Tag Archive for: Nora Roberts

Clicking Our Heels: Shadowing Any Writer – Dead or Alive!

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Clicking Our Heels: Shadowing Any Writer –
Dead or Alive!
The Stiletto Gang members admire each other,
but for the fun of it, we all explained what writer (dead or alive) we’d want
to shadow and why.

Judy Penz Sheluk: Truman Capote when he
was researching In Cold Blood. It was
a different time, before 24/7 news cycles, and he paved the way for true crime.
I’ve seen the movie Capote a dozen
times.

T.K. Thorne: Shakespeare, to plum the
mysteries of his genius.

Bethany Maines: James Patterson maybe.
Just to see his marketing machine work. But in general, writing is pretty dang
boring. I think possibly “shadowing a writer” would turn out to be code for
staring at them while they type.

Shari Randall: Agatha Christie, of
course! I’d love to ask her for plotting tips and I imagine she’d always stop
writing at tea time, just like I do.

A.B.
Plum: Jane Austen strikes me as a woman who wrote despite the obstacles society
put in her way. Her acerbic view of her society spurs me to write about family
and place and love.

Dru Ann Love: Linda Castillo. She
writes about a group of people that I would never think would be as evil and
dangerous and she makes it believable.

Linda Rodriguez: Virginia Woolf would
be my choice because she wrote groundbreaking novels, crystalline nonfiction,
and wickedly funny letters and diaries and she knew all of the most fascinating
people of the time (though she and her husband were the most fascinating of all
of them).

J.M. Phillippe: Oooh. Probably
Shakespeare so I can finally put the debate about if he was real (and really
wrote everything he is attributed to writing) to rest.

Juliana Aragon Fatula: When I was a
teenager, Pearl S. Buck made me fall in love with Asian Culture, people, land,
language. I would love to tell her how much her writing inspired me and led me
to believe a woman could write and be published.

Sparkle Abbey:

Mary Lee Woods: This question is so
difficult! First, dead writers. I’d love to shadow Agatha Christie and I’d love
to have a conversation with Mark Twain. Such unique views of the world and
their views clearly influenced the stories they told. Secondly, living writers.
I’d love to spend a day shadowing Nora Roberts. She seems to have so many
stories in her head and works on multiple projects at one time. How does she do
it? I have many stoires in my head, but the ability to work on them at the same
time escapes me. I suspect it comes down to a brilliant brain, a love for
storytelling, and a solid work ethic. But… if there’s a secret…I’d love to know
what it is!

Anita Carter: That’s hard. Can I pick
two? Lisa Gardner because I struggle with plotting. She’s a master at it, and I’d
love to know her process. And Agatha Christie. From my understanding she’d
start with the murder, then move to the suspects. It’s very similar to how I
work, but I know there are ways I could improve my process.

Kay Kendall: Shakespeare. What a
fertile mind he had.

Debra H. Goldstein: Anne George. Not
only was she a wonderful humorous Agatha award winning mystery writer and the
Alabama poet laureate, she wrote one of my favorite literary works, This One and Magic Life. She also was
generous with her time bringing the beauty of words and writing to children.

Words

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By AB Plum

Expecting Kay Kendall’s byline? Kay’s on hiatus this week, and I’m subbing.

Years ago (after we stopped chiseling words of wisdom in stone and around the invention of the printing press), I wrote a full page of “high school-news” every week for my daily newspaper.

Like Hemingway and others, I created on my Royal manual typewriter. I met my deadline every week—no matter what. I usually had a minimum of six to eight articles—laid out in columns. Memory says I earned about $.02/word so I sometimes padded my news.

Thinking about those journalistic feats, I realize I was never at a loss for words—or for topics. Now, some days, I find myself reaching for the right word or subject.

In turn, I wonder how many words now exist in English?

Google that question (or variations on it) and you’ll come up with differing views—some of which are pretty close to nit-picking.

Other questions then arise.
  • How many words does the average American use every day?
  • Is it scientifically accurate that men have a more limited vocabulary than women?
  • What’s the most common verb in English?
  • How many words does the average person speak/read a minute?
  • How many words can the typical six-year-old read/speak?
  • How many words do we use in a typical day on our cell phones?

You can see, the list goes on and on and on without asking how many words a writer writes every day? Or how many words in a 300-page novel? Or how do we writers decide on chapter length? Or how many words in a typical sentence? (Ask Hemingway, then read Stephen King). 

