October Reminder by Christine Duncan

I woke up this morning to discover that not only is summer over, but it’s the middle of October. I think it was the snow on the ground that really confirmed it for me. It wasn’t much snow, mind you, but then again, it’s not winter yet.

Anyway, it served as a reminder for me to tell you that it is Domestic Violence Awareness month here in the good old USA. So please, consider donating money, time or if they want them, your gently used items to your local shelter. There really aren’t enough shelters to go around and they are all grateful for what you can give them.

Recently, as I was researching a piece I was doing, I called NCADV to try to verify a statistic I keep stumbling across on the internet. What I wanted to know simply is–is it true that there are more animal shelters in the U.S. than domestic violence shelters. The woman on the phone painstakingly took me through it. We went to the humane society’s statistics on our respective computers then we went and explored the statistics for domestic violence shelters. I don’t have the number before me to impress you but the short answer is yes. There are more animal shelters here in the U.S. than domestic violence shelters.

Does anyone else find that as shocking as I do?

We need more shelters. And for that, we need more help. Please, prayerfully consider it.

And to bring this back to the topic of this blog–writing–I want to say that sometimes you have nothing to give. No money, no time, nothing extra. That’s okay. Do what I just did.

Writers, that means I’m challenging you to write about Domestic Violence Awareness month on your blog or Facebook or where ever you can. Spread the word–however you can. Even just a short word of reminder will help.

Too Hot to Handle by Karen Fainges

Another Torchwood fan, I found myself sometimes flinching at the rawness of the latest episodes. I found myself wishing they had toned it down a little.

After the episodes, I had to face the fact that the show would not have been half as good without those confronting moments. It definitely made me want to watch it all over again.

My own books have some confronting thoughts in them and hopefully that makes people think. I do have to acknowledge that some will just put the book down and never pick it up again. Others might send me hate mail (hasn’t happened yet) but I wouldn’t take those bits out for all the book sales in the world. The characters can make statements I can not. Sci-fi has often broached new areas – Star Trek and the first inter-racial kiss showed on TV (Kirk and Uhurah) is a notable one but there are many others. For some reason, when the person is green (or in my case purple), people allow them to break through those barriers a lot more readily.

I wonder why that is?

So what shouldn’t we put in books - death? How about sex? How about disabilities? How about taboos? Rude words? My books hold all of the above, but not for the shock factor, I find that tacky. No, because it is a large part of the characters and plot. And perhaps – that is how we tell when the line should be drawn.

Weeding out Ideas by Christine Duncan

I was out in the garden earlier today, weeding out around the roses and planning all the writing stuff I was going to do in my head. I had ideas for my WIP, ideas to talk to my publisher about, stuff I wanted to tell you all about on this blog. Do you think I can remember a single one?
Now it’s hot in the garden right now, but I can’t blame this on heat stroke. I have done this before. Regular readers of this blog will remember me complaining that I will go running and plan a whole chapter in my head and come home to the computer and write…nothing. It’s gone.
I was more than slightly frustrated about this until I remembered a column that Lawrence Block wrote long ago in Writer’s Digest. He talked about ideas that pop up at you in the night (or on the run) and said that some won’t stay with you. That was all right, he claimed, since this is the brain’s way of getting rid of the clunkers. (Yeah, I kind of doubt that Block said clunkers too–but you get the idea. I am quoting this article YEARS after the guy wrote it.)
On thinking this over, I think he’s write, err, right. The thing is when I finally do get to the scenes I’ve mulled over like this, they tend to write themselves. Somewhere in the back of this thing I call a brain, some decisions have been made and the scene is usually a good one–even if I don’t really have a conscious memory of how I planned to write it.
Of course, you have to remember, I’m one of those people who can’t plot either. Maybe it’s just how my brain works. How about you?

Blog Tour Posts

Just in case I haven’t griped enough about the blog tour I’m doing, I have found another drawback to the whole thing. It is difficult to come up with so many different posts that showcase my writing voice. Now don’t get me wrong–I have no illusions that I have an unbeatable voice. But I do have a voice and if I am doing one of those, 3 ways to conquer writer’s block type posts, I am so bored myself that the voice is lost. (This is not meant to put down the people who can write those kinds of posts–only an awareness of my own limitations.)
After all, the point of doing a blog tour is show readers that they will want to read my stuff. I myself, started reading Donna Andrews and a couple of other mystery writers because I liked their blog posts. The ones I liked and whose books I searched for, talked to their readers about everything under the sun and did it with humor and grace.
So I know I can’t get away with a post that just says read Safe Beginnings And although a lot of my blog tour host sites are aimed at writers, the posts that I’m just now finding out to be effective don’t have as much to do with writing as with revealing something about my writing and me. (which sounds so ego-centric, doesn’t it?) Why I wrote the books, interviews with the character, and facts about domestic violence in our society tend to make me more passionate and I think that’s why it works better. On the other hand, standard interview questions about me (Ms. Duncan, have you always wanted to write?
Um, well, yeah, doesn’t everybody?) don’t work for me. I become tongue tied–or writing blocked or blank posted or something.
If you are just now planning a blog tour, I recommend that you spend a week trying the whole thing out and test posting. You’ll see what I mean. Meanwhile, I’m back to agonizing over guest posting.
Who knew this would all be so complicated? A real book tour (given some money, which I don’t have) is beginning to look good.