Word of the Year 2019!

Happy New Year! Can you believe it's 2019 already?

Well, it's true that the R8 have been MIA for the last few - ahem - years. We all had Life happen with a capital L, and consequently the blog kind of fell by the wayside. But we are still here, we are still writing, and we want to ring in the new year with you! 

So here are the words we have chosen to define our 2019. We hope that the coming year brings you everything you have hoped for and more!

Nichole Christoff

Word: Gear

Why this one: Whether we’re talking high, low, forward, or reverse, “gear” is my Word of the Year because it’s a good reminder to keep on keepin’ on. I figure gettin’ it in gear is the only way to reach the next destination on this road called Life. If I’m not ready to roll, Life could pass me by, and I don’t want that. So, whether my progress is slow or quick, I want to engage that gear.

Why this year: With the latest two Jamie Sinclair novels having hit the virtual bookshelves in 2018 and new works-in-progress for 2019, now is the perfect time to remind myself that there will be obstacles on the road ahead, maybe a detour or two, but I can put in plenty of mileage, too. By getting myself in gear, I’ll get where I want to go. And so will you.

So! “Gear” is my Word of the Year! Throughout 2019, feel free to keep in touch. You can find me, my books, and all my social media links at www.nicholechristoff.com.

Misha Crews

Word: Through

Why This Word: A few months ago, I was very despondent. I was far from home, having recently transplanted myself to the west coast, and life was not looking quite as sparkly as usual (which is quite a bit of an understatement). Suddenly, my sadness was overtaken by this thought: Wow, I am really going through something. And if I'm going through it, then at some point, I will come out the other side.

Why This Year: At the end of August 2018, my mother passed away very suddenly. That loss is one which can never be reversed. Although I do believe in an afterlife and I know we will see each other again, I will be without her for the rest of this lifetime. And that fact, to put it poetically, sucks big time. The adjustment period after this bereavement is a major part of what I have been going through.

I looked up the origin of "through" (researching word origins is one of my favorite forms of therapy), and it comes from a Dutch word meaning "door," which can be traced back even further, meaning "to cross over, pass through, overcome." There is a peaceful resonance to the idea that I am passing through a door, crossing over stress and pain, and overcoming difficulty to reach calmer shores. It feels like a truth that I can hold on to when waters get rough and stormy.

Robert Frost said, "The best way out is always through." Well, sometimes it's also the only way out. So, that's what I'm going to do in 2019: steer through my uncertainty and my grief, and find my way to the happiness and productivity that waits on the other side.


Mackenzie Lucas

Word: Rebuild

Why This Word: As the definition states, the word rebuild means to build somehting again after it has been damaged or destroyed. I’m totally restructuring my life, from the ground up.

Why This Year: I’ve just gone through a year of tearing down, or as my tarot friends say, I’ve been towered. It’s been a year full of loss. I went through a separation and divorce this past year. My nest is totally empty—the last of my boys has gone away to college. And I lost my dad this past year; my sole surviving parent. Thus, I’m an orphan. So the new year is all about rebuilding for me. And, girl, I’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do. It’s all good, I swear. If not a little hard. A fresh start. Right? I have the chance to start at ground zero and create something fresh and new. The possibilities are limitless. Which is exciting, if a little scary. But after the year I’ve had, I think I’m ready for the challenge and chance to restructure my future. And no matter how much you prepare for eventualities (lost relationships, empty nests, and the death of loved ones), the actual life events and grieving process can be so much harder to deal with in real life than you’d ever expect. Yet, there is life on the other side. So here’s to rebuilding! Let’s do this. Bring it, 2019.

Keely Thrall

Word: Ship

Why this one: Two reasons. 1) Hello! Romance writer, here. I'm all about the ship - friendships, courtships, relationships, loveships (would should totally be a word). Shipping fictional characters to Happily Ever After Island is the core of my writing mission. 2) It's time to ship my work and give my characters a chance to explore the world beyond the contest circle.

