Good writing–the stuff that engages your readers and has them return to read you again and again–requires that characters be believable, admirable, plausible and entertaining. And, of course, your plot needs to meet that criteria, too.

Now, I’m sure I’m not alone when I tell you that more than one of my manuscripts has been nixed by an editor or agent, because the premise or a scene/chapter was just too coincidental to be believable. I have to laugh thinking back to those comments, because every day I’m just amazed at how much more bizarre fact is over fiction.

Case in point: A young man who stole his father’s Oxycodone prescription from home, trekked into the city on the bus, to meet a buyer for the pills. He met with two men who paid him for the pills, but instead of “honoring” the deal, he took their money and fled, pills still in his possession. Running full speed up the street, looking over his shoulder one time too many, Drug Dealer crashed into the back of a man who was fleeing the bank he’d just robbed. Both men ended up sprawled on the sidewalk dazed and just a little confused. They were arrested without incident. I almost felt sorry for Bank Robber on this one.

So, the next time someone tells you that your scene is just too wacky to be believable, ask them if they’ve ever watched the six o’clock news. Or better yet, ask them if they’ve ever read Evanovich.

Now there’s a gal that knows how to ram zanny and unbelievable right down her reader’s throats – and we can’t get her books fast enough!

Happy Writing!!
NQ

My warmest thanks to the talented and generous author Jeff Swesky, who nominated me for this award. Jeff’s background in writing and editing is very impressive. His blog, NOTHING LIKE WE IMAGINED is always unique, sincere and entertaining – like the writer.

The guidelines for the accepting and participating in the Kreativ Blogger Award are as follows:

• list six blogs that I think are outstanding and deserving of the reward
• share ten things that your readers don’t know about you

First, let me tell you ten things about me and get that out of the way:

1) I made my living as a professional singer for a number of years

2) I’ve got a younger brother who lives in NJ

3) I love NASCAR and ice hockey, though I no longer race cars nor play ice hockey. (I was never a contender in either sport, but love them anyway)

4) I shoot a 9mm

5) My lucky number is 13

6) My husband and I have three cats (okay, some of you may know that one…)

7) I’ve been married three times, have raised total of six children.

8) Two of those children actually speak to me more than once a year.

9) Love to read Grafton, Scottoline, Sinclair, Piniero, and Evanovich.

10) I still enjoy motorcycles, 46 years after my first ride on a Vespa.

Okay, the trivia is done – on to my six nominees:

These bloggers have wonderful blogs for both writers and readers. Consider subscribing today!

For those of you visiting my site, please check out their sites as well. I have the links on the right-hand side of the blog.

So without any further ado, here they are:

• C.L. Enuton - GOOBERELLA
• Motherhood Is Easy…As Long As You Have Nothing Else To Do      For The Next 50 Years
• Lois      Winston – Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers
• Michael      Ray King – Poetry in Black and White
• Life’s      a Great Adventure
• Jack      Owens – A Brit with Attitude

Congratulations, bloggers! Keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll keep coming back. Hopefully so will many others. And if you accept this award and decide to participate, give a shout out to the one who nominated you so they know!

Write on!!

NLQ

Keep writing!
NQ

POETRY –
Submit a cover letter with your poems. This is one genre you don’t need to “pitch.” Again, be familiar with what the publication publishes. Don’t send poetry that exceeds the lines requested and don’t send the wrong type of poem(s) to the editor. Publication is about your poetry, not your biography. Keep a spreadsheet to track where you’ve submitted what and to whom.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES: Check out Amazon and B&N

Crafting Novels and Short Stories from the editors of Writers Digest. Includes advise and instructions from authors and experts including Nancy Kress, Donald Maass, Heather Sellers and Elizabeth Sims. www.writersdigestshop.com

The First 50 Pages by Jeff Gerke. These days, a writer has 1-2 pages to catch the attention of an editor, agent or reader. Don’t leave your opening scene to chance. Learn how to craft a strong beginning from the start. www.writersdigestshop.com.

Writing Books for Fun, Fame & Fortune! By Rik Feeney. Learn to write a book within 40 days with simple effective tips and strategies. Meant primarily for non-fiction work, fiction writers and academics will find plenty of value in these pages, too. Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites.

