This And That

Occasionally, I come across some really great things that might interest you all. Normally I post them to various loops but this time thought I would share them with you here at my blog instead of my normal diatribe. LOL!

Hooks That Will Never Work

Okay, we all know one of my recent articles was about having great hooks. How about the contest here http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ which caters to those hooks that are awful. Some of these had me rolling in my chair they are so funny.

Tron Before Tron

Apparently, the man who went on to direct the blockbuster decided it needed some animation to sell the story line. Not bad for the mid-eighties if you ask me. Go see for yourself:
http://scifiwire.com/2010/06/thing-prequel.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The True Extent

This just makes me so sad and sick to my stomach but it’s the truth of living with technology. Some things have just got to stop. See the video at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/38029000#38028832

No Sex In Space

What? Right...do they really think people won’t get it on up there? Some folks are really short sighted to say the least. Here’s the video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/38029000#38008691

I want to know just who thought this one up...LOL!

Vampire Awareness Month

Okay, I’d never heard about this one but apparently someone has worked out all the details. Go check it out at: http://networkedblogs.com/5mYve

Agents Raise Stakes in eBook Royalty Battle

This is interesting only because someone is trying to lower my royalty rate. Are they kidding? Check it out here: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/122527-agents-raise-stakes-in-e-royalty-battle-.html.rss

9 Underused Items in Sci-Fi

Need some more bling for your novels? Go see what Syfy says are underused topics as listed here: http://scifiwire.com/2010/07/9-untapped-ideas-sci-fi-s.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Jason Mamoa as Conan

Oh, lord, one of my favorite hunks is coming back as Conan the Barbarian. And he has long hair again. Sigh. Although it isn’t a great picture, it does show some muscle. LOL!
http://scifiwire.com/2010/07/bloody-new-conan-photo-of.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

An Author In Need

If you’ve never read the FREE, yes, I said FREE Dunvegas about a paranormal resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, you need to Google it and download it. One of the author’s, matter of fact Dunvegas was his brain child, S.J. Willing is having severe medical problems with no insurance. Go here to read the whole story: http://digs.by/9sUTT3

Pet of the Week

I so want this little guy as a companion to my puppy, Jasper. What do you think? Check him out here: http://tiny.cc/AT-ATPuppy

Finally, I was mentioned elsewhere for one of my blogs this week. I was really amazed that the people at Whipped Cream tweeted about me. I must have done something good. Sorry this was so short as well as being full of things from all over the web. Must have been the ten thousand, yes that’s right 10,000 plus actually, word day I had on Wednesday. I just had to finish the story I was working on because the characters just wouldn’t shut up! But it also wiped me out! LOL!

See ya tomorrow!

Lynn

When You Comment

Wow! I’m going on a month without missing a day of blogging. During this month, we have explored everything from me and my family to the many joys of writing. Or not. Some days have made me wonder if I’ve given too much information or not enough but overall I think the project is a success.

Over the next few months, I will add guest spots here and there, so you all won’t get so bored with just me. While I’m good at yacking, I don’t know everything and I realize this more and more as I get older. Now if you breathe a word of this to my children, I’ll swear I don’t know what you’re talking about...LOL! Really, I’ve been telling them this for years especially now since my eighteen-year-old has decided I’m a fount of information then argues every point.

One of the things I want to let each and every one of you know is that I read all your comments and the response you see is a personal one from me. I don’t have someone do this blog for me and even if I had a helper, it would still be my job to write the blogs and then look at all the comments. If I expect you to buy my books occasionally, you can expect me to be responsive to any of your comments.

It is important to be to show you that your time is just as valuable as mine. While I may write my blogs in bunches of three to seven at a time, you read it every day. One of the most important things you all do for me is to provide a break from my writing. Sometimes, if I can go out and just write a little about something else, it will fall back in place for me and I’ll be able to get back to the story at hand.

I also wanted to let each of you know that I love your comments. You inspire me to be better, to write more and to be as good as I can be with my stories. You also give me new ideas and take me down paths I might never have gone if you didn’t write your comment. I could not do this without and I would be fooling myself to say I could.

