New blog! I've moved to Wordpress

Come visit me there:

http://bertaplatas.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/ta-da-new-blog-starting-today/

Scary leaps and safe landings

I've gotten underway with a new website, built on a Wordpress skeleton. I've given this project a lot of thought, so it should move quickly now that I've actually given my great designer the go-ahead. I think the bertaplatas.com site looks a little worn, and I've grown accustomed to changing this on the fly on the site I manage at my day job, and wanted the same kind of quick response with my writing site. It's not a risky step, since I know I'll be able to manage the site myself and change content frequently - but will I?

I recall a craft fair I went to once, where a woman had made charming wall decorations. I thought, gee, I could do that, then laughed when I noticed that she'd posted a sign: "You can make this, sure. But will you?" Point taken. I bought two.

Here's hoping I keep my website up, and this blog, which will become a Wordpress blog and attached to the site, will be updated more often than every few months.

Heading home after a perfect week

I've spent the week on St. Simon's Island off the Georgia coast, teaching Beginning Novel-writing at the Southeastern Writers Association annual conference. My husband came along and we'd get up early, eat breakfast with the other authors, then ride bikes for forty minutes. After a shower, I'd join the other instructors and authors, evaluating manuscripts, listening in on other classes, and then it was lunchtime. After lunch I taught my class. As the sun set, I'd walk on the beach for miles with my honey, watching folks skip balls into the surf for their dogs as kids ran back and forth and some seriously intense kite flyers tried to get expensive-looking kits aloft.

Today we visited the bell chapel on site. You walk through a small door and find yourself in a tiny vestibule. A ceramic basket holds prayer requests. I read them, and most prayed for jobs and deliverance from hard economic times. I pushed through the next door and found myself in the miniscule chapel. six pews, three to a side, plus three stained glass windows. You can't stare at Christ on Gethsemene and not think of the prayer requests you just read. I prayed for those folks, whoever they were, as well as for the kids that my dynamic new friend Frances told me about. Her visit to the chapel revealed prayer requests from a kids' group that cried out for reconciliation with estranged famly, or just the return of a missing parent. Heartbreaking.

The conference is held at the beautiful and incredibly historic Epworth by the Sea. Gary and I visited the Methodist museum on site the other day. Really interesting,

I can't believe it's time to go home. I read some fabulous manuscripts, some that truly deserve to be published - now!

Tomorrow we'll drive to Savannah for lunch with our nephew, a grad student at SCAD. Maybe we'll be able to squeeze one more bike ride in before we check out.

Blogging at Petit Fours and Hot Tamales on Wednesday

I'm coming back to life! Been busy with my YA novels, and a new one is out this month - Shadows of the Redwood, the first in the second trilogy of the Faire Folk saga. Check out my blog at www.petitfoursandhottamales.com on Wednesday the 16th! You could win a little prize. We have one of the discontinued collectible smiley face jester antenna toppers to give away!


See you there,

Berta

The sweet joy of a finished project!

The book is done! Now I'm going to take some aspirin and hit the sack, because I think the long hours have done me in. Or it could be the rich variety of germs that the kids share with me with every kiss and hug. Either way, I'm not doing well. Maybe a hot bath first to ease the chills.

Good night!

Extreme editing techniques

Facing a deadline on Monday, and I'm working hard on my latest. The book is done, but it reads like a road full of potholes (or plotholes) and I'm filling them in as fast as I can. Actually, the plot has no holes, but I do repeat myself, and I've got some serious cutting to do.

Here's how I edit the final draft:

I print out a copy, and sit down with a pen and a glass of water. The pen is for notes. The water is for soothing my throat. I read the whole book out loud, which points out everything that needs repair, since after a few drafts I'm too close to the text. Reading it aloud helps me get a fresh perspective.

I then make all the edits I've noted. The it's time for a final spellcheck, after which I do a chapter check, searching for the word "chapter" - which is usually just my chapter headings - and going through to make sure they are all sequential. You'd be surprised how often Chapter Sixteen ia followed by Chapter Eighteen! Here's where I change all the Chapter Four A and Chapter Whatever headings, too, from where I knew I needed a chapter break but didn't want to stop to figure out what to call it.

The last thing I do is change the view, zooming out to 10%, which shows the entire book as little icon-like chips on the screen. This way, I can sweep through and find any blank pages, weird text, and chapter headings that are too high or low on a page (rather than my preferred line 11). Then that's it! All done.

