Sister Scribe

 I am already 4,000 words into my new story, Someday at Christmas. Here's the meter:

The query letter for Hollywood Swinging is with my critique partners. Now all I need to do is put together the dreaded synopsis ...

There's nothing I love more than starting a new story. Over the weekend I was a bit under the weather, but I had enough energy to start outlining my next WIP, a "fish out of water" Christmas story.

The title is Someday at Christmas (taken from the old Stevie Wonder song) and it's about an Atlanta lawyer from a dignified family who falls for an exotic dancer. Y'all do know that Atlanta is the strip club capital of the nation, right? He takes her home to meet the family for Christmas, and you can imagine the drama that ensues.

During my cold medicine-induced wooziness, I managed to put together this collage of the cast of characters. These are some good-looking black folks!

TOP ROW: The Gardner Family - Everett, Helene, Grandma, Family Home, Veronica and Lisette (sisters)

CENTER ROW: Christmas Dinner, Warrick "Rick" Gardner, Tamyra "Tamy" Allen, Sledding in New Jersey

BOTTOM ROW: Dreamland, Shanice aka "Luscious", Ouida (Tamy's BFF), Dreamland Bodyguard, Campbell (Rick's BFF)

This is a continuation of my entry from last Friday. 

If you've ever had an evil voice whisper in your ear, "You look terrible today," I want you to bookmark this page. Now, go look in the mirror and smile ...

Hollywood Swinging is finished!

It came in under my anticipated word count, but that's fine, because I'm always too longwinded. The ending came out better than I'd expected.

So here's the final meter, but I'm sure it will change somewhat after I go through critiques of the final chapters with my partners.

I know I said I was going to work on rewriting Lyrics, but suddenly ideas for a Christmas story jumped into my head. Since I've never written a holiday story before, I think I'll jump on that before I dive into Lyrics.

Guess I need to think of a way to reward myself, but how do you do that with no cash? The general concensus is that you shouldn;t reward yourself with food, but I haven't had a box of Cheez-It in over a year. Maybe that will be my treat for reaching The End once again ...

Busy day on tap today. Hopefully I'll get some writing done while I'm sitting and waiting at my various errands.

A friend sent this to me, and I thought the ideas expressed the hearts of many women ...

I am closing in on the last two chapters of Hollywood Swinging. It looks as if this manuscrit is going to be shorter than I'd expected, but that's okay. I need to write shorter, more concise stories since books are getting shorter (with the exception of J.R. Ward, whose latest release is 482 pages!)   

Here's the meter this morning:

Ideas are swirling around in my head on what to do next, but I'm leaning toward reworking Have You Seen Her?  the multicultural romance I wrote a couple of years ago before I write anything new. I loved the story and I really loved nightclub bouncer, Taylor Villanova, the ultra sexy bi-racial hero.

Jumping to another subject, this is my second week going to the gym. Can somebody tell me when that wonderful energy I've heard people talk about is supposed to kick in?  All I feel is TIRED ...

As far as my reading goes, I just finished Suzanne Brockmann's latest release, Hot Pursuit.

This is Alyssa and Sam's continuing story and one of Ms. Brockmann's best. As always, she introduced a secondary romance, this time between Danny and Jenn. I can't wait for her next release to find out what happens with them. If you are a romantic suspense fan, I highly recommend  I didn't blog about Into the Fire because I must admit that I gave up on it before I reached The End. For some reason the story just didn't hold my attention.

On another note, when I went to Malaika Adero's editing workshop last Saturday, she talked about Simon & Schuster's development of e-books that contain video. Since I love new technology, that subject fascinated me. 

This article from the New York Times explains it in detail.  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/books/01book.html?_r=1

Take a look at the vook for Promises by Jude Deveraux and tell me what you think of this new concept.

This weekend is supposed to be rainy in Atlanta again ...

All I have planned is the combined birthday party for my grandsons on Sunday. One is six the other is nine. That's so hard to believe. It seems like they were just born yesterday.

Today I just want to encourage you. We all have those days when we wake up feeling ugly. Bookmark this page and refer to it whenever that happens to you.

Now, don't you feel beautiful?

On Saturday I attended a workshop entitled, "Editing for Writers: How to Grow from Good to Great." It was held at the beautiful Southwest Arts Center in Atlanta. The workshop presenter was Malaika Adero, Vice President and Senior Editor of Atria Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster.

First of all, I had never been to the Southwest Arts Center before. It's about forty minutes from where I live, but I'd heard that it is a very active venue for black arts events - film, music, dance, literature.

The number of participants was limited  to twenty-five, so the workshop had a small, intimate feeling. Ms. Adero shared for over two hours from her vast experience in the publishing industry. I was so impressed by her relaxed, confident demeanor and even moreso by her knowledge.

Ms. Adero talked about:

*  What makes a writer great

*  How to shop for an agent

*  What makes a writer successful

*  What makes a great book proposal

*  What makes a professional manuscript

*  What happens once you're offered a publishing deal

*  What do acquiring editors and publishers actually do

Even though the host could have easily charged $25-$50 for the seminar, it was provided for free. That's one of the things I love about Atlanta. There's always something going on, and it's not always expensive.

Right before the workshop started, I saw a woman come in and sit at the back of the circle of chairs. I thought to myself, "Wow, she looks like Jasmine Guy."  Come to find out it was Jasmine, the actress who played Whitley Gilbert on "A Different World" from 1987 to 1993. She writes stage and screenplays now.

Did you do anything interesting this weekend?

This isn't funny, but it sure is interesting ...

Michael Fuller, author of Chronicles of a Nappy Head, told me about this workshop. So that's what I'll  be doing tomorrow.