Until next week – keep writing!
NQ

Maximizing Media Leads

Thanks to HARO (www.helpareporterout.com) and similar media leads services, there are media leads out there for everyone, all the time. Media, media, everywhere! The key, however, is to maximize these leads. Often, we think that as long as we respond to them, and give them our information, the hard part is done. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact it’s really just the beginning. How can you get better exposure for your pitches? Here is a quick guide to pitching these media leads services that will provide you with insight and guidance for better placement and better stickiness to the stories you pitch.
Pitching the right lead: First and foremost, you need to define the right lead to pitch. But really, it’s more than that. Keep in mind that for a variety of topics such as finance, dieting and parenting you might find a lot of leads but not all of them are appropriate to your topic. Some people think that you shouldn’t pitch anything that isn’t 100% spot on. If I followed this way of thinking, I wouldn’t have gotten myself into a variety of publications, including Entrepreneur Magazine (issue forthcoming).
So what’s the goal? The goal is to go after as many leads as you can within the appropriate market. For example, if you have a diet book that is focused on a soy based program and you see a lead about getting ready for summer, you might think it seems off, but the idea here might be to pitch them your topic, to help people get ready for summer. The same is true for an article on the high divorce rate and you have a book on making divorce a smoother transition. This could be a great opportunity for you to pitch a sidebar idea on creating a gentler transition for families of divorce.
The idea really is that, to the degree it’s appropriate, pitch yourself to as many on-point topics as you can. When I do this, however, I will always address the issue of the topic they pitched and then ask if they are interested in perhaps taking a sidebar angle to the piece or offering an extended insight into their topic. You’d be amazed at how often this gets a response.
Response time: Basically, as fast as you can. You should never, ever, ever sit on a lead unless you need to gather additional data before responding. Don’t wait. Period. Remember that you aren’t the only person seeing that lead, many of these reporters and journalists get hundreds of responses per lead they send and generally, the first who respond get the most attention. Ignore the deadline and send it right away, if you wait until minutes before the deadline you might get buried in the hundreds of other leads that have flooded the recipient’s inbox.
Responding: Short, sweet, and to the point. While I suggested in the above tip that you take some liberty with some of your leads and responses, I still recommend keeping it on point and short. In fact I’ll often highlight some key points, send the response off and indicate that I’m aware they might be sitting with a flooded inbox and if my response has piqued their interest, I am happy send as much additional data as they need. Also, if appropriate, cite or link to any current articles that you’ve been featured in online so the media person can see the breadth of your knowledge. Oh and one final note, please, please, please spell check your emails. You’d never send a resume to a potential employer with typos in it, right? So it baffles me that anyone would send an email that wasn’t spell checked.
The media are your customers: Remember to always treat media like your customer and like a consumer, they probably have a lot of choices. Serve them as you would a new client. Give them what they need in a timely fashion and don’t under deliver. Ever. Don’t embellish, don’t alter the facts and be ready to prove every single point you are making in your pitch.
Managing the responses: As you get responses you should be ready to act immediately. In fact if you are pitching yourself to *any* media you should be checking your email regularly – several times a day in fact. Depending on the story you are pushing for, you should really be on top of your email, all the time so you can be prepared to respond immediately.
Follow up: Unless you’ve been tapped by the media person to be in the article don’t follow up on a lead you sent, ever. Why? Because if they need you they’ll let you know; if they don’t, a follow-up email is just annoying. Keep in mind that even if the media person doesn’t respond, you might still see some activity from them down the road. This happened to me with an INC online piece. They didn’t need me for the original story I had responded to but kept my information on file and used it later. Had I followed up a few times this might not have happened if I had gotten labeled as a “pest” – be careful the impression you make in email!
You’ve got placement! Great! Congratulations! So, what now? Well now it’s time to promote, promote, promote the lead you were just featured in. Post it to Twitter, list it on your blog and Facebook Fan Page and oh, don’t forget to thank the media person too!
How to find great leads: There are a number of great resources out there for finding leads. Here are just a few of them!

Help A Reporter Out: www.helpareporterout.com
Reporter Connection: www.reporterconnection.com
Blogger Link Up: www.bloggerlinkup.com
Pitch Rate: http://pitchrate.presskit247.com/index.asp
Media leads are a great way to get yourself in front of media who need your expertise. I have found media lead responding to be a fantastic way to gain media attention for our authors. Get on the media leads bandwagon and start responding. You never know where you could land a story!
Good luck!

February we’ll be returning to our author blog schedule, so look for a featured author blog around the middle of the month. We’ll keep posting Penny’s great articles and Quick Bytes.  Hope you’ll send me your ideas for a blog topic, too!  See you next week.

Keep writing! NLQ

The Missouri Review: Short Stories, Poetry and Essays. Quarterly, pays $40 per page. GREAT for beginning writers! Submissions accepted year-round via website or mail. Details including guidelines at www.missourireview.com/tmrsubmissions/regular-submission-guidelines

WRITERS DIGEST: “5-Minute Memoir” is looking for 600-word essays reflecting the writing life. Email to wdsumissions@fwmedia.com.

