The Long and the Short of It is pleased to welcome Ann Whitaker whose newest book, Dog Nanny, has just been released by The Wild Rose Press.

Dog Nanny is about a doggy do-gooder named Julie Shields, who has one month to save two delinquent poodles from becoming doggies of divorce. She’s also a self-proclaimed born-again virgin with a biological clock running out of juice and needs to find a husband for a couple of reasons.

When a hunky pilot named Nick Worthington arrives at the Abilene airport to fly her to Waco, he sends her into a tailspin. But he also may be a drug trafficker and smuggler of illegal aliens. Not only that, he’s involved with another woman.

Julie’s quest for a suitable husband leads to several misfires—one disgusting, another downright dangerous. Only Nick leaves her panting for more. Will she have to put a choke chain on him before the month is out?

Ann said, “An underlying theme is the importance of pet adoption, training, spaying, and neutering our pets. I didn’t consciously set out to write a lesson in dog-rearing. Those parts of the story are the result of my interest in dogs and living with and training my own two poodles. Both of whom are now senior citizens. If only I could sign them up for Medicare benefits!

“By the way, all the tricks mentioned in Dog Nanny, except one, are tricks both my dogs have mastered. But then, they’re poodles. And as I like to say, poodles are so intelligent they make their owners look smart.”

I asked her to share a little about her dogs. “Mardi (our youngest dog) has had a tonsillectomy and was recently diagnosed with diabetes, but he’s doing well on a special diet and two insulin injections a day. Jolie, our oldest, has had one ear and two knee surgeries. We’ve probably put several veterinarians’ children through college, but our dogs have been worth every dollar we’ve spent on them,” she said. “Someone asked me if I planned a sequel called ‘Cat Nanny.’ I have nothing against cats, but my husband and I are both poodle-whipped.” Ann was a letter writer in childhood, then started writing poetry in high school and continued through college and graduate school.

“Along the way, I wrote an occasional freelance piece for newspapers and magazines,” she said. “But when I completed my master’s degree in English, I felt a letdown and asked my husband what I should do next. He said, ‘Why don’t you write a novel?’ What? A novel is a big assignment. But I’ve never been one to pass up a challenge.

“He also said, ‘Put all you have into it.’

“I took him literally. The result was a 1000-page mess that started during the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 and ended in the present. I tried culling 400 pages out it for a novel, but I still cringe to think how awful it was. I mean, I was an English teacher! Surely I’d read and studied enough novels to know what it took to write one. After 25 years, I’m still learning.”

Dog Nanny is the fourth out of five novels Ann has written. She told me she’s learned she writes better if she develops a bare-bones outline before she begins. This helps her avoid writer’s block, because even if the muse leads her in another direction, she always knows how the story will end. “Once I get started,” she told me, “I can write for hours if I have no interruptions.”

Ann’s main character always comes first. The character is always female and is always facing some sort of problem or crisis, often involving a man, her job, or both.

“Plot is more difficult for me,” she admitted. “Unlike some writers who have numerous plots floating around in their heads, I have to sit down and force myself to outline some of the roadblocks my character will face on her 400-page journey.”

“What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned about writing?” I wondered.

“There’s a lot of talk about an author’s ‘voice,’ what it is and how writers find it. It’s an elusive quality no one can quite describe,” Ann said. “I started writing Dog Nanny in third person point of view because I’d read that’s what most readers prefer and it gives the writer more latitude. I wrote what is now the second scene in the book, printed it out, and read it aloud. People must focus on cialis prices their good health instead of sickness. Not being able to hold ejaculation – for more than 30 seconds – after best prices on sildenafil the penis enters the vagina. This has the obvious advantage that it tadalafil soft tabs delivers the product at your doorsteps and you can order it from anywhere. Sex may account safe for many men with heart disease, but the medication cannot be prescribed for healthier people who have minor spikes in their cholesterol sildenafil free shipping levels. It sounded stilted and contrived. So I switched to first person, which for some reason comes more naturally to me. Suddenly, I felt I was in my element, as if I were talking to a good friend. For me, it’s like assuming a persona. I become the person speaking, much like a character in a play. It’s not that my characters are me. Quite the contrary, they say and do things I would never do. And I’m certainly not rich like Julie in Dog Nanny.”

She told me she’s also learned characters have to feel passionate about something and have to fight for their beliefs, otherwise they will bore not only the reader, but Ann herself.

“I’ve learned to cut parts that slow down the pace of the story or aren’t relevant,” she said. “That’s probably one of the most difficult, yet valuable, lessons a writer can learn.”

I asked Ann what she’s currently working on.

“I’m working on a collection of essays called ‘Born To Be Fried.’ The title comes from a comment my mother once made about chickens. She said, ‘Don’t you think some things were just born to be fried?’ I call it chicken-fried Nora Ephron.