For this editor, I email the manuscript. I hit send, and that's it!

Others, more old style, want it printed and mailed. Ick. That requires a trip to Kinkos, because I don't own a laser printer and I don't want a copy editor's coffee cup ring to obliterate a paragraph from my inkjet-printed page. I print the whole book, single side, then put two rubber bands around it, one in each direction, so it doesn't slip. I type up a quick cover letter (that one I do on my ink squirtin' printer), slip it into a Tyvek or padded envelope which then goes into a Fed Ex box. I always send Fed Ex. When I mail the beast, I do it a few days before the deadline so that it gets there on time no matter what. I write "contracted material" on the box, in case Joann or Mike in shipping doesn't recognize my name and I end up in the slush pile. Paranoid much? You can see why I prefer to email. Straight to editor's in box. No hassle, no questions, no trees have to die.

I'm always interested in how others edit, so if you stumble across this post, let me know how you do it.

Off to read aloud some more, but first some hot tea. I'll have to pick my way over all the snoozing pets.

What will your neighborhood look like in 100 years?

It sounds like a new meme, but it's the question I'm asking myself as I plot my new post apocalyptic YA book. It's grim fun to decide what's fallen apart and what's survived. I also find myself looking at my own world with new eyes. I have a lot of stuff, and if I lost most of it, I'd still be okay. Lamps, sofas, garden tools, that concrete gargoyle that lives under the blueberry bushes - all if it could vanish (okay, not Phred the Gargoyle, but everything else) and I'd be fine.

Here's another question that I've asked myself for this book: If I had to flee tomorrow with just a backpack, what would be in it? And given that the backpack now represents everything I have in the world, what would I do to keep it?

My iPhone is coming! Pardon my geek moment.

I have a blended household. In my case, that doesn't mean kids who started off in separate households, it means Mac and PC. My husband, who is against all things PC, started us on our Apple journey back in 2001.

My little Mac iBook is a powerhouse machine, but I still have a PC laptop and a PC tower. I like them too, although I've learned to save frequently to conserve my work. I don't want to repeat the heart-stopping panic of having my PC seize up in the middle of a complicated Photoshop file, or an almost finished chapter blink out of existance. The Apple is much more stable.

On Tuesday the 30th I'm going to add to my Apple tech stash when I toddle over to the AT&T store to pick up my iPhone. Then I'll go app shopping. Ahhh....techie bliss.

Just don't tell my PC. It's still trying to save my last session of Sims3.

Getting ready for the Con!

Tomorrow begins Timegate, where Michelle Roper and I will be guests (as Gillian Summers). I received boxes of our books to have on hand when we man our table, and now that we have The Secret of the Dread Forest, the last book in the first trilogy, we can offer complete trilogies for sale. We thought we'd offer them at $25 for the set, a $5 savings over buying individual books.

Timegate hosts a fundraiser, each year benefiting a different charity. It's a cabaret. As in performance. Michelle and I are so not performers! Sing? Um, no, although the thought of Michelle and I doing a duet of "Sweet Child Of Mine" is amusing.

Instead of frightening the natives, we decided to do a skit. Michelle sent me a slew of funny short pieces she'd written over the years, and after I mopped up all the coffee that I sneezed out when I made the mistake of reading them during breakfast and had an attack of caffeinated giggles, I chose one to turn into a play form.

So Saturday evening Michelle and I will perform, with the help of Jana Oliver and perhaps others, "The Haunted Chicken Truck of Lake Lanier" (cue spooky banjo music). We'll save "Earlene's Evil Pickles," which came in second, for another time.

If you're in Atlanta this weekend, catch our act - God willing there will never be a repeat!

Want to get published? Here's a not so secret way to come closer...

GRW's Moonlight and Magnolias

**********PERMISSIO N TO FORWARD***** ********* ********* **

Come have some Dark, Bad, Fun with the Georgia Romance Writers at one of the largest regional annual writing annual conferences!

GRW's Moonlight and Magnolias, October 2nd – 4th 2009 at the Atlanta Hilton Northeast.

Featuring keynote speaker and #1 New York Times Bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon along with our featured GRW author and New York Times Bestselling author Dianna Love.

