Catch Me If You Can!

Just want to let everyone know what I have been up to and what to look forward to over the next couple of weeks, but first my horoscopes, which by the way, are right on today!


Aquarius Today June 14, 2012
1/20 – 2/18
If you want some alone time today, that's fine -- but don't just drop off the face of the earth and leave people guessing about what happened to you. You owe it to your friends, family and coworkers to let them know what and where you are -- both emotionally and physically. If you want to have the freedom to come and go as you please, you need to provide the respect that other people deserve. Plus, they will worry about you if they don't know what's going on. Save them from that. "Okay, will do!"
Rooster Daily Overview 
Although you may not be fortunate in the love and wealth department, you might see yourself becoming successful career-wise. This, however, does not come without significant hard work from your end. With that said, make sure that you enjoy whatever leisure time you might have.
Dog Daily Overview
Be patient as you might experience a lot of problems today. You need to go through this in order to better appreciate the things to come when your own work brings about success. Don't get distracted by a blooming romance, as you need to iron things out around you before you indulge in some 'me' time.

So to catch up, I have been interviewing other authors on my other blog and you can find them here;
Sara Flower- I love her pen name. Did you know Flower is her middle name?
http://karensdifferentcorners.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/wednesday-wonders-interview-with-sara-flower-2/
And Victoria Limbert. I love her cover for Lilith! It goes great on my blog!
http://karensdifferentcorners.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/wednesday-wonders-interview-with-victoria-limbert/
On June 20th Sydney Aaliyah will be visiting us from Australia!
I've also been trying to help promote other author's books here on this blog.
"Ransom" by Emily Guido is her second book in her series, "The Light-Bearer"
http://differentcornersinmylife.blogspot.com/2012/06/light-bearer-series-by-emily-guido.html
"Immortal Relations" by G.D. Ogan

http://differentcornersinmylife.blogspot.com/2012/06/peek-at-immortal-relations-by-gd-ogan.html

And coming up on June 18th, I'll have a peek at 

Damon Ferrell Marbut's  "Awake in the Mad World"

Which brings us to: I have been interviewed myself 3 times over the past couple of weeks. I had a great time doing Eden's interview here http://edenbaylee.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/inside-the-authors-mind-karen-einsel/

And then I was interviewed here on Writers Block Admin Services 

http://www.writersblockadminservices.co.uk/author-interview-karen-einsel/

And Tomorrow you can find me here http://sharkbaitwrites.com/

I had a great time visiting with Sharky! I should have ordered the Pina Colada though, it would have been great while I was stranded on that deserted island surfing the web!

Last but not least "The Good Dr. Grant" will be promo'd on July 8th here 

http://the-ruthin-trilogy.blogspot.com/

PHEW! Wait! I haven't told you about yesterday and today!

Yesterday I had breakfast with my dad and step mom and my step sister, Val. It was great visiting with Val, since I don't get to see her too often, because she lives up in OR. Then I came home and spent the rest of the day reformatting the print version of "The Good Dr. Grant" Why? Because when I first published it, I wanted a photo of my son's dog inside the book in color. Little did I know at the time that, that one picture would jack the price of my novel way up. So instead of the average $15.00 I can't list it for less than $41.55 on Amazon. Lesson learned and I won't go into the details of reformatting, but let's just say it involves 2 laptops, MS Word, MS Works Word Processor, pdf. rtf. doc. two trusty memory sticks And a trip to the hair dresser to get all the gray hair colored!

So today is more reformatting and then some editing and revising of, 

"Chris' Journey Turning Different Corners" 

Because I am looking at a tentative release date of July 4th! Well that's it for now. Well there is more but I'll spare you the details. (smile)
Oops! I forgot to tell you I was awarded a blogger award for my other blog this morning from Zen Scribbles. Thank you Zen! Stop by her blog you'll be glad you did! http://zenscribbles.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/thank-you-for-the-awards/

Okay Gotta go! Catch me if you can!

