NOTE: This blog has moved to http://www.EricaRidley.com/Blog
Author Erica Ridley's blog: Erica Writes Romance
I'm off to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters!
P.S.
The Halloween Choose Your Own Adventure® prize winners are listed over at the Manuscript Mavens blog! If you voted during the story, check it out and see if you won! (And even if you didn't, it's not over---vote for a title to the tale!)
YOUR TURN: Do you celebrate Halloween or any other playing-dress-up holidays? What are some of the funniest or craziest or best costumes you've made/seen/worn?
Oh, Good Karma Tuesday, how I've missed you!!! =)
Karma Request:
Only one more day left in the Manuscript Mavens' Halloween Choose Your Own Adventure®---Go vote! Win fun prizes!!! And don't forget to check back tomorrow when the Mavens do Grand Prizes and run the name-the-CYOA title contest! (And leave a comment here to let me know you voted, and you'll be eligible for next Tuesday's super-cool Good Karma Tuesday prize!)
Incoming Karma:
Yesterday, I learned I won the Chasing the Witch contest from Destination Romance and have a goodie bag incoming via snail mail and a J.Morgan e-book in my Inbox. Cool! I love contests. If I could, I'd give away prizes every day of the week instead of just on Good Karma Tuesdays! I'm going to gather some good stuff this week so next Tuesday you'll have your pick of several prizes!
Revision Update:
I finally hit the half-way point in Touched! Yayayayay!
Website Update:
I'm trying to fill the official Erica Ridley author website with useful content. I'm adding to my Writing Tips and Essays section with a few articles based off of popular blog posts, either from here or my Manuscript Mavens posts. If there's something I discusses/talked/ranted about you think is worthy of an article on my web site, would you please leave a suggestion in the comments? Thank you!!!
Writers and Books:
A shout-out to the PCubed gals for talking (writing/industry) shop with me this weekend, too. Oh, and another to my pal Stephanie Rowe: You know I bought Sex & the Immortal Bad Boy the second it hit the shelves (okay, you happen to know I accidentally tried to do this even before it hit the shelves, but let's not dwell on my overeagerness *g) and it will be my prize to myself this weekend for getting all my To Do stuff this week. Well, if I can wait until this weekend...
Superhero Halloween:
9 out of 11 superheroes have been correctly identified in the post below! You guys are great! Can anybody place the last two?
YOUR TURN: So, that's what's up with me. What's up with you???
Side Note: Only one more day left in the Manuscript Mavens' Halloween Choose Your Own Adventure®---Go vote! Win fun prizes!!!
I was going to post about how I love Halloween and Halloween costumes and the giant containers I have full of outfits and paraphernalia and how I love theming up to go to Guavaween, the Tampa-style mixture of Halloween and Mardi Gras with beads and parades and two sound stages full of bands ranging from rock to hiphop, but then I recalled the saying about a picture speaking 1000 words, so:
YOUR TURN: Extra points if you not only know which person in the photo is me, but also the name of my comic book character. (I got a lot of wrong guesses, which surprised me. But then, even Wonder Woman was called Super Girl a few times, so maybe it was just all the alcohol in the crowd.) Super-duper extra points if you can name ALL the characters.
Correctly identified so far:Aquaman, Batman, Robin, Catwoman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Superman, Black Canary, Zatanna
Today's Choose Your Own Adventure® installment over at the Manuscript Mavens blog is by one of my fave authors, Elizabeth Hoyt. Go read! And vote--all voters are eligible for the many random prize drawings at Halloween!
(I read her books The Raven Prince, The Leopard Prince, and The Serpent Prince earlier this year.)
Speaking of reading... this two-week temporary soccer mom thing managed to swallow my reading time whole. In the past 10 days, I've read one half of one book. Hm. I may go on a reading binge after Halloween. At least the book I'm reading is funny and entertaining: My French Whore, a romance novel by Gene Wilder. (Thanks, Bill!)
YOUR TURN: Read anything lately? Books, authors, or entertaining links to recommend? Clue me in!
