Choosing an Audience by Lori Hebert Leger

Okay, I admit it. My first try at writing was horrible. I know this, because after writing four more manuscripts I went back and re-read the first one. Awful, awful, awful…thank goodness I didn’t have the cahonas to send that one off or enter it in a contest. (I’m still editing that one.) I want to let you in on a little secret. When I first started writing, I thought I wanted to write R rated books. You know the kind I’m talking about. Where people cuss, fuss, and…other things.

Eventually, I had to stop and ask myself, who do I want to write for? Do I want to write for younger women who are looking for romance novels with hot, steamy, love scenes? Well folks, I tried my hand at writing a few scenes...really hot ones. It made me realize that, although I can write them, I don't want to. Frankly, just the thought of people reading a scene like that and knowing that I wrote it is embarrassing to me. I'm not a prude, and believe me, I'm no saint…I’ve read plenty of books like that over the years; but I am a Catholic, although I’m a lazy one. As a Catholic, I have a confession to make. I use my 84 year old mother as a thermometer for my writing. There, I’ve said it. If my mom, who's had eight children, and doesn't have a shy bone in her body, can't pass my manuscripts around to her friends in the garden club and Ladies' Alter Society without making excuses for my style of writing, then it's too hot. I don't care if my mom lives to be 110 and I'm a spry 77 years old, I still wouldn't want to disappoint her.

So, I’ve chosen my audience. I'm shooting for the middle age women, or men, who won't mind reading a book with only the occasional s.o.b., damn, or hell instead of the eff word. Someone who won't be disappointed when the hero and heroine don't rip each others' clothes off and make mad, passionate love on their first date. Oh, there’ll be sparks between them, don’t you worry. They may want to do those things, but I won't allow it...Not as long as mama's watching. ;-)
Happy Writing,
Lori

Lori Leger has only been writing seriously for two years. In that time she's completed five full length novels in the Women's Fictional Romance genre. She works full time in the Design section of the Department of Transportation and Development as an Engineer Technician 4 in Lake Charles. Lori is currently unpublished but hopes to rectify that situation in the near future.

The Story of Me by Lori Hebert Leger

I just finished the first draft of the ‘new and improved’ version of my very first manuscript, Some Day Somebody. This is the story I wrote about me...or the new me...the one with a degree, a new career, the courage to walk away from a bad marriage, and the self confidence to find the love of my life. I never intended it for publishing because it was my life. So much so, that once I finished, my daughters refused to read it because of its personal nature.

After completing it, I immediately began a second manuscript, my head filled with ideas and characters. I used the two original characters and created new ones – coworkers and family friends from the original heroine’s hometown, a fictional town of Gardiner, taken from a real person, old Doc Gardiner. Doc Gardiner delivered so many babies in my hometown of Gueydan that they had a Doc Gardiner Day for him one year, with a parade and everything. He delivered me and all my siblings, as well as both my parents.

Okay, so I finished the second book, then began a third, using secondary characters from the previous book, then a fourth, and even a fifth. About halfway through the fifth book, something began to eat at me. The first story, Sam and Carrie’s story (I’ve changed all names to protect the innocent – and the guilty) never left me. It kept insisting that it needed to be told. After all, Carrie is the cornerstone of the five books - she’s the hub. Every character in my books either knows her or knows someone who does.

I jumped back on it, changed or removed the personal nature so that my daughters can read it and still face me afterwards, and added some drama and suspense to make it much more interesting. I revamped the story, in some ways telling it as I wish it had happened instead of as it did happen. I made Carrie wiser, less prone to losing her temper than I am, and infinitely more patient than I was at thirty-five years old when it all came about. I can almost see my daughters rolling their eyes at the nearer to perfect version of myself.

Seeing my life laid out in black print on a white page, I’ve come to accept something about myself. Doc Gardiner and my mom may have birthed me back in October of 1958, but ultimately, God and I are responsible for my re-birth back in December of 1993. In writing this story, I’ve come to realize that God presented the opportunities for me, but he also gave me the courage to step up and accept each and every one of them. Once I accepted the challenge, He closed doors and opened windows, essentially herding me to the destination He’d chosen for me. This time, instead of fighting Him and choosing my own path, I followed His lead and ended up exactly where I should be.

Happy Writing! ~Lori

Lori Leger has only been writing seriously for two years. In that time she's completed five full length novels in the Women's Fictional Romance genre. She works full time in the Design section of the Department of Transportation and Development as an Engineer Technician 4 in Lake Charles. Lori is currently unpublished but hopes to rectify that situation in the near future.