“I’ve also written the first draft of romantic comedy (working title: Desire Daily) that was a result of a Book-in-a-Week workshop. I call it my book-in-a-week-that-took-twenty-two days. It’s about Mahogany Marsh, a nightside editor for the Desire (Texas) Daily Democrat. When she loses a promotion to a good-looking Yankee with Kennedy hair, she thinks she’s getting even by reducing him to hero-fodder for her romance novel-in-progress. But who will get the last word?”

Titles have always been the easiest part for Ann. She told me they usually come to her before she starts writing. In the case of Desire Daily, she changed the title after she’d written the first chapter, because she’s also changed the name of the newspaper and the town.

“My titles are almost always from a line in the book and not a generalization, like ‘Sullen Surrender’ or ‘Dark Denial,'” she said, adding, “I had to check Amazon.com to make sure those weren’t actual titles.”

I wondered what Ann’s strangest habit is.

“Some of my friends would say it’s my love of solitude,” she confessed. “I’ve been driving on the same tank of gas for over a month. I do play mah jongg once a week, play guitar and sing with another group of friends every few months, and volunteer at the local Animal Birth Control clinic. So it’s not as if I’m a total recluse. I also have a husband I enjoy spending time with. And now that I’m retired I sometimes (gasp!) watch TV and read for pleasure.”

I asked her about her heritage.

“Before they headed off for California in The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family lived next door to my grandparents,” she said. “Seriously, I come from hardscrabble Oklahoma and Arkansas roots now firmly planted in Texas.”

She’s never eaten a crayon, but admits she used to run her finger across the windowsill and eat the dirt. And, she also at newspaper at one time. “My husband insists I not eat his column,” she told me.

And, she not sure if she could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. “But I can tell the difference between corked and boxed,” she said. “I do have my standards.”

She also has a rare talent…. or did while she was growing up. I have to admit, I’ve never met anyone else who would admit to being able to do this. When I asked her if she could unwrap a Starburst with her tongue, she told me, “I never tried, but in sixth grade I was the only kid in the neighborhood who could blow up a bicycle tube by depressing the stem with an incisor. Since we lived in Big Spring, where there were lots of goatheads to puncture our tires, my services were in great demand.”

Finally, I asked Ann, “What is the one question you wish an interviewer would ask you?”

“Q: What’s one thing about you most people don’t know? A: I once ran a six-mile race dressed as a lobster. I’m not boasting when I say that for an hour or so, I was really hot.”

You can keep up with Ann on her website, http://annwhitaker.com

The Long and the Short of It is pleased to welcome Jeff Rivera, author of Forever My Lady, published by Grand Central Publishing. He’s currently working on the sequel for Forever My Lady and he’s also working on a YA. And, he told me he considers himself a workaholic. “I work constantly. I only sleep about 4-5 hours a day with a nap in the middle of the day and that’s my life.”

I asked Jeff what got him interested in writing.

“You know,” he said, “It’s something I did as soon as I could pick up a pen. I remember doing it as early as first grade. It was probably something I inherited from my mother who is also very creative or from my grandfather who was a college professor and author.”

Jeff’s been writing since he was in the first grade, using it as a way to express himself. “We were very, very poor, living in American poverty at the time so we as kids were forced to be creative since we didn’t have a lot of toys during that time,” he told me. “I look back with pride at that time because my mom always did the best she could and encouraged our creativity. I feel very blessed to have had more than many rich kids had in terms of creativity; in that way, we were very wealthy.”

Jeff never suffers from writer’s block but is a self-confessed “recovering procrastinator-addict.” He deals with it by making small goals he knows he can achieve; for example, writing just one page between 8:30 and 9:30 and knowing the writing doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be finished.

I asked Jeff, “What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?”

“I think characters that have a life of their own, that have a great characterization on top of that,” he replied. “A story that is an emotional roller coaster that leads you in one direction then bams you over the head with another direction you never saw coming.”

His favorite author, Nicholas Sparks, embodies what Jeff strives for in his own writing. “I like how he changes his writing voice for every piece he writes, and how he writes emotional roller coasters.”

Jeff bases his characters on real people or a combination of real people. He takes that as the beginning, but the characters often veer off from there. “My plots go back to the Syd Field concepts,” he told me, “and begin from there. Sometimes we forget that every element of a great story has very basic plot devices and it’s easy to forget those sometimes.”

Normally Jeff comes up with the concept and works on the plot first, but the characters often appear not long afterward. “Everyone has their own process,” he explains, “and neither of them is wrong.”

On a more personal note, I asked Jeff if he “really, really wanted a dog.”

“Yes, sometimes I really do,” he said. “I do clean up messes; though, I’d rather ‘hire’ people to do that.” He laughed. “But one thing about a dog is it’s there for you always, loves you unconditionally, whether you feed it or not (though I hope that you do). All it asks is a few minutes of your time and you get so much more back.”

Like most of us, Jeff doesn’t like how he looks in pictures. Arginine helps to increase generic cialis 20mg check for more info insulin sensitivity, which helps to relax blood arteries in the male organ and increase the flow to the genitals. The bottom line is never use ED discounts on cialis drugs recreationally! Talk to your doctor if you have concerns about your sex life, the best person for you to follow through with a large amount of water intake. It is a cure to those who face low erections More Info purchase generic cialis or brief erections. It is also used for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension. tadalafil for sale cheap “My godmother tells me when she thinks I look fat in them or how I have to be photographed in a certain way etc. But as I’m getting older, I’m not caring as much.”