This week, I helped a 9yo write a book report on Barbara O'Connor's Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia.
He had a 2-3 page (handwritten) rough draft, and we ended up striking bits out, adding other bits, and tweaking yet other bits, and ending with a 2.5 page (handwritten) final product.
Here are some of the things I found myself repeatedly saying to him as he decided what to include or not to include:
* What is her primary goal at the beginning of the story? The one thing that she's worried about achieving through the whole thing? Okay, great. Let's mention that in our opening sentence.
* That's obviously a key event/disaster/action, but why did she do that? It doesn't follow logically from the previous sentence. Is there a missing step?
* Hmmm. Are you sure it's important that the teacher know the heroine said [enter random line of dialogue here] or that the heroine did [enter random act here]? If it doesn't affect the main plot, you don't need to include it.
* Hmmm. Are you sure it's important to mention [enter random background character here] or that this action/conversation took place at [enter random scene location here]? If it doesn't affect the main plot, you don't need to include it.
* Oooh, that's definitely important to know. But when did it occur? Right after the preceding sentence? If a significant amount of time has passed, let's indicate that.
* You mentioned [enter pivotal subplot element] a while back. Whatever happened with that?
* At the very end of the story, does she achieve her primary goal? Why or why not? Okay, let's put that at the end of our report.
* Fabulous job!
When he finished, we read the final product aloud. It rocked. He looked at me with big shining eyes, said it was the greatest book report ever, and called me "a real editor." (Awww.)
At the time, however, I was not feeling like a real editor. I felt like a real moron. Because doing the book report was so eeeeaaaasy! Just the main characters! Just the main ideas! Just the causes and effects that affect the primary plot! Nothing else matters! And bam, an entire novel in 2.5 pages. Uhhh, synopsis much?
I meet next week with my writer pals Kel and 'manda, in which our goal is to trade synopses (which we're all allegedly busy writing this week.) I'd managed to successfully avoid tackling my synop and was feeling pretty smug about my mad avoidance skillz until I helped YB with his synopsis book report. And then I realized, OMG, synopses are easy! If they're hard, I'm making them hard.
Gotta run... I've got a synopsis to write!
YOUR TURN: Have you written a synopsis? What were the important things you kept in mind? Have you ever written a book report or summarized a movie, etc? What were the important things to keep in mind then?
Halfway through my 2 weeks of temporary soccer mom-ing! I managed to nudge the Revise-O-Meter up a little. Yay!
During an ultra productive bout of blogcrastonation (*g), I learned about a super-cool widget from Cindy's blog over at Eclectic Articles.
It's called Don't Break the Chain, and it's basically a little calendar. You toggle the days blank or red by clicking them, and you use it to visually mark whether you've done your writing goal for the day, whether that's new words or revision or promotion or reading or researching or what-have-you.
Since the revision is coming along fairly well,* I might use it to count down the last 7 days of temporary soccer mom-ing...
In yesterday's comments, Katrina Stonoff asks:
What the heck are Gasparilla and tinto de verano?
Tinto de Verano is a popular summer drink in Spain. Best U.S. equivalent would be to splash wine and Sprite together in a glass.
Gasparilla is my all-time favorite Tampa holiday. Gasparilla lasts about 6 weeks, from the last weekend in January to the first weekend in March, and there are several Mardi-Gras style parades, art festivals, marathons, fireworks, and The Invasion, wherein all the pirate ships sail up the bay to the shores of downtown, drinking and fighting and shooting their cannons at the good guys--the Rough Riders, who launch their counter-attack and... fail.
Gotta love it!!
The pirates win, and storm the shores, and wrest the key to the city away from the mayor, and cannons are blasting and beads are flying and everyone is screaming and jumping around, and it's an absolute blast!
Then the pirates separate into krewes and join the parade, as do the Rough Riders, and a hundred of other themed personages in their own krewes, and the revelers (often also in costume) file into mobs around the parade route (where vendors sell everything from beer to yet more beads) to compete for the best beads. Good times!
