by Charlene Teglia | Jan 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
We’re having a snow day. The schools didn’t close for the blizzard or the -9F temperature plunge, but today they’re closed due to the sheer quantity of snow the skies dumped on us. The husband’s gone off to work after wielding the snowblower to clear the driveway; main streets are plowed, but side streets will be a mess.
Kids are curled up on the heater vent watching PBS Kids. I’ve got my ms. open. This is one of those days when I’m glad for fast draft tips; no excuses writing. Snow day is not an excuse. It may not be my best day, but if I keep coming back for a sentence here, a paragraph there, it’ll add up bit by bit. I have in the past managed a full 20 pages this way, but the kids were smaller then and still took naps. Still, any words are better than none. And I’d rather be home typing than going to an outside job in this snow.
Editing to add this comic I made:
Characters audition for Adventure Lover
by Charlene Teglia | Jan 7, 2010 | Uncategorized
I want to know who stole my week when I wasn’t looking.
Things accomplished:
1. 4 yr old introduced to preK. She loves it. She wants to go every day.
2. Art Fact Sheet for Djinn and Sin completed and sent back
3. Edits on Adventure Lover done, sent for test reading
4. Progress on Red Queen plus some research that had to be done for a key section of the story
5. Progress on Dangerous Lover
Currently there is a metric ton of snow falling on us, and the power’s gone off and come back on, and the world is white.
Back to work.
by Charlene Teglia | Jan 6, 2010 | Uncategorized
Something I learned last year in a fabulous writing class by Barbara O’Neal is that once you start publishing, you still need to make time to write just for yourself.
When it’s not work, when it’s not for anybody else, when what you do doesn’t matter, you go back to the same sense of freedom and possibility you had before you published. You have a safe place to fail. You can experiment, you can write a sex scene in iambic pentameter, you can use a rhythmic pattern based on the Fibonacci sequence, you can put all the dialog in haiku, you can use the point of view of a chandelier. You can experiment wildly and fail spectacularly and it’s okay. It’s a safe place to play and dream and try new things.
When you start publishing, it’s easy to lose that sense of freedom and the willingness to fail. You start to play it safe. You want to please everybody. You want to get the writing RIGHT and forget that sometimes right isn’t the point. It’s only when you’re willing to fail and write with that sense of freedom and safety that you can do something that might really succeed. And that carries over into the work that’s published.
What have you written just for yourself lately?
by Charlene Teglia | Jan 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
I have edits and an art fact sheet awaiting me, but I wanted to share some quick things about social media services I use and why.
We all know that the internet is a powerful tool. Tools can be good or bad, it depends on the user and the use. For every person saying the internet is the answer to your career woes, there’s another person saying get off it and go save your career. (Both sides have a point, IMO.) For me, it comes down to the question, does this activity enhance my life or detract from it?
1. Flickr. I started using Flickr last year, and found it so useful and wonderful that I upgraded to the pro account. Flickr makes it easy for me to share digital photos and organize them. You can control who sees what, making some things private if you choose, but my feeling is pretty much “if you want it private, don’t put it online”. Flickr enhances my creative life and helps me show the relatives and friends at a distance what’s going on in my part of the world.
2. Facebook. I was very on the fence about Facebook for quite a while, but I’d set it up to get updates from Twitter and my blog, so I figured it didn’t really take my time even if it didn’t give me anything. However, Facebook has turned out to be a good way to keep in touch with people who don’t visit my website. I have a lot of friends and family, particularly international, who prefer to stay in touch via Facebook instead of my professional author site, and it enhances my life to stay in contact with these people. So, Facebook is now a plus in my book instead of something I stare at in suspicion.*
*Edited to add: Facebook apps are a bane. I avoid them all because of the risk of virus infection and malware.
3. Twitter. Twitter is fun, it’s a very easy way to touch base with the people I work with, my peers, my friends, and to share links or items of interest. I often learn things via Twitter that do, yes, enhance my life. I don’t auto-follow because I don’t want to drown in posts or miss things from people I know, but I do check @ replies so that if a reader I’m not following says something to me there, I can catch it.
4. Goodreads. I signed up for this in 2008 and did nothing with it, feeling pretty much like it was another thing I didn’t know what to do with. However, Kristopher Reisz has inspired me to get on the stick and use it to track my own reading in 2010. Every year, I know I’ve read a lot of books in a lot of genres but I couldn’t tell you what they were. So this year I’m trying to track my reading. I may or may not post my thoughts on what I read, but at least I’m tracking it. I think this will enhance my life by helping me track trends in my own reading; what works for me as a reader has a lot of cues for me as a writer, so it’s important information I should pay attention to.