Why this year: In 2018, I made a number of small, crucial shifts in the hows of my life (my ecosystem of habits) so that I could focus more intentionally on my writing and what I want from it. What I discovered in the process is that I'm tired of being unpublished. I'm tired of holding back and hugging the shorelines, letting doubt whisper in my ear of shipwrecks and storms. At the dawn of 2019, I say: it's time to cast off for Romancelandia. I'm ready to set sail and ride the waves of adventure to meet my fortune. I am, in fact, ready to make like a captain and ship. 

Moving Forward

Photo: Emily Reed
delawareonline.com

Lately, the Rockville 8 has been blogging about our life journeys. I’ve haven’t done a post relating to this theme mainly because I wasn’t sure what mine was. But, now I think I know. My journey is to move forward. To reinvent myself, or maybe just go with the flow of progress and growth that’s been interrupted while I addressed my health crises and had the five surgeries required to get back to…well, me. Now that I’m past the medical issues, I feel like a tidal wave has engulfed me. It’s as if I built a flimsy dam to hold life back until I could get back on my feet, and now it’s opened—rushing at me, carrying me downstream at a faster rate than I can sometimes manage.

Photo: dreamstime.com

                           
My current reinvention is taking a certification program for my job. It is intense—eight hours a day, five days a week, complete with tests and homework. The tests are hard. In the last class, half of the people failed the first exam. No one wants to go back to work and tell management they can’t pass the expensive class that the boss funded. Their stress only ramped up my stress.

Photo: dreamstime.com

However, despite the difficulties, I’m discovering that I can do this. I’m working hard, a lot harder than working forty hours a week at my job. This requires evenings studying as well. I’ve had to miss social events that I would normally attend which makes me feel sad and isolated. But, it has forced me outside of myself, if that makes sense. It’s made me reach for something that I wasn’t physically strong enough to reach for a couple of years ago. It’s reminded me that I’m young and need to get back in the game.

Photo: dreamstime.com

Change is difficult. Even good changes are stressful. I’m trying to look at this in the most positive light. Sometimes, when it’s late and I’m tired of studying, it’s not easy to stay positive. But I’m working on it. I’ve been through fourteen weeks of training since the middle of June and I am about to start two more weeks on Monday. I’m plowing through it. I’m surviving. Sometimes that’s all you can do.

Your Hobo Sack of Writing Tricks

"Are you a plotter, or a pantser?" 

This question, heard at writers gatherings 'round the world, is the author's version of "Hey baby, what's your sign?" It's how writers get to know each other, how we find compatible associates, maybe even learn a few secrets.

For those not familiar with the terms, "plotters" are authors who like to plot out their books before they sit down to write. "Pantsers" are the opposite: they like to fly by the seat of their pants, just get in there and start writing.

But, whatever category we fall into (and even when we defy categorization), we all have our bag of tricks: those little tidbits we pick up on the way and tuck into our hobo sacks, in case we need them on our writing journeys. Whether we use them or not, it's always good to know they're there.

So, without further ado, I'd like to open up my personal hobo sack and let you take a peek inside: 

Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet

Also known as "Save the Cat," Blake Snyder's beat sheet originated as a tool for screenwriting. Using the basic three-act structure, Snyder breaks down this time-honored pattern of storytelling into manageable "beats" that most stories (especially films) usually hit to achieve resonance with the reader (or viewer). This post, by Tim Stout, does an excellent job of explaining the beats, and how they work together to create a satisfying story experience.

Romance Beat Sheet

Romance writing is a very specific kind of storytelling, and crafting a good romance is hard work. Of course, writing of any kind is a challenge. But to tell a believable love story within the bounds of 250 or so pages, often creating an external plot around which the romance grows, and maintaining tension when everybody knows that the guy and gal will be together in the end? Well, that takes real skill.

 

Thank goodness for paranormal author Jami Gold, who created this Romance Planning Beat Sheet. Taking the basic structure of Blake Snyder's beat sheet (along with other writing tools she credits on her site), Jami has created a template that deals specifically with the evolution of the romantic relationship in your story. And even better, she provides a downloadable spreadsheet that will help you figure out at what point in your story each of these beats should strike. It's an amazing tool. Thanks, Jami!

