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| Friday, February 13, 2009 |
| Romance, Erotic, or Christian... |
Valentine’s Day is supposed to be for couples, but if you are a writer – why not give yourself a gift or ask your significant other to buy that in lieu of chocolates. Guaranteed these books will not add to your waist line. They just might give you some new ideas, for both writing and personal use. {grin} Below you will find some from my arsenal. I have shelves and shelves of how to books.
I was perusing my writing romance books for a writer’s group I founded and host once a month in my home. These writers are in various stages of discovering they want to write. Some haven’t decided what genre yet, some write sermons, or lesson plans and want to do more. Some are into genealogy and creative non-fiction, yet there are those who want to write mystery, suspense, plays, screen plays, Young Adult, Thriller and yes even romance. While most of these books would be appropriate for all of them. I think I would have to keep those below that deal with the erotic to myself. They are all full of good methods for writing however – so don’t shy away from a how to book just because it isn’t your genre.
I have found I learn from every manual I read.
How to Write Romance for the New Markets, by Kathryn Falk
Writing the Christian Romance by Gail Gaymer Martin
Writing Romances, A Handbook by the Romance Writers of America, Edited by Rita Gallagher, and Rita Clay Estrada
Writing a romance novel for Dummies by Leslie Wainger
The Easy Way to Write Romance, by Rob Parnell
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to: Getting Your Romance Published, by Julie Beard
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance, by Alison Kent
Secret Sexual Positions, Ancient Techniques for Modern Lover’s by Kenneth Ray Stubbs, Ph D
Extraordinary Sex Now, by Dr. Sandra R Scantling
The Bald-Headed Hermit and the Artichoke, an Erotic Thesaurus. By A.D. Peterkin. “Entertaining and very funny,” says Hustler Magazine.
Just so you know A. D. Peterkin is a Toronto psychiatrist and journalist. Kind of makes you wonder what beat he covers.
But if you are bored with the trite and over-used check this book out.
http://www.cricket-sawyer.comLabels: Cricket Sawyer, erotic romance, Inferno, reference books, Romantic Suspense, Valentine's Day |
posted by Unknown @ 10:44 AM  |
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| Thursday, January 15, 2009 |
| Do Rejections Get You Down? |
It is just one person's opinion. Here are 12 reasons never to give up. Well, maybe 13 because Inferno will be published February 19, 2009! Thank you Forbidden Publications for taking a chance on me.
CELEBRATION OF REJECTION
From the pages of, How to Get a Literary Agent by Michael Larsen
1. 112 Books Louis L’Amour though he received rejections. He received 200 rejections before he sold his first novel. During the last forty years Bantam has shipped nearly three hundred million of his one hundred twelve books, making him their biggest-selling author.
2. 600+ rejection slips wall paper Jack London’s home.
3. 774 rejection slips for John Creasy who went on to publish under 13 pseudonyms 564 books
4. 14 rejected Pearl S Buck finally published The Good Earth
5. 20 rejections didn’t stop Jonathan Livingston Seagull’s publication and you know how famous it became, written by Richard Bach
6. 40 rejections before she sold her first book didn’t stop Mary Higgins Clark
7. 200 rejections Roots by Alex Haley was published.
8. 15 publishers and 30 agents rejected John Grisham’s A Time to Kill before it was finally published.
9. 375 publishers rejected naked in Deccan over seven years before the Baltimore Sun deemed it a classic.
10. Dr Seuss – 24 in his file of rejections before his first books was published
11. 8 years after the novel Steps won the National Book Award, Jerzy Kosinski allowed it to be send out again with a name change to 13 agents and 14 publishers – all of them rejected it, including Random House, which originally published it. Proves the plight of new writers trying to get recognition or a publishing contract.
12. The New Yorker rejected a short story by Saul Bellow after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
So there you have it. Don’t let a little pile of rejections stop you from persevering in your desire to be a published author. The three P’s of getting published: Polish, Persist, Persevere.Labels: celebrate, Cricket Sawyer, Forbidden Publications, How to Get a Literary Agent, Inferno, Michael Larsen, rejections |
| posted by Unknown @ 10:35 AM |
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| Friday, December 19, 2008 |
| Writing and Music - a Comparison |
What is Music Anyway? What is Writing Anyway?
In The Intellectual Devotional by David S Kidder & Noah D Oppenheim we are given a lot of food for thought. One thing they say is that Music has a pattern where noise only has sound. I’m afraid that could define Heavy Metal for me. Noise, loud and busy that has no rhyme or reason for being. Sorry Heavy Metal fans, it just doesn’t translate for me.