There's even a kids parade, which is arguably as long--or even longer--than the Day Parade, as certain kids are eligible to join the route as well. This year, both the kids I'm watching for two weeks (this weekend is the halfway point! made it! *g) will be eligible. And then for the kids parade there are fireworks and other fun stuff.
The last parade is the Illuminated Knights parade, which takes place in Ybor at night and is the wildest of all.
If you're ever in my neck of the woods and want to see some crazy local culture, Gasparilla is a great introduction to Tampa!
YOUR TURN: Where do you live? What does your town/state/region do that's unique? Have you been to one-of-a-kind shenanigans in other cities/provinces/countries? Spill all!
*waves at FTHRW chaptermates*
Vicki Lane interviewed me in this month's FTHRW newsletter, and I received my copy last night! If you found my blog from the link below her article, please say hi in the comments and let me know if you have any feedback/questions!
UPDATE: Click here to read the interview!
Erica
P.S.
FTHRW = From The Heart online chapter of the Romance Writers of America
Three Thankful Things
1) At YB's soccer practice last night, there were several large fields with several teams on each field and only one small picnic table served as seating for the entire area. I got there first, and browsed half my RWA 2007 National Conference Handouts. Yay!
2) YB and I went to Publix grocery store for allergy meds, a bag of granola (NOT cereal, straight granola), and a pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked ice cream. Found all 3 fairly easily and made it out of there without needing to resort to a shopping cart or a shopping basket. w00t.
3) Received my first Evidence Technology Magazine yesterday. Yay! For those who are not in an evidence technology field such as forensics, police, etc, you may not realize that being a person who writes about individuals in that field (ie detective stories, romantic suspense, police procedurals, etc) qualifies you to be able to receive this magazine. Pretty cool! (Also, shout-out to $Jean, the romsus writer who clued me in.)
Things That Did Not Go As Planned
1) Due to a wardrobe malfunction, YB missed the school bus today. I dropped him off after taking OG to school for the PSAT.
2) Been meaning to bring my coffee maker to my friend's house for 3 straight days. Three mornings in a row, I've been majorly delayed in coffee. (And my synapses neeeeeed it. *g) Finally remembered today, so tomorrow should start out right!
Writing/Work Life
1) This week has been devoted to all things Quarterly Taxes. I overnighted them to my accountant, yay! Maven Lacey suggested I treat myself for finally scratching this item off my to-do list, so I bopped on over to Don Pan where I got me some pan de queso straight from the oven!
2) Had some ah-ha moments last night at the soccer practice, so I have an entire notebook page (front and back) of Things To Incorporate in my current WIP. Yay!
Friends in the News
1) my pal Carrie Ryan made her first sale! Details and Publisher's Marketplace listing over on her blog.
I'm sure I'm missing updates, but I gotta run and get OG from the PSAT--she just called to say she's ready!
YOUR TURN: Dish me up a slice of your life! What's going on? Fill me in!
Karma
It's Good Karma Tuesday, and what did I do this morning? Inched forward so the person flying past me in the left lane (which was clearly marked to merge because of an accident up ahead) was forced to merge behind me rather than in front of me.
Just because they were ignoring clearly marked traffic signs (and the flashing lights of the tow truck) did that give me license to begrudge them a single car length of traffic space?
Grrr. Bad Erica. Hopefully your karma is doing better.
Also, I decided to try an experiment in positive thinking. I'd like to start (or, in this case, middle) each post with 3 things I'm grateful for with regard to the previous 24 hours. Et voila:
Three Thankful Things
1) Got YB (Younger Boy) to the bus stop on time and OG (Older Girl) to school on time, despite a somewhat frenetic start.
2) YB noticed that both the tires on the passenger side of my car were almost flat, which I would never have noticed on my own because a) I'm hopelessly unobservant, and b) I tend to get in on the driver's side.
3) Kind Truck Driver at the BP was willing to put out his cigarette long enough to show me how to inflate my tires (b/c I've never done so before--do you think that had anything to do with their deflatedness? *g) and now my car has 4 evenly pressured tires.
