Five Rules for Beginning Writers with Kate Bracy #WriteTip #AmWriting #WomensFic

Five Rules for Beginning Writers

If you are serious about writing – or anything else – you will at some point be asked to meet ridiculously ambitious deadlines. Here are five helpful rules that can keep you sane, yet productive, in the face of intimidating time targets.

Be honest. Tell the truth to yourself and your editor about what you can and cannot do. This is a gift to everyone. Let’s say your agent asks for the last five chapters by the end of the summer, and you are getting married in August. Do your marriage a favor and say, “I’m planning a wedding. I can get them to you by the end of September, but not by Labor Day.” Presumably, your agent will then tell you why that date was so important, and you can decide whether to cancel the wedding or the chapters. But making promises that you know you can’t keep is never good, and you’ll get a reputation for standing people up – either at the presses or at the altar.

Next, anticipate. Walk a project back and figure out exactly how much you have to write every day/week/etc. in order to meet the deadline. If you are writing a chapter for a medical text, and it is due in four months, figure out a writing schedule that gets you in well under the wire and then stick to it. I did this sort of math/planning for a book on Menopause that I wrote, and it saved my life. I was able to meet some pretty brutal deadlines writing only on my weekends. (I don’t recommend a demanding timeline that steals all your weekends, but it can be done.) Even if you’re the sort of person who thrives on the pressure of a deadline, let the little deadlines pressure you. That way, when you are in the home stretch, you will only procrastinate on the last few pages instead of the whole darn chapter – which results in much better writing and no ulcer.

Third, communicate. Stay in touch with your editor, agent or whoever is requesting the work. It keeps you on track, and helps reassure them and set the expectations as things go along. Building your relationship with them and establishing your reliability is based on trust. Keep them in the loop.

Fourth, admit what is impossible. If a writing assignment is too much for you, don’t take it. You will have many chances to write and to create work that you can be proud of. If something sounds like a big break, but you know it’s impossible, don’t put yourself – or your reputation – at risk by promising more than you can deliver. I quit a gig writing as a guide for About.com. I couldn’t meet their deadlines and do the writing I wanted, so I let it go – even though it paid pretty well. I hope someone else is rocking that assignment, but if I had kept doing that I wouldn’t have been able to write my novel. When you are in it for the long run, don’t make short-run crazy-making decisions.

Finally, quality matters most. If you know you can improve a piece exponentially by having it another couple of days, talk to your editor. Even if you have to send the lesser version in, ask for an extension if you know you want it to be better and can do it. Your text and your byline will be “out there” and available for a long time. Others will be looking at it to judge your credibility and maybe to hire you/sign you for other things. Make sure it is your best work. Chances are, your editor wants that, too.

Once in a while, you may mis-guess how long a project will take. But some careful attention to deadlines – well in advance – will save your sanity and their bottom line. Don’t be too hard on yourself – you may overshoot now and then.

But mostly you won’t.

Winner of four independent publishing awards, including the IndieReader Discovery Award in Women's Fiction, this debut novel hits the mark for smart, discerning readers.

There's nothing about her life that doesn't need a little work, so Melanie Davis thinks of herself as a "fixer-upper." Her history with men leaves her gun shy; her teenaged daughter can't string two civil words together; her best friend Donna just found out she has a life-threatening illness. When Donna also reveals a decades-old secret that still haunts her, Melanie makes it her mission to solve the mystery and reunite Donna with a precious link to her past - before it's too late. 

