Alison Kent's Blah Blog

1) HelenKay Dimon’s short story, A PROPER SEDUCTION, is available now at Samhain Publishing!

“Tell me what you want,” Justin said.

She stopped drawing doodles with her finger and stared him down. “You.”

Did she… “Excuse me?”

“For three nights.”

Without knowing the details, a voice screamed “yes” in his head. But he wasn’t dumb enough to rush in without more information, so he let silence fill the room for a few seconds. When she started fidgeting, he spoke up again. “For what exactly?”

Her eyes scrunched up at the corners as she shot him that men-are-idiots look she did so well. “What do you think I’m talking about?”

No way in hell was he going to put the sexy scene running through his head into actual words. Her naked, with her mouth on him. Yeah, he’d keep all of that quiet until he knew they were talking the same talk. “Let’s be clear. Just say it.”

“Sex.”

2) – Summer has arrived on the Texas Gulf Coast. Yes, it will get worse, but the heat and humidity are turning our tomato plants into gargantuan leggy monsters.

3) For some reason lately, I’ve taken to writing at the dining table. My desk doesn’t allow for the same sort of spreading out all over the place room. I’ve got my netbook, where I’m writing my synopsis, and my lamp so I can see my three notebooks. Yes, three notebooks, each with its own writing instrument.

The legal pad with the lines and the pencil is for the story’s timelines. The external plot gets top billing, then each of the main characters gets a line for his / her story. Each line is marked off with turning points for that individual’s story, but the stories all have to mesh and feed off each other.

The notebook with the rollerball has a lot of ideas I jotted on this story months ago when I first visited it. I cross out and check off as I work in the second notebook with my fountain pen. Don’t ask why this works for me, but it does. Maybe compartmentalizing helps to organize the brain?

So one day last week I opened my email program to find a note that said, “Check out your new cover!” I had no idea The Icing on the Cake was getting a new cover treatment, but after consultation with buyers, including Borders’ Sue Grimshaw, it was decided the look needed to be heated up a bit, and apparently brides make for good sales. And this time instead of cookies, there are cupcakes!

What do you think? You can click for a larger version, and the original’s still on the left sidebar and I’ll get to replacing that soon. In other news, I’m not doing much, heh. I’m reading a LOT, as you can see from my right sidebar. Or I guess it’s a lot for me. Now that I’ve got the iPod Touch and my new HTC HD2 phone with a B&N ereader (first book to download, Sarah Addison Allen’s THE GIRL WHO CHASED THE MOON) I can plop down and read anywhere without worrying about light. We’ve entered the monsoon season here on the Texas Gulf Coast, so taking print books to the backyard isn’t feasible. I’ll get back to my massive print library at a later date, but for now I’m doing all my reading electronically. Yes, me. The person who said she would never read digital books. I’ll talk soon about my two reading devices and what I’ve been reading.

On the writing front, well, yeah. There’s some of that. I’ve got a project on submission, and am working on a big fat synopsis on another and am not loving that part, but since I wasted time and words starting that book in the wrong place, I accepted the fact that I’ve got to write the synopsis or all my twists and turns will be limp linear lines. It won’t be a super detailed synopsis, but I’m determined to work out more of my characters’ arcs than I’ve done in the past. And there will be surprises, though obviously they won’t surprise me since I will know them in advance, heh, but a recent rejection on another project pointed out my narrative trajectory was too predictable, so I’m working on that. All these years in, and I’m still learning how to write a book!

BTW, here’s a really good synopsis writing article.

The biggest mistake most people make when they try to write a synopsis for the first time is to create a bare bones plot summary, along the lines of “First this happens, then this happens, then this happens…” Synopses written this way tend to be so dry and boring even the author would have trouble understanding why anyone would want to read the full novel.

Imagine, for example, if a sports writer described a hockey game as “First one team scored. Then the other team scored. Then the first team scored twice. Then the game ended.” Pretty boring, yes?

What makes a hockey game or a novel mesmerizing is not a step-by-step description of what happens, but the emotions that accompany the actions, the anticipation, fear, hope, excitement, and disappointment at each turn of events. The elation of victory at the end, or the agony of defeat. It is the emotional twists and turns that make a novel or a hockey game appealing. Just as a good sports writer can describe a game in terms that capture the emotions, the secret of how to write a synopsis is to incorporate the emotional twists and turns of your characters – especially your main character – at the same time as you describe your sequence of plot events.

Charlie Grace, born at 7:57 AM 6 LBS 10 OZ, 18 inches long

Class held at Access Romance – http://www.accessromance.com/classes/

Date: May 10-24th, 2010
Price: $10

Join Angela James for a 2 week workshop as she shares some of the common pitfalls she’s seen in submissions and contest entries. She’ll give you ideas, tips and tricks for polishing and self-editing your manuscript. Discuss things such as dialogue tags, whether all forms of “to be” are really evil and just what you’re doing to your life expectancy with your use of that exclamation point. The course will guide you from the basics of self-editing and grammar in a clear, conversational manner with examples, to more advanced topics such as show versus tell and passive voice. Through it all, she’ll be available for clarification and questions in order to help you on your way to a cleaned-up manuscript and understanding the basics of editing your manuscript.
What do participants who’ve taken the workshop have to say?