Personal Life
Being a soccer mom is exhausting!!! How come nobody ever told me that?? (Kidding! Kidding! Everybody on the planet warned me, including the kids' parents themselves. *g)
I went to a baseball game last night (red team vs blue team--little league) and today I gotta be at the bus stop at 2:30 for YB, help him with homework, then pick up OG at 3:30, then take her to volleyball, then take YB to soccer practice at 5:30, then sit on the bleachers until 7:30, then take him home where OG may or may not have remembered to pop the lasagna in the oven, and then once we've eaten, put YB to bed, see if OG needs help with her homework, and then fall into bed myself. Much like last night.
Writing Life
Er, what writing life?! If you read the previous paragraph, then, as you may have suspected, not a lot of writing is going on right now. Somewhere in the general range of zero. But I do have all day Saturday to myself, and I plan to celebrate the mid-point of my 2 week soccer-mom-ness with a decadent day of Touched revision.
Oh, and GKT prizes are on hold for 2 weeks until I get back to the comfy coziness of my casa. Then the random winning will commence anew. Cool?
Friends in the News
My pal C.L. Wilson (author of the new release Lord of the Fading Lands) has an interview up at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Go say hi!
I can't spill the beans until she does, but my pal Carrie Ryan has exceptionally good news to share... go bug her to post!
YOUR TURN: How's your karma? Any new news, or friends in the news? What are three things you're thankful for?
Personal Life: Halloween Approaches
You may or may not know that I looooove Halloween. I have so many wigs and costumes and plastic wounds and so on, it's ridiculous. Lurve it. Also love theme parks, so of course I had to check out Howl-O-Scream this weekend at the local theme park, Busch Gardens.
Personal Life: Project Soccer Mom
The 2 week soccer mom shenanigans are underway--I am armed with a fridge full of groceries and a color coded activity calendar. Wish me luck!
Writing Life: Chapter Meeting
This weekend, Rita Herron presented all day, members-only workshops for the Tampa Area Romance Authors. I learned a ton of great stuff about pacing, plotting, synopsis-writing, and even had an ah-ha moment regarding the opening of my current WIP. More on that later this week.
Writing Life: TATTF
The novel formerly known as Trevor & the Tooth Fairy has a new working title: Hi-Jinxed. (Which means I have to update my web site very soon!)
Writing Life: Touched
I hit the 35k point in my Touched revisions. 1/3 done, baby, yeah! Soon I'll have to think about finding a beta reader who likes reading historicals...
In other news...
* my pal C.L. Wilson just hit the USA Today list with her book Lord of the Fading Lands
* my pal Karen Rose spent 2 weeks on the NYT with her book Die For Me
* my pal Tessa Dare just made her first sale with Goddess of the Hunt
* In the very near future, I will be visiting my pal Lacey and my pal Darcy (schedule of events here)
YOUR TURN: Fill me in on what's going on in your neck of the woods! (And bear with me if there are big gaps in my ability to respond to comments--don't forget I'm a temporary mom for 2 weeks! *g) What's up with you writing-wise? Personal-wise? Halloween-wise? Spill!
Oh, and I'm over at the Manuscript Mavens blog today. Come say hi!
A big squee to my pal Tessa Dare who just made her first sale!
(Follow link for the call story)
And not outside... in my head. :-(
Sorry my posts have been so short this week. I've got the War of the Worlds raging in my sinuses. (Yes, Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning live in my nasal cavities. You didn't know?)
I had these big dreams of writing/revising a scene every single day from now until December (or I finish, whichever comes first--possibly the apocalypse) but how much did I write yesterday? Nada. Grrr.
I tried to make sense of my story board instead, and only succeeded in wasting three hours drawing a new one and making all new sticky notes and still stalled out three scenes from where I currently am, just like in the original story board. Turns out, plot blockage cannot be solved by changing the color scheme of your sticky notes. Who knew?!?
Today I find I have 3 crits from Maven Lacey in my Inbox, which makes me very happy. Even if I don't get to write/revise a new scene, I should at least be able to incorporate her suggestions. (Unless they say something like, "This sucks! Start over!" in which case I'll just sip more Theraflu and rebury myself in bed.)