Platforms

My life used to be simple, well not really, but it was organized.
When I had my gift shop, I'd get up at 6 a.m. get on the computer,
check emails and catch up with friends and family on facebook,
 go open up the shop at 9 a.m. come home for lunch at noon and
 check in back in on the computer, back to work and
then check back in after dinner. Simple, right?
Well now that I am at home all the time and writing...
There are blogs to maintain, twitterers to tweet, websites, groups, profiles...
Well you get the idea. With Facebook and all the changes they have been making
I have a hard time trying to keep up with everyone, With family and friends and groups and pages liked and subscribed to, I'm just about at the 5,000 limit. 99 new notification notices every morning.
I do like the changes Twitter has made though, especially making it easy to keep up with
conversations without have to go back through 200 tweets just to find out why someone laughed at whatever you said...
How does everyone keep up with everything going on and not go completely insane! Much less have time to write and clean house? Yep, life was simpler when I ran my own business :-))

How's your platform holding up? Tweet, tweet!

Tuesday Blogs to Follow

I have a pending blog post, that I so do hope to share later today, but for now, I thought you might enjoy other's blogs that I follow and enjoy!

http://peterhobbs1.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/pet-peeves/

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2012/01/book-cover-design-and-the-problem-of-symbolism/

http://clairejdeboer.com/2012/01/author-tips-on-building-relationships-and-sharing-your-words-with-the-world

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/dont-eat-the-butt-lies-that-can-poison-our-writing-career-1/

http://mainstreetmusingsblog.com/2012/01/09/freshly-pressed/

http://wordservewatercooler.com/2012/01/16/i-have-a-dream-today/

I love Blogs!

Good morning! And Happy Tuesday!
Today I just want to share a few blogs that I have found and that I follow, since I really need to update my other blog today! Yikes! You can find it here...
http://karensdifferentcorners.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/my-firsts/

This is J A Bennett's new blog http://j-a-bennett.blogspot.com/2012/01/fresh-start.html?spref=tw

Here is some advice on creating a good blog or web page.
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2012/01/06/is-your-website-hurting-your-writing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheCreativePenn+(The+Creative+Penn)&utm_content=Google+Reader

And here are a few of my faves I follow

http://www.theredheadriter.com/

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/

http://theballadofjoeyflowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/the-love-the-hate-regret-we-all-have-it/

http://debrakristi.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/immortal-monday-poseidon-not-the-hollywood-version/

There are so many more wonderful blogs that I follow not mentioned today, but I am thinking I should start sharing them on Tuesdays.
Have a wonderful day today everyone!
Karen

How to write a book?

I have read 10,000 help blogs on "How to write a book." Well maybe only 500, but it feels like a heck of a lot more! And every single one of them tell you something different. Not only do help blogs tell you how to write books, but there's also the ones who tell you how to write queries and synopsis'. And then there are the submission processes of agents and publishers.
First you have people telling you, "No purple prose" If you don't know what that is you can find out about it here;
http://www.debstover.com/purple.html and yes, there is one small line in my book that has it, but in my defense, that part of my book took place in the '70's. And I didn't know what "purple prose" was until about 10 minutes ago!
Okay so now you are done writing and it's time to query.
First they tell you how to write a query and you would think it would be a simple process, but no it's not. It can be one of the hardest things you'll ever do and I think I just submitted the shortest query in history! Very short and to the point. Oh well. It was my first submission and let's hope I get better as I go along.
Second they tell you, "Don't query a series." So what if they are asking for series?

So here's the deal;
I've written my book. I wrote it the way the story played out in my head. I proofread it and did the edits and reread it. It's done! It might be only 55,000 words, but it is a tragic love story with closure and I cried through a major part as I was writing it. Hopefully that's because of the story and not my writing. No, it doesn't have a happily ever after. Not yet anyways, because it is the first book in a series of four books and then you get the happily ever after. Which, by the way, has been written also and is apprx. 93,000 words.

So the moral of this story is...
Write your way, in your own words. Take time to double check spelling. Make sure the story flows and comes together nicely and do your best on queries and the synopsis and if they like it.... Read the help blogs either before you begin writing or after finishing the first draft. And once you've submitted that book to the agents and publishers you want, take a deep breath and don't start stressing on what you think you did or did not do. It's been sent and it's up to the the people you queried now.

No One Knows

I've been told that no one knows your book better than you!
So my question is, "How come it's so hard to write a query and synopsis?"