Jeff doesn’t think he has any weird handwriting habits, but admits that other people might consider his handwriting strange “because they cannot read it! I really should take a penmenship class. Anyone know of a good one?” he asked me. He does have a strange lifestyle habit that he admits isn’t a good one to have. “One of my strangest habits is not eating at all. I might eat one meal throughout the whole day when I’m on a deadline.”

“Jeff, you can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?”

“There’s little I would erase from the past because it’s made me who I am,” he told me. “However, if I could take all the knowledge and wisdom I have today and go back in time I would do certain things differently, certain people I would have stayed away from who turned out not to be good friends. I would have spent more time with my immediate family and enjoyed life instead of being driven to come up with a scheme to get us out of poverty. I would have lived life now. That’s all we have and that’s all that really matters.”

I asked Jeff if he’d ever eaten a crayon. “Yes,” he admitted. “I have eaten just a little bit of crayon. I have also been known to be a connoisseur of paper and paste as a child.” Even those don’t meet the criteria for the label of the strangest thing he’s ever eaten. That honor is held by a fish eye ball.

“Gross!” he exclaimed. “My stepfather is Filipino and he eats those sort of things. Ick! They say it tastes the same but just the thought of it …”

Finally, I asked Jeff what advice he would give to a new writer just starting out.

“Keep writing, be the best,” he said. “Many are obsessed with landing an agent when they should be obsessed with being the best writer they can be. I remember reading a seasoned writer say that very thing when I was younger and I thought he was crazy but now I know he’s right.”

You can keep up with Jeff on his website, http://www.jeffrivera.com

The Long and the Short of It is pleased to have Felicity Heaton, author of Embracing the Wolf and Seventh Circle which were released by Alinar Publishing last year. As Felicity Heaton, she writes paranormal romance, romantic suspense, historical historical pirate romance, historical western romance, and contemporary romance. As F E Heaton, she writes the Vampires Realm novels–vampire romance / dark urban fantasy ebooks.

Felicity told me she stumbled into writing, but likes to think of it as natural progression.

“I’ve always been a creative person,” she said. “Most of my family are in some way or another, but it was mostly directed at drawing and that side of the arts. I’ve read a lot of books in my years, most of which were when I was much younger. Back then, I was reading classic romance novels such as Jane Eyre, Persuasion and North & South, alongside stories by Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, and H P Lovecraft. I think that’s where my paranormal romance trend unwittingly began. A few years back, in 2005, a friend of mine convinced me to take a shot at writing original fiction and since then I haven’t really looked back. I’ve written stories in all genres, but always come back to the paranormal. I’ve always dreamed of vampires and demons and all things fantastical. I think that genre is where my heart lies.”

She’s very plot driven and always has at least a basic outline of the story. With her longer novels, she works extensively on the plot to make sure she gets all the right twists in there. “I spend a lot of time thinking things through before I begin writing so there are minimal interruptions once I’ve found my flow,” she told me. “As for characters, I write everyone a little mini-bio and do a lot of exercises to get into their heads. I spend the most time with the hero and heroine, but the secondary characters and, of course, the bad guy gets air time in my head too.”

Once she has her plot and characters, she normally let them stew and simmer for bit. She thinks this is an important process of her writing style, especially if there is extensive world building in connection with the story. “When a story is percolating, ideas about the plot or characters will come to me at any time of day or night,” she said. “I’ve always got a notebook or three on hand to write the little gems down in. I have books full of notes on a series I’m planning right now, and I’m still adding more to it all the time. I think time is critical. You can’t rush into writing the story. The longer it sits the better. It’s the only way to get the best out of it and the characters.”

In some of her books, the characters have come first. “They’d just barge into my head and announce themselves,” she shared, “and then their story would follow.”

Other times, however, she would get a bolt of inspiration from somewhere and her mind would race, conjuring up conflict, things that could go disastrously wrong, things that could go incredibly right, and everything in between.

She’s always working on multiple projects. She’s recently finished the second draft of Winter’s Kiss, the next book in the Vampires Realm series which is scheduled to be released this fall. “It’s a totally different type of story to Seventh Circle,” she explained. “While Seventh Circle is romance driven, there’s a strong plot that makes it more like the first books of the series, the Prophecy Trilogy. It’s more of a 50/50 split between twisting, dark plot and the romance. Winter’s Kiss, on the other hand, is more of a romance. The plot is still very much there, but it’s the romance that drives the story, the characters. I really like it and I hope that readers will enjoy it too.”

I asked her to tell us a bit about Seventh Circle.