Writer's Lair by Georgia Downer

Writer’s Lair is the presumptuous label for my writing space at home. I love this room. It’s filled with books, pictures, 3-ring binders containing hard copies of my stories, and a metal Whitman’s Sampler can stuffed with receipts from exotic adventures at Wal-Mart, JC Penney’s, Popeye’s, and other reminders of exciting daily living. A poster-sized tempera painting of 2 deer hangs in here. I did it in 7th or 8th grade and won 2nd prize in the art contest. Competition was light that year.

Much of my time here is spent not writing. I pay bills online, read way too much email, and browse the ‘net. Or work with Bob on his video about the 75 cars he’s owned. I chat with Katy, our 10-year old granddaughter who lives in Illinois and types faster than I do. I often cruise through the twenty-five cookbooks at my elbow for a new recipe for dinner. Or pick up my all-time favorite book from the bookcase behind me and read “Beautiful Joe” by Marshall Saunders one more time.

These are a few of the things that inspire (such an elegant word) me to set down mundane events and thoughts now and then. A polite prompt from Jessica for a BWG blog offering never hurts either. Recording those experiences will never make me a great writer, but doing so has created a happy one.
Keep writing!

Georgia Downer is BWG publicist. She writes essays and short fiction and has won prizes for her work. She's currently working on a novel.

REVISION, OR MAYBE SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS by Harvey Honsinger

I'm going over my "baby"- -the first novel I wrote, and trying to re-format it (one space at the end of each sentence, punctuation-stuff like that) as well as rewriting awkward and unclear sentences and situations. I find stuff to correct, only to find that the next sentence clears it up. Is this bad? I read it 8 times, 4 in each version, and the more I do it the more neither seems correct nor better.

Show, don't tell. EVER? This is when the first shark appears. Will he eat the scene? Will he eat the author? Will he look at it and decide, "I wouldn't eat either on a bet." If he swims off and leaves the scene, have I been passed or passed over?

The dialogue shark swims over to look at the conversation carrying the action. Should it be ultra correct grammatically? Who talks like that? Realism rears its ugly head and repeats into my ear what I heard my character say in the vernacular of those about whom (gotcha there, didn't I?) I write. They don't talk like that. Y'all know it. Anybody who's been there'll set you straight on it. They won't correct you, but you'll get a side wise look wondering just how many days you rode the turnip truck before you fell off with your funny way of talkin'. Dialect can bog you down right up to your eyeballs which the dialogue shark will want to eat up and try to spit out as proper, sterile speech. Now what? Scratch his tummy or spread shark repellent? I lean toward the latter, but wonder if I have already leaned too far, fallen off the boat, and am both overboard and up to my eyeballs in dialectic speech and ready to fight the shark.

Now I wonder about the sharks. Am I relying too much on outside influences? Am I (quoting my wife) wringing all the flavor juices out of the work by jumping through other people's literary hoops and not relying on my own instincts?

Write what you know. I've heard this a bunch. I know how the people I write about sound. Grew up with them. Worked with them. Was loved, reared, and cherished by them- -black, white, and mixed, and loved and cherished them in return.

I'll borrow from Admiral Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay (Civil War), and paraphrase him:
"Damn the sharks. Full speed ahead." He won his battle.

Now, if the sharks don't get me, maybe I'll win mine and get published some day. Hope springs eternal.


Harvey Honsinger, a 6th generation Texan, has six completed novels--westerns and historicals--and is actively marketing them. His short stories and poetry have been published in Arena Literary magazine. Harvey is an active member of the Thursday BWG critique group.

The Writer by Bryan Coleman

I moved at a steady pace through the large bulky back room that housed the printing press. A single light hung over this gigantic apparatus, now silent. I made my way through the double doors into the paste room....

I had just started at the local newspaper a few weeks before. I settled into a routine that consisted of shuffling through the early part of the day, going home for supper then hitting the road on game nights before drifting back to the office to write.

I was (and still am to a degree) very discreet about writing, well . . . as much as I can be. Sitting down for those few moments, staring at the blank screen, I prayed earnestly for the words to come while the IBM 8086 computers hummed their evening vespers.

But then it happens . . . I start to write, mostly because I have to, but partly because I love a good story. I didn't learn anything earth shattering in those early days at the newspaper, nothing I could pass on to you. I liked writing but I loved telling a story. There was a sense of accomplishment in those early days when "just completing the work" was something I cherished. It reminded me of my high school days when I was a varsity basketball player. I hated practice but I loved the game. I loved the game enough that I tolerated practice. Now, later in life, I work at practice. I still don't like it but I've learned to tolerate and understand the process. So it is with writing. I tolerate writing because I love the story.

Recently I started to write again and began writing the bones down for "City of the Dead" (which isn't about zombies). As the process would have it, I ran into some old, run-of-the-mill writers block. I found myself sitting in front of the computer, just like in the early days, waiting . . .