I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago. She is an English Lit professor and a writing instructor.
Right now she is grading and reading finals, but when she's done, she's agreed to read my book that I just finished. I told her she needs to be impartial.
 "Yeah right" she tells me. We've been friends for 18 years now.
Anyway, she was asking what my book was about and was trying to pull out all the details.
It didn't dawn on me until after I hung up that she was trying to get a synopsis out of me.
I should have realized this and maybe my synopsis would be done! Oh well. I'll probably get together with her next week and hopefully she can teach me some things about writing!

Have a great week everyone and if you get a chance check out my other blog on wordpress.
http://karensdifferentcorners.wordpress.com/

Was it good for you too?

Okay now that I have got your attention...Get your minds out of the gutter! I'm talking about NaNoWriMo.

I've been seeing blogs and posts on comment boards, or is that comments on post boards, (Shaking head) Hmmm...
Anyway whichever way you look at it, Some say they enjoyed NaNo and some say they didn't.
Personally I thought it was a lot of fun and I'm kind of sad to see it done.
It was my first time...
I wasn't sure I could do it, but I prevailed and look forward to next year.

I wrote my 50,000 plus words. I decided my book would only have 4 main chapters, so I finished the first, third, and final chapter. And got the beginning and end of the second chapter, but need to fill in the center.

The hardest part about nanowrimo for me is writing in a straight line...beginning to end. I tend to skip around some.

The book I wrote is actually the first book in a series of four books. I decided to write it, because I had just finished the fourth book. But on the plus side I have started on the first chapter of book too and have the ending chapter of book three done! Did I mention I skip around a lot?

Oh Well, I hope to see everyone back writing next year!

Here are a couple of blogs from fellow NaNo writers! Check them out!

Simon's Blog This was his first year too!
http://simontall.com/2011/11/30/november-a-novel-and-death-of-the-author/



And Cheryl captures the writers block/procrastinator in all of us with her short videos! http://www.cherylreif.com/2011/12/01/for-all-you-fellow-wrimos/#comment-3843

Happy Dec. 1st You survived, you may all get up from your chairs now! Take a bow and pat yourself on the back!

For those of you that like the comraderie that goes with NaNoWriMo here is a link on FB where you can continue writing your nano
https://www.facebook.com/pages/IE-After-NaNo-Writers-Group/218931721510267

Our Journey with Leukemia

I did a guest blog for Brian Hayden today and you can find it here  http://brha99.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/you-never-know-what-tomorrow-might-bring/

And after writing it, I thought I should try and add to it with a little more of the personal side of having a child diagnosed with leukemia.
I tend to "Just stick to the facts Ma'am"
 I'm not saying it's hard to talk about it, but it's hard to talk about it.
Does that make sense? :-)
Talking about it brings back memories, thoughts and feelings,
 that I haven't had in quite some time. But here goes.

   It was a Monday when I first took Bobby to see his pediatrician.
 He hadn't been feeling well, off and on for a few weeks.
He would run a temperature and feel achy for a day or two,
 be fine for a week and then start the process all over again.
That day was one of his "fine" days, but that night he spiked a fever.
Back to the doctors the next day
 for a more extensive exam and blood tests
and then you wait.
Thursday brought a call from the doctor to come back in.
More tests, more blood being drawn, and then after an exhausting day, some results.
"I believe he has some type of malignancy and I'm having him admitted to the hospital for further tests."
Now my first thought was bone cancer, simply because, it was Bobby's legs that were affected.
That's where his pains were and by the end of that day, his legs were so weak, he could barely walk.

    After a week of blood draws, lumbar punctures, bone scans, x-rays,
 and bone marrow aspirations, the diagnosis was in.
Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia the doctor told us.
Why you wonder. When they are born the nurse shows you how perfect they are.
 Counting all their fingers and toes.
He had a healthy childhood.
 Of course he had the occasional cold or ear infection, but nothing dramatic.
At that point, life as we knew it, was turned upside down.
Now instead of school, bike rides, playing outside,
there was chemo, blood tests, radiation treatments,
 spinal taps, steroids, and side effects.
Oh and a Central Venous Catheter. (Which my son Adam told me, at the precious age of five,
 that never wanted to turn 10,
 because then you get one of those tubes put in your chest)