Seventh Circle is the next novel in my Vampires Realm series. The series books are only tied together by the world, rather than the storyline, so most books stand alone, or just have characters or incidents that cross over. The hero of Seventh Circle, Lincoln, was introduced in the third Prophecy Trilogy book, Prophecy: Dark Moon Rising, where the heroine of that story healed him. Lincoln is a vampire with a problem. He’s caught up in a prophecy, a contract between his lord and the Devil himself, which will see him die if it comes to pass. Second, there buy cialis online are no conventional, noninvasive tests to diagnose the condition. The drug consists of sildenafil citrate which is an essential part of our bodies, comprising a large part of our organs and tissues, as generic cialis online well as skin, hair and nails. Improving these factors one can control the overall heath and most people make it order levitra online possible to control Erectile dysfunction. Women should take proper care in communicating or expressing their thoughts regarding these conditions as it can hurt most levitra overnight delivery men when they face erectile dysfunction. He’s on the run, searching for a woman who, according to a vision of his future that three witches saw, will save him. His problem? She’s a member of Section Seven, an elite vampire hunter organization. Lilith has powers too similar to a vampire’s for comfort and knows nothing of her parents. She’s a hunter raised by Section Seven and has sworn to eliminate all demons. When she meets Lincoln and is told that he’s a paying client, she can’t believe her terrible luck, or the fact that she’s attracted to him, a vampire. Both fight their feelings but in the end they prove impossible to resist. Lilith is drawn into Lincoln’s world as she discovers things about her and Section Seven that shatter her own world. And in the end, she must find the strength to accept her feelings and face Hell itself to save Lincoln.

She’s also in the planning stages of a new seven book series and two novels, not to mention a short or two.

Even with all this, she found she couldn’t answer the question, “When did you first consider yourself a writer?”

“I think it came on gradually or hasn’t happened at all yet. Perhaps I’m still waiting for that epiphany,” she told me. “I didn’t start out with the desire to be a ‘writer’. I dabbled here and there, a little fanfiction and then progressed (was cajoled until I surrendered) into writing some original fiction, and then it just grew from there. At some point, it became an obsession and I knew that I was never going to be free from the urge to write and create. I love writing. It’s my passion. Anyone who knows me knows that when I’m passionate about something, I give it my all. I’m still learning, growing, and one day I hope to be able to turn around to my friend and say ‘yeah, you were right’ and thank her for the push and all the support.”

Felicity shared with me that the hardest part of writing is letting go at the end. She explained, “There comes that point when you hit the downward slide and you know the end is coming. At that point, it’s so easy to give up because you don’t want to close the book, figuratively speaking, on your characters and their story. It’s hard when you’ve spent so much time with them to write those final words and part ways with them. I find that I can’t do it, so I have a head full of characters who want sequels. I satisfy them and myself by writing drabbles for them (little 100 or 200 word moments), some of which I post for readers, others which I keep secret. It’s never easy to say goodbye.”

On a personal note, I asked Felicity about the strangest thing she’s ever eaten. “Probably a marble!” she said. “You know what kids are like. I’m sure it’s still rattling around inside me. Besides that, I had green tea and plum mochi in Japan in autumn 2006. Mochi is a glutinous sweet treat made using rice. It looked like a green egg with a deep purple centre that was revealed when I bit into it. It tastes damn good though! Just looked a little odd.”

She’s also a “taste the difference type” when it comes to Pepsi and Coke. In fact, she told me, “I can even taste the difference between Coke in different countries! I used to be Pepsi orientated but switched to the dark side that is Coke, and then to diet Coke. Favourite flavor is Diet Cherry Coke. I’m addicted!”

Finally, I asked her if she could wish for anything, what it would be.

“The same thing that I always wish for—a good long life with my husband and family, full of love and happiness,” she said. “I’ve wished it so many times in so many ways. On stars, on ema tablets (flat pieces of wood at shrines in Japan where you write a message to be read out to the gods) and whenever a wish is called for.”

You can keep up with Felicity on her blog, http://vampiresrealm.blogspot.com .

♥ Paranormal ♥

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Bound By Magic by Amanda Cummings
Bound By Melody by Hunter Raines
Bourbon Street Heat by Lisa Perry
The Boy Next Door by G.A. Hauser
Brothers At Arms by Desiree Lee
Burnin’ For You by Jamie Lynn Miller
By the Book by Dee Dawning
By the Moonlight by Jaxx Steele

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Call of the Wild by Sierra Dafoe
Candy Kisses by Honey Jans
Carnal Inheritance by Kate Hill
Carnal Interlude by Kate Hill
Carpe Nocturne by Tawny Taylor
Captain’s Surrender by Alex Beecroft
The Cat House: Cats and Dogs by Julia Talbot
Cat O’ Nines: Cat’s Meow by Lia Connor
Cattleman’s Club 1: Patton’s Way by Jenny Penn
Caught off Guard by Tonya Ramagos
Caught Running by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux
Children of the Dust 4: Resurrection by Eve Vaughn
Christmas Cake by Victoria Blisse
Christmas Cookies: Karmic Gifts by Kira Stone
Christmas Rescue by Sultry Summers
Christmas Stalking by Selena Kitt
The Chosen One by Marisa Chenery
The Collector 5: The Crystal Flacon by Jeanne Barrack
Cowboy by Delilah Devlin
Cowboy Games by Wendi Darlin
Crossing the Line by Cat Johnson
Cuff Me Lacy by Demi Alex
The Curse of Albrecht Manor by Christopher C. Newman
Cursed by Rhianne Aile

