What's so Funny 'bout Peace, Love, and Understanding? by Diane Kelly

I recently read Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”  His best advice is that people should seek first to understand, then to be understood.  In other words, we need to empathize with those we deal with personally and professionally.  This can be difficult, and when the other person makes little attempt to understand where we are coming from it can be hurtful and frustrating.   

For a writer, the ability to empathize is critical.  Writers have to create characters that readers can empathize with, and to do so we have to put ourselves in the character’s shoes and think hard about what it would be like to be them.  How would they feel under the circumstances the story throws at them?  What thoughts would go through their minds?  How would they react to the situations and people they are dealing with?

Empathy can have a downside.  I have a hard time with books and movies in which horrifying, traumatic things happen to the characters.  Yep, I’m an emotional wimp.  I don’t like to see people suffer.  Besides, I don’t think a story has to be traumatic to be meaningful. 

Empathy can be a lot of fun, though, too.  My favorite writers create characters with whom I gladly empathize through their trials and tribulations because I know there will be a wonderful emotional payoff at the end.  I enjoy getting into the head of IRS Special Agent Tara Holloway, the star of my Death & Taxes series.  Through her, I get to be 27 again and have a kick-ass job where I carry a gun, work alongside a bad-ass bad boy, and take down crooks.  So much fun!  Tara also has an active sex life.  Hey, if you’re going to empathize with your character, you might as well treat yourself to a good time, right?  And it’s rewarding to empathize with a character whose ultimate goal is truth and justice, even if the means she uses to achieve those goals are less than exemplary.

It’s perhaps easiest to empathize with characters who are like us.  A character from TV that I empathize with is Claire from Modern Family.  She busts her butt to take care of a family that takes her for granted.  She’s treated as if she has a hair-trigger temper when, in my opinion, she’s justifiably frustrated that someone throws a monkey wrench into her carefully made plans.  I can soooo relate to that!  I also empathize with Frankie from The Middle.  She’s muddling through, doing her best but still falling short.  There are only so many hours in a day, after all!  Her house is a mess, sometimes she’s a mess, too, but in the end her children know she loves them and the important things get taken care of even if the laundry doesn’t. 

What characters from books, television, or movies do you most empathize with?  Are they like you or different?  What made you feel empathy with the character?  We’d love to hear your thoughts!  One person who posts a comment today will win a copy of either Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure or Death, Taxes, and a Skinny No-Whip Latte (winner’s choice).  The winner will be posted around 9:00 PM central time.

Rita Henuber Guest Blog

content to come

House Hunting Horrors

With taxes finally filed and paid (O.M.G. that was not fun), the man and I have been looking at our finances with the aim of buying a house in the near future.  Or, maybe I should say, the sometime future, considering the state of our finances.  Not that we're destitute - thanks to self-publishing, we're actually not in the hole this year!  Woohoo!  But the price of homes in our area is so crazy expensive that we're wondering how anyone ever affords a home.  I know that when we were searching for a rental house last year I complained about this, but when we're talking about a house to buy, it's even crazier.  No joke, there's nothing under a million dollars that even remotely would work for us.  And we're not picky!  We're happy to do some renovating ourselves.  We're gonna make the kids share bedrooms.  We're easy customers.  Just not millionaire ones.  To give you an example, here are some of the houses we've looked at lately...

This is a small (meaning no office space for us) house on a super busy street that's over 70 years old (without renovations since).  The ad says "loads of potential".  (translation:  needs serious work.)  Price: $950,000.  But it gets better...

This is a 6000 square foot plot of land.  Just land.  And if you're not a square footage savvy person (I'm so not), 6000 means that once you put a house on it, you can have a small strip of concrete patio in the back, but not enough room for a yard of any kind.  And you could probably shake hands with your neighbor from the upstairs windows.  Very small.  For just the small plot of land the price... $1.9 million.

This is a tiny, two bedroom, turn of the century house.  And I do mean tiny.  Get a load of the "master suite" bathroom. 

Fancy, no? My guy is not that tall, but even he couldn't fit without bumping a limb on something. Price: $1.5 million

Okay, so I will admit that I might be exaggerating *just* a bit when I say that there is absolutely nothing in reasonable price range for sale in our town.  We did find this one that was only $400,000.  A steal!