As for side effects, Bobby only got sick to his stomach once and that's because I asked the nurse to speed up his  8 hour cytoxin drip. He threw up in the car all the way home.
I never asked for her to do that again! Lesson learned :-)
He lost his hair twice. He had just been allowed to go back to school after 10 months of staying home and driving me crazy. (Hey! Cancer or not, he was still an 11 year old kid!) His hair wasn't quite in yet and he was allowed to wear a hat in class. The teacher was great. He explained everything to his students and let me tell you, 6 grade students are Awesome!
One day they had a substitute teacher and it was music day in the cafeteria.
 The sub left the class there and went and took his break. The music teacher not knowing, told Bobby to remove his hat, Bobby just stared at her. She threatened him with being sent to the office and of course worried that he would get in trouble, he removed his hat, even though his classmates told him he didn't have too.
What a shock it was the next day, When I got called into the principal's office!
That childhood feeling comes back real quick, "Am I in trouble?"
Half of Bobby's classmates went home and told their parents what had happened and those parents all called and wanted the music teacher dismissed, they were so upset that my child had to go through that!
And the principal wanted to know how I wanted it handled.
    "This is one of those times when your heart swells and the tears roll down your cheeks."
After talking to Bobby about it, we decided to just let it slide. His hair was starting to come back in, so he wasn't completely bald, but I do have to Thank all those kids and parents. They are wonderful people!

There are other side effects and other good and bad stories to go with our five year journey, but I think I've talked your ear off enough already. One day, maybe I'll sit down and write a book about it. I even thought maybe I'd use it for my NaNoWriMo, but no, I'm a romance writer. But then again,  I could put some romance in it, throw in a few doctors and nurses, Nah!
Thanks for listening and if you would like to know more about Leukemia you can find info here,
http://www.medicinenet.com/leukemia/article.htm
And there's a blog here

http://thecancerhealingguide.blogspot.com/2011/06/most-common-types-of-cancer-leukemia.html?showComment=1320002797609#c2498993197744633757

And don't forget to check out Brian's Blog for more on our journey.
Have a great day everyone!

Guest Bloggers

Good morning everyone! Well it was until the dog decided to take over my writing chair! This is Duggy everyone. See what happens when you get up to get a cup of coffee!

I just want to write a quick blog this morning letting everyone know that I will be a guest blogger for Brian on Halloween! You can find it here
http://brha99.wordpress.com/

Also, Brian is looking for other guest bloggers that would like to share health/medical stories.
So if you are interested stop by and check out his blog!

I am a fiction writer and tend to have a hard time writing non-fiction.
My blog post on Brian's blog is about my oldest son and his leukemia.
My problem with writing non-fiction is....

• I tend to stick to facts and statistics
• I don't seem to put in enough of the personal side
• And I get wordy :-)

I remember writing a paper on alcoholism nine years ago in college
and even though I received a good grade on it,
the professor wrote the comment that I needed to show more of the personal side.

So what I'm hoping to do on Monday is write on my blog,
 a more personal side in contrast to my guest blog post on Brian's.

So I hope everyone has a chance to stop by both blogs and let me know what you think.

Wishing you all a great day today!

Karen

Clutter!

I hate clutter! OMG I think I have an OCD! Well, maybe not that bad, but I do hate clutter.
I believe everything has a place, and everything should be in it's place. If it's not used, get rid of it!
 I do tend to get all jittery and irritated when there are things out of place, or that need to be done.
Take my house. Well not literally, but as an example. When I had some remodeling done, for months every time my niece would come over, she'd tell me that my house always looked like nobody ever lived there. Nothing was ever out of place. No dirty socks, newspapers, etc. And when I posted a pic of my remodeled bathroom, someone commented, "How pristine"

My biggest problem is the people I live with.
Two are pack rats, or hoarders, or whatever you want to call them.
One is the classic, The one with the most toys win, or I might need it someday, or the best one, it might be worth something. Yeah, but only if you sell it :-)
Then there is the collector slob. Who collects everything and is too lazy to take his dishes in the kitchen or throw out his trash. (We keep his door closed, so I don't have a meltdown)

Then there is the one who actually likes his room cleaned. Strips his bed every week, does his laundry, and runs the vacuum in there. Hey I like him!