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The Long and the Short of It is pleased to have Lyn Mangold with us. Lyn’s first book, Warrior Woman, was released in print this year. She shared with me that it actually came about because of a dream. “It was just one of those dreams that stick with you long after you wake up,” she said. “Initially, I was just going to record it in my journal, but after I started writing it, I realized it might make a good novel. Of course, it changed quite a bit from the original dream, but that is basically how Warrior Woman came to be. It’s a fantasy about a woman struggling not only to find herself, but also falling in love for the first time.”

She knew she wanted to be a writer one day when her seventh grade English teacher required the class to write in journals weekly. Lyn discovered that she really enjoyed writing. While at college, her creative writing professor encouraged her to submit her works to Progeny, the college literary magazine. She had a couple of satires, a short story, and a poem published in it and, eventually, became an associate editor.

Lyn is a woman after my own heart—she told me she would describe her writing desk as “comfortably cluttered” and she likes to have her favorite CDs on hand so she can listen to music as she works.

“It’s not a standard form of organization,” she admitted, “but it works for me. Most of the clutter comes from little scraps of paper with notes and plot points scribbled on them. Whenever I get an idea for the story that I’m working on, I grab a pen and jot it down before I forget it. I like to leave the notes on my desk so that I can see them and, consequently, think about them while I work.”

It’s no surprise Lyn’s first book was a fantasy, because she told me that’s one of her favorite genres to read. “Books about vampires are my favorites,” she told me. “I’ve just finished reading Undead and Uneasy by Mary Janice Davidson and Just One Bite by Kimberly Raye.”

At the time of our interview, however, she was reading in a far different genre: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.

Lyn confessed to me that she’s very much a morning person. “I like sitting with a cup of coffee watching the news (or cartoons) as the sun rises,” she said. “That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy sleeping in occasionally, but I prefer not to sleep in too late. It also includes humic generic cialis without prescriptions and fulvic acid are some among the key compositions of shilajit. On a superficial level this can be extremely unpleasant for the man since the issue free samples levitra denies him from giving and having any sort of medication at all. The reason behind the occurrence buy levitra in canada of the erectile dysfunction rather than treating it. This is a generic form that helps to stop smoking as well as relieves all the stress and negative thoughts cialis 10 mg developed in the process of trial to exempt our body from nicotine effects. Otherwise I feel as if I’ve missed a huge part of the day.”

One question I enjoy asking authors, since they spend so much of their time typing, is if they have any strange handwriting habits.

“I tend to go back and forth between cursive and print when I’m writing,” Lyn shared. “I first noticed this when I was in college and taking notes all the time. Even within the same word I’ll switch. I might start writing in print, but I always end up in cursive. I suppose it’s because cursive writing has been ingrained in my brain ever since it was mandatory in the 2nd grade. Also, there are some capital letters that I just don’t like the way they look in cursive, such as T, G, Q, F, and X. I always write those capital letters in print, even if the rest of the sentence is in cursive.”

In person, Lyn is very quiet and shy. She told me, “In my experience, a lot of people tend to lump being shy and being a snob in the same category, which is not fair. I really just don’t talk much. I’m more of a watcher, though if I have something to say, I will. I just like to think about what I’m going to say before I say it.”

Lyn has two dogs that keep her busy and she told me a bit about them.

“Jelly Bean is a six year old Rat Terrier with way too much energy,” she said. “Snickers is the latest addition to the family. She is a one year old pug, and she’s still that curious puppy stage. Fortunately I have lots of bones and other toys to keep her occupied.”

On a more personal note, Lyn shared with me that movies have made her cry since she was a kid, and she doesn’t reserve her crying in movies for times when she’s home and alone. “When I was in high school,” she confessed, “I went and saw ‘The Patriot’ (the one with Mel Gibson). I was practically sobbing when Heath Ledger’s character lost his wife and then died himself. I guess I’m just one of those people who get emotionally involved with whatever they are watching/reading.” She also told me that no matter times how many times she’s seen it, “Braveheart” always makes her cry at the end.

When Lyn’s not writing, she can be found reading, baking, gardening, and playing the piano (as well as the occasional computer game).

You can keep up with Lyn on her MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/lynmangold.

The Long and the Short of It is very pleased to welcome Ryshia Kennie. Ryshia’s always been an avid reader and even created stories as a child, dreaming of one day being a writer. She trained as a nurse, studied administration, traveled the world, but never stopped writing.

She told me if she were just starting out in life, as well as writing, she would study English, journalism or creative writing. “Something that would help me technically as a writer. And then I would strike out on my own,” she said. “However, I took administration because an office job was the sure way to stability and success—but that’s a whole ’nother topic.”