And OBTW, who, historically, is the most prolific writer in the English language?

I always thought it was Nora Roberts. Check here for some surprises. Here are a few more authors who, taken as a group, must’ve have used every word in our Mother Tongue.

Our Stiletto Gang blogs tend toward between 300-800 words. In these busy times, that seems about “write” to me. While I could wax on about this subject, I won’t. I am, after all, subbing for Kay. Expect her back on the third Wednesday in June.

In the meantime, enjoy a good book, letting the power of words take you into a new place, meet new characters, solve crimes, travel into space, slay a dragon, fall in love, and maybe shed a few tears.

Who’da thunk 26 letters could bring forth such awesome experiences?
****
AB Plum writes dark, psychological thrillers. She turned out about 500,000 words in the seven-volume MisFit Series. She gave up counting how many words she sliced and diced during edits. She lives in Silicon Valley.














The Highlight Reel

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By Laura Spinella
So here’s the first thing you should know: I didn’t win. Hey, it’s okay.
I was the true newbie in RITA’s Best First Book category. In my case, it really
was just an honor to be nominated. Overall, my trip to the annual Romance
Writers of America conference and subsequent RITA Awards was a success. I didn’t
know what to expect going in. RWA has about 13,000 members, of which 2,000
attend the annual convention. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it.  However, go prepared for a whirlwind of
activity.  
Authors Shelley Coriell, me & Erin Quinn
      The workshops are inspiring
and the authors in attendance more than friendly. I had a chance to meet my good FB friend Barbara Claypole White whose debut novel, THE UNFINISHED GARDEN is out later this month.  She was kind enough to ask me to blurb her beautifully written gentle romance. I made several new acquaintances
along the way and rubbed chair legs with Nora Roberts. If anyone is curious,
she’s very gracious and genuine—even if your chair leg comes within inches of
her toes.  Each year RWA gives out the
Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. 
It gave me pause, her chair leg wickedly close to mine, that she was
there to witness the bestowment of an award named for her.  How many people have an award named for them
while, they’re not only living, but still very much in the game?  I think it gives new meaning to the word “successful.”
Recipient Beverly Jackson, who has penned more than 90 novels, gave a warm and
insightful acceptance speech. 
Other highlights included Stephanie Laurens keynote
address. Granted, I don’t attend too many packed banquet rooms gatherings, but
I’d say her message is what good speeches are all about.  Her topic: weathering the future of
publishing and what that means to us as writers.  As mentioned, the workshops were top shelf, a
vast array of topics that anyone with a keyboard and an idea could use to help
channel those bare bone thoughts into paragraphs and pages. While I didn’t
attend the History of Contraception workshop, I did stop and take picture of the sign. I
sent it to my BFF, who happens to be an OB-GYN. She’s thinking of submitting
her own workshop pitch for the 2013 RWA convention. My newest WIP includes a psychic
element, so I made sure to attend a workshop on the paranormal. Foot-in-mouth
as the workshop leader quickly corrected my faulty assumption that paranormal
and psychic were related. Clearly one is werewolves while the other just
channels them. On the whole, the workshops were Red Bull lecture style,
designed to make you want to run back to your room, shut out the activity, and
get busy writing. In that regard, it was wholly well worth the price of
admission.
Onto the lady in question, the RITA Awards.  Beforehand, I had dinner with my Berkley editor,
Leis Pederson. We’d never met in person, so I was nervous in a curious way.  I was anxious to put a face to the person who took
a chance on me and the characters I cast in BEATUIFUL DISASTER.  I think it went well, particularly for someone
who spends an inordinate amount of time scripting both sides of the dialogue. I
didn’t spill anything and managed to keep the conversation going until the
lights dimmed at the awards, all eyes turned to the clever romantic movie
montages on the big screens.  
Winners came and went; my table filled with RITA
finalists, but alas not a winner among us.  By evening’s end we were all in very good
company.  I’m not sure if I’ll get to
another RWA conference soon.  During their
annual meeting, RWA decided that my category, Novel with Strong Romantic
Elements, will be eliminated after 2013. Thinking about that now, it’s really too bad. I was just
starting to feel at home.     
Laura Spinella is the author of BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, a 2012 RITA finalist, NJRWA Golden Leaf Winner, Best First Book; Desert Rose RWA Golden Quill winner, Best First Book and Wisconsin RWA finalist for Best Mainstream Novel.  Visit her at lauraspinella.net.