Kidder and Oppenheim say the basics of music compared to noise have to do with
Pitch —How high or low a sound is to the ear;
Scale—a stepwise arrangement of pitches;
Key—which is an arrangement or system of pitches usually based on one of the major or minor scales.
Simple isn’t it? The Ghost Music of Vaudeville as a mystery has a similar basic set up. Pitch: how intense (high) or relaxed (low) the action
Scale: an arrangement of pitches that take us from each paragraph with a beginning, middle and end, to each chapter with its beginning, middle and end; to the book as a whole with a beginning, middle and end.
Key: That is a little harder, but I think of it as all the system of pitches – the paragraph, page, chapter, and book according to one of the Major (genre) or Minor (sub-genre) scales –genre and sub-genres of the mystery from cozy, procedural, true crime, or hard boiled. The same can be said for Romantic Suspense as in Inferno - soon to be released from Forbidden.
Therefore, everything in writing the mystery/suspense can be reduced or elevated to its musical counter part. Our culture influences our pitch, scale, and keys whether that is in writing or in music. Extremes may abound even while the rules are followed. For instance music in India compared to the music here in the west such as opera, rock or Country. Or, compare the Native American Drum, to the drum of modern rock – they are nowhere in the same playing field – the Native American Drum is spiritual, the rock drum is entertainment. Both, however, are entertainment and in some circles could be called spiritual.
Music and writing are both creative processes. Whether we use pitch, scale, and key or whether we use some other method to join the parts into a complete whole – they compliment each other, and I believe they embody each other.
It is said that we each “march to our different drummer,” and I believe that is as true in creating fiction as it is in creating music.
Sing Loudly, Write Like The Wind and enjoy the rhythm you create!
CricketLabels: Cricket Sawyer, Ghost Music of Vaudeville, Inferno, key, music, pitch, scale |
| posted by Unknown @ 1:00 PM |
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| Tuesday, November 18, 2008 |
| Forward and Upward |
Forward for Inferno, coming soon from Forbidden Publications
When an author re-reads something they have written long ago it’s sometimes very disconcerting, at least I thought so. I thought I was the only one who looked at my once written, even once published books and thought, oh my good gracious how could I have let that go as a publishable piece? I don’t feel so bad any more after reading this from Aldous Huxley (Brave New World 1932 among other novels) This was in the revised/republished 1946 edition of Brave New World. “…Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment….”
He goes on more eloquently but it boils down to what we both feel after pouring over the short comings of a novel written at a younger more inexperienced time in an attempt to patch a faulty piece into a perfect masterpiece. That particular piece having missed that mark the first time around—should be repaired to a place where growth had taken me. To spend time trying to mend the artistic sins committed by that different person, the person I was then—is surely vain and futile. Its defect may be part of its charm.
I could rewrite the whole book as an older, perhaps wiser, other person. What might happen then though is I probably would get rid not only of some of the faults of the story, but also rid it of some of its merits as it originally possessed them.
So, resisting the temptation to wallow in artistic remorse, I leave well and ill alone and move on to ‘next’ with what I have learned and am able to create in my next novel, with much thanks to Aldous Huxley for making me feel less alone and imperfect.
Cricket Sawyer
www.cricket-sawyer.comLabels: Cricket Sawyer, fiction, forward, greed, Inferno, jealousy, lust |
| posted by Unknown @ 10:45 AM |
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| Friday, June 27, 2008 |
| Excitement is to put it mildly |
Getting a contract from Forbidden is like dessert before the meal - Inferno, by Cricket Sawyer will be my first novel with Forbidden, but I certainly hope not my last. With the scorching weather in the midwest and wild fires raging in California - it seems a perfect time for Inferno to hit the air waves.
Arson, greed, jealousy, revenge are just a few of the blazes that are cooking high in the LaPlata Mountains of the four corners area of Colorado. An LP Gas blaze, a victim whose bloody footprints mark her trek through the snow-- Smokey Hamilton isn't sure just what he'll find as the first fire fighter on the scene -- the reader soon realizes it's not just a fire, and not to think, merely because the blaze is extinguished is no reason to believe the smoldering wild fire at Thunder Ridge Mobile Home Park is controlled. Irony = things aren't always what they seem at first glance and that proves to be fact not only at Thunder Ridge but in Summerville, Colorado as well.
Can't wait to be able to post an excerpt for you.
Thanks Rene for the invitation!
Cricket SawyerLabels: Colorado, Cricket Sawyer, Forbidden Publications, Inferno, LaPlata Mountians, Romantic Suspense, Wild Fire |
| posted by Unknown @ 1:24 PM |
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