It's a one room "cozy shack" (the listing agent's words, not mine), about 30 miles outside of town, up a one-lane road in the mountains.  No heat, no sewer and "possible" running water.    

Yeah, I think we're gonna continue renting for quite a while. 

~Trigger Happy Halliday

P.S.  The first book in my High Heels series, SPYING IN HIGH HEELS, is now FREE at both Amazon.com and iTunes. 

I've got the Fever...

I've got it. And bad. What am I talking about? That annual affliction known as Spring Fever that grabs hold of me in late March and early April and for which the only known antidote is lots and lots of time outdoors.

Spring came early this year. Consequently, so did the fever. And the timing couldn't be more inconvenient. I've got a project finished and on an editor's desk (the wonderful waiting game again), I'm in the middle of my next Calamity Jayne Mystery, I'm polishing two other completed manuscripts, and brainstorming two new series. The last thing I need is Mr. Sun peeking into my windows and luring me away from my computer and into the beguiling outdoors.

But that's just what happened on my days off. I had four off in a row. I had big plans to immerse myself in my writing. And then the temperature soared into the 80s and my writing productivity tanked.

Saturday I took a walk, raked and bagged leaves, pulled weeds, and played outdoors. Sunday I took another long walk, cut the grass, prepared my garden plots, and played outdoors some more. Monday I had a doctor's appointment but vowed I would come home and hit the computer hard. I ended up spreading ten 40 pound bags of top soil and fertilizer and sprayed the yard for weeds. And I played outdoors. Tuesday I gave myself a stern talk. I vowed no matter how nice the weather was outside my window, I was NOT going to spend the day outdoors. And I didn't. I only spent HALF the day outdoors. The other half I spent shopping. Now my days off are over and it's back to work and I'm way behind on my writing projects.

But at least I'm ahead on my yard work...

What are some irresistible temptations that pull you away from your projects? How do you manage to keep from surrendering to the lure of life outside your window and keep your nose to the grindstone?

I've got several days off coming up and I really need to get the word count up.

I'm hoping for rain.

~Kat

Bewitched

I was watching my kids' swim lessons the other night and getting a few funny looks. And, well, I'd expected it. You see, I've been researching a bit for the next Accidental Demon Slayer book. Namely, wicca spells. So there I was, reading a spell book while the kids learn to back stroke. I admit, it was fun.

And spell books are really interesting. For example, did you know that if you have a pet dog or cat that likes to get out of the house and wander around, you can solve your problem by rubbing its paws with butter and chanting Roam no more. Funny they don't say anything about what happens when your little four-legged friend tracks those buttery paws back into the house.

Oh and here's a spell I might have to try: Running on Empty (for when the car is almost out of gas). For some reason, I always seem to wait until my car is on fumes before filling up. It was a habit that started in college and, well, has never ended. Back to the spell:

Grab:
A piece of coal
3 small flat stones
A marker
A picture of a camel (I swear I'm not making this up)
A red velvet pouch

Draw the Raido, Eihwaz, and Pertho runes on the stones. Then hold them in your left hand along with the coal and concentrate on the image of a full tank of gas. Wrap the stones inside the picture of the camel, then seal everything in the red pouch and say three times:

My car knows how to make itself go
There are reserves from which it can pull
It doesn't matter what the meter reads
My gas tank is always full

Frankly, I worry that the bag and the camel and the coal will be a lot harder to hunt down than a Mobile on the Run station, but who knows? I may just have to try it and report back to you all. ...Or perhaps you'd be kind enough to wave as you pass me on the side of the road?

The End

By Robin 'Red Hot' Kaye



Last Sunday was one of my favorite days as a writer—the day I finally wrote The End. This was a good thing since Back To You was due on my editor’s desk the next day. I drove home from meeting my lovely critique partners at Starbucks knowing I had to write this blog and I thought about the experience of writing this book.

Every book is different, and no two experiences are going to be the same, but having just finished my seventh book, I’m beginning to see trends and subtle changes in my writing process.

With every book, I find that writing the beginning and the end gets more difficult. It’s been my experience that the book will be almost finished for the longest time, but I go back and rewrite the beginning and the end over and over and over again. A book not only has to begin with a hook, it has to end with a hook. It has to make the reader want to reach for my next book and unfortunately for me, hooks are not easy to come by. So I’ve been writing and rewriting the end of the Back To You. I’m still not happy with it.