Hero's Journey

The term "hero's journey" as it relates to fiction was first introduced in 1949 by Joseph Campbell. This series of seventeen steps is especially interesting because it's essentially the place where characterization meets plot. Regardless of who your hero is, or where his adventure takes him, most heroes will pass through very specific phases of development, both internally and externally. Fascinating stuff!

Heroine's Journey 

And let's not forget the ladies! Heroines, just like heroes, have their own mountains to climb and rivers to cross. Laurie Schnebly Campbell did an online workshop about this very subject. Even though I'm not sure or if Laurie plans to do this workshop again, I wanted to share the link with you so you can check it out. And for a list of Laurie's upcoming workshops, email her at LaurieClass-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

3 Acts, 9 Blocks, 27 Chapters

For writers who reeeeeally like to plot, here is a tool that I just tried recently. It breaks your story down into twenty-seven chapters, each touching on a specific phase of story development... and that's pretty much your whole book! It's a really good exercise that made me seriously think about how my story was going to get from the beginning to "the end."

The author even made a YouTube video, which you can check out here:





So, come on, let's see inside that spotted kerchief you carry on a stick over your shoulder! What kind of writing tricks and tips have you picked up along the way?

A Good Idea

My husband is in the medical field.  Often when someone he’s just met finds this out, they describe a pain they’re having or an injury sustained in the past.  He doesn’t really mind but I know that it happens more than it doesn’t. 

The same is true when people find out I’m a writer.  The biggest question they ask is “Where do you get your ideas?”  I know I’m not the only one who gets this question—in fact it’s an inside joke with many writers I know. 

Strong and innovative ideas are the foundation to good writing.  But it’s still a tough question to answer. How do you explain how the things you’ve seen, heard, read, dreamt, and felt mix with your brain chemistry to be communicated through your unique voice? 

It’s a mysterious alchemy to be sure.   I don’t understand how it happens.  Though I do know some of the circumstances that seem to bring it about.

I’m a big daydreamer.  It’s not a problem for me to enter my own world and start the “What if?” game.  In line at the store, riding on a train, or waiting for school pick up are great places for this.  I seldom focus on TV commercials because when they start, I’m daydreaming.  I find that driving alone on country roads has brought me some of my best revelations.  Just not at night.  That’s not so relaxing. 

Traveling often sparks new ideas.  Getting away from your regular routine stimulates the brain.  So does meeting new people, learning something new, or reading a different type of book than you normally would choose. 

I guess I get my ideas from living life—taking the familiar and turning it on its head, adding something new I’ve learned and whisking it together.  And of course, writing itself spawns ideas—those things you just start writing in that moment and didn’t even know were there. 

Writing it down brings all of those ideas to life.  Putting yourself in the chair and writing is the only way to use all those great ideas. 

All roads lead back to getting it on the page.  Isn’t that always the way?  

           

Writing: How Good Does It Have to Be?

by Misha Crews

As I re-read the title of this blog, it sounds like a joke. But I hear this from people all the time: “I really want to be a writer, but I just don’t know if I’m good enough.” And that begs the question: just how do we define “good.” And how good is good enough?

Ask ten people how they define good writing, and they will probably give you ten different answers. One may be obsessed with grammar and punctuation (“You used approximately 4.5 adverbs per page; that’s 2.75 more adverbs than recommended!”), one may talk esoterically about “art” (as in: “It’s okay writing, but it’s not art.”), and one or two may simply say, “Anything that I can’t put down is good writing to me!”

So what is Good Writing?

Now, this is a touchy subject, and to be honest I hesitated to tackle it, because I’m afraid it will seem that I’m either defiling the hallowed rules of grammar or bruising the tender flesh of art. But I’ve done a lot of reading lately, from both published and unpublished writers, and I’ve come to realize something important:

“Good writing” is writing that creates an emotional connection with the reader.