So I thank each of you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate and value each one of you as a reader and a person. Keep up the good work.

I wasn’t going to include a quote but this one so fits me right now it isn’t funny:

The only cure for writer's block is insomnia. ~Merit Antares

When it gets hot here in the summer, my sleep quota goes down. Not that I don’t need it, I do but the heat keeps me up no matter what happens. This year I don’t have to worry about the joys of menopause, which heats you from the inside out. Nope, this year I worry about the actual temperature and it’s weird. See, my house is pleasant in the day.

Like right now, I am sitting in front of my huge picture window looking outside and am as cool as a cucumber. Come about eight o’clock in this house and things heat up as the brick finally gets warm. And stays there. Sigh. It leaves for many a night where I can’t get to bed until somewhere around two. Right now, my personal alarm clock is set for only about five to six hours sleep for some reason. Again, I think it’s the heat as my room is on the backside of the house and it tends to get the morning sun. You’d think it would dissipate by nightfall.

No such luck. But I’m putting the time to good use and writing. Blogs, books, you name it, you can find me right in front to this machine typing my little heart out. What do you do when you have a sleepless night? I can’t wait to hear what you all have to say.

See you tomorrow!

Lynn

The Winners Are...

Today we’re celebrating...not only is it almost July 4...but in just two days I will have done my blog for thirty consecutive days. Now this may not be a milestone to you but it is for me. I know we’ve talked about my squirrel moments and it’s sad when I have more than two a day. Some days are worse than others and the closer I get, the more I want to scream squirrel. LOL!

But today there is something more than me and my squirrel moments. Today is the day I announce the winners to my first monthly contest. I’ve read all the comments, processed all the numbers and had the DH randomly pick a number from my total number of commenters. First of all, I want to thank you. This is the first month where I had a total of 81 unique comments. This is a great day!

You never know if a blog is going to strike a chord with readers and while it’s not a huge number, it’s great for me. Thanks yet again!

Now on to the important stuff...drum roll please...the winner of my first monthly blog contest is Author Guy! You will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARe and your choice of book from my backlist. The person who posted the most comments is Carol L! You get a special prize packet to be sent to you and a book from my backlist. Thanks again to everyone who commented. Next month will be even better...promise!

Winners please email me privately at lynncrain@cox.net and we’ll work out the details.

Onward to today’s quote:

Loafing is the most productive part of a writer's life. ~James Norman Hall

That’s a lot of what I’m going to be doing today. See, I finished the book I was working on and today is my recuperation day. Yippee!! No, I haven’t told anyone but my editor about this book and the moment I know more, the moment I’ll tell you.

The thing I can say...it’s in my favorite genre...so you tell me.

See you tomorrow!

Lynn

From Blush Queen to Erotic Romance Writer

When reading a great story about another author’s blush meter, I got a good laugh as when I was growing up, I was known as the blush queen. It wouldn’t take me much to get me to a number 10 on that author’s 'Blush-O-Meter' scale when I was younger. LOL! I think I’m the only high school senior in my state to be photographed with the then President Gerald Ford who could compete with the sun. It has it good and bad points. 

That story also reminded me of some other times in my life when the 'Blush-O-Meter' would have been a fun thing to have. Or NOT! LOL!

The first one was when I was asked to bring my very first completed book to a college gang party. These were the people I had learned to become an adult with and I had a lot of apprehension. These people had embarrassed me and held me when I cried or when I was sick. There were many good and bad memories with these folks.

I told the DH, Gordon, and he convinced me it was all good. But as we got closer to the party, the more trepidation I was feeling.

Once there, the manuscript was being handed around and then I started getting comments like, 'great job' and 'I've never know anyone who completed a whole book before' and then I saw one of my old college boyfriends reading it.

He walked up to me and stated, "You know if you'd done that to me, maybe we'd still be together."

I could feel my face turning warm and I had to be very careful here. If I said the wrong thing, he’d think I still liked him or something. "Maybe I would have if you deserved that type of treatment."

"Gordon must be a very lucky man." He walked away as the DH walked up.

"What's wrong with him?" DH asks.

"He got to the love scene."

"Oh."