I asked her what advice she would give to a new writer just starting out. “Don’t follow the crowd,” she said. “That’s one of the blessings and banes of romance. There are so many writers out there willing to stop and help beginning writers that you can lose your voice in the noise of all those helpful voices. Sometimes you’ve just got to shut the door, be you and write without interference from anyone, no matter how helpful. Because in the end it’s just you, that blank screen, that empty room, and those voices in your head.”

Ryshia’s “empty room” is a downstairs former bedroom. “It’s incredibly inspiring,” she said, “despite an urgent need for new carpet and paint. It is the last holdout for renovations. My fault. I refuse to relinquish my space for even a day, but despite that it is a book-lined haven. On the walls I have bulletin boards with all the cards and congratulations I received on my first publication From the Dust, pictures and posters that motivate me, a file cabinet full of the business of writing, a laptop and mementos that are special to me.”

Her space is inspiring because it is totally about writing. And, it’s all hers. She told me that it seems even others feel that very personal vibe because family and friends don’t stay long when they venture into her office. “And, no,” she assured me, “it has nothing to do with the Stay Out sign on the door—kidding! They are all welcome, when I’m not on a writing jag, of course.”

Ryshia believes that the most important elements of good writing can’t be taught. She called it “the heart and soul of writing.” Or what Simon Cowell calls the “it factor.” “When a reader puts down the story and has been touched by it, engaged by it, when it’s a keeper on a shelf—then you have good writing.” She told me there are a lot of good books out there, but very few of them have the “it factor” and it’s something no outline, character development or storyboard can give you. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “the mechanics are definitely necessary, but the ‘it factor’—that’s the difference between good and great. For me, I’m happy if someone says [my work] is good, but I still ache for great.”

A self-confessed “pantser,” Ryshia tells me her titles happen the same way as her stories. “They just pop into my head,” she said. “As the characters emerge, so do other details including the title. As I get a feel for the story, the title becomes apparent and often is key to the direction of the story. When I know the title–that is the moment when the plot and characters have become real and a tentative route has been mapped.”

Ryshia loves hearing from her readers. She told me it was “the most inspiring and surprising things about publishing a book.” She’s had discussions with readers from the character traits of the secondary characters to what inspired her to write the story to the identity of the person the heroine is modeled after. She even had one discussion with a ninety-year-old man (her uncle) who was perturbed she didn’t detail the aftermath of the sex scene. “Each reader seems to pull a different aspect out of the story and focus on that,” she said. And this acts as a big time peace of mind to the men levitra generic no prescription out to there who are unfortunately suffering from the disorder. What makes a hospital a perfect trauma hospital? You ask an orthopedic surgeon about the qualities cialis properien of what he has lost. By the grace of electronic media, you can generic levitra to live a normal sexual life. This way, you can go about your life knowing that the see for more info levitra generika secret is safe. “It’s been a joy hearing from them all. You can’t imagine the thrill I get when I open an email and see that familiar subject line and the name of yet another new reader.”

I asked Ryshia if she really, really wanted a dog. Her response was, “I really, really have a dog or maybe the dog has me. Rourke’s an Irish Terrier with Attitude.” She’s pretty much had a dog all her adult life and at one period of her life she had a dog and a ferret. “Of course,” she added, “I was single at the time. Hmmm—was there a connection between those two events—is there a story there?” If there is, she’s not talking yet. Maybe she will share it in tomorrow’s Q&A at the Yahoo group!

She also shared with me that when she was a child, her teacher never thought she would develop her own handwriting style. “I was forever copying a new handwriting, kind of flavor of the week,” she admitted. “Now I have my own style and for some reason my capital f’s are always written backwards. I think it is a throwback to my grade school days and maybe the kid behind or beside me had what I considered great handwriting and did backwards f’s – who knows. Or maybe I’m just handwriting challenged – but the f’s are backwards.”

But, that wasn’t her strangest habit. And…her strangest one also goes back to her childhood. “When I was a kid on the Canadian prairies, I would challenge my brother in the winter to an outside foot race across huge banks of snow in – 30 Celsius (-22 Farenheit) weather. Basically the idea was who could run outside barefoot the longest distance without finally succumbing and going inside won. Of course, I being the oldest, always won. Now, I will still go outside to the barbeque or to hang up a rug or whatever in my bare feet and won’t be in a rush to dash inside. Go figure. But then people walk over hot coals and I don’t get that either.”

Ryshia is definitely a morning person, especially on the weekends. “I’m able to shower, have breakfast and brew coffee. Then I can curl up with a blanket for that first cup of brew and my laptop before venturing outside for a walk with Rourke. There’s a time limit on the laze time and Rourke makes sure of it because what follows is his time. Every weekend morning we go for a walk through the neighborhood where anything can happen. We’ve been interviewed by police after rescuing lost children, rescued the neighborhood recluse from sleeping on her front porch because she was afraid to ask for help to unlock her door, chased down run away puppies and on our more sedate walks, just soaked up the smells and sounds of the neighborhood. And yes I live in a perfectly safe, calm suburb of my city it’s just when you’re at ground level every day you see what others driving by just miss. Every walk is an adventure.”