Along the way Melanie discovers with startling clarity the pricelessness of love and friendship. With a finely-tuned emotional compass, Kate Bracy carries us through a trial-by-illness as funny as it is touching. Her narrator, Melanie, comes to realize the enduring power of love - between men and women, between mothers and daughters, between friends. Through her vivid, endearing characters Bracy creates a small-town world in northern New York where old loves rekindle, friendships prevail, and secret wounds are finally healed. This debut novel will leave you with an awakened heart and a strong urge to send postcards to all the people you love.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre - Women's Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Connect with Kate Bracy through Facebook

Website http://www.katebracy.com/

#Excerpt from Hearts Unfold (Miracle at Valley Rise Book 1) by Karen Welch #Women #AmReading

Crawling into the back of the limo, Stani huddled in a corner, closing his eyes behind the lenses of his sunglasses. If he could only be still for a bit, he told himself firmly, he might yet avoid being sick. His head was exploding now and waves of nausea threatened to ultimately humiliate him. Robert, his dark face devoid of expression, gently closed the car door and slid in behind the wheel. Turning back to his passenger, he offered a bottle of mineral water and a hairbrush. “Young sir,” he said softly, “you'll be needing these I think.”

Stani opened one eye to accept them, pressing the cool bottle against his burning cheek. “Thank you, Robert. And thank you for waiting.” He was relieved it had been Robert, and not one of the car service drivers, who’d been asked to wait. Officially Milo's chauffeur, Robert had been with them since their arrival in New York. He was by now a member of their already irregular family, although Stani knew the idea would have been resisted by both Milo and Robert. But just as he relied on Milo and Jana to keep his days and nights from running to chaos, he also depended on Robert, who’d gone far beyond his assigned duties on more occasions than Stani liked to recall. Laying the hairbrush aside, he mused that Robert would never permit him to exit his car looking like something picked out of the gutter. As soon as his head stopped pounding, he would try to bring some order to his damp hair.

The car began to gain speed on the freeway and he tried to relax, hoping to fall asleep. Five hours to DC should be long enough to see him back on his feet. If only he could get Milo's voice out of his head. Never in all their years together had he shouted like that. Oh, Milo might get very angry with him at times, but his voice tended to be ominously soft on those occasions. When the phone had rung, Stani was sprawled on the floor, having apparently fallen just short of the bed on his return home. He had no idea what time that might have been, but he was sure he’d only been asleep for a few minutes. He stared at the phone, unable to convince his body to respond. But it had gone on ringing until the pain in his head prompted him to at least attempt to make it stop.

He tried to force a normal greeting; one never knew who might be calling. But Milo had known, as he always knew, the nature of Stani's condition. He'd gone off immediately, demanding to know if Stani realized the car was waiting downstairs. Of course he didn't know! How was he to know what his day's schedule might be? That was what Milo saw to every day of his life. It was then he remembered. Milo wasn't there. He was in Aspen. He and Jana had taken their first vacation together in ten years, leaving Stani to go to Washington alone.

~~Miracle at Valley Rise Series~~
Hearts Unfold~Book One
Entreat Me Not~Book Two
Heart of My Own Heart~Book Three
Offered for Love~Book Four

A secret Christmas homecoming, a blinding snowstorm, and in the course of one night two shattered lives will be changed forever.Nineteen-year-old Emily Haynes had lost almost everything she loved. Relying on what seems to be guidance from her invalid father, she returns to her past in hopes of discovering some sign toward the future. What begins as a joyous homecoming quickly becomes a nightmare when a badly injured stranger stumbles on the scene, his brief presence threatening to alter everything Emily believes about herself and the plan for her life. A less determined girl might have been shaken by such an experience, but not Emily. She is certain she's made the right choice, so certain that in the following three years, she almost convinces herself.

Superstar violinist Stani Moss appeared to have everything--fame, fortune and a career guaranteed to bring more of the same, until one hasty decision placed it all in jeopardy. Terrified and confused, Stani struggles not only to recover his former skill, but to find answers to the questions which haunt him. Throughout his slow journey back, one image lingers in his buried memories of that fateful night--the vision of a girl he's never met. The journey will eventually lead him to Emily, and beyond that day, everything about his life will be transformed.

Set in the years around 1970, Hearts Unfold begins the saga of two people whose paths should never have crossed, who defy the odds to create a place they can share. The first of four volumes in the Miracle at Valley Rise Series, this novel could stand alone as a triumphant tale of romance, but there's much more to the story, as Emily and Stani reveal their pasts and strive to bridge the distance between their worlds. Follow their progress, be entertained by their adventures, and perhaps be inspired by their unwavering belief in the transforming power of love.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Women's Fiction, Saga Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Connect with Karen Welch through Facebook

Blog http://valleyrise.blogspot.com/

Maria Elena Sandovici on Writing as a form of Personal Therapy @SandoviciME #AmWriting #Women #Fiction

I don’t meditate. I wish I did. Every now and then, I try, then give up again. One day, I might get better at it. After all, we only make progress by trying, failing, and trying again, right?

Until I get to meditate successfully, I know, at least, I have a few activities I engage in, that make me forget the whole wide world, and in that sense, are just as healing as meditation would be. Writing is one of these.

It’s such a privilege to get immersed in an alternate world, one of my own creation, and to allow myself to experience all sorts of things, without even leaving the room. As a writer, I can be anything I want. I can be my dog. I can be a man. I can be a millionaire, or a pauper, a flight attendant, a luxury prostitute, or a rock star. It’s an incredibly liberating exercise of the imagination, and an ideal escape.

Of course, at times, escape is not the answer. At times, we’d rather write about what bugs us, because the piece of paper in front of us, will listen, won’t judge, and won’t charge a dime. 

Sometimes, when I feel sad or frustrated with others – or even with myself -, I let my writing soak that in. My characters might go through sadness similar, or even worse, than mine. My characters might deal with difficult bosses, drama-prone friends, or their own inability to curtail their spending in the face of temptation. My characters might also do things I know better than to allow myself to do, and in a bizarre parallel universe, they might suffer the consequences of skipping town in the middle of a crisis, maxing out their credit cards, punching someone in the face, being rude and obnoxious, or going to bed with someone they know is bad for them.

In the end, my writing helps me deal with my almost constant struggle: I’m lucky enough to have experienced the rhythm, energy, and emotional vibration of many different places, some I have trouble letting go of. I’m torn, most of the time, between different lives I can see myself living, in different settings that appeal to me. I don’t think this is just the blues of the immigrant – besides, I don’t really see myself as an immigrant, but rather as a citizen of the world -, but rather the melancholy of travelers in general, of people who love discovering the world, but might have to pay the price of knowing that there are many places where they feel they might belong. My best tool for dealing with this particular problem – my desire to not just see the world, but live in different places, have a more intimate experience of them, and make them my own -, is writing. If I can convey some of the emotional resonance a place has with me, through my fiction, this does not begin to liberate me of my longing to be there, but it does bring a certain comfort, and opens up a whole new can of melancholy, which I can then savor, at leisure, with the gusto of an internationally-traveling drama queen.

Liliana is the disappointing daughter of hardworking immigrant parents. She is a girl looking to be rescued from her own insecurities and bad decisions. Unable to afford rent in New York City proper, she is craving a life of luxury that isn’t hers, while subsisting on bagels and coffee. In desperate need of support - emotional and otherwise -, she clings to potential saviors, never bothering to question if the attachments she forms really fit her.

In a parallel storyline, her mother, Maria, is trying to reject all offers of help, especially those of her estranged husband, whose unexpected generosity forces her to revisit past mistakes she hasn't come to terms with. Enmeshed in her own drama, she doesn’t notice her daughter’s troubles until it’s too late. Desperate to keep Liliana from making a mistake that will alter the course of her life, Maria reveals her best-kept secret, a story so shocking it might have the power to jerk Liliana back to reality. It could, on the other hand, alienate her forever.

DOGS WITH BAGELS is a story about the American dream gone bad. It is also a story about mothers and daughters, about female friendships, the struggle to survive in one of the world’s most expensive cities, and women’s secret desire to have wild passionate sex with their exes. A cross between Bridgett Jones’ Diary and Sex and the City - with an accent! -, DOGS WITH BAGELS is as addictive as a trashy tabloid you can't seem to put down.

