I would like to do an article on different writers – aside from book authors – not that I have anything against them, seeing how I am one, but I know how that mind works (to a degree) and I have a plethora of folks I can ask if my feeble little mind doesn’t come up with a suitable answer. What I would like know is how song writers, comedians, film writers, magazine writers delve into their craft. I would like to compare and contrast the different creative endeavors and to see where you get your inspiration and motivation, the obvious and not so obvious.

The article will go into two different newsletters. One newsletter will be for the quarterly newsletter Trinity Writer's Workshop sends out to a multitude of writers, editors and agents. Also I will submit it to my RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter’s newsletter Yellow Rose RWA (the website, at the moment, is under construction, but the monthly newsletter is still up and running) which goes to all the members in my chapter as well as on a loop for other chapters to pick up said article (I have had several other articles picked up, in several other states). AND I hear there may be a new blog with some excellent writers going live soon and I’ll bet money it will end up on there *wink, wink*.

If you are interested in being interviewed, having exposure to different groups and possibly creating a fan-base from a never before tapped market to your work please e-mail me at my e-mail addy and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

Dennie McDonald aka Denise Belinda McDonald – author

die a quick death... when you get a head cold over the weekend.

I am feeling slightly better but my progress was slowed considerably. I did take tons of notes, so time was not all wasted. But idleness does not sit well with me... believe that or not.

yeah I am a whiner ... so sue me..... or better yet, send chocolate and hot guys names Sven or Guenter - my pool boy is MIA

Or
better even still... tell me
he is considering my interview and wants to meet.....

I wrote like a demon all the beggining of the month, then kerplunk. . . 28,000 words later and I got stuck. All the flow was diverted to a trickle and I lost interest, not completely but it weren't coming easy and I had to do something else . . . so . . . I sewed.

I made four rows on a quilt I am working on - and it's a big one so it takes a while. I made four necklaces and three bracelets while I watched disk five in my "Hart to Hart - the first Season".

Not unproductive just not writerly. HOWEVER: I have been working on a couple of proposals this week and cleaning up a couple of other works to get out - so back on track. And I am thinking of Nanowrimo come Novemeber - what to write - I like to prepare ahead!

update - five minutes later . . . I should have also mentioned - I have so been blog lazy - and I feel terrible about that. I really and truly thought it would be so much easier around here once the kiddoes were back in school - what was I thinking?!?!?!

Aside from the obvious with wheelchair boy - Mini-me has had no one to talk to and did you know a 4-y-o could talk for six straight hours and NOT run out of anything to say - thank goodness for the four hours a week that he has speech - which is the reason he talks so dang much

And let's not get me started about the fact that it was 117 degrees Friday (according to the van) when I went to sit in front of the school for 30 minutes to pick up the kids . . . yeah I know - poor Dennie! But the Dodge Sauna has helped to shed a few extra pounds in shear sweat . . . gotta find the silver lining in it all, right SJ!

The doc took heir's left cast off - WOOHOO!!!

He cannot start on the crutches until next week - but hey, putting a sneaker on after the appointment today was the most exciting thing he's done in a while!

3 weeks we go back to look at the right and he might get to keep that cast off too!!!

it's been a long week - I needed a chuckle....

dang this has been a hectic week...

we've had pink eye, a birthday, first day of school for youngest, two meet the teachers, cub scouts, vacationing doctors... and a damn migraine!

but it's Friday now right?

I thought things would slow down when school started ... wrong-o

It's called quiet....

all the kids are at school *squeeeee*

Fear Of Success…

I have heard that a writer’s greatest fear is not of failure but of success. I laughed the first time I heard it. Fear of failure is an easy problem to understand. Fear of success, that’s just down right silly. However, the more and more I thought about it, it made sense, but if you stop and examine it, the fear is pretty much the same thing as fear of failure because once you have published, your level of expectations shift from “what if” to “what now”.

Before publication, you can take all the time you need/want to write a scene over and over again. You can crank out a non-edited book in a month or take three years to tweak and spiff-up a four-hundred page novel. You can write in six different genres from YA to Sci/Fi to Romantic Suspense and switch back and forth between them all to your hearts content. You can even start and stop over twenty manuscripts when your writer’s ADD kicks in (I know I did).

Once you are published however, your editor may want a follow-up to your novella and maybe another to fit into an anthology with fellow authors. You are on deadlines and have guidelines to adhere to. You may be asked to stick one genre so as not to confuse your readers. And you have expectations that before publication you lamented, “If only I had those problems.” But once close or already there, you get sweaty palms and heart palpitations at the words, “send me a proposal.”