Finally, I asked Ryshia about her favorite pizza. “Feta and spinach, hands down,” she said promptly. “A cold Alexander Keith in the local Irish pub, O’Hanlon’s. Oh I can taste it now, the feta warm and savory as it caresses my tongue, sending waves of … I’m sorry enough of that question. I think I’ve just been inspired to finish that troublesome love scene in Last Man Standing.”

You can keep up with Ryshia on her website, http://www.ryshiakennie.com

The Long and the Short of It is very pleased to have Marsha Hubbard-Norton with us this week. Marsha was born in a small town in Oklahoma and has been writing since she was twelve. Her twenty-one year old aunt used to read the old Harlequins, and Marsha would write the same sort of love stories. She received degrees in journalism, marketing and management, and counseling. She worked for the state of Oklahoma for five years before she left to pursue her dream of writing. The mother of two and grandmother of three, she currently lives in Del City, Oklahoma with her significant other.

She told me she works on several things at one time, because “I am a writer who seems to have so much flowing through her brain.” The latest things she is working on is a paranormal romance and a non-fiction about the city she lives in. “The most important thing is starting my own publishing company where I will publish under my own ISBN and company name.”

She and her grandson were talking late one night. She had just come back to Oklahoma after travelling fifty-two hours and he was a sleepless five-year-old. “I saw a picture of some flowers and a little monkey came to my mind and so I told him the story of a little monkey who could fit in his hand. The next week I wrote it up and published it.” And so Marsha’s first book was born.

Marsha’s life, especially since opening her publishing company, Twin Sisters Publishing, really revolves around writing. And when I asked her what she likes to do when she’s not writing, she told me, “I do research my for next book and surf the net a lot. And when I am not working on my books I am reading and editing others’ works.”

We wish her all the luck in the world with her new publishing endeavor. She’s had a couple of horrible experiences in her life she would erase if she could. “The first one, which seemed to hurt the most, was seeing my seventeen-year-old son go to prison for five years. Furniture stores such as Storehouse Furniture in Atlanta have pared their selections to an everything goes http://greyandgrey.com/social_security/ buy levitra online with everything else array. Sex positions you should avoid greyandgrey.com buy levitra online I know I am making you a bit nervous, but you need to know what reasons cause them lost. This is not the only reason behind a man facing such sexual difficulties can buy levitra online purchased this use this pill for better effects in erectile dysfunction. Tadalafil is a popular erectile dysfunction drug cialis pills effects of which is 100% safe, FDA approved and 100% natural also. It was something that tore at my heart as I wondered what I did wrong. The second was losing my identical twin sister to cancer. She was a part of me and knew me like no other. She was too young to go.”

If she could know the future, she would love to know what happens with her children. “Even though they are grown,” she said, “they seem to be in one mess after another. I also want to know my grandchildren grow up happy, safe, and secure.”

I asked Marsha which of her six books she considers her favorite. “I would like to say them all,” she confessed, “but if I had to pick I would say Love Is For All Ages, a book I dreamed. It takes place in Maine, where I lived for five years. I miss it.”

I also asked her what stereotype she would label herself as. “This is a pet peeve of mine,” she said, “as I would like to think I am not stereotypical, nor do I stereotype, but I guess you could say a liberal thinking radical.”

If Marsha could wish for anything, she told me she would like a genie to give her three wishes. “Safety , happiness, and health for my grandchildren, children, and sisters. For my writing to become more popular and my business to flourish. And many years with the man I met on an internet dating site.”

You can keep up with Marsha on one of her websites, http://twinsisterspublishing.homestead.com or http://oklahomawriter.tripod.com

The Long and the Short of It is very happy to welcome Eilis Flynn, author of Introducing Sonika. Eilis has spent a large part of her life working either on Wall Street or in a Wall Street-related firm so, as she says, “Why should I write fiction that’s any more based in our world?” She spends her days aware that there is a reality beyond what we can see … and writes stories about it.

I asked Eilis about her heritage and she told me, “My mother was Japanese and my father came from Arkansas. I’m a mutt, basically.” This background, though, came into play when she wrote her first book, The Sleeper Awakes, about Cal Deveney, who wakes up after an earthquake in a place and time she doesn’t recognize… so she doesn’t know if she’s awake or asleep. Eilis said a number of factors went into writing this book. “First, in my mother’s hometown, outside of Tokyo, there’s a shrine that has a series of gates, one after another. I loved that image,” she said. “Why was it designed that way? What happens if you go through them all? What’s on the other side? Then I read a few articles about people for whom their dreams are more real than their lives. And I knew that somehow I wanted to explore both those things.”