Registration is now open.
http://www.georgiar omancewriters. org/mmconf/ 2009/MM09Registr ation.php
http://www.georgiar omancewriters. org/mmconf/ 2009/MM09Registr ation.php>

Free entrance to the Pitch Workshop for the first one hundred registrants. Hurry, because this one is filling up fast! Further your career by getting help pitching to this year's all-star line-up of editors and agents including:

Emmanuelle Alspaugh- Judith Ehrlich Literary Agency
Chelsea Gilmore - Avalon Books
Raelene Gorlinsky - Ellora's Cave
Melissa Jeglinski - Knight Agency
Monique Patterson - St. Martin's Press
Barbara Poelle - Irene Goodman Agency
Becca Stumpf - Prospect Agency
Denisa Zaza – Harlequin.

Enjoy workshops with veteran presenters Stephanie Bond, Rita Herron, Wendy Wax,Raven Hart, Berta Platas, Dorie Graham, Ann Howard White, Jennifer St.Giles, Hank Phillipi Ryan, Molly O'Keefe, Tami Cowden - And Many Others!

***New in 2009: Thursday night movie night, intensive craft workshop with Mary Buckham and Dianna Love on Sunday morning, Friday meals, genre themed mixers, and much more! Special Guest Barbara Vey from Publisher's Weekly! Check the conference schedule for updates

We also offer special programs for published authors.

Low conference prices: GRW Member - $199, RWA Member - $209, Non-RWA -$219

Please visit www.georgiaromancewriters.org for more information.

Cigars? Dinner?

In a strange coincidence, tobacco tax has shot up just as Obama relaxed travel restrictions to Cuba. Not sure if the U.S. will impose purchasing limits, but according to the Cuban government's regulations, each traveler may leave Cuba with 25 cigars. That's a lot of cigars. I don't think I'm going take advantage of that offer, though.

Despite the The New York Times's report that Cuba is ready for a deluge of American visitors, expecting 1.5 million, um, guys, not that many of us want to go back, or have immediate family to visit.

I'd love to go but have no immediate family there. My mother, who remembers the vibrant place that Cuba was in the 1950's, doesn't want to see the sad derelict it is today. Me, I remember the playground, the kindergarten, the front yard and the swings on our porch. At four, my world was limited.

How many people like me have the many thousands of dollars that it costs to visit Cuba, especially when our own economy is in turmoil?

The exciting change, for me, is that now we can once again send money to our Cuban family members. As long as the government doesn't get too big a chunk of it, I think my relatives on the island are going to have a much rosier life in the near future. It depends on how the rules are laid out. I may go back, but it will be with a Habitat for Humanity crew, or a church mission. One thing's for certain: those 25 cigars are going to stay on the store shelf. I was never a smoker, and you can't eat cigars.

It's Spring! Romance is in the air--at WalMart?

It was gratifying to read the big article on romance in today's New York Times. For one, it verifies what I've noticed in several economic downturns, that movie box office receipts and escapist literature sales stay strong. According to the Times article, it even increases: romance sales were up 7% last year according to BookScan, and that's probably low because BookScan does not track WalMart sales.

This is great news for romance authors, but tinged with caution: due to mergers and downsizing, the market has shrunk, and with it author advances. I think every career romance author would do well to diversify, writing for different houses, expanding to young adult and nonfiction.

I wish I could remember where I read recently in a blog that now is not the time to write the book of your heart. The blog's author recommended that aspiring authors write something commercially viable. She obviously does not know the ladies of Georgia Romance Writers, a pragmatic group of writers who write for the thrill, but with an eye out for the market.

We know that the bonbon-munching, martini-swilling author is a myth (well, except for the martini part, at my house) and work hard at our craft. Now's the time to get those proposals in the mail!

Can't open the link for the NYT article? Email me at bertaplatas@yahoo.com and I'll send you the pdf.

The Writing Blizzard and the Meandering Post

I've been writing like wild the last few days. I have one proposal off to my agent, synopsis and four chapters, and another one almost ready to go. I've also mapped out key scenes of the next Gillian Summers book and shared it with Michelle, who is on a writing blitz of her own. Knowing her, the next email she sends me will have the first 100 pages of the book. Speedy is her middle name.

The weather folk say we're in for some snow tonight, which I'll believe when I see it. In the meantime, I'll be shrink-wrapping my backyard to protect all my new green babies. I'm really sad about my dogwood, which is in full bloom and totally gorgeous. It's a tall tree, but before my house was plunked down in a shaved-out piece of forest, it was crowded by much taller trees. At some point a heavy, falling branch must have taken out most of its crown, so the tree grows straight up, then has one graceful branch, like a ballerina's gesture. When it's in bloom it looks like a Japanese flower arrangement. I'll try to snap a picture later and post it here, before the cold ruins it.