"He said you were a lucky guy."

"He did." DH puffs up and says, "I think I'll go talk to the guys."

The college girl friends came up. "What's up with the guys? And how about you…you’re blushing!"

"They're all talking about the love scene."

"No wonder you’re blushing!"

I looked at them and arched a brow. "Maybe I should remind all of your husbands, we all went to college together. After all I didn’t win a knockwurst contest." Every other woman at the party had a face redder than mine. LOL! Revenge is soooo sweet!

The next big time that I can remember me really, really blushing was when I wrote my first BDSM story about six years ago now. It was also the last time that I can remember me having that particular affliction. I had to do a lot of what I considered covert research as I prepared to write this story of a woman's darkest fantasies. Finally, I got the courage to just sit down and get it done. The whole day, I would write a sentence and get up to pace, wondering what I was doing since I knew nothing of that world. Still, I plugged away at it until I eventually got it right. It was the first thing I sold to eXtasy books. I was really surprised.

But half way into the process, my husband shocked me by showing up in my office. My face went from zero to RED in the span of less than 10 seconds.

"Something wrong?"

"No, why are you asking?"

He gives me his quirky smile and says, "There are only a few times I’ve ever seen you blush in twenty years."

I sat still. "Really?"

"Yeah. It’s mainly when I caught you doing something you shouldn’t and when you’re thinking about sex."

I gasped. "What makes you think I’m doing something I shouldn’t? I’m an adult."

"With an antiquated idea about sex sometimes. If you’re going to really be an erotic romance writer, you have some changing to do." He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "I’m sure that practice will help!"

I roll my eyes and tell him nothing is going to happen until I finish this story.

That very day, my whole attitude changed. I wasn’t ashamed of my writing at all. It was just that I was brought up in the Bible belt and as anyone who has grown up there knows, the fear of God and sex can be pounded into you from the moment you walk. And lordy, the brimstone…LOL! There is absolutely nothing wrong with sex. It’s a natural thing and we have such a backward sexual outlook in America that it took some retraining on my part to not let it worry me at all. Now, I barely bat an eye. There's a private me and a writer me.

I advertise my very sexy books all the time and I do write to every heat level as the story dictates. I am passionate about all my books as every author should be. If you’re embarrassed about it, you don’t need to be writing it at all. I write what I love and nothing compromises that position. Sometimes my characters want the full Monty and others, they want it very sweet.

Now it’s my DH’s turn to blush every time he drives my car. My license plate says ERWRTER and he’s been asked many times what it means. I'll show you all a picture sometime. He tells them the truth…it means…Erotic Romance Writer. The moment he tells the women, they get a gleam in their eye and say ‘Ah’ while the men just shake their heads and walk away, knowing they wouldn’t be caught dead in my car.

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

What’s In A Name?

Recently when I started a new series called ‘Protectors of the Earth,” I understood all of the stories in the series are about people who have the ability to use elemental power. You know what I’m talking about: Earth, Wind, Air and Fire.

It’s the stuff of legends. Think about the movies you know which use this type of force. Well, all the Star Wars movies use some type of elemental power. In them, it’s called the force and one has to be attuned to it before they can use it. Another story, The Fifth Element is very science fiction in nature but when it actually came to saving the world, they went back to the four elements. Then there’s one of my all time favorites, The Lord of the Rings series. If they don’t use elemental power and magic, I don’t know who does.

If you are fans of manga and anime, then you’ve seen plenty of elemental magic. Some of my favorites were Avatar, Naruto, InuYasha, Pokemon, and Sailor Moon. I could watch all those cartoons for hours. Also, Final Fantasy was based upon elementals. When I was designing this whole series, I really took into account just how Avatar was put together as it’s such a great story of the elements.

The whole concept is rampant in books and has been for years. Fantasy is strewn with those who can use elemental powers, some for good, some for evil. Some of my favorite stories have been based upon a Dungeons and Dragons type worlds. DragonLance was one of my favorite readings of all time. All nine books. LOL!

So, now it’s my turn to create fantastic characters and the first thing I realized was I had to name them for their element. Rather it was the second thing as I had the whole first book done before I had even planned the rest. What was strange is the fact the characters in the first book told me their names. I had had the heroine down as a one-liner for almost a year and every day she yelled at me for not doing more.

