Love is in the MIx

I thought that I would add some some fun to the mix. I have begun writing a new book tentatively titled "Love is in the Mix." I have been dreaming and testing over 100 ways to transform your dull boxed cake mixes into exciting adventures and treasured moments with your kids. These loving additions to your cake mixes will create bonding moments with your kids as well as taste good with everyday ingredients (no special shopping trips to exotic stores required)! Here is one kid tested recipe to try!

Cake Mix Pancakes:

1 box cake mix (we used yellow cake mix but white or chocolate would taste yummy too)

2/3 C flour

2 eggs

2 2/3 C Milk

Makes 16 3-4" pancakes

***Try adding chocolate chips or blueberries to the mix***

Mix ingredients till slightly lumpy. Lightly butter a pan (I use a generic Pam non-stick cooking spray)and heat on medium heat. Use a 1/4 measuring cup to scoop out the mix and place on hot pan. Cook until bubbles break on surface. Flip; cook until golden.

When the MUSE hits!

Hi everyone, I had a wonderful, crazy, awful, full week last week and I didn't even remember to post!! Let me tell you a little bit about why I was so busy. I attended an Online FREE Writer's conference. It's called The Muse Online Writer's Conference. There was so much information, my brain was spinning! I didn't participate alot, I mostly lurked in the forums and copy and pasted information to be processed at a later date, when my brain can handle it.

I also got to pitch my children's picture book to an agent. When I say an agent, not just any agent, it was Caryn Wiseman from Andrea Brown Literary Agency, one of my top choices!! I was super nervous and didn't even copy my pitch into the chat room correctly, but I got the point across. Then instead of gushing praise (I think I really did expect that!) she said she liked the concept, but why did the mom have to be sick? I stared at the screen for a moment then began groveling, "I'm willing to change it! It can stand alone, the first draft didn't have her illness, I just thought it would add depth." At that point we got our two minute warning and she said for me to cut it to 1000 words, change the title to Imagination Vacation, take out the mother's illness, then send it to her. I complied and sent it to her on Fri. I'm still waiting for a response, but after I made the changes the story is something I'm finally proud of. So even if I get a rejection I'm ready to send out to other agents and publishing companies!

Now I'm going to share a fun exercise I learned at the online conference in a class given by the organizer of the whole conference, Lea Schizas. The class was called "Assaulting a Writer's Thinking" It is designed to help jump start your juices and get your writing to flow. I really needed it. This is straight from her class, read her exercise and example then write your own in the comments.

Where do ideas come from? In Chapter Two I gave you tons of ideas if ever you get stumped…writer’s block. Now, funny enough, I never get writer’s block. As a matter of fact I have way too many ideas floating in my head and no time to write them all. However, I do keep a notebook just for ideas. If you don’t write your ideas down on paper when they strike you, they will be forgotten quicker than you can say, HUH?
The one thing I have constantly used and has never failed me to get new ideas is a fairy tale. That’s right, a fairy tale. How? Let me show you:
Let’s take the three pigs for an example:
Three pigs = three musicians – college buddies who form a band and want to make it big
The bad wolf = their manager – embezzles from the boys
The straw house = their first shabby apartment they rented in college while going to school and building their music career
The wooden house = their first home after their agent signs them up and gets them several gigs and small tours
The brick home = the mansion the boys get after they hit it big
Back to the wooden home = the home they need to downsize after they are left in debt when their manager takes off with their money
At this point I begin to build their fairy tale happy ever after finale where the boys struggle to make the comeback and overcome the deficit they are faced with; the fans who turn on them because the manager spread rumors about them, etc.
I use a fairy tale for the basic background of players but change the setting and pitfalls.
For this Day Two lesson I want each of you to use The Three Little Pigs fairy tale and come back with your own bulletpoint outline as I have.
At the end of this lesson you will see the various storylines anyone can come up with if you use a fairy tale as a storyboard.


Everyone try this excercise, and I hope to see you at next year's online conference. Registration starts in November!

Unfolding A Rose

It is only a tiny rosebud, A flower of God's design;

But I cannot unfold the petals, With these hands of mine.

The secret of unfolding flowers Is not known to you and I.

GOD opens these flowers so sweetly,

While in my hands they fade and die.

IF I can not unfold a rosebud,

This flower of God's design,

Then how can I think I have wisdom

To unfold this life of mine?

So I'll trust in Him for leading, Each moment of every day.

I will look to Him for His guidance, Each step of the way.

The pathway that lies before me,

Only my Heavenly Father knows.

I'll trust Him to unfold the moments, Just as his He unfolds the rose.

--author unknown



This was a beautiful poem given to my daughter in YW. How do you think it applies to us as writers?

Romance Novels

I recently read a magazine article that related reading romance novels to porn. A concerned reader wrote in asking if she was getting a distorted view of men since the men in romance novels generally represent the "perfect" or ideal man, and her husband didn't fit the profile, as he has flaws.

The magazine editor responded that, wouldn't it be considered porn if your husband's reading material consisted of women who were flawlessly gorgeous, emotionally stable, and always wealthy?

As readers/writers of romance, what are your thoughts?

Do you believe romance novels cause you to place unrealistic demands on your husband and set you up for disappointment?

Writing From a YW Perspective

Recently my 13 year old daughter decided that she wanted to finish her book before she was 14. She devised a very clever method to reach her goal and has been very successful. You all have heard this before and it is sooo simple. She decided that there were certain events that she wanted to cover in her novel and she knew that each event would take about 10 pages. She wrote a list of 24 events total. Since writing down this "outline" list she has been moving along at a much faster pace then before! Each day she tells me of her accomplishments (aka pages finished) and I am very excited for her! I can't wait to read the entire first draft :)

So on Writing from a YW Perspective try:

1. Creating a list of events that you want to see happening to your character (this outline will help you to NOT paint yourself into a corner)


2. Find a friend/family member that will help encourage you and celebrate your successes(how ever small or large they are)!