P.S. I'm blogging at Romantic Inks today. Come say hi!
YOUR TURN: How are things on your end? Please tell me you're avoiding whatever evil autumn virus found its way from the North to the South! How's your WIP?
Exciting stuff coming up for me this weekend! I offered to watch a friend's 2 kids while they're off enjoying the first vacation they've taken since becoming parents.
The kids are old enough (8 and 15) that it's not babysitting in the usual sense, but young enough that they still need me to take them to school, soccer, softball, and volleyball.
I love kids of any age, but having never previously undergone the soccer mom experience (as I am currently child-free), I'm thinking of this as a chance to try-before-you-buy. *g
YOUR TURN: Those of you with kids (or friends with kids) anywhere near these two's age, dish up some advice! I want to keep my sanity, and make these two weeks fun. So far all I've got on my To-Do list are board games and carving pumpkins by night, client work by day. What else should I keep in mind?
Blew past the 25% point this morning with Touched!
Oh, and it's Good Karma Tuesday!
This week's winner is CELESTE.
Celeste, email me your snail mail addy, and indicate your choice of the following books:
 Edith Layton For the Love of a Pirate |  Judy Fitzwater No Safe Place |
 Shirley Karr Confessions of a Viscount |  Sidney Ryan High Heeled Alibi |
Although I obviously still haven't gotten around to redesigning my web site, I did finally update the Touched excerpt so it matches the current version of the manuscript, rather than the one I wrote last October.
Oh, and I'm blogging at the Manuscript Mavens today... come say hi! I dare you! =)
(yeah, at 10pm on a Saturday night. What can I say--I was up at 6am!)
Just dropping in to say I had a productive day of client work, followed by brunch, followed by costume shopping, followed by scrapbooking with a friend, followed by peanut butter brownies (what?! lunch is for losers!), followed by more client work, followed by incorporating my last three CP crits, thereby bringing the revise-o-meter up a few notches! Yay!
Making progress, slowly but surely...
Double-tagged! Both C.L. Wilson and Bill Clark have hit me with the 8 Things About You meme.
When I was hit with this meme back in April, the rules only required 5 things... It's growing!!
If you followed the 5 things about me link, you no doubt noticed that one was themed Creative Hobbies You Didn't Know Erica Had.
This time, I'm going to go with Eight Procrastinatory Addictions That Keep Erica From Working:
1.
Reading. To me, books are like movies, in the sense that it generally takes me a few hours from start to finish and I don't like to be interrupted until I reach The End. As in, seriously cranky when interrupted. Even when interrupting myself for necessities like food and coffee and sleep. To the point where I'll discover it's 4am or that I have three minutes to make a client meeting or that I missed lunch and it's already suppertime.
2.
I finally had to stop allowing myself to play this game because it managed to suck eight, nine, ten hours of my life away in whole chunks without me even noticing. You thought the reading thing was bad? I'd miss all three meals and still be click-clicking away with my mouse on: The Sims. Yes, the Sims. How I love building their houses and designing their neighborhoods and choosing their (clashing! mua ha haa) personalities and unleashing them upon each other...
3.
Spider solitaire. It's over in less than 10 minutes and yet somehow whole hours disappear when I fall off the spider solitaire wagon and allow myself "just one game". One suit is too easy and four way too hard, but two suits... ahhh, two suits is that perfect mixture of challenging, yet achievable. Bliss!
4.
Email. Although I'm known to take weeks in responding to it (because I am a singularly horrific correspondant) I read it as it arrives and am deeply sorrowful when it does not, often reduced to attacks of carpal tunnel as I obsessively click the Check Email button. (Especially when waiting for something specific, such as feedback from a CP or a note from my agent.)
5.
Chat. Oh, chat, you wily devil! I stay online in invisible mode just so I won't be bothered, and yet, if I have the darn thing open, at some point in the day I end up on it. Usually with a writing friend (although my mother just learned Yahoo Messenger when I flew up to visit last month, and she is quite proud of her newfound technie-ness) which means I get to trick myself into believing it's productive time because we're discussing our *stories* (...among other things.)