I sent the manuscript in on time and received an email from my editor telling me she’s not going to be able to look at it for a few weeks so I still have time to change my mind about the end, and, knowing me, I’ll take another crack at it.

I’m impossible to please so I thank God for both deadlines and revisions. Most authors hear that and think, is she masochistic? Maybe, but I see revisions as a chance to catch all the things I missed the first time around. I know, I’m a sick, sick puppy.

I’ve seen a lot of changes in my writing process during the writing of Back To You because I didn’t have the time I had to write that I had with my previous books. I’ve always been a pretty clean writer. I write a scene and I don’t move on until I’m happy with it. It’s the same way with a chapter, but in the past, I’ve read and reread the book countless times before I actually finished it. Not this time. I just didn’t have the time to devote several hours to reading the book when I needed to be writing the darn thing. Because of that, last weekend was the first time I sat down to read the entire book. I met with my critique partners and we read the book aloud from beginning to end. I went to our meeting with a good bit of trepidation. Truth be told, I was sick. I was sure that the book would be awful. Actually, I think my exact words were, “God, I hope it doesn’t suck.” My Critique Partners (who I’m sure have a place in heaven with their names on it) told me I was wrong. Me, I just prayed they were right. I have to tell you, the torture went on the entire two days we read. I’d say “Okay, the first 115 pages are good, but what about the next 285?”

I might be shooting myself in the foot because my editor has yet to read it, but I have to say, it was much better than I thought it would be, which in laymen terms means I’m pretty sure it doesn’t suck. I kept waiting for it to, and although there were a few rough sentences that needed to be rewritten, and more spelling and punctuation mistakes than I thought existed in the world, all in all, I’m happier with this book than I had been with any of the others. Mind you, I hadn’t had much sleep and I was hurled into allergy season, so I might have been delusional, but at least I’m a happy delusional.

I’ll do one more read-through and send the manuscript back to my lovely editor by Monday morning, at which time I’ll suffer with a bad case of agita until I hear from her. It’s a good thing I already have my next assignment—writing the synopsis for my next Domestic Gods Gone Wild book, Something Wild. I have my work cut out for me but at the end of the day, I’ll still be praying that my editor calls me and says, “I loved it.”



Gosh that feels good!

Spring Has Sprung

I know it's barely April, but spring came early in Texas. I've been working on the landscaping for three weeks now and can I just say - I hate fire ants and weeds, and I am really, really old. Maybe not chronologically, but my knees and back and willing to argue over that point. I wish I could say I'm done, but I'm not even close. Everything is a hassle.

I have two giant beds in the front lawn under trees. One is under an oak, so only shaded stuff works. The other is under a crape myrtle, so only full sun stuff works as it's facing west. Both were completely empty. So I went to the nursery to pick out shrubs and plants, then came back home and researched, then the nursery, then the Internet, then more Internet, then the nursery. You get the idea. It's heck when you don't know you're plants.

So finally, I picked out some shrubs. So I go to dig holes and run into roots, and roots, and roots, which means I had to keep picking a different spot for the shrubs and then rearranging to suit the new spots. Which means I had to pick different stuff to go around the shrubs. Anyway, it's exhausting. I've spent 100 times as much time researching and driving back and forth to the nursery as I have digging holes. But I finally got some hydrangeas, knock-out roses, (some bush I can't remember), and iris planted. I still have to add annuals. More research. More driving. More standing in the nursery looking confused.

As soon as I get done and things are blooming, I'll take some pictures.

In other news, Kimi (the new puppy) graduated from puppy school. Here's a pic. If this doesn't make you smile on a Monday morning, then there's no helping you.

Isn't it hilarious how she just sits there wearing the hat?

Anyway, Kimi is doing fabulous and because I've been walking her so much, I'm even losing weight. We have a 150-acre park right across the street from our house and it's got great cement paths and trails through the woods. I took this pic the other day with my phone. I know it's likely all undesirable trees and weeds, but the canopy of green was so pretty.

So what are you up to this spring? Any planting?

Deadly DeLeon