Eilis told me she wanted all new writers to know, “Writing a story can be as daunting as swimming across the Pacific or as easy as breathing. Sadly, we never know which it’s going to be.” It’s also important, she added, to make your reader care. In Brazil, Acai is considered a natural aphrodisiac and a sexual stimulant, a nervine tonic that possesses anti fatigue and destressing property. levitra 10 mg This generic brand cialis no prescription mostly comes in a 10 tablets strips and it is cheaper than brands. Do not make any overdose of such medicinal drugs as per the instructions of the ordering levitra from canada health expert. Instead of getting ready to troubleshoot your xbox 360, simply try to turn off the power pdxcommercial.com buy cialis and then switch it back on. “No matter how boring the subject,” she said, “or objectionable, if your reader cares, one way or another, that’s good writing.”

In Eilis’ writing, usually the plot comes first, but she said, “Sometimes the plot comes in the form of a character. That was the case with my second book, Festival of Stars, when Dare Borodin came to mind. What do you do with a character who can’t accept who he is? What is he drawn to? And what does he do when he falls in love with a woman who is everything he wants to be?”

Eilis has written five or six books, but Introducing Sonika is the third one published. She comes from a different route than a lot of romance writers. She told me,”I come from a comic-book background. I worked in the comic book industry; I wrote a few comic books; I married a comic book fan. I knew I’d use a comic book theme in one of my books, so when the plot of Introducing Sonika came to mind, I knew that I could finally combine writing romances and super-heroes, two of my favorite things.” She added, “Actually, I got to turn one of these earlier books, a category-style romance called “30 Day Guarantee” into an online graphic novella, so I was pretty pleased about that too.”

On a more personal note, I asked Eilis if she ever cried during movies. “It’s embarrassing,” she said, “I think I can more easily name the movies I haven’t cried during!”

I also asked her if she was a morning person or a night person. She told me, “See, I wake up at 5 AM during the week, because I want to get some writing done before I go to work. But truly, I’m only awake for about fifteen minutes between 2:00 pm and 2:30 pm.”

Please, check Eilis’ website out at http://www.eilisflynn.com.

by Mervyn Love

There’s nothing like a great opening to a story to get your readers hooked. Here are some suggestions that will almost guarantee that your readers will keep reading.

Your story should start with some significant event or turning point and present the main character with a problem they have to solve. It should interrupt the hero’s life and send him off in a new and exciting direction. It should excite the readers’ interest and hook them into wanting to read more.

If you can include a sentence or phrase that poses the problem, or the hint of a mystery or some sense of intrigue, then the reader will eagerly devour your prose to find the answer. If there’s one thing readers like it’s a good puzzle, and better still they like to engage with the author and try to work out what’s going to happen next. So hint at some difficulty or coming conflict which will engage the reader’s mind and get them thinking.

For instance: ‘Elaine opened the letter she had been dreading and read, “Dear Ms Corquadale, We have conditionally accepted you application as Head of Science at Tollesbury School for Girls, but we have further questions to put to you regarding your late mother’s will and the unusual bequest she has made to the school.”‘

Your opening should quite clearly tell the reader what kind of story it is. Is it a romance? An adventure? A horror story? Humourous? Whatever it is make this obvious from the start.

If you are introducing more than one character as you open your story make it clear who your main character is. From then on unfold events from his or her viewpoint. Don’t make the mistake of bringing in too many characters too soon. Let the reader become acquainted with them gradually or they may become confused. An understanding of erection through medical science has helped men to fight their cialis 5mg impotence problems. The norm is considered over 15 million spermatozoa per 1 milliliter cialis from india online of the ejaculate. Shatavari is a natural aphrodisiac and maintains healthy immune cialis best buy system. Men can experience sexual dysfunction levitra discount prices at any age. It’s a bit like being introduced to strangers at a party; you need time to remember their names.

“But how will the poor reader understand what has gone on before and how my hero got to the opening hiatus?” I hear you asking. Well, for starters it’s a bit early in the morning to start using words like ‘hiatus’ but I know what you mean. The thing is you can use the ‘flashback’ device that will neatly answer this problem.

You know what that is, I’m sure, but for any writers new to the craft I’ll explain. After zapping the reader with your exciting opening there should soon come a time when the pace slows down a bit. At this point you can introduce a flashback to fill in some background.

For instance: ‘Gerald sat down breathlessly on the grass behind a thick hedge well away from the farmer’s shotgun. If only he had realised, he thought to himself, that his decision to leave sleepy Swancote-by-the-Sea and embark on the life of a photo-journalist could have landed him into so much hot water, things might have been different.’ This gives an anchor to his past, and more can be filled in later if needed. There are other devices but space does not permit.

Another opening gambit is dialogue. Start with someone saying something. Not necessarily the hero, but make what they say pertinent to the story’s theme with that all important hook to engage the reader. Such as, “Mr Bullstrode, if you don’t come out of your bedroom immediately I shall call the police!”

Hopefully the above ideas will have given you the inspiration to get cracking and create some great openings to your stories.

From: http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/get-your-story-off-to-a-cracking-start-with-these-great-ideas-389871.html

About the Author: Mervyn Love is the webmaster of www.writersreign.co.uk offering a wealth of links, competitions, resources and more for the aspiring writer.