Can You See Me Now?

It happened again. I read the daily digest for one of my Yahoo groups and TRIED to visit the group on the website to check for updates.

"Hi, Susanne" appeared at the top of the screen indicating I was logged in, but I couldn't access the group files.

"Join this group."

Anybody know the secret to getting out (and staying out) of Ya'Hell?!

May the Muse be kind!!

Susanne Rose

http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/28-How2-SellPersonalStories.html

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/lucki-in-love-p-342.html
Lucki In Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/the-christmas-promise-p-315.html
"The Christmas Promise," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette
Keep the spirit of the holidays going strong and take advantage of this bonus offer: Just send an e-mail to the author: Susannerose@wildrosepublishing.com with “The Christmas Promise” in the Subject Line. You’ll have to read the story first so you can identify the secret recipe when you send your e-mail. Santa will send you a copy of the secret recipe.

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/forever-love-p-248.html "Forever Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

"Adjusting Entries," coming soon in: http://www.lldreamspell.com/RomanceofmyDreams.html

What's the Difference Between Published and ...

What do you call a writer who ignores rejections and keeps writing? Published!

I read these inspiring words on one of my writer's loops this morning and had to share.

Congratulations to Mitzi on the news her novel has been contracted by The Wild Rose Press and thanks for the reminder that the difference between published authors and unpublished ones is often the stubborn persistence to keep writing and submitting.

May the Muse be kind!

Susanne Rose

http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/28-How2-SellPersonalStories.html

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/lucki-in-love-p-342.html
Lucki In Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/the-christmas-promise-p-315.html
"The Christmas Promise," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette
Keep the spirit of the holidays going strong and take advantage of this bonus offer: Just send an e-mail to the author: Susannerose@wildrosepublishing.com with “The Christmas Promise” in the Subject Line. You’ll have to read the story first so you can identify the secret recipe when you send your e-mail. Santa will send you a copy of the secret recipe.

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/forever-love-p-248.html "Forever Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette
"Adjusting Entries," coming soon in: http://www.lldreamspell.com/RomanceofmyDreams.html

Customer Service?!

If somebody put a gun to your head and demanded that you describe the Author's Life in two words, chances are your response would be "Effective Communication."

That's why it's so frustrating to deal with "Customer Service."

I belong to online writers' loops for different genres and rely on the ability to check messages more frequently than the daily digests pop up in my e-mailbox so that I can take advantage of editors' last minute calls for stories, etc.

All of a sudden, NONE of my groups recognized me as a member. I couldn't even log into my Ya'hell account to see what was wrong.

I sent a professional e-mail clearly stating the problem and waited for assistance.

Days went by with no response. Finally, I got an e-mail indicating they would be ever so happy to help if I answered the secret security question ... which turned up as a blank space in the e-mail.

I responded that I would be ever so happy to answer the secret security question IF they would be kind enough to provide it. The response contained a line of gibberish that didn't even resemble a question!

Taking matters into my own hands, I did what any hacker would and patiently tried everything I could think of to access my account until I finally succeeded.

That should have been the end of the story, BUT I got an e-mail from Customer Service indicating they would be happy to assist me with my need to change my password. I replied that the password wasn't the problem (and never had been.)

Of course, the next e-mail I received informed me that my password had been changed!

Maybe effective communication isn't an integral part of this author's life after all.

May the Muse be kind!!

Susanne Rose

http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/28-How2-SellPersonalStories.html

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/lucki-in-love-p-342.html
Lucki In Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/the-christmas-promise-p-315.html
"The Christmas Promise," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette
Keep the spirit of the holidays going strong and take advantage of this bonus offer: Just send an e-mail to the author: Susannerose@wildrosepublishing.com with “The Christmas Promise” in the Subject Line. You’ll have to read the story first so you can identify the secret recipe when you send your e-mail. Santa will send you a copy of the secret recipe.

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/forever-love-p-248.html "Forever Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

"Adjusting Entries," coming soon in: http://www.lldreamspell.com/RomanceofmyDreams.html

'The past is another country...

...They do things differently there.' (L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between)

Setting any story in the distant past brings its own delights and perils. For me it allows my heroines to be engaging and ingenious, sometimes accepting historical society's conventions and restrictions, sometimes going against them, but always provoking inner or outward conflict. Heroes can be shown off to great advantage, really doing something - protecting, rescuing, struggling with great war-horses, battling the elements or the bad guys.

However, the backdrop against which all this high-stakes, high-adventure romance takes place needs to be carefully drawn and considered. Fashions are different, right down to underwear (or lack of it). Transport, law, weapons, animals, trees, climate, customs - these can all be very different from the present.

My oldest book, in both creative genesis and the date at which it is set, is Bronze Lightning. This is set in the Bronze Age, before the eruption of Thera (the modern Greek island of Santorini), the island shown below in a Bronze age fresco. Some structures, such as the pyramids and Stonehenge, were already old when the story opens in 1562 BC, although these also looked different. The pyramids I have imagined with their wonderful limestone covering, which would have made them gleam a brilliant white in the landscape. Stonehenge was also complete and not yet fallen into the decay already familiar when Constable created his painting of it.

Ritual places are not the only things that were different in the distant past. Some activities, such as the smelting of metals, farming, brewing, the making of clothes, were all different from what came later and very different from our own time.

