Happy Mother’s Day, Carmella N. Smith

Posted on May 12, 2013 by

This isn’t my usual type of post, and it’s not on my usual day, but I couldn’t let Mother’s Day pass without taking the opportunity to honor my mother, Carmella Smith.

Carmella Smith

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any times I came to you, upset or angry, and you always knew just what to say to buoy my spirits and shed light on the problem. You were there with sage advice and wisdom beyond your years, helping guide me.

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ther times I came to you to share funny stories about things that happened during the course of my day. You were always there to listen, and to laugh with me, even if it didn’t amuse you, just to humor me.

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hen there were the times that I wasn’t sure of myself and my abilities. You were there, cheering me on, letting me know I was more than good enough, more than ready to face any challenge that comes my way.

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appy childhood memories are of me and you together. You taught me to read while I sat on your lap. You taught me to spell while I followed you around with a tiny pink dust cloth. I’m a writer today because of you.

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ven though we joke about the rules we grew up with, it’s because of your ethics that I have the strength and character I have today. You taught me your faith, your fortitude, and your convictions, and I thank you.

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ight about the time your work should have been done, I had my own children. You were there with me, calming my fears, wiping my tears, sharing my joys, and offering me council. For that, I’m truly grateful.

Mother, I don’t tell you often enough or show you clearly enough how much I appreciate all the things you’ve done for me. There really are no words to express gratitude for life, for nurturing, for care, concern, and compassion for over forty years. So, on this Mother’s Day, just like I do every day, I’ll just say I love you.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, and to all mothers today. Moms come in all shapes and sizes, and with all kinds of titles (mom, aunt, godmother, stepmother, grandmother, sister, friend), but any nurturing female presence in our lives deserves this recognition.

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Four Ways to Turn Weekend Negatives into Writing Positives

Posted on May 6, 2013 by

snow in MayWow, what a weekend. It started with snow. In May. In Arkansas. I ask you, what’s a die hard northerner to look forward to in the south if not nice weather? We’ve already opened our pool, for Pete’s sake. And now we have snow! It couldn’t have come at a worse time—it was the first tennis tournament of the season. So here I was, missing a writing conference that I’d love to attend because of my kids’ sporting events, and the weather was not cooperating. I had planned for sun and heat and instead I was worrying about precipitation and wind chill factors. Not the weekend we had planned.

It was not a good weekend for us. On Friday, as I said, we woke up to snow. I was too cold to even get out of the car to take a proper photo of it. The tennis matches were all backed up and rescheduled, as well as operating under amended scoring protocols. By the time my son was used to the tournament and thoroughly warmed up, his match was over. Sadly, he lost, which isn’t unexpected for the first match ever, but he took it hard. By the time we ate and went home, the Penguin game had started. Luckily, we recorded it. Sadly, they lost too. It was a bad day for us all around.

Saturday started out as wet and cold as Friday. Tennis was still on amended schedules. My daughter’s match was delayed several hours, and they didn’t even bother telling us, so we just hung around for, oh, I don’t know, ever, until our turn. She made it into the semifinals, so we thought things we looking up. We were wrong.

Sunday dawned warmer and partly sunny. After Mass, we headed over to the courts and I checked in my daughter while my husband left with my son to go get some practice time in before his match. Everything was looking up, right? Wrong. They took my daughter ahead of schedule, so my husband missed the beginning of her match. He didn’t miss much. She lost. My son played a couple of hours later. He had a great match, but he also lost. We decided to grab something to eat and call it a day.

We headed out to a Mexican restaurant. I usually cook a special Mexican meal for Cinco de Mayo, but we weren’t home for me to make it, so we were at the mercy of the restaurant. The first piece of bad news: we walk in and the television above the bar has the hockey score on. No point in watching the game now. At least we won. Then the waitress who took our drink order never came back, so we were abandoned for a while. The good news was that we ended up with a really good waiter when he figured out that we weren’t being served. The meal wasn’t that good because they were super busy and using a modified menu, but we were together, so that’s all that really matters. I’ll just make our “real” meal later in the week.