A published author has proven they can do it and are expected to do it again and depending on their publisher with a certain level of regularity. Publishers don’t want a one-book-wonder. They want a bankable name who has a readership who will purchase subsequent works.

But what happens when you, a published author, sits and stares at a blank page because you cannot make up your mind what your heroine looks like or if you have a strong enough plot? Or worse yet you are one-hundred and thirty pages into a book and you think, “Damn this is crap. What was my editor thinking when she bought my other books?” (not that this is happening to me, no never.) You may worry that your second release is due out soon and you fear that NO ONE will buy it or the third book. It stifles creativity to the point of considering a career change. “Would you like fries with that?”

From what I have heard of authors, this is not uncommon in the least regardless if they have three or thirty-three books under their belt. As far as I can tell, though, there is only one way to get past this fear (well two, but offering fries with the Big Mac might not be for everyone). Write, write and write some more. Don’t let yourself fall out of the habit or get so far behind that your editor has forgotten your name. Write. It’s what you do.


This had been a dramatization – no authors were harmed in the writing of their neuroses. Please join us next week when we delve into the voices inside you head: “You want me to do what with my keyboard?!?!”

1. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at all.

3. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from holiday on 4 April. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

4. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $0.09 for each additional word in your message.

5. The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again.

6. Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system... You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

7. I've run away to join a different circus.

AND, FINALLY, THIS ONE TAKES THE CAKE:

8. I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons... When I return, please refer to me as 'Margaret' instead of 'Steve'.

School starts today!! WOOHOO!!!

I am far too happy - of course we haven't tackled the getting-into-school-in-a-wheel-chair yet nor the reverse version for pick up . . . so ask me if I am as happy after. . .

Mini-me starts twice a week for three hours next week - can you say heaven?!?!?!

update - after school . . . OMG - you have got to be kidding me. Thank goodness I left early - I wanted to see how parents arrived at school (last year Heir rode home w/ a friend or walked I only picked him up once when it rained - thank goodness Spare + 1 was riding home w/ someone else otherwise it would have taken me forever to get to that blocked wheelchair slot having to pick him up 15 minutes befoe the otehr two get out). I have said it once I will say it AGAIN - PEOPLE ARE STUPID! I got permission from the school to park in the wheelchair parking in the teachers' lot as other parents are NOT allowed in there - well, wouldn't you know it not only did they line up NOT IN PARKING SPACES - they blocked me in - and blocked the other wheelchair slot - then the guy had the nerve to be pissed when I wanted out - HELLO - YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!!!!

. . . let's not even get me started about sitting at a stop sign for TEN MINUTES because people cannot read the arrows on the drive and are going the wrong way essentially blocking me in - ARGH!!! Did I mention the fact it is 104 degrees outside - 30 minutes in a van w/ Mini-me will drive anyone nutso. . . let alone in 104 degrees and stupid drivers!

Hopefully it will level off next week as most of these folks will not want to pick up their children but make them walk.

Show up naked
With beer & chicken wings -
& Don't block the TV.

. . . seen that person that could be you … in drag?

I was watching the X-games and there was a guy (I’d tell you who, but if you don’t see the resemblance I don’t wanna feel stoopid!) every time they interviewed him (which was quite often) he would pop off a quick satirical retort. Never once was he serious. And I thought, OMG – that’s me.

I may be able to keep them from always popping out of my mouth – though I do have to try really hard – ask Sandy. The first two days in Atlanta I couldn’t stop them at all – luckily she thinks I am funny so it was okay – well, until I started making fun of her age – and before you start harassing me for harassing her, let me just say, I get it just as ferociously at home from my kids (Gawd mom, you are so old, Did they even have color TV when you were little – YES you little brats – it was ALL in color when I was born) – turn about and all that…

Back to me…
I am sure it is a defense mechanism, to be sarcastic as much as possible. And according to my Yankee aunt – it is totally genetic – I have a family trait – woohoo! I do it because I cannot take myself seriously – if I did I might not like what I found – I mean, hello, I am a thirty-ish stay-at-home-mom – who writes hot romance novels – that in and of itself is an oxymoron right? What does a woman w/ four kids know about sex and romance?

