Saturday Topics?
Our series of guest bloggers talking about the craft of writing has been going very, very well, so thanks to all of you who are spreading the word! As you read this, I’m probably at my TARA meeting. Roxanne St. Claire is out meeting speaker and we all know how fabulous she is when she visits here at Plotmonkeys…well, she’s even better in person! I love my TARA meetings because I get to hang out with the coolest people. Remember CL Wilson? She guest blogged a few Saturdays ago and then celebrated making the USA Today list here? Well, she made the New York Times list for her second book! There’s going to be some serious celebrating at our TARA meeting!
Next week, Carly invited YA author Ally Carter to stop by and please forgive me if I’m a total fangirl. I love her Gallagher Girl books. Have you read them? You should!
I wanted to take this weekend, however, to do a little brainstorming with all of you. What topics would you like to see addressed one of these days? Anything specific? Maybe a free-for-all? Ask any question about writing/publishing? Or do you have specific questions I can pose to our guest bloggers?
We’d love to hear your ideas. Our Saturday blogs, as I said, have grown in popularity and I want to make sure we keep it worth your while to come back on Saturdays!
So…toss the ideas around! We want to hear what the aspiring authors in our readership want to hear about!
Have a GREAT Saturday!
hey Julie,
because I myself can’t imagine being able to develop a story that isn’t nonsense. So on the whole, I love to hear the antecedents. What were the writers’ motives to write exactly this story?
great way of including us. I really enjoy the Saturday blogs. I’m mainly interested in the author’s reasons for writing a certain book. I love to learn the backgrounds so I’ll be able to “feel” with the characters when reading the book. I also love to hear why an author chose a certain story. What fascinates me most about writers is their skills to develop a story. Because it really should make sense at thh end. You plotmonkeys have these skills, too and I really admire you for that
Julie, I hope you’re having a great time at your meeting. Enjoy and have fun so you can write great books afterwards.
Sounds pretty selfish, doesn’t it? Like only being worried about your writing process. I’ll leave out the second part of the sentence: Just have fun and enjoy your free time. You really deserve it.
See you
Vero
Comment by Vero — November 10, 2007 @ 6:59 am
Julie, hope you enjoy your TARA meeting, sounds like fun.
Also wanted to thank you for these Saturday workshops…it means alot to us aspiring writers.
Well for me there is something that has me close to
just thinking about…the dreaded query letter 
I’ve read up on it and the more I read the more 
I get.
Comment by Tina Martinesi — November 10, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
Hey Julie, ( I keep wanting to call you jules) I hope that you are having a wonderful time at TARA conference. This is an interesting blog for Saturday…I really enjoy when we have guest bloggers because I learn so much. Thanks for asking our opinion on what you guys could talk about in future blogs…one thing that I always think about, especially when I read
is how do you guys write such believable sex scenes…I don’t think that I could write a romance novel because I don’t know how to do what you guys do when you write these scenes…so, a good workshop for me would be the Art of Writing Believable Sex Scenes…that’s it for now…I think that if I could do that then I would be able to attempt to write a romance. I tried when I was younger, but the scenes seemed so contrived…
Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend so far…
Peace and love,
Paula R.
Comment by Paula R. — November 10, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
Hi Jullie~ Thank you so much for these Saturday workshops! I really appreciate and look forward to them. As an aspiring writer, I can’t tell you how cool it is to be able to talk with published authors (including you Plot Monkeys). I only wish I’d started writing romance a long time ago.
I’d love a workshop on synopsis writing - one that takes all the misery out of writing them. Lol
I’ve read lots on how to do them and it still seems impossible.
I’d also love more info on the publishing world itself. The business side of writing is quite daunting to me. I don’t know if it’s possible to put the key things we should know about it in a nutshell, but maybe you guys could talk about your publishing experiences and things to do/not do.
Thanks again for your commitment to helping new writers! I hope the celebration at your TARA meeting was fun.
Comment by Robin — November 10, 2007 @ 3:03 pm
Gosh, I can’t believe I added an extra “l” to your name Julie! Sorry.
Comment by Robin — November 10, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
OH. MY. GOD.
I just got back from TARA and all I can say is that ROXANNE ST. CLAIRE is f*ing BRILLIANT! I know she’s guest blogged with us before, but she was in top form today and did two fabulous workshops on pacing (part of what she did here at Plotmonkeys a few weeks ago) and another part on career planning. Amazing, entertaining and incredibly educational. I loved every minute. I feel totally ready to tackle this book that is giving me fits!
Robin…your wish is my command! I just talked to fellow TARAn Kathy Carmichael today who is the guru of the synopsis. I’ll have her here sometime this month! I’m very excited about it!
Great ideas…I can’t believe we haven’t done anything on writing believable sex scenes yet…fabulous idea! And Paula, everyone calls me Jules, so feel free!
Tina, query letters are another good one. Lots of questions regarding those. I’ll definitely find someone.
Vero, I love those “behind the scenes” of the book posts, too. There’s a whole website devoted to it, though the name escapes me. But that’s definitely a GREAT idea for the Plotmonkeys, too. Excellent!
Keep the ideas coming! These are all awesome!
Comment by Julie Leto — November 10, 2007 @ 3:46 pm
I am a fan of the free for all questions.
Comment by Estella — November 10, 2007 @ 5:33 pm
Hello Everyone!