6.
Blogging. Ah, blogging. I made it a personal goal to blog every weekday, and what began as a moral obligation to follow through has now escalated into full-scale addiction. I have had to curtail my blogroll visitation, however, as the hours spent each day commenting on other people's internet lives was seriously curtailing my client productivity (which pays the mortgage) but even if I don't comment, I still like to *visit* all my favorite haunts... (And still sometimes find myself leaving little notes here and there!)
7.
Organizing. That may sound extraordinarily productive, but I assure you it is not. I am the most disorganized person ever, and so must over-organize to compensate. After hours of obsessive filing (or, more likely, re-piling) and so on, there may or may not be a significant difference to show for all that effort. To which I may, in a self-flagellatory fit of despondency, decide I cannot--cannot--do another moment of Real Work until I have this mess all straigtened up, and then three days will disappear down a vortex as I attack my whirlwind of an office. (The rest of my house actually stays presentable. It's the office that sends shivers down my spine.)
8.
A new yet deliciously dangerous addiction! play.blogger.com is quite possibly the easiest, most passive way you can waste whole hours while doing absolutely nothing. This web site is a constant, never-ending slideshow of real-time photos and images being uploaded to public blogs all around the world. Talk about random, people. So random, you just can't tear your eyes away! And should something catch your eye, just click on it, and you'll be taken immediately to that person's blog. (As if you needed more blogs on your blogroll! Addiction, I say! Addiction!)
YOUR TURN: As you know, I don't tag... but if you decide to do this meme, please leave your link in the comments so I can come visit you!
But not in that order! No, no, no! First drinks, then dessert (we were upstairs at the Bern's dessert room for four hours, people--yummmm!) and afterwards, once all the dessertage had been consumed, only then did we mosey down the street for actual nutrition. (If you can call ravioli verde in pesto sauce "nutrition".)
Above:
The crew!
(Minus CP Kel, who wished to remain anonymous.)
Right:
CP Kel
(who wished to remain anonymous *g)
More pix below:
P.S. Since I know you're dying to know, for dessert I had crème brulée and a warm vanilla soufflé with a side of ice cream. Mmmmmm. =)
And so far, so good. Princess cake for breakfast, courtesy of my friend Candace (with whom I'm lunching with later), followed by dessert first later tonight upstairs at the Bern's dessert room (check out the dessert menu here). w00t!
AND, not only did I win a book from Katrina earlier in the week, my bff Carrie F sent me a dome-squirrel-repellant-baffle-thingy, which has put me ahead in the War Against Those Damn Squirrels Who Steal All My Birdfood for the first time since I moved in, Bill sent me an awesome Greenwich calendar which I will be hanging right next to my computer, some friends bought me 6 pentas plants so I can start a butterfly garden, and I returned 4 out of 5 of my overdue library books. Yay!
The plan for today--besides all the dessert-eating and stuff--is to perhaps maybe possibly squeeze in a scene before my 10am client conference call. Then I can work most of the day knowing that I actually got some writing in first. And then in the afternoon, sneak outside and plant my pentas. (They're currently hanging out in the garage.)
Happy Birthday to all the other Libras, too!
First up: Darcy took 2nd place in the Historical category at the Maggie awards on Saturday! Yay! Squee! Go Darcy!
What did I do this weekend? Er, client work. With a 3 hour break for yard work. Not quite the WIPstravaganza I was hoping for, 'specially after hyping this weekend up as the big "it's your birthday, do whatever you want!" free-for-all.
*cries a little*
No big post today, b/c I'm really hoping to get enough client work done today that I can have tomorrow free (since that's the actual day I turn 16. Just kidding. It's my quince. *g)
Go congratulate Darc, then leave your comments here to make me jealous with wild tales of the crazy fun shenanigans you got up to this weekend. (Somebody had to have fun!)
Let's be friends!
Email me @:
erica [at] ericaridley.com
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