According to random.org, the lucky number is 12. Congratulations to Jannashay, you are the winner of the giftcard and mug.
I will be contacting you soon to arrange for prize delivery 
Happy February all!
The word chapter may refer to a main division in a book or document, a period of time or an episode in a person’s life, or the local branch of an organization.
In novels, a chapter may be any length, but averages three to five interrelated scenes. Some writers make their first chapters shorter in order to engage the reader, then use longer chapters later in the book when the reader is already hooked.
Writers that are “plotters,” often have their chapters lined up before putting the first word on paper. They have outlines, or index cards, or sticky notes telling exactly whose point of view the chapter will be in, and what that character’s goal, motivation, and conflict will be.
Other writers, “pantsers,” fly by the seat of their pants and let their character tell them where the story is going.
In the real world, you can plot or choose many chapters in your life. You might choose where you’ll go to school, what job to take, or who to marry. You can choose to move to a new city or to take up sky-diving.
But like even the most dedicated plotter, sometimes your story has a mind of its own. You might be going about your business when a new chapter jumps out at you and says, “Surprise, here I am. Now deal with me.”
As a writer, you can go with the flow and see where your characters take you, or force them back where you want them to be. In real life you don’t have that choice. It is what it is, and you can make the best of it or go crawl in a hole.
A friend recently told me her mantra was, “Life is hard, have a cookie.” So here’s to cookies in all shapes and sizes and in every flavor. Find the one that works for you and eat as many as you need until you make it to a better chapter.
The Secrets on Forest Bend by Susan C. Muller is available from: www.soulmatepublishing.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble.
Follow Susan at www.susancmuller.com
While filling out interview forms for blog tours and answering reader’s questions about where I get my ideas from for my writing, well, the answer is my life. Every second of everyday, my characters slip in and out of my conscious thoughts. Eating at local restaurants, shopping at major, and not so major, chain stores, taking walks with my husband or frisbee golfing, it’s all incorporated down to the very smell of the experience.
For example, my husband and I decided to frisbee golf at night with our shiny new glow discs. We went to the frisbee course after dark, and let me tell you, there were no lights on of any kind, besides the moon that is. The atmosphere? Spooky as all get out, which of course turned into a scene in my upcoming novel, book 2 in the Sydney Sedrick series. If I were alone, surrounded by trees that blocked most of the moonlight, I would have hightailed my keester right out of there.
My leading lady, Sydney, would not have done so herself, however. She’d have the guts to tromp through that forest encased in darkness, ignoring those disconcerting sounds such as fallen branches snapping a hundred feet away ’for no good reason, because she’s alone, right?’.
The world is our inspiration from global ideas down to the rotten smell in bathrooms that clearly haven’t been cleaned as much as they should be.
Live, love, write
Tonight, I’m sitting on my parents’ lanai in Florida, watching the sun set behind the tall palm trees edging the golf course. I can’t believe it’s been exactly a year since I started writing, a year in which my life has dramatically changed.
Last year at this time, I was also visiting my parents in Florida. The idea of writing a book had been floating in the back of my consciousness for a while. For several weeks, I’d been visualizing a scene of a boy and girl dancing in her bedroom. It kept playing over and over in my mind until suddenly I realized he wasn’t a boy at all. At once, the story downloaded into my brain like a DVD from iTunes. My family went on a dolphin watching expedition while I stayed at the pool and wrote the outline for a paranormal book. I used the pool as the setting for the opening scene.
Since then, I’ve edited out that scene and that’s not the only thing that’s changed. A couple months after I began writing, I stopped writing my paranormal book to begin writing what became my first published book. Like before, the entire book downloaded into my head and I stayed behind as my family went into the movie theater to watch a documentary about primates. Two months later, I finished writing A Year to Remember.
I discovered this week that the Detroit Jewish News is going to write an article about me. Initially, it was going to be a small book review. Instead, it’s going to be about my own recovery from food addiction and how it led me to write the book. Generally, membership in a twelve-step program is anonymous. In writing this book and sharing my personal struggles with compulsive overeating, I’ve irrevocably broken my anonymity.
I truly feel as though my higher power sent me on this journey. I’m still learning how not to question my path and to trust that wherever it leads, it’s the right one.
I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made this year, the wisdom I’ve gained, and the discovery that I have much more to learn. In one year, my life has changed for the better. It’s been A Year to Remember.
I’m not talking about annoyances. I’m talking about the doubt that keeps you from accomplishing your goal – an obstacle or a weakness.
Hi, everyone! I’m Lia, one of the newest authors with Soul Mate. I am so happy to be a part of the growing group of talented authors and to work with the wonderful SMP staff. I write paranormal romance with heat levels from sensual to very hot. I love reading and when I discovered my hidden talent of world building a whole new opportunity presented itself to me.
Like most writer’s — maybe all when starting out — self doubt lingers over my head. But I drew a line and absolutely forbid it to get in my face. It can linger behind me. It’s easier to ignore back there. And some day I hope to be able to move it outside.
My biggest hang up, or obstacle, has been my reading and vocabulary. I’ve always been slower in those two subjects from elementary through middle school. It got worse when my fifth grade teacher would call on me to read out loud and sigh heavily when I stumbled over words. So I can’t read in front of a crowd. I have gotten better, but still get very nervous when I have to do it, causing the word-stumbling to show up.