• “I’ve been writing for over 15 years and published 8 novels. Angela’s online class on self-editing was packed with information and suggestions designed to improve your writing whether you’re a beginning or an advanced author.” Donna MacQuigg = www.donnamacquigg.com
• “Taking the self editing course was like pulling the blinders off. I was given the tools to see the common mistakes in my first drafts. I highly recommend this course to any writer who wants to make their writing tighter and more polished.” Amy Ruttan – www.amyruttan.com
• “Angela’s Self-Editing Workshop gave me many tools and tricks to apply immediately and things to consider while writing. The information presented is clear, concrete, and practical.I can’t recommend it strongly enough to anyone who want to strengthen and polish his or her writing.” Sara Nash

Executive editor of Carina Press, Harlequin’s digital-first press, and veteran of the digital publishing industry, Angela James is a well-known advocate for digital publishing. James has enjoyed a long and varied publishing career that has included ownership of an independent editorial services business, work as a copy editor for electronic book and small press publisher, Ellora’s Cave, and executive editor for Samhain Publishing. James frequently travels to regional, national and international writing conferences to meet with authors and readers, and present workshops on digital publishing for both authors and readers of all genres of fiction.

As a retired Website designer, I’ve always known to preview my designs in multiple browsers. What may work in a new version of Internet Explorer may not in an older one, may break in Firefox, and may not load at all in Safari. But there’s a new kid on the block that authors need to consider. The iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the iPad.

Authors: You realize that users of these Apple devices can’t see your site if it’s designed in Flash, yes? What comes up on the screen is a black background with the missing Flash plugin symbol. Or a blank white page that says, “Get Flash,” with a link to do so. And that’s because there has been no html or text version of the site built in for the browser sniffer to access.

But there’s more. If on a regular pc, a reader runs Firefox’s No Script plugin, and I do, she can’t see Flash sites without giving the plugin permission to load the necessary scripts. I started running No Script after a malware warning from a major Website popped up on my machine. Even Yahoo and Google ads have been known to deliver viruses [Cnet News, 03/22/10].

It used to be that Web users had to go to the far ends of the Internet to questionable sites to pick up trojans. Not anymore, and No Script is one way I keep my machine protected. It’s not a big deal to click the plugin’s dashboard to allow it to access a Website. But when I have it enabled, here’s what I get when I go to the Websites of authors Jacquelyn Frank, Kate Brady, and Allison Brennan. (This isn’t about picking on them, but is about having visited each of their sites recently on my iPod Touch and then needing to allow No Script to access their sites when I moved to my pc.)

Three things to consider here. I am 1) a reader, 2) an author, and 3) a retired Website designer, so I 1) am greedy enough to take the time to switch machines if there’s information I’m looking for, 2) have a vested interest in keeping up with the market so will switch machines if there’s information I’m looking for, and 3) don’t get overly frustrated when viewing Flash sites on my iPod Touch because I know to switch machines if there’s information I’m looking for. But that raises a huge question.

Do authors want to risk losing viewers who aren’t as invested or knowledgeable or patient as I am? Even if Apple mobile device users don’t make up the bulk of an author’s stats (have no idea on this, just postulating), is it worth alienating them by not providing an html or text alternative to offer instant gratification?

Here’s what happened to me this weekend to prompt this post. I was reading a book on my iPod Touch’s Kindle app. I’m loving this book. LOVING this book. I want to see what the author has out next. I pull up Safari on my iPod Touch, find the author’s site, and voila! Or . . . not voila because it’s designed in Flash. And because she doesn’t have a text or html redirect, I can’t find out anything about her next release. Nothing.

Now, because I’m persistent, I emailed a note to myself to look it up on my computer the next morning. But what if I wasn’t persistent? What if my husband had come to bed just then and I had better things to do? As it was, he didn’t and I didn’t, so I had time to search on Amazon and pre-order the next book for my Kindle app, but this author could have easily lost a sale to someone else who wasn’t as obsessive.

Then there are readers who may not have another computer, or four, like I do. Their iPhone or iPod Touch or iPad is their sole Web surfing device. That’s all they need. They’re not authors. They’re not students. They don’t need a second machine for work or for school. Do you think they’re going to buy one just so they can see Flash Websites? Doesn’t that negate the point of relying on an Apple mobile device?

Flash detectors can be built into the very first frame of a Flash movie, directing the browser to an html or text version of the site. But not all designers do this, not all authors know to ask for it, leaving Apple device users hanging. Either they can’t get to the Website at all, or they have to make a second effort at another machine to do so.

I love Flash Websites. I’m not a fan of Jacquelyn Frank’s because of the annoying thunder sound, but I love Kate’s and Allison’s both. Flash is pretty. It’s cool. It’s great visual fun. But it’s not always user friendly. Just something to consider when looking into having your author Website built . . .