Why You Should Write About Your Memories

I write fiction. Occasionally I take a stab at a memoir piece for my family, but I don’t feel qualified to give advice on that topic because that isn’t my strength… that’s really more a hobby or labor of love for me. So I’m really excited to have a guest here today who can talk about memoir-writing from a more experienced vantage point. Please welcome Laura Hedgecock from Treasure Chest of Memories.

Whenever I want to convince people of the value of writing about their memories, I pull out the story of my grandmother. She wrote in secret throughout her life, and shortly before her death, presented us with an astonishing gift: a spiral notebook filled with a lifetime of memories and stories, which she called her “Treasure Chest of Memories.”

Although most of us can see why it would be worthwhile to collect our stories, we hold back, listening to that nagging voice of self-consciousness. We’re afraid our writing or our storytelling isn’t good enough.

Even those who write as a vocation or avocation tend to be more comfortable sharing with the comparable anonymity of “readers” than with family members. The rejection or disinterest of “readers” is easier to handle.

The truth is, however, writing for loved ones isn’t like writing for the red-pen-wielding English teacher. It’s more like reading the Bible aloud in church.

Since I’m not allowed to write about my actual kids, I’ll use a hypothetical kid as an example. (Disclaimer in case my actual kids read this: I’m in no way implying that the subject of this story did anything less than an exemplary job of reading the Bible in church.)

Hypothetical Aaron, age 16, agreed to read the Bible aloud at a meeting of a hundred plus pastors and elders. Nervous and much more accustomed to rap music than leading worship, Aaron read at breakneck speed. Luckily, he was given a well-known passage. By catching four to five keywords, most were able to identify the familiar parable. The four-minute reading was finished in under a minute.

Were he reading for a discriminating audience, say a teacher or classmates, this would have been a catastrophe. As it was, he got excellent reviews. He was thanked for reading. He was told he has a nice voice for reading. A particularly kind woman stopped him and asked him if I was his (hypothetical) mother. When he articulated, “Uhh, yeah,” she gave me a look and said, “Then I know who is a proud mother!”

They weren’t lying. They did enjoy the fact that he read. His reading wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be. Likewise, the people who love you will enjoy your stories, particularly those in which they have a starring role. Plus, there are some other compelling reasons to start collecting the stories of your life.

Why you should write about your memories

Preserving history and stories

You don’t want to simply leave names and dates; make your family tree more accessible!

Connections

Grandma' memories — We’re not just connected by blood; we’re connected by Grandma’s memories

Out comes my grandmother’s story. ..

Through her “Treasure Chest,” I connect with my grandmother, again and again. I have her memories of watching my mom grow up. I have read the words of raw, overwhelming grief that she wrote on the day my grandpa died. Her writings have resulted in a very deep bond.

Spring boarding conversations

This sharing of stories can spark conversations that would perhaps otherwise never surface. Your memories will be augmented by others’ memories and perspectives.

Family Ties

Such connections with our extended family and our shared heritages strengthen family bonds. Additionally, writing about the past can be therapeutic for the writer as well.

My Challenge

Simple. Write down those memories!

Laura Hedgecock blogs resources and content of her upcoming book Treasure Chest of Memories at her website TreasureChestOfMemories.com. She writes about her own memories at Memoriesinthewind.wordpress.com. She welcomes any and all visitors to either site and you can connect with her at

https://twitter.com/LauraLHedgecock

https://www.facebook.com/laura.hedgecock.writer

What Inspires You?

I had planned on spending today’s post talking about contract terms. I recently signed a contract and thought it might be nice to go over some of the terminology that writers might find confusing. But earlier this week my parents-in-law were visiting, so I couldn’t write ahead of schedule, and the day I set actually set aside for blog-writing was spent visiting my niece. She stopped here on her way across the country. She just graduated from specialized training in the US Navy and has a three week leave before her next assignment begins, so she’s going home for a visit, and we were a pit stop along the way. I’m sorry, but visiting my niece/godchild takes precedent over defining contract terms, particularly when I haven’t seen her in a year and a half.

These visits got me thinking about the importance of family and its impact in my writing. The novels that I’m working on right now—the one under contract and the series I’m pitching to an agent—both have characters with strong family ties.

The contracted piece deals with two twins who have lost their parents and only have each other. Forget about the “twin bond,” these two have forged a relationship that’s thick and tight. If the adage is true that blood is thicker than water, remember—they’re the only blood each other has left.

For the series I’m working on, I relied more on my heritage. It deals with four
Italian-American sisters for whom family is everything even before tragedy strikes their lives. And when it all hits the fan, those bonds are there, not to be tested, but to bear each other up.

So it’s pretty clear to me that my own life relationships pretty clearly shape my fiction. That isn’t to say that if my sister makes me angry she’s going to end up being a shrew in my next book, or if my dad buys me a car he’s going to be written in as a handsome billionaire (hint, hint; wink, wink; nudge, nudge). But it does mean that things in my life that touch me are reflected in the things that I write.

What about the things that are important to you? What things touch you, and do they make it into your writing in some manner? Tell us about your writing in the comments.

An Italian’s Take on St. Patrick’s Day

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day. I tend to relate most strongly with my Italian roots, so I don’t mention my father’s heritage often, but it seems only fair to acknowledge it on the one day a year his nationality gets top billing.

My dad is a wonderful man whose heritage is a volatile mix of Irish, Scottish, German, and Swedish. So, yes, in addition to the passionate Italian in me, I’ve got some whiskey-downing, Scotch-swilling, beer-chugging, Viking-loving blood coursing through these veins. There’s some partying blood in there, and there’s some warrior blood in there, too. So, it’s no surprise I’m not a shy person. I embrace life to its fullest, which means I love big, I cry big, and I get mad… big. Why do anything half-hearted?

I also celebrate big, which means yesterday’s holiday was a festive one, especially because my in-laws are in town to celebrate with us. (Yes, I’ll use anything as an excuse to celebrate, but come on, a holiday and family visiting? Who wouldn’t celebrate?) Beer, Irish stew, cabbage, potatoes, soda bread… even Irish coffees for dessert.

After all that, I swear I saw a leprechaun with his shillelagh in my yard, holding a four leaf clover sitting on his pot of gold. But before I got outside to greet him, he disappeared over the rainbow, and it was just me in the yard trying to keep my dogs out of the pool, which, I have to tell you, is not easy under the best of circumstances.

Now it’s time to settle back into Lenten restrictions until Easter. So, I’ll leave you with this Irish blessing as I countdown the remaining weeks:

May you always have walls for the winds,
A roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,
Laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,
And all your heart might desire.

Six Speakers, I Mean, Reasons Why Saturday Was So Great

This weekend marked the return of one of my favorite annual events… and of course I don’t mean the loss of an hour of sleep. One look at the bags under my eyes and you would know that’s not something I yearn for. Nope, Saturday was Northwest Arkansas Writers’ Annual Writers Workshop. I anticipate this event for a number of reasons:

It’s yet another chance to hang out with my friends.
I get to network with writers and other professionals in the industry.
Information is always presented in a fun and low key way.
It’s the only conference I know of that’s completely free to attend.

This year was no exception. I sat with my two partners in crime (one of whom was actually mistaken for my sister, which is hilarious because she’s a blonde with blue eyes and I’m brunette and brown) and we met some really nice people. We also heard some great information, the highlights of which I’m going to pass along to you here.

There’s a group of five women in the NWA Writers Group who call themselves The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pen. Unfortunately one of them, Claire Croxton, was sick and couldn’t attend (however we’ve been promised a blog post from her regarding getting book reviews). The other four put on an excellent presentation.

Pamela Foster began the day discussing sense of place. Frequent readers of my blog might recognize Pam’s ability to set a mood—she’s guest posted for me before. Her ability to construct a scene is second to none. She defines a sense of place as nothing more—and nothing less—than the world you create for your characters and all the methods through which they experience it. It is not and cannot be separate from point of view and internalization, because it is through point of view and internalization that the character shows the reader the world.

She then introduced another “sister,” Ruth Burkett Weeks. Ruth discussed document formatting. It’s a standard assumption in the industry that if a writer is sloppy with formatting, she’ll be sloppy with writing, so she spent a few minutes covering industry standards. Then she pulled out the big guns—Ruth is all about the bling. There’s no point in writing if you’re going to be boring. She likes words that sizzle and pop. She gave us a long list of lazy words to avoid and examples of ways to avoid their usage and strengthen those passages. She ended her presentation with a word of advice about the glitz—a little will make your work shimmer; a lot will make it bruise. Avoid purple prose.

That brought Jan Morrill to the podium. You might recognize Jan from a recent guest post she did here utilizing a strategy she actually discussed at length at the conference. Jan discussed ways to get to know your characters and make them memorable. She covered interviewing them, having them describe artwork in their voice, writing a scene over from a different character’s point of view, and writing a letter from one character to another. Jan gave us examples of the strategies she used from her published book and her work in progress and then gave us time to work on our own character interview. Many people learned new things about their characters.

Jan introduced Linda Apple, who is referred to as the Mama of the group. Linda covered reasons why writers don’t write and offered solutions to their problems. She really nailed them all, too—editing as you go, having no ideas, feeling drained, spending time on other writing activities, sabotaging yourself, managing your time ineffectively… And like a true mama, she had excellent advice for conquering all of the issues. She left us with a poignant thought: There’s only one guarantee in writing… if you don’t write anything, you’ll never be published.

If you get a chance to hear the Sisters speak, I highly recommend it. I just took a six week course they taught at the Fayetteville Public Library, and they did a phenomenal job. You won’t be disappointed.

After lunch, one of the founding members of NWA Writers took her turn offering some advice. Velda Brotherton talked to us about promotion efforts. Contrary to what many writers think/wish/hope, promotion doesn’t start after the contract is signed or the book is published. In fact, you may not get the contract if you haven’t started connecting with readers long before your book is even written. The first thing an agent or editor will do is Google you, and if your name doesn’t pop up, your novel won’t get picked up. Velda strongly recommended having a presence on Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest, in addition to a webpage and a blog. Her research shows that Google+ may overtake Facebook in the not too distant future, because Google+ allows you to choose who views your content where Facebook decides for you. Above all else, she stressed that a social media presence is about connecting with readers, not about hawking your books. We’re here to make friends and help people, not scare them away by being nuisances.

The afternoon ended with the other co-founder, Dusty Richards, giving us a writing tutorial. It was twice as nice because he used many examples from his own books. He covered everything from the importance of writing short stories as well as novels to how sequels must stand on their own as well as in their place in their series. Dusty is an expert storyteller, and he engaged the audience from the first piece of advice to bidding us farewell. He already has the room reserved for next year’s conference (March 8, 2014) and I know I’ll be attending. I hope I’ll see some of you there. Like I said, it’s a great day to hang out with your friends, network with people in the industry, and learn valuable information. Mark your calendars now so you don’t forget!

Just A Few Steps Can Make All The Difference

Anyone who visits my blog with any frequency (or anyone who has taken the time to read the tagline in the top right corner) knows that my ancestry is Italian, and I’m quite proud of it. I occasionally blog about it because I want people to get to know me and my heritage, I want them to love and embrace it for the wonderful and rich culture it is, and I want them to know what it’s like because that’s the world many of my characters come from in my fiction. I figure if my readers know and love my world, they’ll know and love my characters’ worlds, too.

Just last week I was contacted by someone who has now become an online friend. He shares my heritage, but he pointed out part of our culture that isn’t so wonderful, and it’s something that, while it does touch Italian-Americans more frequently than others, it can touch us all. I invited him to guest post here today to share his knowledge with you. Without further ado, I give you Craig Butler.

On May 5, the Cooley’s Anemia Foundation is holding Care Walk 2013, a series of walks designed to show support for all those living with the blood disorder thalassemia (often called Cooley’s anemia) and to raise funds for the Foundation’s programs on behalf of people with thalassemia. Thalssemia is disproportionately found in people of specific heritages, including those of Italian descent.

You’re probably asking “What is thalassemia?” It’s a genetic blood disorder, so it’s something a person is born with, not something they catch. A person who has a severe form, such as thalassemia major, has blood that doesn’t carry oxygen around to the body the way it’s supposed to. If left untreated, this causes a severe anemia and eventually brings about death.

Gabriella, the beautiful little girl whose picture you see, has thalassemia major. Fortunately, she gets treatment: she goes to the hospital every couple of weeks and spends the day getting a blood transfusion. She’ll need to do this her whole life—unless a cure is found.

The blood transfusions save Gabriella’s life, but there’s also a big downside to them. They overload her body with iron, way more than the body knows what to do with. So she has to take a daily drug treatment to help get rid of that extra iron. If she doesn’t, it can destroy her heart, liver or other organs, or cause other problems like diabetes and osteoporosis.

For many thalassemia patients, that daily drug treatment involves sticking a needle into the body and pumping iron in for 8-12 hours a day. For their entire lives.

So having thalassemia is a big burden. That’s why the Cooley’s Anemia Foundation is around:

To help these people, to help find better treatments and to help find a cure.

The annual Care Walk is one of the Foundation’s most important fund raisers. The better it does, the more the Foundation is able to do to help Gabriella and all those suffering from thalassemia.

Care Walk is designed for maximum convenience: We ask people to set up a Walk at a time and place that works for them. It can be as simple as walking around your neighborhood with a couple of friends or as involved as organizing a larger walk in a park or other area.

Our goal is to have at least one person walking for every person with thalassemia in the U.S.!

Because of the Cooley’s Anemia Foundation, Gabriella’s mother has great hope for her child. “I want to let everyone know that, even though the illness is not curable, it is treatable. I want to encourage parents that it’s not the end of the world if you have a child with thalassemia. Your child will still have a wonderful life and future if they get the proper care—and the future is getting brighter by the day.”

And the Cooley’s Anemia Foundation is here to make that brighter day get here as soon as possible. You can register for Care Walk or support someone who is walking by going to http://tinyurl.com/CareWalk2013 or you can email n.perozo@cooleysanemia.org for more information. And learn more about thalassemia and the Cooley’s Anemia Foundation at www.thalassemia.org. Thank you.

So a big thank you goes out to Craig Butler for writing this guest post and informing us about thalassemia. Maybe the steps we take on May 5 will be steps toward a brighter future for thalassemia patients.

Traditions Gone by the Wayside

This is the time of year when I get cravings for weird things. It might be because it’s Lent and I give up a lot of indulgent foods, or it might be because of the time of year it is. For example, St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, and that means Shamrock Shakes. Usually those coincided with Lent, so unless they were released before Lent started (like this year), we’d need to not have given up sweets for Lent or freeze them until after Easter. When I moved to Arkansas, I was horrified to learn that they had never heard of Shamrock Shakes. Last year, McDonald’s had a new release here… Shamrock Shakes! However, they were “test marketing” them in limited quantities, so they were virtually impossible to come by. Finally, this year, the stars aligned. McDonald’s released Shamrock Shakes in mass quantities before Lent in Arkansas. One craving averted.

There are some cravings, though, that I’ll never get to satisfy again. Right after Christmas when I was young, my whole family would gather in my grandparents’ basement to make sausage and sopresatta. It was hard work—it took the whole day—and took a lot of preparation before that, but boy was it worth it. (Squeamish readers may want to skip ahead.)

Sheep intestine had to be soaked in ice water and citrus for days to be cleaned and deodorized. Pork shoulder had to be ground, and we didn’t have a motorized crank; it was all done by hand. Pounds and pounds were fed through the feed tube, and once coarsely ground, became the basis for the sausage and sopresatta mixtures. Seasonings were stirred into the meat by hand, requiring the men to dig into big bowls up to their elbows. Peppers were added to the sopresatta mix. Finally the mixtures were pushed back into the extruder and into the intestine casing.

The sausage was hung in my grandparents’ fruit cellar—the coldest place in the house, or cooked right away for us to eat with homemade bread and, if we were lucky, a sip of wine. The sopresatta had to be pressed until it cured completely. It took six to eight weeks to dry out. This is the time of year we’d be eating the homemade salami, and at this time every year, I get a craving for it. The stuff you buy in the stores just isn’t the same, and frankly, living in Arkansas, any kind of Italian food is hard to come by, let alone the stuff prepared the way we’re used to.

The hardest part for me, though, is saying goodbye to the memories. I was too young to actually be a part of the sausage-making process, but I remember sitting on the stool in the basement, watching my grandparents, my parents, my aunt, uncle and cousins work. I remember playing with my young cousins while the adults toiled. My grandmother only had a two-bedroom home, so the house was tiny, and filling it with that many people trying to accomplish a difficult task with a bunch of kids underfoot should have brought conflict and strife, but it didn’t. There was laughter and love and fun. Sometimes there was music, but more often than not when the music ended, people were so busy goofing around that they forgot to turn it back on. At the end of the day, the sausage and sopresatta was made for the year, but the memories were made for a lifetime.

My grandfather is gone now. My parents and aunt and uncle no longer make the sausage—it’s too much work for them. My siblings and my cousins didn’t carry the tradition on. We’ve all drifted apart—me farthest of all, nearly one thousand miles—and simply didn’t manage to keep the tradition alive. Even if we managed to start it up again, it just wouldn’t be the same without my grandfather managing the process. My husband and I tried to make some sausage a few years ago, but it just wasn’t right. Times change and traditions fall by the wayside.

So this year, I finally got my Shamrock Shake, but I won’t be having any sopresatta. At least, not any of my grandfather’s homemade sopresatta. Some traditions just can’t be replicated. We should try to enjoy what time we have with our families while we have them. You never know when those times will be nothing but treasured memories.

New Release: Jan Morrill’s The Red Kimono

My grandfather worked hard his whole life. It was the Italian way. Loyalty to employers was only superseded by loyalty to God and loyalty to family, so it was no surprise to anyone that he labored, what seemed like tirelessly, and was a successful man. Long before I met him, when my mother was still in high school, he was asked to go to Japan to help teach factory owners how American production worked. He met wonderful friends there and came home with fascinating stories about the Japanese culture, an interest he passed on to me long before he died.

My grandfather may have sparked my interest in Japanese culture, but I know a writer who will ignite that passion in all of us. Jan Morrill, author of The Red Kimono, has woven her characters an exquisite tapestry of bigotry and betrayal, treachery and tradition, friendship and forgiveness, conflict and compassion. In addition to being a wonderful writer, Jan is an accomplished artist and has been very helpful to me in my writing efforts. I was thrilled when I asked her to guest post about her book’s upcoming release and she agreed. Here is what she had to say:

Last night, I lay in bed thinking about what I’d like to say in this, perhaps my last guest post before The Red Kimono is released. I began to liken the waiting process to awaiting the birth of my children. (By the way, the latest “due” date for The Red Kimono is February 20, University of Arkansas Press.)

Many writers think of our works as our “babies.” When we read out loud, we might as well be offering our toddlers—exposed and vulnerable—for sacrifice to the heartless critique gods. And when they tell us what’s wrong, we begrudgingly edit parts we love, as if cutting off the limbs of our child. Some even refer to it as “killing our babies.”

There are many similarities in waiting for the arrival of my book, too. Changes in due date. Wondering what will it will look like and how it will feel to hold it in my hands. Will it be “healthy ” and will it achieve all that I’ve dreamed it will achieve? Yes, awaiting the release date feels all too familiar to the anticipatory pangs of childbirth.

I recently finished co-presenting a writing workshop with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pen, where I talked about ways for writers to deepen their characters by getting to know them better. One of method was to interview the character. Another was to write a letter to the character.

The Red Kimono is my first novel. In the last days before the birth of my first child, I wrote my child-to-be a letter and told her about what I was feeling, my hopes, my fears. And so, as I pace the floor, waiting for February 20 (hoping for an early rather than late delivery,) I thought I’d write a letter to my main character, Sachiko Kimura.

Sachi is a nine-year old Japanese American girl who, in the opening of the book, is trying to find her place within two very different cultures. However, feeling out of place becomes the least of her worries when Pearl Harbor is bombed and the world as she knows it comes to an end with the loss of her father and the relocation of her family to an internment camp in Arkansas.

Dear Sachi,

Finally, after more than five years of gestation, your birth date is only days away. What am I thinking about in these last days before your arrival?

Before my children were born, I called them “sparkles in my eye.” You, too, began as a sparkle in my eye. Since my earliest recollection, I dreamed of one day writing a novel, though I often wondered what I would write about. Then, as I began to hear stories about my mother’s internment I thought about how it must have impacted the person she became. Stories began to form in my head, and the seed that became your story was planted.

But there were times that weeds of self-doubt choked how our garden grew. Negative thoughts filled my mind, leaving little room for the creativity I needed to move your story forward:

You may be able to write short stories, but you’ll never write a novel.
There are thousands and thousands of new novels being written every day. Why would anyone be interested in this story?
You’ve got too many other things to do to be wasting your time on a pipe dream.
This is taking your forever. Give it up.

But you, Nobu and Terrence persisted. Word by word. Page by page. Chapter by chapter. Until finally, the story was complete.

Now, as the due date approaches, I find myself wondering the same things about The Red Kimono that I wondered about my children.

What does the future hold?
What will be your place in this world?
Will I find the proper balance of protecting you and giving you wings?
Is there room in my heart for another “child?”

Sometimes I think writing The Red Kimono took so long because I couldn’t let go of all of you. I remember feeling a mix of joy and sadness at typing “THE END.”

But, then I realized I will never really let go. Because like my children, I am a part of you and you are a part of me. And this is how it will always be.

Happy “birth” day,

Jan Morrill

Jan Morrill was born and (mostly) raised in California. Her mother, a Buddhist Japanese American, was an internee during World War II. Her father, a Southern Baptist redhead of Irish descent, retired from the Air Force. Many of her stories reflect memories of growing up in a multicultural, multi-religious, multi-political environment as does her debut novel, THE RED KIMONO, which will be published by the University of Arkansas Press in February 2013.

An artist as well as a writer, she is currently working on the sequel to The Red Kimono.

Jan’s award-winning short stories and memoir essays have been published in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books and several anthologies. Recently, she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for her short story “Xs and Os,” which appeared in the Voices Anthology.

Visit Jan at:

Website: www.janmorrill.com

Blogs: www.janmorrill.wordpress.com www.theredkimono.com www.haikubyhaiku.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JanMorrill.Author?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/janmorrill

The Red Kimono Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etvg8feWCiw

7 Ways to Add Spice to Your Writing Life

Valentine’s Day is this week. I’m not going to bore you or aggravate you with a debate over whether it’s a religious holiday (honoring St. Valentine the martyr who died on February 14, 270 AD) or if it’s just another silly Hallmark holiday that’s the bane of every man’s existence who’s in a committed relationship. I am, however, going to take this opportunity to plead with you non-romance writers out there to consider spicing up your writing a bit by taking a page out of my book. (Not literally, of course. That would be plagiarism, and that would be wrong.) We romance writers have been mixing our genres with others quite successfully for some time now; in honor of Valentine’s Day, I think it’s your turn. As a romance writer, I’m recommending you other genre-writers throw some love interests into your works. Spice things up a bit. Challenge yourselves. Here’s a look at some other genres with successful romances added to their plots.

1) Action/Adventure—Pirates of the Caribbean was as much a love story about Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann as it was an adventure about Captain Jack Sparrow. And after three films, when Will’s fate was determined, what happened? The fourth film introduced a love interest for Jack. Obviously there’s merit to introducing romance in the plot of action and adventure films.

2) Comedy—There’s a reason the term “Rom-Com” is now so common. From films as chaste as Doc Hollywood to ones as risqué as American Pie, comedic films have long since learned the value of throwing together couples for a few laughs. If laughter is the best medicine, adding some romance to the mix could only make things better, right?

3) Fantasy—So many fairy tales begin with “Once upon a time…” and end with “…and they lived happily ever after.” Did you ever think about who the “they” was? The prince and princess, of course. There’s romance in so many of the fairy tales we grew up with. Sure, we could probably move on from the damsel-in-distress routine, but the true-love’s-kiss bit, that works for me every time.

4) Horror—Every horror movie I watch has a couple sneak off for some quality one-on-one time right before they get hacked to pieces. I’m the one talking to the screen telling them not to go, but they never listen. At least they have each other before they die. To be fair, some horror films also have one couple make it through to the end, because they love each other and take care of each other. That’s real romance, people.

5) Mystery—Think about some of your favorite all-time crime-solving duos of television. I’ll tell you who some of mine are: Jonathan and Jennifer Hart from Hart to Hart, Laura Holt and Remington Steele from Remington Steele, Kate Beckett and Richard Castle from Castle, and Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth from Bones. What do they all have in common? They were or are romantically involved crime-solving partners. Sure, solving mysteries on television (or in books) is fun; it’s always nice to know if you can solve the crime before the answer is revealed. But what’s more fun is if there’s some romantic friction thrown in the mix. It amps up the drama and makes the challenge more interesting.

6) Sci-fi—If this is your genre, you’re either a Star Wars fan, a Star Trek fan, or both. And having watched all six Star Wars films and episodes from TOS and TNG, I can honestly say that they are full of romance. Star Wars hinted at a love triangle until Han realized Leia was Luke’s sister. Furthermore, even given the tug on his ego, he may not have returned to help them had it not been for his attraction to her. And the story simply wouldn’t have been as strong without their love. And in Star Trek, come on, I mean, really, did Captain Kirk ever meet a female alien that he didn’t like? These are the quintessential sci-fi flagship franchises, and if romance was good enough for them…

7) Western—Many westerns go hand-in-hand with a man defending the life and honor of a woman, so this probably isn’t a stretch for a lot of you western writers. For those of you picturing nothing but saloons and gunfights at high noon, let me point you to Dances with Wolves, an epic love story set in the west during the Civil War.

So that’s my spiel for this Valentine’s Day. Regardless of where your passions lie, I’m certain there’s room to work in a little romance. Challenge yourself a little; you might be surprised at where your characters take you. They might even thank you for it.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Create Your Writer Platform—A Review

Last Monday I wrote a post regarding the importance of writers, particularly aspiring writers, building a strong media presence. I thought this week would be a good time to review Chuck Sambuchino’s new book, Create Your Writer Platform: The Key to Building an Audience, Selling More Books, and Finding Success as an Author. An overview of this book is the perfect complement to last week’s post, as its content covers this very concept in great detail.

Create Your Writer Platform is broken down into three helpful sections. The first section of the book deals with what exactly a platform is and why writers need one. He covers twelve core principles of successful platforms and points out the importance of finding and honing your niche. He ends that section by devoting a special segment to fiction and memoir writers, and explaining the whys and hows of platforming for their particular genres.

The second section of Sambuchino’s book contains vital information regarding the mechanics of platforms. He introduces the many different options available to writers, and then delves into each in greater detail. Topics covered include websites, blogs, newsletters, articles and columns, public speaking, social media (Twitter, Facebook and more), and what he calls four side doors to platform (four shorter paths that may help you circumvent the traditional routes, but are risky and aren’t necessarily any easier).

The third section of Create Your Writer Platform offers twelve case studies from authors in various genres who have built successful platforms. Sambuchino shows the different and successful paths these authors have taken in building their platforms from the ground up. There are lengthy interviews with probing questions and informative tips from non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and inspirational writers.

In addition to the wealth of technical information Sambuchino provides throughout the book, he went one step further. Sprinkled throughout the text are quotes from various experts in the publishing industry—opinions which are extremely valuable regarding author platforms. This book offers the perfect combination of author knowledge and expert contribution.

In short, I highly recommend Chuck Sambuchino’s Create Your Writer Platform: The Key to Building an Audience, Selling More Books, and Finding Success as an Author to any writers with questions regarding platforming, branding, or social media presence. This book is a must-have reference for an author’s bookshelf.

What are you Afraid of? Join me…

How do you handle rejection? Can you face your fears? Nick Thacker at LiveHacked.com invited me to write a guest post where I discuss how writers can conquer their fear of rejection. Join me at over there to read all about it.