So I decided to changed things up a bit. I balked the computer for a yellow note pad. I drew out the story much like I was writing a letter--some parts love, some parts bitter. I'm not innovative, just following the orders of an old drill instructor, "improvise, adapt, overcome." I'm still working on the last part.

Countless stories were started on my old Dell and countless died there. I decided to smooth the edges on my weakness and try a different approach. I finished "City of the Dead" in a little over 3 months. It now sits on my top shelf . . . cooking.

So there it is . . .

In the beginning the newspaper demanded that I follow through, and I did. Now, at 45 years old, there is no editor, no deadline. I have to look at the paper and write. Inspiration has played a part and yet I am still learning to do the hard things. Reading good books and writing down things I care about has made the hard things doable.

I promised myself when I was in my twenties whatever I did with my writing would be done with a degree of honesty (to the best of my ability, of course) so as not to betray myself or my reader. I believed, and still do, that honesty in writing is what makes it believable. I know, yea, that's nothing new but I heard it somewhere and believed it like the gospel.

I hope that you find out what makes your writing work, what makes it honest, what makes it believable.

Bryan Coleman is a former newspaper journalist turned novelist. He writes full time and is a regular contributor/photographer to CSN, Christian Star News.

International Travel and The Writer by Curt Iles

I'm very thankful to have the privilege of traveling out of the United States. I've come to realize there are various benefits as a writer in my travels.

I want to make it clear: I travel for the purpose of sharing about my personal faith in Jesus. Going to the "hard places" (i.e. difficult to reach, tough conditions, great physical/spiritual needs example: Democratic Republic of Congo, the neediest place I've ever seen) always softens my heart. I learn much more from new friends in these countries than I could ever teach them.

Here are a few benefits I see as a writer:

1. Traveling abroad always gives me Perspective on Life. I see the world in a new way. I see myself in a new way. I return with much greater appreciation of the freedom and opportunities I have as an American.

2. Traveling abroad provides Perspective on my writing. I step back from the canvas and can "see" my current work in a new light. Where I'll be for the next 2 weeks (Congo and Rwanda) has very limited and slow internet, little phone service, and no TV in English. I don't take my laptop. It's a chance to step back, refresh, and reflect.

I always return with a journal full of ideas and a clearer mind about the writer I want to be.

3. Traveling is a great way to hear/see new stories in a new culture. I've come to believe that human nature is very similar throughout the world. A story from Ethiopian or Honduran culture is just as powerful as a story from Cajun, Piney Woods, or Southern culture.

I go to help.
I go to learn.
I always come back fuller.

My goal in this trip is "Return with an empty suitcase and a full heart."

CURT ILES writes from his hometown of Dry Creek, Louisiana. A lover of stories, nature, history, and dogs, he writes of the wonders of the woods and the memorable people who live there. Curt's new novel, A Good Place, is now available at www.creekbank.net

Are Reviews Important? by Pamela S. Thibodeaux

As a reader, I don’t always rely on reviews or word-of-mouth in order to buy a book. After all, reading is subjective and not every book someone recommends is something I enjoy. Besides, I’ve been disappointed too many times.

But as an author, I love to receive those glowing 4 or 5 star reviews! This validates my work and builds confidence that I truly AM a writer. Even in a not-so-glowing review, I can normally find something positive to focus on.

Recently I found out just how important reviews are to an author’s recognition.

I heard through the grapevine that the more reviews a book or story on Amazon has, the more potential it has to become a “recommended read” when people do searches for specific genres, thereby increasing exposure. In researching I discovered that White Rose Publishing titles were not very easy to find while searching Amazon unless you knew the title and/or author. And then, the book(s) were buried so far in pages of other similar titles and authors, most folks would get tired looking for them.

So some of the White Rose authors banded together and began reviewing each other’s work.

Within days of this happening, most of the authors had 10 or more reviews. A few actually reached higher than twenty reviews before a week was up. But that’s not the best part.

The best part is, within days of us posting reviews of the books we’d already read and tagging each one with terms like White Rose Publishing, Inspirational Romance, and other identical words, White Rose titles began moving up in the ranks and were listed as an “also reviewed” or a “suggested product” similar book to some well known publications! If a search is done in the Kindle Store for “Christian Romance” about a 1/3 is WR titles where before you'd only get bonnet books and ones written by people whose last name was Christian.

This means that Amazon is automatically showing WR books to people who search, which may encourage them to buy our books!

So do your favorite author a favor and review his or her book on Amazon.

Award-winning author Pamela S. Thibodeaux is Co-Founder of Bayou Writers Group. Multi-published in romantic fiction as well as creative non-fiction, her writing has been tagged as, "Inspirational with an Edge!" Visit her website at http://pamelathibodeaux.com and check out her blog at http://pamswildroseblog.blogspot.com