Debra – 4 Things To Improve Your Chances

1. Blink
This is a little something I’ve gleaned from BLINK by Malcolm Gladwell. Science has provided some intriguing and startling evidence that there is power in decisions made in the blink of an eye. Instinct, intuition, “precognition” are looking more and more like the end result of a gazillion minute pieces of data that your brain processes behind a closed door. (No “if, ands or buts” allowed in the room.) These feelings, hunches and urges are gifts delivered to you in the blink of an eye because your brain has seen a pattern, combined seemingly irrelevant data into a significant whole, or kicked into survival mode. We should pay attention to those gifts.

Writing is creative. Developing those instincts can lead you to wonderfully authentic, confident and organic work. Don’t throttle your instinctive creativity by being afraid to stray from the carefully mapped out route.

2. Think

Beware of blinking. You can’t rely solely on divine inspiration. Gathering knowledge, experiencing life, honing craft, developing structure and paying attention to character arc are only some of the things you really do need to do. Why? So that the “war room” in your brain can make those subtle connections or see a pattern and nudge you. You get inspiration from perspiration.

Also, not every “blinked instinct” is a truth. Personal bias can sneak in. If you’ve carefully constructed a novel requiring a beta hero and in the middle of a tough scene you suddenly just KNOW the problem will be solved if you switch to an Alpha…be careful you aren’t acting on the fact that three people online mentioned that Alphas are hot and you need one to sell a book. You may be priming the pump instead of having that true moment of gestalt.

3. Ink

Words on paper. Lots of them. Especially “The End.”

4. Link

You’ve got to make connections. You need support. You need guidance. You need to support and give guidance. You need to hand that manuscript off to a publisher.

Blink. Think. Ink. Link.

Debra – Random Thoughts

I make no claim to wisdom, but important thoughts do cross my mind on a regular basis. Here’s a sampling from today:

1) Do not insult the people who prepare your food. Even if they’re too stupid to live.

2) Little white lies are like a gateway drug.

3) Moderate your praise for purple pig figurine gifts unless you want more pigs or purple.

4) Cutting your own bangs is risky.

5) Scottish savory puff pastries are YUM!

6) Weird is rarely the best choice.

7) The Pocket Book of Boners? Seriously? Language is truly wondrous and changeable.

8) Tomato plants don’t mature faster if you think mature thoughts at them.

9) I need to laugh more.

10) I need chocolate.

So how about you? What important thinks have you thunk today? What 10 truisms have sprung from your daily life in the last couple of days?

Debra-- Go Buy The Book. Please.

I didn't see anyway to disguise my promotional blog so I'm just putting it out there. Today is the release date of WITCH HIGH, a young adult anthology from DAW (Penguin).

Me. Writing Young Adult Fantasy. Who knew?

I loved it. My story COYOTE RUN is about the last girl in the Junior class without a familiar. In my version of the high school, finding your familiar is a rite of passage and a sign of status in the world of witches. If you don't have one, you're talked about, pitied and generally a failure. You can't do the more powerful spells without a familiar. In the South we'd say, "Bless her heart. There isn't a familiar that wants her."

On the day we meet my young water witch she's just finding out she is officially the last of her class without a familiar. Worse, if your familiar hasn't bonded with you by the time you're seventeen, it's not going to happen. In two weeks she'll be turning seventeen.

And so her misery and the schemes to find a familiar begin. Little does she know she's about to have a much bigger familiar problem that will make NOT having a familiar seem like a piece of cake. Toss in a mysterious young man from Ireland, the emotional scars she carries from her mother's suicide when she was younger, a new stepmother, one of the darkest familiars of the craft, and you have COYOTE RUN.

I found an early review on the Internet:

"...imagine having to handle those awkward years and magical powers at the same time.
This is the central challenge to the characters in the 14 stories that make up this truly delicious anthology. There is not a dud in the bunch, each deftly written with a keen ear and eye for the angst-ridden lives of the typical teenager in today’s culture." Pulp Fiction Reviews

So, buy the book already! If you don't read YA, give it whirl. buy those early Halloween and Christmas gifts.