Something told me I needed to get this series into high gear. So I finish the first story in record time and realized there is a whole lot more to the story. I decide then it’s time to take the plotting class which I’ve talked about in previous blogs. Once there I knew if I were ever to finish this series, it would have to be plotted meticulously and simultaneously.

So, I start with the second book and before I know it, I have the basics for each of the subsequent stories. Then come the names. After lots of thought, I decided to do something I’ve never done before and actually name the characters for what they were going to be. I looked up names and pondered if I would actually name someone that. Believe me when I say some of them were very strange looking and sounding at first.

Still, I have in my possession eight of the coolest sounding character names one would ever find. The second book is called ‘Playing with Fyre’ and the heroine is Endellion Fyre. She’s nicknamed Endy. The hero’s name is Haydn Keegan. Every word has something to do with fire which is their element. Endellion actually means fire soul. How cool is that?!?

I then took it one step further and went to a website called ‘How Many of Me’ which tells you just how many people in the world have any given name. Very cool tool for an author. I loved the fact there are only 18 Lynn Crains in the US. But I really loved the fact there is only one or less person who is named Endellion Fyre. Uniqueness is a great quality for a character. People tend to remember unique.

Your character’s name is one of your novel’s or story’s greatest assets. Sometimes the characters scream out their names loudly and they will drown out anything you might say or want to say. If they allow you to plan things out, try naming them for who they are, what they do, what they like or what ever floats your boat. Make sure they like it and you like it. You will know what a character’s name should be because it will feel right.

I went through at least three to five name choices for each of my elemental characters. I’d put the names together and let them roll, or not roll, off my tongue to see if my people were meant to have that name. Once everything clicked, my characters not only had a mission they became real to me in a way that still has me in its grip.

Now that each of them are firmly planted into my mind, I have to finish the stories. From time to time, I’ll give you all glimpses into this new and fantastic world I’m creating.

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

Simple Motivation Techniques

Let me apologize as I’m having the allergy attack from hell and can’t seem to wrap myself around the written word today.

Which leads me right into my topic…what’s a writer to do when they can’t write?

I’ve been recently asked that question by many writers and I’ll tell you exactly like I tell them: It depends what you’re writing and what the problem is.

First, if you’re ill, you just do the best you can. Since I have allergy days quite frequently in both the spring and the fall, I make sure my daily word count is exceeded so that I can make up for those days of the pounding head.

Now, if it’s because I can’t get my Muse going, that in itself is a completely different thing. There are a few simple techniques I use to try and get things flowing again. Here’s my list:

Listen to music – when nothing comes, I will sit down and listen to music as I attempt to write. Again, the type of music depends upon what I’m writing. Something classical just won’t do if I’m writing a battle scene so I make the music appropriate to what I’m doing.

Write anything – the day doesn’t always start good and I don’t always start on my story right away. Sometimes, the best I can do has nothing to do with what I’m writing. So I just write. Usually by the end of the second hour, I’m back on track for the story.

Plot a new story – I have a lot of series going and sometimes the best thing for me is to move away from the story I’m working on and start plotting the next one. For many of my stories, I am a pantser which means I just work it out in my head and sit down to write. However, when I’m working on a series I have to make sure that I don’t violate something I’ve previously done in the series. This also allows me to plan new and different things for the books.

Read – I can’t say this enough, read the genre that you write. If you’re doing urban fantasy, read urban fantasy, if you’re doing futuristic, read futuristic. You must know your market and you will never gain that knowledge unless you read the genre.

Take care of yourself – What I mean by this is get a massage, take a walk, talk to your kids, make love with your husband or significant other. It can’t all be about the writing because without you there would be no writing.

That’s’ about all I have today. Hope you get something from my ramblings.

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

A Bit On The Hook

One of the things I’ve been told over the years I do best is the use of a hook. It’s one of the things I learned very early on as a writer. I learned to have hooks in the beginning of chapters and the end of them as well. It took me years to perfect good hooks and I would like to pass some of what I know about the hook at the beginning of a book to new writers.

