Sunday, February 5, 2012

Home...

Just back from a lovely, lovely week in Florida. (That's me and the boyfriend in the picture, with Pensacola Beach a great backdrop.) On the road, I got an exiting email from my Carina Press editors, Angela and Mallory, telling me ONE MORE SUMMER will be out in print as part of the Direct to Consumer (DTC) progam. It will also be available from the Harlequin website. I was--and am--soooo excited! I think it will be out in May, but don't really have any details yet.

On Tuesday, February 7th, http://www.wordwranglers.blogspot.com will host Lyrical Press Editor, Piper Denna for an online pitch session! Piper will be taking 1-3 line pitches.

The rules are simple:
1. Contest opens at 7:00 A.M. EST, February 7, 2012 and closes at 12:00 A.M. EST, February 8, 2012 2. 1-3 line pitches
3. 1 pitch per person

That's it. We're easygoing over at Wordwranglers, but if you break the rules, you'll be disqualified. Questions? Use the comments form below; at 7am February 7 a new post will be created and you'll make your pitches in the comments of that post. Don't pitch on this one - please! - we may not see it!!

Don't miss this chance to get your pitch in front of an editor!

Piper's bio:

Writing is a craft, a skill which improves with practice. Grammar can be learned.

Spelling...notsomuch. Either you're good at spelling, or you're not. And unfortunately, Spellcheck might be helpful, but let's face it: it's only as good as its programmers, and we all know how many problems certain software programs have. Which is why, no matter who you are, no matter what you write, you need an editor. If you don't believe me, ask Stephen King-we're very close. Like two peas in a pod.
(At least, in my mind, which I mean in a completely un-stalkerlike way.)

Now that I'm done name-dropping... Books have always been my thing. And I've been a writer since I could pick up a pencil. My thoughts didn't turn toward writing professionally until about 2005, when I wrote three novels. Through a couple of critique groups and thousands of crits, both given and received, I honed my craft quite a lot. So much so, in 2008 after watching two of my books go through the editing process at publishers, I got the wild idea (the wild, incredibly overconfident idea, in retrospect), that I could do that.

My poor authors have to learn my lingo: "Innerds"-deep third inner thoughts from a character, generally requested as a replacement for narrative ("She wondered why he hadn't arrived yet" comes off much stronger as "Where the hell was he already?") or "Holding Pattern", which I type as a shortcut to remind an author to mix up sentence structure, rather than going with a repetitive subject/predicate format every time.

And I still write. (When I have time, and when I can tranquilize that inner editor enough to shut her up so I can type.) My characters must endure extensive suffering and conflict, and sometimes they do things certain readers don't approve of, but they always get their happy ending.

What kind of books do I prefer to edit? Deep conflict, relatable characters, believable plots, and a strong romantic element. Because romance makes the world go round. Right?

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

http://www.piperdenna.com/
http://www.lyricalpress.com/piper_denna.php

Labels: Harlequin DTC, One More Summer, Pensacola Beach