Congratulations to all Savvy Authors!

Our first congratulations this week goes out to Savvy Authors member Casey Wyatt. She signed a contract with Pink Petal Books for her paranormal romance, The Undead Space Initiative. Congratulations, Casey!

Babs Mountjoy has recently signed a three-book contract with Zumaya Publications for her YA series, Color of Fear: Plague, The Color of Fear: Journey, and The Color of Fear: Survivors. The series will release in early 2013. Congratulations, Babs!

For over 10 years, an intrepid group of writers have been meeting 4 times a year. We’re an eclectic assembly of 5 now, but we started with 4. We have just had our 40^th retreat.

Between us, we’ve written and published:

· Paranormal & straight contemporary romance.
· Romantic suspense.
· Paranormal and straight historical romance.
· Regency romance. Erotic romance.
· Children’s books and YA books.
· Books for reluctant readers.
· Various how-to books: writing, business, even gardening

Trying to write a synopsis before you write your book is like trying to draw your own road map from New York to California. You know where you want to end up; you have a vague idea of some of the sights along the way (crossing the Mississippi, maybe the Rockies, maybe Death Valley). But stringing those points of interest into a workable map? It’s pretty daunting.

But if you consulted some travel books, talked to friend, and you made notes of all the places you wanted to visit on your cross-country journey, pretty soon it would become more clear which roads to take.

I’m going to suggest that you attack the job of plotting your book with the same sense of fun and anticipation. This method might appeal to your creative, non-linear right brain. It’s an old school method still used by screenwriters: notecards.

It’s taken a long time for me to get comfortable with saying, “I a writer.” Part of this is due to the fact that I’ve always written—it’s just something you do…well, something I do. Part of this is due to the looks you get when you say this. Eager anticipation mixes—yes, they really do want to say they’ve met a real author—with half-hidden skepticism, and then you get The Question.

The Question comes phrased one of two ways. It’s either, “Oh, what do you write?” This comes with an implication that maybe you write technical manuals, or non-fiction, or something that means of course you don’t write anything meaningful—as if somehow none of that other stuff counts. (Is this because we’re taught in school that only “literary fiction” is of real value?) Or you get, “What have you written lately?”

No, nothing awful happened. LOL

I grew up in middle class suburbia. When school had been let out for the summer, mom encouraged us to go outside to play and to use our imagination. Each Monday, my family visited my grandmother, aunts, and cousins where we got into mischief and did crafts. And on other days, we read.

I was a card-carrying member of the library early on. Every other week, Mom took us there so we could check out two weeks' worth of books. I was in seventh heaven. Back then, I didn't stray too much from the unfamiliar and struggled with my pickings for I wanted to love each and every book I'd chosen.

As an author, I feel safe to speak for the overall author community in saying that we all put our hearts and souls into our books. Whether we are writing a short story, a novella or a full length novel, we take time and care in what we write. However, even with all of the love and attention we put into our words we simply aren’t perfect and we will more often than not make mistakes.

This is where our editors come in. Can they frustrate us at times? Well of course, we’re human and sometimes those editor notes are their opinion on what they think may work better. I’m sure we’ve all felt, at least once, that twinge of annoyance when we read a comment or suggestion in the track changes column. The fact of the matter is their thoughts are always with the best of intentions to make our books become the best they can possibly be.

Congratulations to all Savvy Authors!

Our first congratulations this week goes out to Savvy Authors member Empi Baryeh. She signed a contract with Evernight Publishing for her novel, Most Eligible Bachelor, which is to be released in February 2012. Most Eligible Bachelor is the first of a 3-book series titled, Men of Distinction. Congratulations, Empi!

Pat Brown just signed with Bristlecone Pine Press for her previously published works, which are still available on Amazon. The new covers will be released within the month. Congratulations, Pat!

For the past four or five years I've participated in NaNoWriMo but this year I already had a complete first draft and really needed and wanted to focus on revision because, to be honest, my first drafts, whether written in a NaNo frenzy or more slowly, are nothing but a hot mess. There is a lot of dialog - but it comes from floating heads since I rarely even use tags as I'm more or less transcribing what my characters are saying. There are a lot of notes: [NEED TO ADD SENSE DETAILS] or [WHY IS SHE DOING THIS? FIGURE IT OUT!]. Often, both my characters and my plot morph as I write, veering off the path I had carefully set them on and bushwhacking into unforeseen territory. That is often where I'll find one of those notes I mentioned above.

See? Hot mess.

Is Co-Authoring a Safe Prospect?

My latest book, "Surrender Her Touch" was Released Dec. 7, 2011, and a friend ---who wants to write her own book ---was impressed that this is my ninth book published. She wanted to know "How" I did it. Was it hard? Were there Rules to follow? Did you have help? She wanted to ask another friend to write the book with her. Was it a smart decision?