Of course, this is not the only way to start a book but it’s the most easily recognizable and in some ways, the easiest to learn.

Here’s my top ten list of best hooks in the world. See if you can guess who wrote them. The answers are listed below. They are, in no particular order:

1. Hunting vampires was a bitch.
2. He was running for his life.
3. It was a dark and stormy night.
4. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

Each one of those have special meaning for me as I read each of those books at a different time in my life. Realize that this list ebbs and flows like a river, changing with time and never standing still. Notice there is a mix of classic and contemporary pieces. Some are romance and some are not. But each of them have something so compelling which makes me want to read more. And read them I did, some more than once and a few of them I still read yearly if I can remember just where I left my latest copy. LOL!

So what comprises a good hook? Notice that with the ones I listed, there is not one standard theme. Some come from a character’s point of view and some don’t, some involve something personal and some don’t. So just what is it?

There are some constant elements each and every hook must have. They are:

• It must be compelling
• Should be a beginning – The reason I say should here is because some books have started with the ending and been quite successful.
• It can start with dialogue.
• It can start with action.
• It could be a contrast or something totally unexpected.
• It could be a character description or a description of a setting.
• It could be a humorous question or exclamation or even a regular question or exclamation.

Let’s look at some of mine now and see just what I do. The first is from a WIP called “Where’s My Underwear Anyway?” and it is a fun romp. It’s first direct, to the point and immediately brings you into the action.

“So…you really don’t know where your underwear might be?”

There are groups out that who say never start your novel with a question. But this question just begged for an answer. It puts the reader immediately on a quest for the missing underwear. It also brings to mind other questions: who has the underwear? how was the underwear lost? was the underwear misplaced?

Suddenly, a reader wants to know the answer to those questions.

Here’s another of my first lines. This is from a completed book which is part of the Blue Moon Magic world.

He had always been in this cage in one way or another. It was only recently they had decided to make it his permanent room.

Again, this one takes you immediately into a dilemma. You know someone is in a cage. You don’t know the how’s or the why’s but it just begs those questions.

Here’s another from my Santa’s Elves series. This is from last year’s book, An Elf’s Desire.

That human woman drove him crazy.

From just this first line, you know the person thinking is a man and that he isn’t human. Still, you wonder just what the human woman is doing to drive him crazy. It must be something good or he wouldn’t be thinking about it.

This last one is from another WIP called “Avenging Aingeal” and is a story of elemental magic.

No one knows where we came from really. We just…are. And there are so very few of us, roaming the earth, protecting the inhabitants these days.

This is from an omniscient POV but is still interesting in its own way. We want to know just who ‘they’ are and why we need protecting. Then one might want to know just how long have ‘they’ been protecting us because the way the sentence is constructed, it is implied that ‘they’ have been here for a long, long time. But one must read the story to know the all answers.

And this one has always been one of my personal favorites as it won quite a few contests with the most notable being at the Hawaii RWA conference. Leslie Wanger picked it as one of five from the whole room full of people.

“Damn, I’m going to lose another one.”

This from my complete book, Midnight Run about a woman off-road racer. It was my first book ever, all 72K of it. And it’s set on my computers in one form or another for the past 15 years at least. It has a great hook but a saggy middle with a kick-ass end. But that’s left for another blog.

And here are the answers to my original hook question. See how many you get right!

1. Hunting vampires was a bitch. – Minion – L.A. Banks
2. He was running for his life. – Hot Ice – Nora Roberts
3. It was a dark and stormy night. – Paul Clifford – Edward Bulwer-Lytton
4. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. - Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
5. Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. - Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
6. Marley was dead: to begin with. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
7. When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkein
8. It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance - Outlander – Diana Galbadon
9. Somewhere in the world, time no doubt whistled by on taut and widespread wings, but here in the English countryside it plodded slowly, painfully, as if it trod the rutted road that stretched across the moors on blistered feet. - The Flame and the Flower – Kathleen Woodiweiss
10. The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane. - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling

After all, isn’t that what a hook is meant to do? Make you as the reader want to read the book...you betcha!

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn