Book Review Party Wednesday - LIVE!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers).

-CYM

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ThrillerFest 2011 Part III

Learning from ThrillerFest 2011 – Part III

In my previous posts about ThrillerFest in New York City in early July, I have described CraftFest, AgentFest, and an overview of the general learning that I received at ThrillerFest. This week, I continue with the specific elements of that learning.

There were a total of 43 sessions at ThrillerFest, not including those at the initial CraftFest, which is really for novice writers, like me, leading up to AgentFest. The 43 sessions typically included a moderator and 4-5 panelists, so that the aggregate number of thriller writers presenting was in the ballpark of 200+. Both the moderators and panel members were full ITW members and accomplished thriller writers. A complete listing of the programs can be found on the ThrillerFest blog. Each of the sessions was taped and the list can be reviewed, and the tapes acquired. www.vwtapes.com

I am an attentive student when I need and want to learn. I attended at least one class in each session. As with any type of learning process, the critical element is to derive from the general discussions the points that are salient for one’s own work. My list, which I will pout to work in the re-write of Dust Scenario, follow:

1. Stage: Create an imaginary world and draw the reader into it.

a. Limit the number of characters to those needed to tell the story.

b. Make a promise (on the first page, the “hook”), then provide the payoff.

c. Pointless rabbit holes are distracting and frustrating.

2.  Experience: The stakes must be intense, which is magnified by danger, anxiety (will the characters we identify with survive?), or mystery (there should also be a central mystery that has to be solved, even in thrillers).

a. Reader must be invested.

3.  Research: Makes the author confident to tell the story. But research is backstory. No more than 5% of research is in the book itself. Thrillers are about entertaining, not informing.

a. Accuracy of geographic or other references or other details must balance the otherwise implausibility of the story.

4. Setting: Scenes should be described shortly (5-6 sentences).

a. Describe the details through the eyes of the characters. Keep the details in context. The description of something may be more powerful than the dry facts. Remember the intensity of James Bond seeing his new weapons in each movie at early point, knowing that they would be put to use later?

c. To keep the details from become boring, relate them to the inner-life of the characters.

5. Plot: Pacing is about exhileration, escalation continuously building:

50% of the book: Mystery/suspense should be – investigation of a puzzle (who, what, when, why, and so on). Questions make a reader think and empathize (“What would I do?”).

80%: Impending danger and threat to characters (“how will they get out of this mess?”). Pressure of the clock winding down.

Show the pre and post-elements of the scene.

Point of view shift can show impending danger to characters.

100%: Escape threat or solve the puzzle.

a. Draw each scene on a large board, then outline what will happen, page by page.

b. Be careful of transitions, which are generally wasted words and terminal to pacing. In a movie, there is just a cut at the end of scene. The viewer follows right along, anticipating or catching up.

c. Relentless action is tedious. Readers want more promises derived from the sense of impending action, than the actual event, especially if it is violent. Repetition is the enemy of escalation.

d. Break up action with change of pace. Conversation can be an effective interlude.

e. Questions make the reader think.

f. Climax should be unexpected and inevitable. Reader: “why didn’t I think of that?”

g. Fixing plot problems:

(1) Add emotion, suprises, or twists.

(2) What would the character naturally do here?

(3) Eliminate repetition.

(4) Escalate the action (make things worse).

6. Characterization: Intensify emotions relating to the important characters by surrounding them with family or people that generate intensity in the characters. Character is revealed by interactions.

a. What does the character want? What is she concerned about.

b. Series characters are, by nature, lonely, as their love interests are constantly being killed. Imagine Jason Bourne. Vulnerability can fill this void. For example, Superman could be brought down by Kryptonite; and Lisbeth Salander was subjected to immense abuse until she had no control.

c. Role of sex. Readers want to see the characters be happy. Sex is the ultimate happiness. But romance is not smooth in real life.

(1) Sex is about emotional engagement, not bodily fluids.

(2) Sex in the story can kill suspense about what will have to the participants.

d. Emotion is conveyed with feelings and instincts – hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, tasting, and so on).

7. Backstory: the data dump of amateurs. File the details where they belong, outside the manuscript. See Point # 3 above.

8. Edit, Edit, Edit: Every excess word must go, don’t stop.

Now, let’s see if I can put that learning to write and become a ThrillerFest panelist in the future.

Warms, Cym

ITW
Thrillerfest

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Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

*all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Book Prize Package from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Howard Sherman, Implementor!


Be sure to check out Howard Sherman, Implementor and leave a comment!


Email me your shipping address for the Books.

Warms-
CYM

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Friday's Musings

This week's book & such links from around the web!

1. Random House to Publish Lost Dr. Seuss Stories. “ ‘I wish,’ yelled the duck, and he started to scream,/ ‘For eight thousand buckets of purple ice cream!/ A trunk full of toothpaste! A big kitchen sink!/ And lots of brass keyholes! And gallons of ink!’ ” This vociferous narrator, a greedy duck named McKluck, learns a lesson in the title story of The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories, a collection of seven tales by Seuss that were published in Redbook in 1950 and 1951.

2.  Famous Author Rejection Letters: True Stories Of Unbelievable Rejections. Many new or mid-level writers have received nasty or rude rejection letters. But when famous author rejection letters come to light, people laugh and say “What were those editors (or literary agents) thinking?”

3. Ana White, How to build a pallet book shelf. A simple bookcase made from pallets and a few 1x4's.

The measurements will vary based on the size of the pallets used. Be on the lookout for donor pallets to provide wood for the shelves and support pieces. If you don't have enough pallet wood to make the shelves you'll need to buy some 1x4's In sketchup the shelves are 36" long.

4. Dr. Seuss Baby Shower via Pizzazzerie: We are loving this adorable Dr. Seuss baby shower sent in by desert table style maven, Heather Equitz of Heather Equitz Designs! From the “hop on popcorn” to the “Truffula Trees”, Heather didn’t miss a detail– all things Seuss were represented on this clever + cute dessert table! Such a bright and fun idea for your next gathering!

Have a great weekend!

Beachbrights

(guest blogger)

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Book Review Party Wednesday - LIVE!

This week I am giving away 6 books & 1 Canvas Tote Bag!

The Lady Most Likely...
Outlander
Alter of Eden
The Things that Keep Us Here
The Bad Always Die Twice
Keys to the Kingdom
+some little extra surprises!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers).

-CYM

Read More

Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

*all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Book Prize Package from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Cherry Mischievous!



Be sure to check out Cherry Mischievous and leave a comment!


Send me your shipping address for the Books.

Warms-
CYM

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Swallow Safely by Sayadi & Herskowitz *Book Review*

Swallow Safely
by Roya Sayadi and Joel Herskowitz
Inside/Outside Press 2010

Are you around old, young, sick, healthy, suffering or other people who could have difficulty swallowing, getting food or drink “down the wrong pipe” (aspiration into the lungs), or otherwise potentially choking or dying in front of you? Are you concerned about such situations? You should be. These conditions kill thousands of people every year because someone is not present able to diagnose and deal with the situation.

How about yourself? What if any of these events happened and you were alone? Would you simply choke to death?

These are day-to-day issues in the lives of each of us. Yet, the subject of swallowing correctly and preparing yourself to be a caregiver in such circumstances is a subject rarely addressed in lay, or, apparently, in professional terms in a manner that provides functional walking around information.

In Swallow Safely, Drs. Sayadi (Ph.D, CCC-SLP) and Herskowitz (M.D.) provide a succinct and readable explanation of the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of all of these problems. They explain how medications can cause or complicate swallowing problems. There is also an explication of observations, questions, and concerns so that you are in a position to protect loved ones, friends, colleagues, or yourself.

There are pictorial explanations of the performance of the Heimlich maneuver on other people, or doing so over a chair for yourself if alone when a choking episode occurs.

We all grapple with complicated, often wrenching, quality-of-life and end-of-life issues pertaining to loved ones. Swallowing is closely related to nutrition, choking, aspiration, and pneumonia. It is a critical element of walking-around knowledge, in which most of us are sadly deficient (me especially). I was quite amazed to read and think through the range of swallowing problems and need for coordination with, depending on the circumstances in question, speech-language pathologists, medical doctors, or other practitioners.

I heartily recommend this excellent and timely exposition of critical life-saving information and advice that will inevitably enable you to save a life, perhaps your own. Like me, you will happily keep Swallow Safely in your medicine cabinet to be consulted periodically, as with other health matters requiring at least periodic vigilance.

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Friday's Musings

1.  12 Tasks Every Author Should Tackle Before Publishing a Book.  Twelve very good suggestions to do BEFORE publishing.

2.  Amazon’s Kindle Publishing Guidelines for InDesign. Amazon’s “Kindle Publishing Team” has quietly released a new document called the Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines for Kindle Plug-in for Adobe InDesign 0.93. It has detailed guidelines, with screenshots and clear instructions, on how to optimize your InDesign files for the Kindle file format (MOBI) prior to uploading to the Kindle store for sale.

3.  Read It and Weep - 16 Repurposed and Recycled Books. Okay, just shoot me now and put me out of my misery! Will I never achieve such creative genius as this? Time to read it and weep...not the ugly cry - it's a happy sob (sigh)! Oh what some people can do with a recycled book or two.

4. ReadyMade: Curve Appeal. A family heads west to add some funk to the frontier of architecture.

Have a great weekend!

Beachbrights

(guest blogger)

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Book Review Party Wednesday - LIVE!

This week I am giving away 5 books & 1 DVD!

Keys to the Kingdom
Creep
The Stranger You Seek
This is a Book by Demetri Martin
Demetri Martin Person DVD
Suddenly Texan
+some little extra surprises!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers).

-CYM

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The Texas Drought

This is a picture of our lake. The picture on the left was taken 1 year ago. The picture on the right was taken today. Cedar Creek Lake is really suffering. Pray for Rain.

Warms-
CYM

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Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

*all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Book Prize Package from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to The New Dork Review of Books!