And that’s it. (Almost.)

Good writing makes you laugh or cry, makes your skin crawl, arouses your passion (for good or evil). It communicates something to you. It brings you into its particular universe. It makes you feel, and that’s the primary mission of “good writing.”

A long time ago I started to read a book which I found to be constructed of pretty bad writing. I won’t go into detail, but I’m sure you’ve all read enough poorly-written books to know what I’m talking about! But even with its technical flaws, I found myself becoming absorbed by the story. I wanted to know what was going on. When I wasn’t reading the book, I was thinking about it, and when I finished it, it stayed in my mind for a long time afterward. And you know what I call that? Good writing! You know what I call the technical flaws? Bad editing. *smile*

The way I see it, if this writer had had a better editor (or a better grammar teacher), this book could have been a best seller. Because it created an emotional connection. And the fact that it was able to have that affect in spite of poor use of language just highlights how deep that emotional connection was, and makes me realize anew that the author was indeed a very good writer.

Good writing doesn’t have to be technically perfect. But it does have to be technically correct enough that it doesn’t detract from the emotional connection.

What makes writing technically correct?

Here’s what technically correct writing is made up of (in my humble opinion):

• Grammar and punctuation.

• Proper spelling (of course!).

• An understanding of – and comfort with – language. Not just for dialogue purposes, but also because the rhythm of language varies from age to age and from place to place.

• Story structure: the highs and lows, ebbs and flows of your story.

• Characterization: the hardcore techniques of bringing your people to life.

I’m sure I’ve left out a few things, there but those are the basics. All of these things are important: Grammar, punctuation, language – these are your tools, your instruments. Story structure and characterization – these are the beams and girders of the world you are building. But none of them should ever become more important to you than forging an emotional link with your readers.

So how do you go about creating an emotional connection? And how do you know when you’ve done it?

Here’s what I think: How do you create an emotional connection? Start by feeling it yourself. Fall in love with your characters – even the bad guys (or especially the bad guys, as the case may be!). Make sure every part of your story fascinates you, and if it doesn’t, change it! Because if you’re not interested in any part of your story, I don’t see how or why the reader would be!

And how do you know if you’ve actually achieved the emotional connection? Have someone read your work. Or several someones. They should be people you trust (especially when you start out!), people who aren’t afraid to be honest. Are they “feeling it” when they read your story? No? Ask questions, figure out what’s going wrong and change it. Yes? Well then, you’ve got something good going!

(Oh, this is very important: they should be people who enjoy the genre in which you’re writing. I once had someone get very critical about my writing. Eventually I found out that this guy never read “women’s books” and in fact hardly ever read fiction at all! So save yourself some time (and heartache) and don’t give your romance novel to someone who hates romance novels, LOL!)

So what do you call Good Writing?

If you’re still not sure that your writing is good, don’t be afraid to indulge in a little self-examination. Just ask what you, yourself, consider to be good writing. Shakespeare? Okay, are you trying write like Shakespeare? No? Oh, you just want to make people feel the way you feel when you read Shakespeare?

Okay then, you have now established what kind of emotional connection you’re trying to forge with your readers: the same kind old Will forged with you!  And that’s a good place to start! Just remember, William Shakespeare didn’t start out as an Immortal Poet. He didn’t just pick up a quill pen one day and scribble rough winds do shake the darling buds of May on a piece of parchment. He honed his craft. He learned how to make art by making art. He learned by doing.

And I hope that this blog has made you feel like doing! So quit reading, and go write. (You can start by leaving a comment, if you like!)

————–
So how do YOU define good writing?

No Rules Just Write - With Special Guest Terri Osburn

The Rockville 8 are pleased as punch to host the fabulously wonderful Terri Osburn with her straight up take on what matters on this writing journey of ours. Sing it, sister!

 

 

No Rules Just Write

I have a writer friend who is involved with a class for newbie writers, and every time she talks about the group, I remember when I was a newbie. I remember how excited I was, full of the desire to learn but overwhelmed by how much I didn’t know. And I remember taking every snippet of advice as gospel, sometimes to my own detriment.

We all hear about the rules for writing. First off, there are no rules for writing. Well, other than don’t bore your reader, but otherwise, anything goes. And yet, rules are still bandied about.

So here are my rules for writing, which I like to call the anti-rules. And surprise, there’s only one rule.

Don’t get hung up on the stuff that doesn’t matter.

It really is that simple. Writing is storytelling. It isn’t prose and plot and dialogue tags and marketing plans. It’s storytelling. That means all you have to do is tell the story that you see in your mind. The one that keeps you up at night, makes you smile and gets your heart racing.

That is where you start, and that is all that matters. If you want to get published, some of these other things will come into play. But not until later. Much later. You’re on page 42. You have awesome characters living in your head and they have a story to tell. Your job is to put the story on the page. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

But, you say, they keep telling me…blah blah blah. First off, who is this they? Point them out and I will kick them in the keyboard. Who are they to say anything? To tell you or me or anyone what to do?

Did you know some writers don’t create a new paragraph every time the speaking character changes? That’s right, my friends. There are rebels out there who will start a paragraph with character A’s line of dialogue, and then put character B’s line IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH. And you know what, they got published doing that.

Seriously. I’ve seen it.

Did you know there are books where the writer CHOSE not to use capitalization in all the traditional ways? And again, that book got published. Yes, I’ve seen it with my own reader eyes.

The point is, all that matters is the story. Granted, you have to tell a damn good story, but how you do that is up to you. It’s not up to the editors or readers or some stinking rules.

It’s your story. Tell it your way. If it’s a sci-fi, first person, inspirational memoir, so be it. Put your butt in the chair, your fingers on the keyboard, and your heart onto the page. That’s it.

You got this, my friend. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Agree or disagree? Feel free to let me have it. I can take it. J

One lucky commenter will receive an e-book of their choice from Terri's Anchor Island series! See below for links and a blurb of her upcoming release, HOME TO STAY:

HOME TO STAY by Terri Osburn

Contemporary Romance

ISBN: 1477818367

May 1, 2014

Blurb:

Willow Parsons’s two new best friends are getting married, putting her squarely on the sidelines of romance—which suits her just fine. After escaping the ultimate Mr. Wrong, she is more than happy to spend her days slinging drinks in Dempsey’s Bar & Grill, and her nights alone. But her Anchor Island refuge has just one catch: muscle-bound charmer Randy Navarro.

Everyone in town knows that Randy, owner of the local fitness club, is a giant teddy bear. Everyone, it seems, except for Willow. He’s convinced that her avoidance is more than just playing hard to get, and is determined to uncover the secrets that keep her on edge. But when old fears are dragged into the light, can Randy get Willow to stay and fight for their love…or will she take flight, leaving both him and Anchor Island behind?

Home to Stay is a charming, romantic tale about following your heart to find where you belong.

Buy Links:

Kindle > http://amzn.to/1g0U5W2

Print > http://amzn.to/1aIBRRt
Website > http://www.terriosburn.com
Facebook Page > https://www.facebook.com/TerriOsburnAuthor?fref=ts
Twitter > @TerriOsburn
Pinterest > http://pinterest.com/terriosburn/
Goodreads > http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6873792.Terri_Osburn

Bio:

Although born in the Ohio Valley, Terri Osburn found her true home between the covers of her favorite books. Classics like The Wizard of Oz and Little Women filled her childhood, and the genre of romance beckoned during her teen years. While Osburn went on to gain a degree in business administration, she couldn’t shelve her love of love stories. In 2007, she decided to put pen to paper and write her own. Just five years later, she was named a 2012 finalist for the Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® Award. The author of the Anchor Island contemporary romance series, Osburn resides in Virginia with her daughter, an assortment of pets, and her bookshelves full of keepers. To learn more about this author and her work, visit her website at www.terriosburn.com.