Glimmer Train – ranges from $700 – 2, 000.
Deadline: 1/31, 2/29, 3/31
Details: www.GlimmerTrain.org

CONTESTS WORTH ENTERING:

Writers Digest Writing Competition (10 Categories)
Cash and publication prizes. Deadline: May 15, 2012

For details visit, writersdigest.com and look for contests.

Tarcher/Penguin National Creativity Competition – open to any writer with an unpublished manuscript
No fee
10 pages could win you $5,000
Deadline: March 2, 2012
Details: www.tarchertopartist.com

CONFERENCES:

2012 CREATE SOMETHING MAGICAL CONFERENCE, Iselin, NJ Larissa Ione, Special Guest Speaker – MARCH 17, 2012 Writers Tracts (3) Readers Tract (1) Details: www.lsfwriter.com/conference

SUPER VALUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NY editors/agents/speakers!

UNICORN WRITERS CONFERENCE APRIL 28, 2012            SANDRA BROWN, SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER
WWW.UNICORNWRITERSCONFERENCE.COM

2012 SAN FRANCISCO WRITERS CONFERENCE, FEB 16 – 20, 2012
www.SFWriters.org

Keep writing, keep learning, keep sharing!

NLQ

I’m a writer, so I listen and watch a lot. And, when in the grocery in the past few weeks, I’ve been privy to conversations that have been wonderful fodder for my characters. You know that saying, “Be careful what you say, it could end up my  novel” – well, here are a few to stimulate YOUR imaginations.

Twenty-something, standing behind me. Ringtone: Hip Hop. “Hello?”  Silence. “Oh yeah? Well, Jimmy, I’ve told you before, you’re just stupid.  If you kill me, I’ll never talk to you again.”

You think? I deliberately didn’t look at her when I left because I was afraid I’d burst out laughing. Now that would have been rude!

Eighty-something. In the cleaning products aisle. Ringtone: Ring-ring like a traditional Bell phone. Sigh. “Yes, Mary, I’m still in the store. Silence. “No Mary, we don’t need cat food, Sweetheart. I’ll be home soon.” Silence. Another sigh. “Because the cat died a year ago, Mary. He doesn’t get hungry any more.”

Mother – youngish forty-something, my bet she was talking to a teenager. Ringtone: Theme from the Titanic. “Danny, you’ll do your homework when you get home. Silence. “I know, but your homework is more important than your girlfriend, believe me. If you don’t bring up your grades, you won’t see your girlfriend until you’re collecting Social Security.”

Now THAT was funny. I ducked around to the cereal aisle just before I started to laugh at that one. After all, I didn’t want to get caught eavesdropping, now did I?

Your assignment? Take any of those scenarios and write a short story that contains those conversations. Or, just enjoy them – and keep your eyes and ears open. The more real your conversations, the more three-dimensional your characters!!

Happy Writing!!!

NQ

Mt. McKinley

This morning, just twenty minutes after the sunrise, I was on the road, when it just sort of “vanished.” After days of cold temperatures, the relatively mild morning produced the kind of fog that springs up out of nowhere and forms such a thick blanket that what was clear for a mile ahead is suddenly barely visible even for a few feet.
How like my writing career, and my life for that matter, the situation seemed to parallel. I’m trucking along, sure that my plan for success/relationships/prosperity/good health (pick which one, it doesn’t matter) is the right one, and then WHAM! I’m mired down in what feels like insurmountable obstacles and challenges and I can’t “see” where I’m going further than the next moment in time. I’m only just learning that this moment is the only one I need to attend to.
Although I’ve been actively on a faith journey since I was in my twenties (MANY years ago), of late I’ve realized in my core, that there is nothing I need to figure out. No perfect plan I need in place. God’s already written the manual for life, all I need to do is read it, do what it says, and, stay in touch with the Author on a regular basis. I don’t need to see miles up the road; I just need to have faith that in his love and grace he will show me the way. I don’t need to worry about running into insurmountable challenges; I just need to obey the speed limit, keep my eyes and ears open, and keep moving forward.
I hope you learn to embrace the “fog” and enjoy the journey! God gave you your talents to be used to His glory. If you’re doing that, the fog will lift and you’ll see that all is better than you could ever imagine.
NQ

May each dawn bring a brighter tomorrow.

May you remember each day, that perseverence and faith

Will make all your dreams come true.

Remember – all it takes to write a book, is to put your buttocks in the chair and write. You can write a full-length (95,000) novel in 63 days if you just write 6 pages a day!!

Keep writing!!

NLQ

Double Q Tree

Just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and 2012 that is full of blessings for you and yours.

Look for Penny Sansevieri’s writeup to kick off the new year!! See you next Sunday!

Keep writing!

NQ