Be sure to check out The New Dork Review of Books and leave a comment!


Send me your shipping address for the Books.

Warms-
CYM

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Friday's Musings

This weeks edition of books, articles & the internet!

1.  10 Handy Iphone Apps for Better Blogging...Blogging isn’t just writing posts. Blogging means to maintain or update a blog. You need to constantly monitor your blog’s content, images, videos etc. Here is the list of 10 handy iPhone apps which can make your blog more flexible.

2.  Top Five Things I’ve Learned About Working with Book Bloggers...So, here are the top five things I’ve learned working with book bloggers. Maybe it’ll help you, dear reader, when you’re pitching books online. Hope it does!

3. Ten Books Every Woman Should Read...A Chick Lit book, really, by nature, is meant to be a book that is written for a female reader. And I am here today to give you a top ten of sorts; Ten Books I Think Every Woman Should Read. Now, I could probably sit here and spit out about 100 books I think every woman I know should read…but these are the first ten that came to mind, and if you haven’t read them, HOP TO IT.

4. Cute Back to School Printable Book Plate...Hello friends! Can you believe summer is over and a whole new school year has begun? Time flies, doesn’t it? Well, we have some FUN printables to share with you.

~XOXO~

Beachbrights

(guest blogger)

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Book Review Party Wednesday - LIVE!

This week in lieu of an Amazon eGC, I am giving away 4 books!
Sanctus
No Rest for the Dead
Spycatcher
Outlander
+some little extra surprises!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers).

-CYM

Read More

AgentFest from Thrillerfest 2011 PART TWO

AgentFest at ThrillerFest 2011

The second part of Thrillerfest was AgentFest, which was conducted on Thursday afternoon, 7 July 2011. The purpose of AgentFest is bring together thriller writers looking for an agent to handle their stories and agents looking for writers who could be attractive investments.

I am an aspiring writer. I do love to write thrillers. But like every other author, I recognize that it is bound to be a slow process. Like a finely crafted plot, escalation from newbie to best-selling author is a journey to be undertaken with patience and persistence.

From the standpoint of agents interested in thriller writers, AgentFest provides an excellent opportunity to interview as many as 30 writers. Agents are largely compensated based on their commission from sales of manuscripts and ancillary rights. Accordingly, decisions on the writers in whom to invest their time and energy are critical for the agents’ own economic success. Betting on writers is a lot like investing in race horses. There is no sure fire way to find the next J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown, and both of them surely had mountains of rejection notices.

In my case, I had an agent with a fine reputation for one year and he then went in-house. Accordingly, I was delighted to participate in AgentFest this year. I did so last year and plainly learned from the experience.

The process spans 2.5 hours with a brief break in the middle. The format is like speed-dating, with each session lasting 3 minutes. Some were faster (where there was little or no interest on either side) and others somewhat longer. There were 65 agents in attendance this year. Their names and biographical information are available on the ThrillerFest 2011 website.

My strategy was to select the agents who seemed to have interest in my type of story (international thriller). Rather than seeing as many as possible, I tried to be patient, waiting in lines as needed to go down my list. I practiced my pitch to get it down to no more than 30 words, which could be said calmly in just a few seconds. Like the opening of a story, success comes from securing the hook early.

My pitch for Dust Scenario: The global economic order will collapse unless a mother and an Aborigine ex-commando can free her children, kidnapped by instigators of the attack to prevent her from revealing the truth.

I was delighted with the results. I pitched to 12 agents, 8 of whom requested a synopsis and portions of the manuscript that I pitched. I also got a lot of fascinating feedback of the concept of the story. I am continuing to revise the manuscript and will send in the requested portions when I have been through it a few more times. In a future blog, I will discuss the writing learning that I derived from ThrillerFest this year. A critical element of the learning is to relentlessly edit and hone the manuscript so that readers turn the pages with their own relentlessness.

I am constantly amazed at how much I have to learn, and how exciting it is to do so.

Warms, Cym

You can read PART ONE here.

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Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

*all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Book Diary!



Be sure to check out Book Diary and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM

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Friday's Musings

Another addition of this week's internet findings!

1. Publishing A Book: 7 Cost-Effective Self-Publishing Services: Publishing is always a painful issue for the author, as they might be excellent on writing, but suffers when it comes to decide the publishing format, cover design and budget planning. The great news is, there are quality publishing services arise nowadays to help you to publish your book in a quality yet cost-effective manner.

2. Book Review Clichés I’d Like To See: Every profession has its own peculiar jargon, but the language of book reviewers probably comes under more scrutiny than that of any other group (except politicians).

3. 5 Book Websites That Give You Sample Chapters To Read Online: Online previews replicate the feeling of paging through a book in a bookstore. Well, not exactly, because sometimes you have a cup of coffee to go along with it. I am not complaining because online book stores give you some social joys but they can’t win all the battles when it comes to the convenience of buying and reading books. If you are a book lover, what’s your take on this? Do you know of any other book preview websites?


4. My kind of Book Store...Kate Spade Style!

XOXO-
beachbrights
(guest blogger)

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