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Genre - Contemporary Women's Fiction

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Maria Elena Sandovici through Facebook & Twitter

Website http://havewatercolorswilltravel.blogspot.com/

For M.J. Kane Success is Seeing a Project from Inception to Completion #Romance #Contemporary #Fiction

What other jobs have you had in your life?
I’ve worked in banking operations as a mini-key operator, done dispatch for UPS, and Dispatch and Customer Service for Safelite Auto Glass. I also do floral design and worked for myself, as well as in the floral department of Hobby Lobby. I loved that job! I also work behind the scenes for my husband’s businesses as well. We’re a household full of entrepreneurs!

How do you write- lap top, pen, paper, in bed, at a desk?
It starts with pen and paper and ends on my laptop. I mostly work at my desk which is located in my bedroom.

Where do you get support from? Do you have friends in the industry?
I have a very close nit group of a few authors who I had the privilege to meet at the beginning of my writing journey. They are my mentors. I go to them with any questions I have and get wonderful feedback. 

Every writer has their own idea of what a successful career in writing is, what does success in writing look like to you?
Success to me is seeing a project from inception to completion. Whether or not it’s self-published, small press published, or traditionally published, learning the art of storytelling, the technical side of writing, and the tricks to marketing can make or break you. But if you can come up with a story and get it down on paper from page one to The End…you’ve done something many people dream about. To me, that is the beginning of working towards having a successful career.

It is vital to get exposure and target the right readers for your writing, tell us about your marketing campaign?
Book clubs and social networking are key. Becoming a member of a group of people who love reading allows you to tune in to what readers want. Taking their desires to heart and finding a way to work them into your writing builds a fan base that can last a life time. I have the most fun in my groups!

Tell us about your new book? What’s it about and why did you write it?
My latest release is, Lonely Heart (Book 3 of The Butterfly Memoirs). The story follows Kaitlyn Rodgers as she comes to term with the reality of her life. The ‘perfect life’ she thought she’d found changed the moment she found out she’s pregnant. Hard decisions have to be made, and the consequences of past decisions now dictate her future. But through it all, there’s a ray of hope…if she accepts it. In this story, Kaitlyn faces the reality of becoming a single parent. Like many women, it wasn’t what she expected to happen. My goal is to help women who can connect with her remember that though the relationship with their child’s father may have come to an end, love can still be found. 

When you are not writing? How do you like to relax?
There’s time for that???? LOL, I catch up on my favorite TV shows…Scandle, Revolution, Almost Human, S.H.I.E.L.D, Arrow, and Sleepy Hollow. Sunday’s are family night, which means cards, conversation, and movies. I’m really starting to love those nights! 

How often do you write? And when do you write?
It depends. My mind is always flushing out story lines, playing with dialogue and ‘what if’ scenarios whether I’m in the shower, driving, or cooking dinner. It also depends on what I’m working on. I’m blogging at least once a week. But when I’m working a deadline, I’m on it every day for as many hours as I can put in. 

Sometimes it’s so hard to keep at it- What keeps you going?
My family, for starters. They have faith in me and support me, so suddenly deciding to give it all up would affect them as much as me. Then there are my readers who have invested their money and time into supporting me. I’ve worked so hard to gain that support that every time I feel like putting down my pen, I think of the wonderful feedback I’ve received, and know I have to keep going. But most of all, my Muse won’t allow me to stop imagining stories and characters. So, I guess I’ll keep writing! 

How do you feel about social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter? Are they a good thing?
YES! Nobody would know who I was if it weren’t for the ability to get online and shout it out. For three years, I was on Facebook, Twitter, and blogging about my desire to write and what my story was about. I gained followers and possible readers before I knew it. My new found friends were just as excited as me to learn I’d been accepted by a publisher and the story I talked about was about to be published. They are still with me now. I don’t know what I’d do without them!

The consequences of past decisions can ruin your future.

Instead of planning her wedding, Kaitlyn Rodgers is facing motherhood alone, the pressures of a new job, and caring for her rebellious younger sister. What should have been the happiest time of her life turns into one stressful event after another.