I would never attempt to do every form of social media out there; I don’t have the mental bandwidth, or the time. But I do think that choosing wisely and using wisely can make these tools both career and life enhancing. The internet gives us more ways to interact and connect, and I think trying to stay totally unplugged is as unreasonable as plugging in 24/7.
by Charlene Teglia | Jan 4, 2010 | Uncategorized
Since Undercover Lover, Take Me Lover #2 is now available, here’s a sneak peek at what you might’ve missed with Redline Lover, and what you can look forward to with Adventure Lover and Dangerous Lover in the new year. (And thank you to everybody who’s kept Undercover in the MBAM top 10!)
Sizzling kisses to ring in 2010…
Redline Lover
Take Me, Lover #1
“Stop looming,” she said, jerking her chin at him. “You said come at lunch time.
You said you wouldn’t be gentle and I shouldn’t come if I couldn’t handle that.
Fine. I’m here. I’m naked. Why are you still dressed? If you don’t want me
anymore, Adam Richards, I’m going to throw something at your head for standing
there and watching me take it all off just so I’d be more vulnerable when you
rejected me. If this is your idea of payback for that stupid note—”
His mouth cut her words off. His kiss cut her breath off. His hands found the
covers and yanked them down so he could pull her close without the barrier of
too much fabric between them. His clothes were still in the way, though. Adam
broke off the kiss and let her go long enough to get naked.
He caught the way her eyes dipped down to take in all of him, the flush that
spread over her skin, and the sweep of her tongue over her lower lip as she
stared unabashed at the rigid proof that he still wanted her, right now, right
where she was. It made him harder and left him hanging on to the last shred of
his control with an iron will.
Adventure Lover
Take Me, Lover #3
*unedited excerpt*
Kissing Ryan would be like hearing a glacier. Touching something primal. And
cold, Jill reminded herself. He doesn’t want you. He wanted to get rid of you.
But it was hard to think of cold when heat was curling up from her toes,
loosening her muscles, humming in her blood. Ryan’s eyes darkened to the color
of bitter chocolate, the black pupils expanding in the deep brown that
surrounded them. The thinner air sharpened her lungs and her mind, speeding up
her responses, slowing down time.
It took infinity for his head to bend to close the distance between them. His
mouth covered hers, warm and firm and a little rough. His hand cupped her chin,
holding her still, as if she were capable of moving away. The rasp of his
fingers against her soft skin, the bite of the air, the heat of the kiss all
combined to overwhelm her senses.
I’m kissing a stranger on top of the world, she thought. Then she reached out
tentatively, settling her hands on his waist. She wasn’t bold enough to use the
hold to urge him closer, but she parted her lips in invitation, and after a
slight hesitation, he took it.
The kiss turned harder, hotter. His tongue found hers and stroked along it. She
breathed in pure mountain air and woodsy male, tasted him, and curled her
fingers into the fabric of his fleece pullover, wanting more.
Instead, Ryan abruptly broke the kiss and raised his head. He stared down into
her eyes. Then he released her and stepped back, so that she had to let go of
him just as fast. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
Dangerous Lover
Take Me, Lover #4
*unedited excerpt*
She pulled the locked door closed behind her just as Joe stepped forward again,
bringing his body closer to hers. Not quite touching, but to put more space
between them she’d have to move back against her door. He drew his hands out of
his pockets and planted one on each side of her, framing her.
“I thought we should get this out of the way first.”
“This?” Cherry felt her pulse skip as he bent his head so his forehead touched
hers.
“The goodnight kiss. If we do it now, we won’t be distracted all through the
movie.”
“Oh.” She felt her lips curving in a smile that died as he slowly, so slowly
lowered his mouth to meet hers. He was just enough taller that she had to tilt
her chin up and rise a little on her toes. She put her hands behind her to use
the door for balance.
The kiss was warm, sensual, unhurried. Joe didn’t take his hands off the door to
pull her closer or take it further, and she followed his lead. There was
something about the single point of contact that sharpened her awareness,
focusing her senses on the press of his lips against hers, the taste of him.
When he ended the kiss, her eyes slowly opened again to meet his.
“I was wrong,” Joe said. “I’m going to be more distracted now.”
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