I had another idea for a book after church yesterday, and reading the earthquake coverage from Abruzzo today cemented the idea. I've been making notes like crazy. I would have wanted to live in the middle of Italy, until I found out about the earthquakes. Georgia is the best. Except for the occasional tornado that wanders through, we're immune from most bad weather events.

Climbing Over Stone Walls

I've written about how excited I was about my new book. I've been writing ten pages a day, which is a lot for week days, after eight hours at work plus two more hours of commuting.  Today I hit a stone wall. Sometimes life seems to contrive to keep you from your creative work, and this one was a doozy. I'm going to go to bed without having written a word. Maybe tomorrow will be different.

I have to be extra dilligent, because I'm afraid it will be like starting a new diet or a new exercise program. Everything goes fine until you slack off one day. What's one doughnut? Or piece of office birthday cake? Why not skip the treadmill today?  And before you know it, your newfound habit is no longer a habit, but an inconvenience and a source of guilt.

I'm climbing this stone wall. No way I'll stay stuck on this side of it.

The thrill of a new project

I've been plotting a new book all weekend and it's so much fun to have the time to do it wholeheartedly, instead of sneaking in ideas while I'm writing on another project. I've been under deadline for months with three different books, not to mention galleys and copyediting. Now my time is my own, for a little while anyway. 

All this work is done with an eye towards April 18th, when Deb Dixon comes to Atlanta to present a writing workshop. I've taken her Goal, Motivation and Conflict workshop three times and always get something new out of it. 

I learned long ago not to get married to an idea when writing. Flexibility keeps you from going insane in this business. Critique partners, my agent, and my editors have all pointed out ways to better my books, and while grateful to them all, I've also learned to distinguish between "change" and "improve" and to implement only those suggestions that will indeed improve my work. 

So I know that what I write today may be changed tomorrow. I don't like to waste time, my most valuable resource, so I've been working on character sketches, writing the story out from the point of view of the heroine, the hero, the villain, the secondary characters. This will make  the story more well-rounded, and has pointed out flaws, gaps, and places where I can deepen the conflict. The writing process is crazy-making sometimes, but I love every step. Plotting just happens to be my favorite one.

A Blog Award! Free martinis all around!

My friends over at Petit Fours and Hot Tamales have awarded the Premio Dardas to this blog. As is traditional, I must explain that this is an award that acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his/her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary and personal values every day. 

The rules to follow are:

1) Accept the award, then post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to another 15 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I'm not tagging the full 15 required for this meme. It would take a ton of research, and the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales snatched up my faves, Barbara Vey and Stephanie Bond, so here are mine:

Blake Snyder, who blogs about screenwriting and is the author of Save the Cat, THE best book on plotting novels, cleverly disguised as a book about screenwriting.

Johnaugust.com, John August, another screenwriter, and his great advice and sometimes random real life advice, such as useful instructions for washing tennis shoes in the washing machine. Really. He's the Martha Stewart of screenwriters.

Mary Castillo, a Latina who writes funny contemporary chick-litty books and blogs about the writing life, living in California, and being the mom of a very energetic toddler son.

Neil Hollingsworth's blog, Painting in Oil. Neil is an Atlanta artist who blogs about his own and other's paintings and makes me feel a little connected to my previous life as a visual artist. I keep saying I'll paint again, but it's an all-consuming passion. I'm afraid it'll take over and then I won't write again. At least not while I have a day job. There's only so much room in life for all-consuming passions.

Okay, I'm done for now.  There are many other blogs I follow, such as The Seekers (writers), Sugar Mountain Farms (advice on running a small farm), and the Chicken Whisperer (keeping pet chickens for eggs, and skirting anti-livestock laws in the Atlanta area), but I'll save them for another day.

Divine E-books for E-books Week

I've been enjoying catching up on Sookie Stackhouse's adventures on my Sony eReader now that the Redwood book is turned in. I purchased the Charlaine Harris bundle from the Sony bookstore and got the whole library at once. Thank goodness, too, because although she's one of my BIH (Buy In Hardback) reads, I lend her books out so often that I can't recall which ones are where. Some of them eventually come home, but I miss them.

Another point in the Sony Reader's favor: you can't lend e-books. Mwa ha ha. I'll still buy the darn hardback, just to keep her on the NYT bestseller list so that she'll stay so spectacularly published.

