’t mind the mess. I’m talking there about respect, but in the middle of the post that went on forever, I mentioned my writing process. I started to spell it out, but was already at 1500 words; adding my steps for crafting a novel would’ve exploded things before the group got their say. So for those of you scared off by my tome, but who want to see my process, here it is in 4 easy steps.

• 1) Establish Premise

Think of your premise like a “what if” scenario. “What if an SG-5 operative arrived at his long-abandoned Louisiana home to find an international spokesperson for a fragrance empire in his kitchen wearing nothing but rubber waders and a push-up bra?” That was exactly how I started NO LIMITS.

Or try a logline. This one from Rob Gregory Browne’s article, Anatomy of a Logline, is for THE FUGITIVE. It’s simple, but effective, covering character, conflict, and plot in 24 words: After he’s wrongly convicted of murdering his wife, a high-powered surgeon escapes custody and hunts down the real killer, a one-armed man.

• 2) Develop Characters

I don’t do worksheets. I do only two things. Well, three things. I’m very visual, so I find pictures to represent my characters. I don’t use actors. I need unknowns. But the picture thing is just a quirk of mine, and not as important as the other two. So, the real #1 is establish goals (internal & external) and #2 is establish motivations (internal & external). Here’s a table from my The Complete Idiot’s Guide on Writing Erotic Romance (Yeah, it’s a writing book, not a sex writing book. *g*):

• 3) Structure Plot

This is where I use Syd Field, Chris Vogler, and Jo Leigh. I take the premise I’ve established, and the characters I’ve developed, and add the obstacles that will keep them from getting whatever it is they want, and do so in logical, believable steps that fuel forward motion. (Click the various links then ask questions. *g*)

• 4) Ready, Set, Go!

Now I write. Considering the above things, I figure how best to start, and then I polish as I go. I don’t like to come back and do editing and revision passes. I always do at least one for clean up, but because of my prep work, when I hit the end, the book is pretty much done – until my editor gets her hands on it and tells me what to change!

That’s it!

The winner of Vanessa Grant’s WRITING ROMANCE is: Lissa #14

Lissa, send me your snail mail addy and I’ll get that sent out asap!

This book will show you everything you need to successfully break into the romance writing market, from planning and plotting your story to editing and selling your manuscript. Whether you’re excited by classic love stories or steamy erotic romances, there’s a market for your love story. Let Vanessa Grant coach you in the process of getting from idea to finished novel.

Learn how to -

• Develop characters your readers will care about
• Write sensual and romantic scenes
• Set up a suspenseful story
• Research your plot details
• Use your computer to write efficiently
• Find a publisher and sell your book

WRITING ROMANCE includes contributions from popular romance authors Jo Beverley, Mary Jo Putney, Gail Crease, E.C. Sheedy, and others – each writing about a subgenre of the romance field: historical romances, paranormal romances, romantic suspense, erotic romances, and more.

Being the author of a similar book of writing instruction, I was pleased to get a copy of this one for review and see that it’s been updated since its original publication date of 1997. This one came out in 2007 and a lot of changes have happened in the industry in the last ten years. That said, writing a good romance is still writing a good romance, and Vanessa Grant has written more than a few to know how to do it right.

In the various sections and chapters, she covers the following topics: story ingredients, getting started, character, conflict, setting, planning & plotting & research, pacing, sensuality, voice, emotion, point of view, and telling vs showing. She then gives overviews of the various subgenres, talks about revisions, visits the market and agents, and even covers using the web, setting goals, and word processing software. As I did in my CIG, Vanessa uses examples from her own work to illustrate many of her points, enabling the reader / student to clearly understand her points. The text is conversational and easy to read, and the book is approximately 300 pages long.

I’m going to give away this copy, which also comes with a CD, to someone who comments here by Sunday night, January 18, 2009, 8:00 p.m.ish CST. To be eligible, tell me something about what you’re writing now, and what you most need help with.