One of the reasons this story was so much fun for me is that I was offered an opportunity to write this story by the editor. We were in casual conversation. I mentioned the anthology sounded like a good one. She immediately said she had room and asked if I'd like to write a story. Like every well-trained writer, I said, "Yes" immediately. And later wondered what had come over me. I had one month to learn everything I could about YA fantasy and meet the deadline. I spent a fortune on YA books and found a new genre to love in the process. Found a new genre to publish through BelleBooks/Bell Bridge Books.

Have any of you guys gotten unexpected opportunities? Times when you weren't seeking an opportunity but it found you anyway, and made you realize everything happens for a reason?

Debra Dixon - Big prizes ! But you have to vote.

Yep. I'm using you as a focus group today. We're working on the cover for our first YA contemporary fantasy novel coming out from Bell Bridge Books (08/08), and we have not one, but two covers we like.

What to do? Which to use? I have a favorite and I'm hoping you folks will support my cover.

Marilee Brothers, author of Moonstone, has a fabulous YA voice. Wry, compelling, heart-warming and just plain fun. Allie Emerson is living in a twenty-four foot trailer with a mother who has decided to Retire From Life. Not exactly the sort of environment you'd think would produce a girl destined to save the world. Allie's barely managing to survive high school. She hasn't got time to believe in prophecies and evil. Until evil makes it personal.

(Please do not blame our marketing department for this blurb. They'll do a much better job when the time comes for the real blurb. And now you know why I don't write the blurbs. I leave that to others except in blogging emergencies.)

Which cover floats your boat? Which one do you reach for?

Regardless of how you vote one "reader" and one "writer" will get some goodies.

Our writer will be offered a 25 page critique from me. Seems oxymoronic to consider the "picking apart of a manuscript" as a prize, but we writers are an odd determined lot. And nope. You don't have to have a synopsis. I don't care what genre.

Our reader will receive any four (4) titles from either the BelleBooks or Bell Bridge Books catalogues. (http://www.bellebooks.com/) The Bell Bridge site is still building but the offer of 4 books is good through the fall as the rest of the Bell Bridge Books hit their pub dates. The Southern titles from Bell Bridge will be cross-listed for sale at both BB and BBB websites.

We have some great Southern fiction lined up for July and the fall:

Booth's Sister is a beautifully written novel of Asia Booth, who endured the wrath of a nation when her brother killed Lincoln. Jane Singer, noted Civil War scholar, has masterfully imagined the family dynamic and intimate dilemmas that led to one of America's most fateful crimes and left a sister's life in shambles. (Did I mention beautifully written?)

Egret Cove by travel writer Margaret Nava is a fun romp with a mature woman as she makes a new life in Florida just when she thought life was through handing out exciting surprises.

We also have Jacquelyn Cook coming out this fall with The Gates of Trevelyan, another of her richly detailed Southern historicals.

Fear not. Eventually, we will get the next MOSSY CREEK novel out the door. I've been a little busy, and the editor insists I have to finish a story for the book. And the corporation insists that I negotiate the foreign, domestic and audio distribution contracts and all that other boring business stuff.
(Yes, our titles will be coming out in audio as well.)

And as a final plug we have a dark, scrumptious, "Anne Rice meets Laurell K. Hamilton" epic vampire series that will launch in September. Rich. Textured. Epic. We first meet the clan centuries ago. We posted on every blog in the world that Bell Bridge wanted contemporary urban fantasy, but when this came in the door, we all decided there was room for a voice and a story this big. A great lush read. With more to come.

There you have it! Lots of yummy goodness for readers who aren't afraid to step up and vote for their favorite Moonstone cover. Tell me why you like it. And let me know what you think about any of the upcoming titles. TELL ME IF YOU'RE AFTER the WRITER prize OR READER prize.