Beliefs and religion were also very different and, given the few written sources we have from Bronze Age Europe, must be inferred from archaeology and other means. Fearn the hero believes in a Sky God who has some characters that are similar to the later Viking God Thor: all later religions tend to have 'clues' of past faiths in them. He also undergoes a trance state where he sees symbols that modern shamans have also reported seeing in trances and which have been painted by cave painters.

In Bronze Lightning I bring the heroine Sarmatia right to my own doorstep. The winter house she lives in is set where my parents' house is now, and the wild apple and cherry trees she sees in blossom are ones I have known since childhood. Lots of other details are changed, however, because the distant past truly is another country.

In the Bronze Age, the climate in England was warmer and drier than today. There was much more woodland, and animals such as beavers, bears, wolves and wild boar in the woods. We have lost all these creatures excerpt for the boar, which has escaped from farms in southern England and is making its home in woodland again. Lime trees flourished, and orchids and other flowers that are rare or extinct today. The sheep Sarmatia care for were more like Soay sheep, that do not flock and whose fleece is not at all like the thick fleeces of modern breeds. The cattle were smaller or completely wild. Even the stars she followed were different. Even the polar star hung in a different place in the Bronze Age.

I exploit these differences to show the past in my story, to remind my readers that they are in another time, another place... where magic and romance do truly go hand in hand.

Lindsay

Paying the Piper

For those of us who write in the United States, this is the weekend for more than Passover matzo ball soup and colorful Easter eggs. It's time to file income tax returns.

I never dreamed I'd be happy to fork over money to Uncle Sam, but must confess there was a wonderful sense of satisfaction in seeing the bottom line profit on my Schedule C (self employment income.)

Happy Easter! Happy Passover! Happy Spring!

May the Muse be kind!!

Susanne Rose

http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/28-How2-SellPersonalStories.html

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/lucki-in-love-p-342.html
Lucki In Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/the-christmas-promise-p-315.html
"The Christmas Promise," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette
Keep the spirit of the holidays going strong and take advantage of this bonus offer: Just send an e-mail to the author: Susannerose@wildrosepublishing.com with “The Christmas Promise” in the Subject Line. You’ll have to read the story first so you can identify the secret recipe when you send your e-mail. Santa will send you a copy of the secret recipe.

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/forever-love-p-248.html "Forever Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

"Adjusting Entries," coming soon in: http://www.lldreamspell.com/RomanceofmyDreams.html

Where does the time go?

I started out today with great intentions but here it is noon and I'm still social networking. How does that happen? Honest to goodness, hours have gone by. I was just going to dive in and check on my email before starting edits and gracious, the morning is over.

There were some immediate to-do things in my Inbox. I tended to those. Two close friends were blogging. I had problem commenting on both blogs. One was setup in Italian and I don't know Italian (except the word Ciao which I think is cool). The other was on e-Harlequin. I couldn't set up a new account there because I already had one. So then I realized I had no clue what my password was. I got a new password from them, slipped in and reset it for my latest password that I can remember, but then I couldn't get to the blog post from there. Went back to the email with the link, tried to log-in again and was denied. I wrote my friend that I'd tried.

Then I remembered that I was supposed to blog elsewhere today. I went and did that. Posted it again on my Myspace which is my consolidated blog. Then since I was logged into blogger, clicked over here to SRNWrites. I've been meaning to get by here more. Where does the time go? Thought I'd write about my daffy morning, so I did.

I think the problem of not being able to focus is related to the coming changes in my writing career. I'm finishing up a book, looking for an agent, and casting about for my next project. I don't want to have my head down when the perfect idea comes my way!

Where does it all lead? Some days its hard to know, but the trick is to just keep putting words onscreen.

Happy writing to all!

Maggie Toussaint

a fresh new voice in Southern fiction

http://www.maggietoussaint.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheBookSpa/

Facebook, Twitter, & Time-Challenged Author

Like most authors, I follow more online writer's loops than I can count on the fingers of both hands. I love the sense of community and the ability to share market information but struggle to find time to scan the posts daily.

My e-mailbox is crammed with invitations to be somebody's Facebook Friend and follow somebody else's Tweet.

Must confess that I can't possibly accept those invitations and still find time to write.

What's the secret? Do other authors have magic day stretchers I don't know about? If not, does all that networking substitute for writing revenue generating projects?

May the Muse be kind!!

Susanne Rose

http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/28-How2-SellPersonalStories.html

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/lucki-in-love-p-342.html
Lucki In Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/the-christmas-promise-p-315.html
"The Christmas Promise," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette
Keep the spirit of the holidays going strong and take advantage of this bonus offer: Just send an e-mail to the author: Susannerose@wildrosepublishing.com with “The Christmas Promise” in the Subject Line. You’ll have to read the story first so you can identify the secret recipe when you send your e-mail. Santa will send you a copy of the secret recipe.

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/forever-love-p-248.html "Forever Love," a Wild Rose Press Champagne Rosette

"Adjusting Entries," coming soon in: http://www.lldreamspell.com/RomanceofmyDreams.html

'A Knight's Captive' out today

I'm so excited - my latest Kensington Zebra historical romance, A Knight's Captive, is out today! All the details, including an excerpt, are on my blog here, and there's a four-star review from Romantic Times.

Best wishes, Lindsay