With all the negatives in the world lately, "fun" photos have been few and far between—so a few diverse choices from the "My Pictures" file . . .
From a birthday party in 2016, for which I made all the burlap bags of classic "bag races."
The reason my daughter hired an exterminator each time before they used their cottage along the Suwanee River. (I wonder what the new owners think of the resident wildlife—this was just one of many!) That web stretches between tree trunks; not branches, TRUNKS. Please note the trunks this web spans are not in the photo.
Love this cover, even if Amazon and I went round & round before they agreed to accept the title. (I kept telling them "bastard" was the literal truth, not a swear word. They finally gave in.)
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| The perfect portrait of K'kadi Amund |
The remarkable things one can find when researching . . .
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| Map of the maze in Sydney Gardens, Bath (early 19th c.) |
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Below, one of the very first bits of advice on Writing, written "way back when" and available with a quantity of others on Writing & Editing in the Archives or organized and indexed in Making Magic With Words.
WRITING WORKSHOP 1 - Getting Started
"Where do you get your ideas?"
How many times have you been asked that question? The answer is: "Everywhere." Ideas are all around you. Personal experiences, television, newspapers, movies, people on the street, a chance remark, a character or situation in a book that sets you to asking, "What if . . .?" Or perhaps you're building a whole new world from scratch. Let's face it, if you didn't have ideas, you wouldn't be attempting to write a book. BUT developing these ideas into a 400-page book is something else again.
Fresh Twist.
So what do you do with that germ of an idea? To sell in today's tough market, give it a fresh twist, something that will keep the reader turning pages instead of groaning over yet another version of same old-same old. Be innovative, not cookie-cutter. Grab that idea, find a way to make it fresh. For example, in Grave Intentions, Lori Sjoberg makes a hero of the Grim Reaper, going on to develop other male and female reapers in a series for Kensington.
Research.
At least three-quarters of you are groaning, thinking: "But I write Contemporary . . ." Nonetheless, you have research to do. You need to find out how to make your hero and heroine, the setting, and general ambiance of your book sound authentic. Whether it's Renaissance, Regency, police procedure, arson investigation, high finance, medical, or whatever—make sure you know what you're talking about.
For example, what did I know about "the British Electoral System prior to the reforms of 1832" when I began the book now titled, A Gamble on Love? Absolutely nothing, of course. It took some heavy reading of books acquired for me by the Sarasota Library system via Interlibrary loan, but in the end I picked up some gems, tidbits that greatly enhanced the tale of a "cit" (a man who works for a living) who horrifies his aristocratic bride when he runs for Parliament.
But don't panic. Research doesn't have to be all "up front." You can dredge it up as you go along. (I certainly didn't read all those heavy tomes on the British Electoral system before I began to write.) But you absolutely must have enough knowledge by the time you do your final edit so that people who are experts on your book's subject don't throw your book against the wall by the end of the first chapter.
As an example of how easy it is to slip up, no matter how careful you think you're being: when I was writing, The Harem Bride for Signet, I had the hero and heroine meet in Constantinople, at the home of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. I paused long enough to think about the problem of reality but considered it so unlikely I could discover the name of the actual ambassador at that time that I simply made up a name for this character and continued on.
But in final editing before submitting the manuscript, I scowled at the name I'd invented and decided, well maybe, after all, I should check Google. To my shock, when I entered "British Ambassador, Ottoman Empire, 1803," page after page after page came scrolling up. Oops! It seems the ambassador was Lord Elgin, famed for boxing up many of the statues on the Acropolis, even to the extent of chipping off the friezes from the Parthenon, and shipping them back to England, where, some years later, they ended up in the British Museum. (I've seen them—they have a whole hall of their own.) To this day, Greece is trying to get them back.
After I finished gulping at how close I'd come to a major faux pas, I revised not only that scene but added references to Lord Elgin's struggles in getting the British Museum to buy his marbles. Moral of this story: check your facts. Don't end up with egg on your face.
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