Remember the trick is to JUST DO IT and WRITE! If any of you have little writing tips, drop a comment and let my daughter know! She would love to hear "Writing from an Adults Perspective!" :)

Killing Off Your Characters

I've recently been working on a romance novel I started years ago. The characters have been calling out to me to give them a voice and get their story down on paper (or computer screen). I've had all the research done and the outline finished for quite a while, so know exactly how it ends. I was told that in order for a book to fit into the romance genre, it has to end happily with boy getting girl. In the beginning, that is exactly how my book ended, but recently I've been hearing this voice in my head that's urging me to kill off one of the main characters. YIKES!! Now what? Here's the set up:

Jake has been searching for Annie for over 16 years after she disappeared one night with no word. He's spent every dime of his country music career on PIs and still come up empty. As a favor to his agent, he agrees to judge a talent contest in Ketchum, Idaho, hoping to get some time off from the band and long hours of touring. The last participant in the contest is a 15 year old red head girl that sings a song that is familiar to him. He and Annie wrote it together when they were in high school. He tracks the girl down after the contest, finding Annie.

The book continues with him wanting answers and her not willing to give them until he finds out the real reason she left. (not giving this away) The orginal storyline has them getting married and sealed in the temple along with the girl (Sage) being sealed to them. But now I'm thinking Annie may die, leaving Jake to take care of Sage. There's a lot within the story that would make this new storyline make sense and as we know, real life doesn't always end happily ever after, but would this make my readers mad?

I remember watching the movie, "City of Angels" with Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage. I was so upset at the end when Meg's character died. But thinking back, it sure was a powerful ending and brought a lot of emotions up, including me crying my eyes out.

So, what do you think? What genre would this alternate ending fit into and how do you think it would be received by my readers? Would you kill off your main character? Have you? And, if I go with the first ending, what would make it more powerful?

Fail if You do Not Try

OR

"You have not failed as long as you have tried."

I took this phrase from October's visiting teaching message. Alone, this phrase has multiple meaning. How would they apply? Can you think of them?

School. Writing. Home.

It is a promise given to us straight from a prophet's mouth on behalf of our young ones. Can you think of good parents with wayward children? Have you wondered how that happened? Do you worry about your parenting skills or even blame yourself for their wrong choices?

I do. All the time.

I think of Jacob and how he lost his young son, Joseph who was sold into Egypt by his corrupted older brothers. Jacob was a good parent. What about Lehi and Sariah? They were good parents and yet, Laman and Lemuel were not. There are countless other examples--even around us today of good parents with struggling children.

I often worry how my kids will go about life with the teachings I have nurtured them with.

When I read this message, my heart was filled. Can it be? Can I really trust in that promise? The Spirit answered me yes!

I take great comfort in those ten small words. Words of the Lord given by President Gorden B. Hinckley.

I know that as long as we do our best in this lifetime by following Christ's teachings we will not fail in our duty as parents.

Some cool sites

http://writingright-martin.blogspot.com/
I came across this site the other day and found it had quite a bit of helpful information. Here's the welcome message:
"Welcome to Writing Fiction Right. Learning to write well is the task of anyone wanting to be published in fiction. Publishers are looking for dynamic plots, believable characters, realistic dialogue, deep emotion and stories that hook readers. If you want to write quality fiction, then hopefully this blog can provide you with some helpful information. www.gailmartin.com"

http://www.visuwords.com/
Okay, so I haven't really used this a whole bunch yet, but I just like the idea of having a dictionary and a thesaurus at the same place when I'm on the go. It's very visual too, which I like a lot.

Writer's Digest of course has a wealth of information. But many prefer not to pay the fee to get at it. Still, I appreciated their 101 Best Websites for Writers article, which you can access for free.
http://writersdigest.com/article/101-websites-2009?p_PageAlias=101BestSites&m_sCategory=AgentBlogs&m_nYear=2008

Here's a link if you're looking for contests:
http://www.writers-editors.com/Writers/Contests/contests.htm

A great post on writing a query letter:

http://www.charlottedillon.com/query.html

And a great post on writing a synopsis (by the same author):

http://www.charlottedillon.com/synopsis.html






What are some of your favorite writing sites?

Prada and Prejudice Book Review

Prada and Prejudice
by Mandy Hubbard

Recently I put a shout out on facebook asking authors if they had written or know of any books that were appropriate for my now teenage daughter. I had to be specific about appropriate: no sex, drugs, swearing, and crudeness. Out of the hundreds of authors that I am friends with on facebook one responded back that they had one out in publication!!! Prada and Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard. It's a traveling back in time Jane Austin era story. I'm not going to give away more but what a fun light easy read! How refreshing not to be constantly offended and bombarded by smut. I could read this book proudly and even pass it on to friends and family without shame. My daughters YW class are all in line wanting to borrow it. I haven't found a book like that in a while. It was no epic romance like Eragon or Twilight but it was fun and refreshing. It gave me hope that all of you out there who are writing clean romance for teens and even adults have a market and we are waiting! So write on without fear and pick up Prada and Prejudice for a fun, quick 2 hour read. It will give you hope and inspiration as you write your clean novel!!!

Something Uplifting For Your Day

I didn't have time to write something inspiring this week, so I thought I'd share a music video with you sisters. You've probably heard "Vocal Point" before, but I hadn't and love the way they did this song.