Julie, hope you had a fabulous day at TARA. Personally, I would like to know more about literary agents, what they can and cannot do for you and if possible, how each of you found your agents.
Cher
Comment by Cher — November 10, 2007 @ 6:16 pm
Estella, do you mean like a chat? Because we’re making arrangments to do a Plotmonkey chat sometime in the very near future!
Cher, we’ve talked about having agents do a few guest blogs…that’s probably the best way for us to work it. Great idea!
Comment by Julie Leto — November 10, 2007 @ 6:28 pm
Paula - if you get RWR read the interview with Bertrice Small. She has a great answer to writing sex scenes. (pg. 46)
Also, big shout out to the monkeys for a great mention in this month’s RWR (pg. 25)
Julie, I’ve got a more immediate question if you wouldn’t mind answering. When you were talking abou updating your website you mentioned using Wordpress. Did you end up doing that or having someone else do it for you? I’ve got my domain names I’m just trying to figure out the best way to actually design the pages. I’ve read a little on Wordpress but it seems it’s used mostly for blogs, but can be used for home pages, etc. Just curious if you did use it and how easy it was.
Glad you had a great TARA meeting!!
Comment by Jodie — November 10, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
Hey, Jodie! We were mentioned? What’s the article? I clearly haven’t read through my RWR!
As for websites, yes, I am going with a WordPress driven site. I am hiring someone to do it, though, because I simply don’t have the brain for doing it myself! An example is Rhonda Nelson’s site. The entire site is driven by WP.
Comment by Julie Leto — November 10, 2007 @ 9:13 pm
Thanks Jules…I am glad you had a great time meeting Roxanne St. Claire…while she was blogging with us, I thought that she would be a cool person to meet…I gather that she was…Her lesson was one of the ones that I printed out…
Jodie, thanks for the tip…I don’t get RWR so I can’t look up the article you are talking about…how do you subscribe to that?
I hope you continue to have a wonderful time at the TARA conference…talk to you later…
Peace and love,
Paula R.
Comment by Paula R. — November 10, 2007 @ 10:01 pm
Sorry so late, don’t know if you will see this or not. We were having dinner with some childhood friend’s of hubby - it’s so fun to hear their old stories!!
Anyway, Plotmonkeys were mentioned in an article called, “If You Can’t Beat ‘EM, Join ‘Em” and it was about combining efforts with other authors on blogs, booktours, etc. to maximize everyone’s efforts. The author was Vivi Anna and she’s talking about like-minded friends who blog together. She said, “Other ones that I’ve visited are Plot Monkeys, http://www…., and The Writing Playground, http://www…. These authors are friends who support each other and share the trials and tribulations of the writing life.”
Here’s the quote from Bertrice Small’s interview:
Question: Sex sells, but some of us are uncomfortable, embarrassed and self-conscious writing about sex, and that probably shows in our work. Any advice?
Bertrice Small: Look, writing about sex is just like writing about anything else. Since presumably we all have sex at one time or another, we all have a certain amount of personal experience. Then there are porn movies you can rent, porn cable channels, and all kinds of books that are illustrated that will help you with more exotic forms of love making. It’s just research, plain and simple.”
She does go on though to talk about understanding human emotions and making sure that you’ve got that part included and not just the physical parts.
RWR is the magazine tha is published by Romance Writers of America and it’s mailed to members every month.
Julie - thanks so much for the tip about WP. I’ll go check out Rhonda’s sight.
Comment by Jodie — November 10, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
Wow - Rhonda’s site is beautiful. I guess it’s time for me to actually read this “Learn Wordpress Quick and Easy” book I got! Thanks!!
Comment by Jodie — November 10, 2007 @ 11:27 pm
Jodie, thank you for sharing that info with me…so it’s just research huh…that’s interesting…I guess I am behind in mine…talk to you all later…have a wonderful night…
Peace and love,
Paula R.
Comment by Paula R. — November 10, 2007 @ 11:50 pm
Thanks, Jodie! I do have that RWR around here somewhere, but I haven’t read it. I didn’t even know we were mentioned!
I am very excited to announced that Jaci Burton has agreed to do a guest blog here in December about love scenes. Yeah!
Comment by Julie Leto — November 10, 2007 @ 11:57 pm
Really late to the party. With the kids in town I haven’t been able to get to the blogs that I love as much.
I’d love to see anything on the query letter and the synopsis.
and Kathy C is fab at them. Can’t wait. 
Comment by Vicki — November 11, 2007 @ 7:04 am
Very late to comment. But congratulations on the mention in RWR. As far as future topics, I would love to see a blog about entering the publishing business as a editor or how to go about gaining other jobs at a publishing house.Thanks for seeking our input Julie I hope everyone had a good weekend!
Comment by tyne — November 11, 2007 @ 7:15 pm
Tyne, we do have some editors coming in the new year, so that would be a great question for them.
Comment by Julie Leto — November 11, 2007 @ 7:17 pm
I highly recommend Kathy Carmichael for a synopsis blog….she’s awesome and is also my critique partner…and never ceases to teach me more stuff
Making note…time to send KC more stuff to critique LOL
My problem is not knowing if my conflict is strong enough….and also how to know where to end a chapter and start another….any help with these would be greatly appreciated.
Comment by Mo Boylan — November 12, 2007 @ 10:01 pm