DEBRA - Announcing Bell Bridge Books

Well, we've gone and done it. Decided to open a new imprint over at BelleBooks. Yep. I'm still getting a few hours sleep every day so adding more to the workday shouldn't be a problem.

I bet you think I'm crazy, but you wouldn't if you'd seen some of the good books we've had to turn down over the years because they didn't quite fit our audience. Combine that with my love of fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy. Those don't fit with BelleBooks' Southern slant either. And we've managed to acquire the reprint rights on some of Deborah Smith's books from Little Brown.

We want to get those in print, but they've already been in print, had their time to shine as frontlist. So, we're really looking at serving a writer's backlist, which is also different from what we do at BelleBooks since those are all original titles.

A new imprint was the only realistic choice. It allows us to "brand" a division that can handle this diversity! (Didn't I hear that word brand around here recently?)

http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

We're currently looking for fantasy, especially urban fantasy. We'll also be publishing a few of those Southern books that we can't publish through BelleBooks' traditional program.

Bell Bridge Books will be an advance and royalty paying house. We'll publish POD (print-on-demand) and ebook simultaneously. The advances are small but our cover looks will be "big house" looks. We've included some samples in this blog. Fake books but real covers produced by Bell Bridge Books.

We aren't looking for "romance", even though that cover to the right skewed to the romance side! Romance is a well-served market and there isn't any reason to dip a toe in that pond.

What we are looking for is writers with unique voices who create strong fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy stories with compelling characters--male or female.

We're looking at some young adult. Very excited about that. If you're interested in querying, head on over to the website: http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

Tell a friend. Tell two friends. We're beating the bushes for good quality fantasy.

So, folks! What do think about our new imprint? What are your thoughts about our cover looks?

Debra - Saw-ry Old Friend

Trees live a long time. If you can’t put your arms around the tree trunk you know it’s old. When they put a gash in your big ol' tree delivering bricks during a remodel…you know the tree has (probably) prematurely reached the end of its lifespan. You know, but you hope you’re wrong.

I love my trees. I cried when lightning took out an old crab apple tree twenty years ago. For this tree I haven’t actually cried. I’ve had a couple of years to come to grips with “maybe” losing the tree. I put off calling the men with saws and a crane as long as I could. Miracles happen; teams rally in the last twenty seconds of the game. Unfortunately the Green Man was fresh out of miracles. Finally, in December I signed the death warrant and waited for the men with saws and a crane to arrive.

Then the rain began. If it rains, the ground’s too soft; they can’t get cranes in. (Did I mention that it’s a big tree?) Mother Nature rained every few days for months. Big ol’ tree started dropping limbs. Usually on fences. The tree span is so big it could take out multiple fences. Two of the limbs are still where they fell because they are tree-sized. They laugh at our puny chain saw.

Next, in the middle of February, the wind arrived. Followed by a tornado that had me locked in the interior hallway-of-nine-closed-doors with all my animals and wondering how much more wind the tree could take before the big crash-smash-there-goes-my-house. March, known as tornado season around here, is not good time to be in the vicinity of gi-normous trees which are sixty feet of deadfall. (They fall; you’re dead.)

Today the crane has finally rumbled into the yard. I couldn’t be happier. Who’d have thought I could go from sad optimist to cheering realist? By the end of today or tomorrow, all that will be left is a stump level with the ground. In another month or so (they’re backed up) they’ll send out the stump grinding team. I’ll actually be able to sleep deeply tonight, no need to keep one eye open and an ear straining for the tell-tale sounds of high wind.

No tears yet. I’ll probably cry when the first summer utility bill hits. I will have lost thousands of dollars in eco-benefits from losing this tree. It's not just the shade, it's water shed management, air filtering, etc. Big old trees need to be saved. There is even a registry for our big old trees started in 1940. http://www.americanforests.org/resources/bigtrees/

I’ll need to plant another tree. Any tree advice from you gardeners out there? Anybody else have spring cleaning that includes removal of a tree? Anybody know a good fence guy?