After watching his father struggle to raise a family by himself, auto mechanic Antonio Rodriguez refuses to follow his father’s footsteps…even if it means a lifetime of loneliness.

When Kaitlyn’s car breaks down, though, Antonio goes beyond auto repairs to take care of her needs. An unexpected friendship begins, allowing them a glimpse of happiness…until the father of Kaitlyn’s child returns, ready to offer her marriage and a future. But at what cost?

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Contemporary Romance, Women's Fiction, Interracial Romance

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with M.J. Kane through Facebook & Twitter

Website http://mjkanemedia.com/

Getting to Know Robin Cheeks Barkley from Secrets & Sins by Bettye Griffin #Women #Fiction #MustRead

Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, January 2010

Hi! My name is Robin Cheeks Barkley. I was born in Waukegan, Illinois, on March 12, 1962, the youngest of three children. I grew up in Zion, which is about halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. My parents both worked as teachers, and my sister and brother and I were cared for at home by our maternal grandmother, who lived with us. She was deaf, and that had a lot to do with my decision to become an audiologist. Grandma was a very dour woman, and I can count my telling her my career ambitions as one of the few times I ever saw her smile.

In 1989, when I was 27, I married Avaughn Barkley. Avaughn is also from Zion, and while we knew each other casually from school, ours wasn’t one of those high school romances. We didn’t even start dating until I was 26. At the time we were both living in Chicago. I had graduated with my doctorate in audiology and was doing clinical practice at the Loyola University Medical Center. Avaughn, two years older with a degree in finance, was already working at an investment firm in The Loop. It was a whirlwind romance, and I moved into his apartment in Rogers Park. He proposed after six months of living together, and neither of us wanted to wait, so with help from my mother and sister, we put together a simple but elegant ceremony and reception at the Kenosha Public Museum. The ceremony was held in front of a twenty-foot windowed wall that looked out on Lake Michigan. It was lovely.

Avaughn and I lived in Rogers Park for seven more years, until we bought our house in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, a village of 20,000 with Lake Michigan as its eastern border. It’s a beautiful house, and we made it that way. Originally built in the 1970s, it was a relic to the era, with yellow kitchen appliances, shag carpet, and bathrooms done in pastel pink and blue. But the façade was attractive, and it was on the same side of the street as the lake and had a beach behind it. We saw the potential through the dated décor and did a complete remodel of the kitchen and updated the baths. We tore up the carpeting and had it replaced with hardwood. Everyone said that five bedrooms was way too many for two people, but no one said it wasn’t gorgeous. Besides, at the time I still held out hope that…

Avaughn and I started trying to start a family after we’d been married for three years. By then, our careers were on track, and we knew we could provide our children with tons of love and, because we had a good income, all the extras.

I started to worry when six months passed and nothing happened. We both went for workups, and we learned I was the one preventing us from becoming parents. I’d always had female problems, suffering from heavy flows and severe cramps, plus I had recurrent yeast infections. But what did me in was tubal scarring, probably as a result of a ruptured appendix I’d had in college. I began a workup that included having fibroid tumors removed, getting dye injected into my tubes, and a procedure called ZIFT that cost a fortune and wasn’t covered by insurance. Avaughn used to joke that he was going to nickname our child the $100,000 baby.

When it was suggested that we try alternate means of parenthood (i.e. adoption), all the jokes stopped. I sank into a deep depression, one that even our beautiful new house wasn’t enough to pull me out of. Avaughn was honest when he said he couldn’t look upon a child not of his blood as his own. He probably thought he was being equally honest when he reassured me it didn’t matter if it was always just the two of us, but you can never lie to yourself.

At the time I thought we’d settled into a just-the-two-of-us lifestyle. It’s true that infertility has cast a shadow over my life, but once I turned 40 I pretty much put it behind me, acknowledging that my time had passed. I had a good life, and I knew it.