But really my blog today, is supposed to be  about the clutter in your head.
I can't seem to focus on my writing when my head is cluttered up with what I want to blog about.
 Or tweet about, or even what do I want to post on fb!
I will walk around with mainly a blog post in my head and cannot concentrate on my writing,
 until the blog has been written. And today I have two in my head, so that's it for this one!
And my Q4U is, what clutters up your head and gets in the way of your writing?
 And how do you get rid of all that clutter?


Love to hear your thoughts and solutions!

Titles!

I will update my blog later today, but thought you might like to check out a couple of links while you are waiting.

Here is Rachelle's new blog post http://www.rachellegardner.com/2010/03/how-to-title-your-book/

And here is a fun link on analyzing your book title http://www.lulu.com/titlescorer/index.php

Have fun writing! And reading today!

If you have a great blog you'd like to share or would like me to follow post it here on my Facebook page!http://www.facebook.com/pages/Different-Corners/282985538382248?ref=ts

Details and Descriptions!

I stumbled across a blog the other day and one of his posts was titled "12 1/2 Writing rules." Now when I first read through them the one that got my attention was #9 Always bring a notebook. Always bring a spare pen. And even though I have one of each on the dining room table, the couch, the end table, and the dining room chair, I don't take one with me everywhere I go. I will find I am here or there and will have an entire conversation going through my head and by the time I sit down with my notebook, I have forgotten half of the conversation. I also remember reading somewhere that you should keep one by your bed, just in case you wake up during the idea with a brilliant idea!
http://josepheastwoodxd.blogspot.com/2011/05/12-writing-rules.html

 But the next day after reading his blog, rules #2, #5, and #10 have become stuck in my head or at least my interpretation of them. And my interpretation of them is detail, description, and stereotype. Did I tell you I'm a big, BIG fan of Stephan King? I love his work. (Well his written work, not so much his movies.)  How he can pull you in and keep you hooked for hours on end, but more importantly how his words and descriptions let you see and feel what he sees and feels. And that's what every writer should want to achieve. Yes you have this fantasy going through your head. If it's an erotic love story you want the reader to be turned on. If it's a horror novel, you want them to be scared, but it's not going to happen if you don't tell them in words and descriptions that you see and feel. The difference between a book and a movie is with the book you need to describe in detail what you want the reader to see, compared to what they notice when they watch a movie.

Here's a couple of examples;

You are lying in bed and a hand reaches up from under the bed and grabs your leg.

Okay that's the basic detail, but now let the reader feel what you feel and see what you see.

 "She's lying in bed. The air is hot and stifling in the room, so she has one leg outside the covers. When all of a sudden a thin bony hand reaches up and grabs her leg. It's nails are like talons as they tear into her skin"
I'm not a horror writer but you get the point.

The second example will be a combination of stereotyping and detail;

Let me set the scene. He's a bachelor taking the girl to his apartment the first time.
As they walk in the door he tells her "sorry about the mess. I haven't been home much this past week."
She looks around and yes the place is a disaster area. He clears the papers off the couch so she can sit down.

Okay that's my stereotype, because most people tend to think bachelors are slobs. Sorry guys. But go into detail and you could come up with something like this;

As they walk in the door he tells her "sorry about the mess. I haven't been home much this past week."
Smiling she looks around at the apartment. It's really not that bad. The living room is sparsely furnished with a couch, chair, and a TV on a stand in the corner. There is a empty pizza box and a couple of empty beer bottles on the coffee table and a pair of his shoes under the table. Walking into the kitchen there are just a few dishes in the sink. The trash could go out but it isn't overflowing onto the floor. Overall the place seems to be pretty neat and tidy or could be with just half an hour of work.

Now if you wanted to elaborate you could go into the color of the couch or a blanket tossed across the back of the couch giving her the impression that he's been sleeping on the couch.

These are just a couple of examples. Now how much detail do you want to use and how much do you want to leave to your reader's imagination. We all see things differently. We could all look at the same picture and some might notice the sky, where others are fascinated by the green of the trees, so no matter how much detail you put in, the reader is still going to see and feel it in their own way.

 Your job is to get them to see and feel what you do and pull them in and keep them mesmerized until the very last word.
 Have fun writing. And check out Joseph's Blog and read all of his 12 1/2 writing rules.

 A big, "Thank you" to you Joseph, for letting me see and feel my my own novel.





  12 1/2 Writing Rules! Great advice!