But I LOVE creative writing. And was encouraged and praised on my writing assignments as a child. Made As and Bs in grammar. BUT that reading issue held me back from believing that I could become a “professional writer”. That bad experience from my childhood also kept me from building my vocabulary.
I’ve learned, through my awesome critique group and wonderfully supportive friends, that you don’t need genius level vacab to write a great story. I have my handy dictionary.com app on my smart phone. Plus I found something that I do well…write emotions and love scenes! The thesaurus helps out a lot, too.
Passion, drive and a love for creating my own worlds I can share with the world are my motivators for pushing self doubt further out the door. And the fact that since I opened the door to my characters, they won’t leave me alone.
What’s your hang up?
Oh, the humanity…
Most romance writers, sooner or later, have to do it: Write A Sex Scene.
::Gasp::
Many writers handle it with ease, knowing what they want their characters to do and say, how they need to look, what kind of dialogue will suit them best as they go about the business of literary intimacy. Others may not be wholly comfortable with it, but they rally their creative juices and get that scene out of their heads and where it needs to be. Still others panic, freeze, experience Writer’s Block From Hell and other awful things that writers hate to experience.
I fall somewhere in the midst of all three.
I love to write love scenes, but I have to talk myself into it, first. Well, that’s not quite correct…my characters have to talk me into it. They have to convince me they’re ready, they care enough for each other, they can handle any fallout from twisting the sheets together, and after it’s over, they won’t regret a single moment.
Then they have to agree to whatever torture I devise to break them up or at the very least, make their lives a living hell. After all, what is romance if you can’t pair it with conflict? If they’re going to keep me up at night devising ways to creatively Slot-and-Tab them, then they must be prepared to suffer.
But, that’s just me. I’m kind of mean.
Here’s what I believe about fictional lovers:
Some experience romantic romance, tender/shy/tentative/ sex that floats them away on a golden-bright cloud.
Others require sensuality, but in such a manner that leaves a bit to the imagination and allows the reader to insert what might come next after the scene ends.
Still others demand raw and explicit; pages of detail revealing everything, hiding nothing and also leaving nothing to the imagination. With curse words.
Guess which is harder to write?
Yes, you guessed correctly if you said, “All three.”
Sex is easy. Making it fit into the confines of a romance novel is a bit trickier. Making it blend with your characters as you have already defined them: perhaps the toughest of all. Anyone can write a sex scene. I truly believe this. Don’t give them proper names, and you can “he and she” a pair of hot-to-trot characters into all kinds of wild and crazy acts of intimate stuff. But once you have given them names, set them in a background, defined their physical attributes, had them partake of dialogue, fed them meals and maybe penciled in a pet dog or cat, you’ve got humanity. You created it, but it’s humanity just the same, and you have to do right by them. Do real by them, too.
You have to make the sex fit the lovers. And then you have to write it.
Not every author who writes sex has experienced it. You don’t have to know something to write about it; authors have proven that time and time again. That’s what research is for. What you have to do is understand your characters before you even start. Trying to make your Amish hero and his sheltered, innocent heroine swing from a chandelier, slather mayonnaise on each other and then roll around in oatmeal while they assume acrobatically inventive positions, well… let’s just say you wouldn’t be able to sell it easily. A few of your readers might be skeptical.
Some writers complete most of their manuscript and then go back to insert love scenes. They feel better-equipped to write the love if they’ve seen their H/H through all the ups and downs their story has already created. Other writers have their characters in bed within the first ten pages of Chapter One. I’ve read – and enjoyed – both. I’ve also written both.
Which was easier? Let’s just say I toyed with the idea of incorporating mayonnaise and oatmeal. And leave it at that.
I’m halfway through my second novel, and my characters have told me they want to have sex, confirm their love, bond in bed, etc. This is a man and a woman who are in it for the long haul, who are committed to each other. I’m still not sure what I’ll give them: the golden-white cloud, the sensual yet mysterious aftermath, or let it all hang out.
They trust me to do right by them. I figure they’ll keep me up all night while I agonize over bringing them together based on how they’ve evolved beneath my fingertips.
So, excuse me while I fluff the pillows, light a few candles, put on some romantic tunes, break out a bottle of wine… and grab the tin of oatmeal.
Well, I suppose I can forego the oatmeal. It’s probably already been done; besides, do you have any idea what can be accomplished with mustard and grits?
The mind boggles.
I’m currently going through the first revision of my first novel, which I am renaming the Crash and Burn Exercise. You’ve all been through it. It’s humbling, to say the least. It makes you feel like the worst writer on the face of the earth, until you’ve been through a few book revisions and realized that you’re making your book better. Your New York Times Bestseller (cough, cough) now has a better chance to make it to number one. And don’t tell me that isn’t your dream. It’s everyone’s dream.
To make this first experience worse, we’re currently in FL on vacation so I’m glued to my chair in the kitchenette slaving away while outside our window the waves come in, people swim in the pool, and die-hards sit in the whirlpool right outside our window until all hours and in all kinds of weather. Wednesday, the weather was really nice and I played hooky, swimming and reading and kibitzing in the hot tub. Number one topic of conversation? Where are you from?
Good things are happening as my revision goes on. Those habitual mistakes I make– point of view switches, for example– I’m learning to recognize and hope to eliminate before this stage in my next book. Also, I’ve discovered that my editors become like a little bird on my shoulder, chirping “Don’t do that, silly!” I never thought I’d be happy if someone gave me the bird, but I am this time. Chirp, chirp.