So anyway… I got a kick outta find the guy-me. Wonder if he would see the humor in me being his alternate drag self – hehehehe

hehehe...

from my friend Jim

The wife told me we couldn't afford beer anymore and I'd have to quit drinking. Then I caught her spending $85.00 on make-up, $150 for a cut & color, $30 for a manicure, $40 for a pedicure, $50 on vitamins, $900 on clothes and $600 for a gym membership. I asked how come I had to give up stuff and nother. She said she needed it to look pretty for me. I told her that was what the beer was for.

I don't think she's coming back.

The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

The winners are:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weightyou have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a> flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation whiledrunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in whichyou absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you upafter you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearingadopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles hisconversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand):The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up ontothe roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxershorts worn by Jewish men.

The rest of my books from conference finally came in . . .

DRUM ROLL PLEASE

I came home w/ 65 books - not my biggest take - I got 114 when it was in Dallas - but then, we had driven across town and had a truck to load everything into afterwards! (did I mention it is in Dallas again next year - YES!)

I will say not all are for me - about 5 are for Cece and 3 or 4 others are going to whomever wants them in the chapter. . . I am not so stingy - hehe.

But yes I am a Book Whore - sorry - This puts my book total over (PLEASE DO NOT READ ON IF YOU ARE RELATED TO ME OR MY CHILDREN AS I DON'T WANT TO SEND YOU INTO APOPLEXY!) the total is over 1100 books. Yes folks, and I know this because I have them catelogued in a spread sheet - no, no I am not insane, okay well maybe a little, but I did this because I ended up buying repeat copies of books. This way I know what I have and thanks to excel I know where to look for them. . . hehe. (Let's disregard the 150 or so that DH sold on e-Bay . . . that I now what to buy back - shhhh don't tell . . .)

okay yesterday I waxed intelligent about my trip to Atlanta . . . today let me tell you what REALLY happened . . .

for the most part I managed to remain calm, cool and collected around such a stash of great authors, but let's just remember I am after all . . . me.

I think I had a DOH moment every single day;

Tuesday - we arrived, had little to do so we rode the elevator up to the 47th floor - I, being me, held my arms up and yelled, "WOOHOO" the whole way up. Can't help myself.

Wednesday - They had a literacy autographing. I snag a Sabrina Jefferies' book and Jill's book and extricated myself to the side of the room to avoid the crushing crowd - yes it was crowded. The crowd splits and SJ comes running up to me. "OMG Denise come here." I am thinking Nora wants drinks with us after the signing as I could think of nothing else that would put a look like that on her face. She leads me to an empty seat and I am all like, "Yeah, and..." she points to the name tag as she hops up and down and claps her hands (okay we can probably both use this one - LOL) and I all but scream - it was none other than ME! Apparently when I asked about them getting my book (which they couldn't) they assumed I was coming with my own copies to sign and had a place all set out for me - OMG!!! I so totally stole the name plackard - hehe

Thursday - okay - I think I was pretty calm this day - but I had two on Friday so I will pretend this one was Thursday. . . At one of my chapters meeting, for a breakfast, I stood up w/ my "rock on" hands and said woohoo when I won the door prize - doh indeed. And so NOT appreciated.

Friday - can you say MOJITOS . . . 'nuff said!

Saturday - I was talking to an Editor from Harlequin. during the workshop, she mentioned she doesn't like cursing on the first page which incidentally is how the one I had submitted to her starts ("Where the hell is she?") to which I told her I was like F&*$. We laughed then she glanced over at the mic and said I hope this isn't still recording . . . whoopsy!

Sunday - the day we are going home - you wouldn't think I could do anything to embarrass me or SJ . . . but oh you'd be wrong. Getting on the train to take us to the airport, my duffle fell off the top of the suitcase essentially trapping my hand on the handle. As I try to right it, the train moves and whamo-bamo-no-pictures-please I am FLAT on the FLOOR of the MARTA - being that I am the way I am, I got to my knees held up my best "rock on" hands and yell - "She sticks the landing." the crowd of on-lookers laugh - not that ANY ONE OF THEM tried or offered to help me up mind you. (I have a HUGE bruise on my foot and one across the top of my thigh that is about seven/eight inches long - sheesh!)

I told the guy after the train ride was over who said he enjoyed the morning entertainment I was glad to have obliged but he had to pay for anything from that point on. I am sure I am forgetting something - you really can't take me out in public w/o heavy medication - did I mention MOJITOS - LOL!

And don't even get me started on the Sandy and Denise show - we had people cracking up everywhere - maybe we should take it on the road?!?!