Imagine my surprise last night when I got an email from the delightful Debbie Kaufman, she of the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales (not sure if she's a cakelet or a saucy tamale--I think those ladies take turns being one or the other), informing me that this is Read an E-Book Week and sending a delicious link to a whole page of wonderful downloads. All legal, all great press for the publishers and authors who support this ever more popular way to read. I started downloading left and right, and bookmarking great bookstores that I'll be sure to revisit once the week is over. Hurry over and grab your ebooks now, because at midnight on the 14th, the links will vanish.

Visit the download link for yourself. I think the new iPhone/Kindle app was just what was needed to push the industry over the slope and down the hill, in a yay-we're-sledding-fast-way, not a geez-bail-out-now-before-we-wipe-out-like-the-economy way. Interested in more about epublishing? Check out literary agent Richard Curtis' blog at www.ereads.com. He comments on all the news.

Singing and Driving

Anyone who's had the dangerous pleasure of driving in a car next to mine will be treated to a view of my tonsils as I try to sing along with my favorite music. Sometimes it's Van Halen, sometimes Dianna Krall or Amy Winehouse, or a Donizetti aria sung by Anna Netrebko, but whatever it is, I give it my all. Music enthralls me. The artist creates the recording, but I get to play along. You can't do that with a painting, and acting along with the TV is too weird (but hey, that's CosPlay, isn't it?). Books have a bit of that pleasure baked into them. You read the text, and the story unfurls in your head, like magic.

I was hesitant to try audio books for fear that the magical element would be lost. If someone read the story, it would be the reader's voice I would hear, their intonations and characterizations. A few years ago, when my commute became hellish, I checked out an audio book from the library. I remember that it was a Nora Lofts novel, although I'm not sure which one. Just as a new bicycle rider spends a while concentrating on balance and maneuvering before thrilling to the wind in her hair, I spent a little time hearing the narrator and not the story. Three tracks into the first disk, I was hooked. Now audio books take the chore out of cleaning floors, dusting furniture and scrubbing bathrooms.

It took much less time to appreciate ebooks. Before I asked (begged, pleaded) Santa for my Sony reader, I tried them out on my computer. I loved the experience. Maybe my audio books gave me practice with accepting stories in different media, different formats. My only annoyance is that not enough titles are available. I still buy paper books, but I'm now duplicating all the titles on my "keeper shelf" with electronic versions.

I've been thinking a lot about new media as I plot a post apocalyptic young adult novel (it's actually more of a Peak Oil novel). What happens to ebooks without electricity to charge the reader? Paper books are always ready to be enjoyed, barring darkness, illiteracy, or misplaced reading glasses. I'm giving this a lot of thought, and for that, I have to remove my headphones. Can't think if you're listening to someone else's story.

The sap is rising...

And no, I don't mean the Fed Ex guy that I accidentally knocked out when I swung my laptop case around in the elevator. Kidding.

Temperatures are expected to be in the 70's this weekend, my book is turned in, and I'm going to put on my wellies and hit the garden. Roses to prune! Garden beds to prepare! I'm an indifferent gardener all other seasons, but I enjoy digging and planting this time of year. I'm not sure whether I'll listen to the new audiobook I downloaded from the Gwinnett Public Library, Nora Roberts' HONEST ILLUSIONS, or just let birdsong and ideas for my next book waft around in my head. I guess it depends on whether any of my neighbors are playing "git 'er done" with chainsaws, blowers, and mowers.

My little mp3 player looks like an oversized cough drop, red with a white circle on it, and it holds 2g of audio - a pittance if you're my daughter, but plenty for me, and I use my iPod Shuffle for music, anyway. This little red baby is just for audiobooks. I was forced to buy it when I discovered the wonderful world of downloadable audiobooks from the library, none of which could be put on an iPod (this has since changed). It died the other day, and I almost chucked it, but the $40 I paid for it (lus the fact that it's so cute and tiny) made me grit my teeth and look online.

I googled "dead mp3 player"and got back many angry hits. I googled "repair Zen Stone Plus" and bingo! I downloaded a little patch of software, ran my mp3 through it, and it works good as new. I love the internet. This weekend, I'll share that love with my garden.

Make a Referral - jump start the economy

I'm pledging to make a referral to a business I want to help as part of a national campaign to make 1000 referrals March 9-13. What a great small business stimulus plan.

View >>