They say a woman can always tell when something’s amiss in her marriage, but I honestly had no idea. I had long since switched to treating hearing and balance problems at a clinic in Racine, but Avaughn continued working in the city, and it wasn’t unusual for him to work late. Since service on the Union Pacific North line usually ends in Waukegan on off hours, if he missed the 6:30 train, he had to wait three hours until 9:30, which didn’t get him home until after 11PM. This usually happened at least once a week, occasionally twice. I didn’t know he was having an affair with an administrative assistant at work until one morning we were making love and he called me by her name. (I’d suggest that any woman who wants to know if her husband is cheating lay some nookie on him first thing in the morning, before he’s fully awake, and see if he makes a verbal slip.)

Anyway, nearly nineteen years of marriage got tossed out with the garbage that day. Avaughn’s girlfriend moved up to Kenosha to be closer to him. That wasn’t a surprise, but what damn near tore me to pieces was when I found out they were having a baby. Avaughn Barkley is going to be a daddy at 50 years old, while I’d go to my grave childless.

As for me, after the divorce I went headlong into an affair with the son of family friends. He was about a dozen years younger than me, and I’m proud to say I wore him out. It was short, wasn’t particularly sweet, but very sexy. There’s been no one since, and sometimes I wonder if there ever will be. Not because I’m carrying a torch for Avaughn—heaven forbid—but because there just aren’t a lot of available men my age, and certainly not here in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. I’m already dreading my high school reunion in May, and I’m thinking about not even going. All my former classmates know that Avaughn and I are divorced and that his girlfriend is pregnant. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what went wrong between us.

Even if I were to meet someone, it would be awfully hard to carry on a relationship. You see, Avaughn and I are legally divorced and have been for over a year now, but our house, that beautiful house I so lovingly remodeled and decorated until it was show-room perfect, the one everyone said was too large for us, is holding us captive. It’s a bad market, and…well, let me put it this way…

Anyone looking to buy a house so Avaughn and I can finally stop living under the same damn roof?

eBook only, published January 3, 2014.

This is contemporary women's fiction and does contain sex.

From the Author: Secrets & Sins contains several plot twists that I hope will come as a surprise to readers. I love getting reviews, but if you choose to write one, PLEASE be considerate of other readers who haven't read the book yet by not divulging these twists in the plot. Thank you so much! -- B.

In this sweeping, 115K-word novel, Bettye Griffin introduces readers to the Cheeks family of Zion, Illinois: Eldest daughter Faye, whose placid, orderly life is about to be disrupted in a way she never could have imagined...middle child and only son Scott, who brings new meaning to the phrase 'midlife crisis'...and youngest daughter Robin, who is divorced from but not exactly rid of her former spouse.

At the center of the story is their mother, Julia Scott Cheeks, who along with her devoted husband Melvin, has tried to keep two scandalous family secrets hidden and has been successful for 55 years...but when Robin mentions the name of the former classmate she has a romantic interest in, Julia fears that the events she has tried so hard and for so long to keep her children from knowing are in danger of being exposed...

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Read more about Robin in Secrets & Sins, out now! Kindle owners can get it at Amazon or at Bettye’s eStore. Readers needing EPUB formats for Nooks, Sonys, or other eReaders, or who need PDF formats can get theirs from Bettye’s eStore, where no registration is required and where eBooks always cost $1 less than at other eTailers.

Also, the prequel to Secrets & Sins is a free download! Sinner Man:A Short Prequel is available for download at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and the Bunderful Books website.

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Bettye Griffin writes novels about romance in the real world. Her first novel, At Long Last Love, was published in 1998. Bettye expanded to women’s fiction with the publication of The People Next Door in 2005. In 2009, while still writing for a traditional publisher, Bettye launched Bunderful Books and eventually became an independent writer and publisher. In this capacity she publishes both new and backlist titles, including Something Real (2012) and Where There’s Smoke (2013). A native of Yonkers, New York, Bettye now lives, writes, and eats cheese from her home in Southeast Wisconsin. Secrets & Sins is her 24th novel and her first independently published women’s fiction.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Women's Fiction, Family Saga

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Bettye Griffin through Facebook & Twitter

Website www.bettyegriffin.com