So what’s the take away from this weekend?

  1. They don’t cancel tennis tournaments for snow.
  2. The kids are resilient when they lose in tennis matches.
  3. It doesn’t matter whether my kids (and my pro sports teams) win.
  4. Only four more years until I can make it to the writing conference in May.

And how these things impact fiction writing?

  1. Sometimes weather is inappropriate for the season.
    We’ve all seen storms thrown into stories, or cowboys riding into sunsets, but consider the weather as part of the setting when it’s not traditional—like snow in the summer, or a heat wave at Christmas. How can that impact your characters and your story?
  2. How characters handle adversity defines them.
    My kids didn’t make it into the finals this weekend, but they left the tournament as champions because of how they handled themselves. There were no McEnroe-sized temper tantrums, there were no tears. There were no blaming bad calls. There were no varsity limps. My kids shook hands with their competitors and held their heads high as they walked off the courts. How your characters handle losses helps readers know who they are.
  3. Heroes can’t always win and villains can’t always lose.
    There’s something to be said for the successful villain or the down-on-his-luck hero. If the hero is always on top, he’s going to be boring. He needs to face adversity and not always win. If the villain doesn’t score a success or two, he may succumb to new lows of depravity and evil, but he’ll be one dimensional. No one loses all the time. Mixing it up makes it more real.
  4. Writing conferences will help you improve your writing.
    There are times that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. This weekend, the first weekend in May, is always our first tennis tournament. It’s also the OWFI Conference. I can’t do both, and my family needs my support more than I need to go to the conference. There are other conferences, and in a few more years, I’ll be free to attend this conference, too. That doesn’t mean that I don’t find conferences important. I do, and I suggest writers find a conference and attend it. In fact, I found my agent at a conference, so I can’t say enough good things about them. Do your research, prepare, and attend. It’s a great way to network in addition to learn about your craft.

So no, this wasn’t the best weekend the Troilo family has spent in recent history. But we took our lemons and made limoncello out of them. (We’re Italian, what else would we make?) I hope you had a better weekend than we did, but if you didn’t, hopefully you found a way to get the positives out of the negatives. Good weekend or bad, why not share it with us below? Especially if you have a tip for a fellow writer.

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Intriguing Series for YA Paranormal Romance Fans

Posted on May 1, 2013 by

Stacy authorYou know me, I love to help out my fellow writers. And today, I’m giving a shout-out to fellow writer Stacy Claflin, who has written two books in a series called The Transformed. Today I’m posting a review of Betrayal, the second in the series, but I highly recommend you check out Deception, the first of the series as well. And when Forgotten, book three in the series, comes out, I recommend you grab that one, too. I know I’ll be getting a copy. Now, without further ado, my review of Betrayal.

Betrayal Stacy ClaflinBetrayal by Stacy Claflin is a Contemporary Young Adult Paranormal Romance. While I both read and write paranormal romances, I don’t typically choose YA novels for my own reading pleasure. I have been known to read them on occasion because I still screen my daughter’s reading choices. I read Claflin’s first book, Deception, because I thought it was something my daughter would enjoy. Betrayal is book two in The Transformed series, and I read it of my own volition because the storyline is captivating and the characters are compelling. If you like teen romances and paranormal thrillers, you’ll love Betrayal.

Betrayal begins where Deception left off. The novel is a self-contained story, but it really would be beneficial if you read part one first. Alexis has been reunited with her family, she has come fully into her powers, and she has learned more about the world she was born into. She goes back to school knowing it won’t be long until she is reunited with her birth parents and can resume the life she was destined to lead as the Sonnast. But she learns that enemies of her parents (who happen to be her parents’ advisors and not coincidentally the parents of her fiancé) are conspiring to wage war against them, and a new teacher at school with an unnatural interest in her seems to be involved in the plot. Complicating matters, vying for her affections is an old boyfriend who is also eligible to marry her and rule at her side.

Before matters grow unmanageable, her parents call her away to be with them. They introduce a third party into the mix, turning her complicated love triangle into a convoluted square. She is both attracted to him and repulsed by his vile nature. Her emotions are a tangled mess, and her mind is trying to make a decision that will avoid a war. She ultimately takes action, thinking she will seal her fate, and that of her people. All these actions lead to a surprise ending, setting up an exciting beginning for book three.

Here is a truncated excerpt from Betrayal:

Cliff looked at me as though I had betrayed him. If he thought that was bad, I dreaded his reaction to the news that was yet to come…

I was afraid to look at Cliff, but knew that I had to. He looked furious. I’d never seen him so angry. Not even after I told him that I’d kissed Tanner. I thought he might hurt someone. He glared at me.

Did you know about the true meaning of the Sonnast? I gulped. I found out when I was in Europe. Like I said, I only want you…

In The Transformed Series, Claflin created a world in Deception that has expanded in Betrayal. The characters are growing and maturing, and in addition to that, we are being introduced to not only new characters but new species of characters. We are being taken out of the main character’s hometown and exploring other areas of the world, all of which are in this realm, but some of which are magical and extraordinary. The whole lexicon is expanding and shifting, creating a rich and diverse mythology that is setting up an epic battle in the third book. The plot of this book, like the first one, is self-contained, but there is a cliff-hanger ending leading into the next installment. I can’t wait to see what happens, and this isn’t even my preferred genre.

There were a few typos, but those are easily overlooked, because you’ll be absorbed in the action. Fans of YA Paranormal Romance will want to read this series.

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

There’s No “I” in “Team,” But a Team Does Have a Lot of Eyes

Posted on April 29, 2013 by
eye

Photo courtesy of Samantha Troilo

I’m wondering how many of you out there are writers. And of you, how many have some form of filter before you submit your work to an agent or traditional publisher, or before you self-publish. When I first started writing, I read the advice in books that said “join a critique group” or “get beta readers” or “hire an editor” but I resisted. I thought that was just a way for beginners to get their feet wet. I was trained in college. I had written professionally. I taught at the college level. Surely they weren’t talking to me.

Wrong.

I don’t care how much experience you have going into the first story or novel you’re writing. Or your fourth. Or your tenth. It’s not enough. You don’t know enough. There’s always more you could know, more out there you could learn. And even once you have the rules and techniques figured out, you’re still at a disadvantage when you read your own work—you’re too close to it. You know what happens and what the back stories are. There are no surprises and no cliffhangers. That makes for sloppy reading, which makes for sloppy editing. You’ll miss the plot holes, because you’ll fill them in from the unwritten back story. Repetitive words? You won’t notice them; you’ll skim right over them. Awkward sentence structure will escape your notice because you were the one who wrote the sentence to begin with.

You’d catch the mistakes if someone else made them. You just can’t see them on your own pages.

It’s no fault of your own; it’s just the nature of writing. Maybe some of it is ego. Just like no one thinks her child is ugly, no one wants to think her writing is awful. But most of the writers I know are too hard on themselves. The mistakes they make are ones they just can’t see.

Enter the critiquers.

Critique groups are hailed far and wide, in conferences and in how-to writing books, as a writer’s best friend. And I have to agree. There are both in-person and online versions of critique groups, as well as beta readers or editors who can be of assistance. There are merits to each.

In-person groups are great because they allow you to network with local writers and get immediate feedback. I happen to belong to two such groups. One of them has us bring no more than five double-spaced pages with us (plus copies for the group to mark up) and we read our work aloud. This group believes that the audible reading of the work allows the author to hear things that she otherwise wouldn’t hear. After she’s done reading, there is time for discussion before the marked up pages are returned to her. The other group I’m in has us submit work in advance, which allows for a much longer body of work. There is no recitation of the work when we meet, but there is still discussion, and written comments are still exchanged.

Online groups are another option because they allow you to find groups focusing on your specific genre or niche. This can be especially beneficial, for example, if you write romance and are looking for assistance with intimate scenes, or if you write murder mysteries and are looking for help with the forensics and procedures. Any genre will have conventions that vary slightly from the general fiction rules, and working with a group familiar with those specific norms can be helpful.

Another option is to find beta readers and critique partners. I have five people who I trust to read my WIPs at any time and give me constructive feedback. I’m lucky enough to have two family members who have a background in writing and are voracious readers, so I get fast turnaround from them. Two others I met at local writing activities, and we’ve since been working together to our mutual benefit. And one is a local woman who found me not long ago through my blog. These critique partners are invaluable because I can send them large chunks of text and get almost immediate information from them.

I can’t tell you that you have to have people review your work before you ship it, but it’s a definite plus. If there are local critique groups near you, check them out and see if they’re for you. If not, try an online group on for size, or find just one writing partner to try out as a beta reader. If none of these options appeal to you, consider hiring an editor. Consider hiring one anyway. Polishing your work before you send it out is always a good idea. And no matter what option you choose, remember: a second opinion can’t be a bad thing, right?

I took a vote. The “eyes” have it.

Posted in Uncategorized, Writers Group | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Why Small Gestures Mean So Much

Posted on April 27, 2013 by

Mary NaccaratoThose of you who read my blog regularly might remember my Thanksgiving entry: “Why I’m Thankful for the White Tornado.” It was a post about my grandmother. Well, yesterday was her 95th birthday, and instead of posting something about it here, I chose to post on Facebook. Not on my author page, but on my profile page where family and friends who also know her would see it. It got a lot of comments. Of course it did; it’s my gramma, and she’s awesome! But back to the point of the story. Because I live seventeen hours away, I jokingly said that, since I couldn’t be there, I’d like it if someone could give her a hug in my place.

I never expected anyone to actually do it.

Someone actually did.

Hope EvansHope Shick and I have known each other for more years than I’m going to write here. We grew up in the same town, went to the same school, know the same people. She knows what my family means to me. Maybe she just gets the importance of family because she has a large one herself—she’s the mother to seven children. Also, like most people in my hometown, she knows my grandmother personally, so she knows what a special person she is. Stopping by to give her a hug probably wasn’t that big a hardship.

Except she had to rearrange her whole day to do it.

And she stayed to visit with her for about an hour.

See, that’s the thing about small towns that I miss the most. You can count on people to come through for you. It kills me that I wasn’t there to celebrate my grandmother’s 95th birthday with her. I didn’t get to bake her a cake or see her face when she opened my gift. I didn’t get to kiss her cheek or sit and laugh with her. We didn’t share a cup of coffee, and even our phone call was short because she had company and couldn’t talk. But because of an old friend, I got to share a hug with her—by proxy. And after talking with her this morning, I know that simple gesture made her day yesterday. It was a simple gesture that touched my heart more than words can ever express.

When I sit down at the keyboard and work on building my story worlds, these are the traits I draw on. The love, the camaraderie, the selfless gestures I find in the people in the small Western Pennsylvania town I grew up in. I hope you see these things in my work, and I hope you can draw on your histories to find inspiration for your art. What things motivate you?

Posted in Holiday, Inspiration | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

How Everyday Life Becomes Fodder for Writing

Posted on April 22, 2013 by

timeToday’s blog post almost didn’t happen. I just ran out of time. I always reserve my weekends for spending time with my family. But Sundays always play out pretty much the same way: get up, go to Mass, (if it’s football season, watch the Steelers), prepare my blog, make sure laundry is done, make sure homework is done, and just generally hang out with each other until we’re tired and go to bed (or in my case, until I go to bed, because it seems I’m always tired).

Yesterday’s schedule was completely busted from the very beginning. I should have known the night before that it was going to be an issue and just written the blog then.

My daughter has a career-prep class this term, so she has to job-shadow someone who works in a profession that interests her. She chose her tennis coach, because she thinks (this week) she might want to do that for a living. She had to spend the whole day on the court with him, so we had to go to an earlier Mass than we usually do. Fine. I rushed the whole household through their morning routines, and we made it out the door (late) and didn’t quite manage to feed the dogs. No problem, I thought. We were earlier than usual, so they could eat when we got home and they’d just be a little behind schedule.

We attended a different church than we usually do (because we needed a different Mass time) and got a long-winded priest. That also put us behind schedule. I didn’t mind that much, because his homily was actually quite good, but he ended Mass with a plea for us to return for an additional Mass that day to witness the Confirmation class receive their Sacrament. I love the Confirmation Mass, but, really? We snuck out during the recessional hymn. We had to get our daughter fed and to the court.

We figured a dash into Steak ‘n Shake would get us a quick breakfast and then we’d be on the road. Our Steak ‘n Shake is never crowded and always fast. We entered a time warp. The food just never came. My husband finally left and took my daughter—foodless—to the tennis court, while my son and I stayed at the restaurant and waited.

While my son and I were waiting, a girl he knew from school came in. They exchanged a few words and she and her family were seated by us. In fact, she and my son were back to back. They could have kept talking, but except to say how miserable they were, what would have been the point? She was probably eavesdropping on our conversation anyway. It had devolved into a ridiculous one about the merits of haircuts with the Flowbee®. We were laughing pretty hard when we started doing our own version of the infomercial. (We do things like that far too often when we’re bored.)

Our food finally came and my husband finally came back. All told, we were there for about ninety minutes. At a Steak n’ Shake! And we didn’t even get shakes. There’s something not right with that.

When we got home, we finally fed the poor dogs and I started laundry. We’re perpetually low on towels, especially now that we’ve opened the pool. Once I had that going, we went outside and began working on repairing our hot tub. I don’t know if the man in your house is successful at home repairs, but mine usually is. Of course, there could be parts left over afterward. And it usually takes twice as long as it should. But the end result is usually success, so I can’t complain. We spent most of the afternoon out there. It probably could have gone faster, but we had to keep dragging the dogs out of the pool and there was a chunk of time where we had to chase a frog so the dogs didn’t eat it. However, the end result is that the hot tub now works. Of course, I forgot to finish the laundry and the towels are wrinkled in the dryer. Which beats them being mildewed in the washer, I guess.

Around this time, I came in to get dinner ready and my husband went to get my daughter. After we all were gathered around the table and shared stories about tennis and the hot tub, there was the usual battle of kitchen chores and then the evening rush to gather items for Monday’s classes. My daughter will be starting high school tennis practices, so that required extra preparation on her part for some reason. I don’t miss being a teenager.

I went to bed exhausted. So did my husband.

I had completely forgotten about preparing my blog.

I opened my eyes this morning, not slowly with bleary dread but immediately with disbelief and panic. How could I have missed my blogging day?

So after my usual rush to get the kids to school and my husband off to work, I sat down to write this apology to you, and to turn it into something useful. The topic I had planned on writing could wait. This is more important.

Yesterday was one of those days that got away from me. We all have them. More than we’d like, I’m sure. So let’s mine them for the gold that they are and turn them into writing treasure.

  • There was a comedy of errors that made us late for Mass. There’s a story in what happened in my house before we even walked out the door.
  • A Mass (or any religious service) is a good topic for a story, if you can put a twist on it that hasn’t been done before.
  • Restaurants make excellent backdrops for stories (especially if you’re trapped in one because your ride left and you don’t have your wallet with you).
  • Home improvement stories can be humorous (they made a sitcom out of them, duh) or angst-ridden or convey any emotion you want.
  • Animals and swimming pools? Need I say more?
  • Family dinners? Need I say more?

So, there you go. I didn’t get my blog done yesterday, but I ended up with six writing prompts, probably more if I really massaged things a bit. For example, the girl my son bumped into at the restaurant could become a teen love story.

We’re surrounded everyday with writing prompts. We just need to take the time to look at them. What did you do yesterday that might make a good story? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Posted in Motivation, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

New Writing Here

Posted on April 17, 2013 by

Update… A new flash fiction piece called “Real Estate Realities” has been posted to the Freebies section. Hope you enjoy it.

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