Let Me Count the Ways

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Today, September 12th, is the 255th day of the year. On this date in 1846, Elizabeth Barrett eloped with Robert Browning. 

Their marriage union forever left their mark on the written word. Her prose in Sonnet #10 — How Do I Love Thee? is, well, a classic. Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew how to write to a soul mate.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death."---By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The newlyweds, after eloping, left England and settled in Florence, Italy. Elizabeth's health improved in Italy. Their son, nicknamed "Pen", was born in 1849. Elizabeth's,"Sonnets from the Portuguese", was published in 1850. The sonnets are a depiction of the couple's courtship and marriage. Elizabeth died in 1861 in the arms of her husband. Their Florentine home, Casa Guidi, has been preserved by "The Browning Society". After Elizabeth's death, Robert returned to England with their son. Robert published "The Ring and the Book", a 12 volume poem about an actual 17th century murder trial in Rome, was published in 1868.

Can you imagine if these two writers had not found each other? 

Less is More

By: Stephanie Shott

I was drowning under the tidal wave of social media, my speaking ministry, my ministry to moms and mentors, blog posts and book promotions, and there seemed to be no end in sight.

All I kept thinking was, “I can’t keep doing this!”

Working until wee hours of the morning and getting up at the crack of dawn has a way of catching up with you. It’s hard to be a night owl and an early bird in the same skin, but deadlines loomed largely over the horizon and I really didn’t have a choice.

Or did I?

As I sat back and took a good hard look at my to-do list, I realized that much of what I had written down was self-imposed, nonessential busy writing. The superfluous kind of stuff that wasted time is made of.

I was trying to do all and be all and in the midst of it all, my plate was overflowing, my priorities were out of whack and my life was getting more messy by the minute.

So, I decided it was time to take a good hard look at what I was doing, why I was doing it and begin to filter every activity through the lens of my priorities and my purpose instead of just saying yes because I thought it was a good idea or felt the pressure to perform.

When I was in advertising, we had a saying, Less is more. That has proven to be true for writing as much as it is for advertising. I discovered that by choosing to use priorities and my purpose as a filter, I was writing less but accomplishing more.

For me, it works like this:

Priorities: God, hubby, family, home, church, ministry, others

Purpose: To know Christ and make Him known and to lead women to live full, fearless and faithful lives.

Every open door is not mine to walk through. Knowing that has empowered me to say no when necessary. When speaking and writing pursuits and opportunities line up under these purposes, I’m able to prayerfully decide if it is what I should be doing. If it’s not, I’m just wasting my time, doing what someone else should be doing or weighing myself down with a self-imposed ‘to-do’ list.

       

Perhaps you are sinking under the tidal waves of writing demands too. Maybe you feel like me and you are finding it hard to catch your breath between branding, social media, speaking engagements and a plethora of petty and nonproductive writing project.

If you need to make a living by writing, then be more diligent about searching for writing projects that pay and quit saying yes to every project that doesn't.

When it comes to a writer’s life, less can definitely mean more.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by your ‘to-do’ list? What do you need to say no to now that will help you be more intentional with your time?

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Stephanie Shott is an author, a popular international speaker and the founder of The M.O.M. Initiative, a missional mentoring ministry dedicated to taking Titus 2 to the streets. For over 20 years, Stephanie has led women to live full, fearless and faithful lives. Her Bible study on Ecclesiastes, Understanding What Matters Most, has become a favorite of women everywhere. She has also written articles and stories for P31 Woman Magazine, Pearls In the Dessert, MOPS International, Focus on the Family, (In) Courage and the upcoming book, P-Dubs, by Rhonda Rhea. To find out more about Stephanie or to check her availability to speak at your next event, visit her website atwww.stephanieshott.com. To learn more The M.O.M. Initiative or how you can begin a M.O.M. Mentor Group in your area,visitwww.themominitiative.com. Connect with her www.facebook.com/StephanieShottAuthor and,www.facebook.com/TheMOMIntiative and on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/StephanieShott

The Value of a Good Bad Guy

by Gary Fearon, Southern Writers Creative Director

Captain Hook.  Long John Silver.  Hannibal Lecter.  Darth Vader.  The Wicked Witch of the West.  Dracula.  What do these, and countless other villains from literature and movies, have in common?  Yes, they all talk kinda funny.  But more importantly, each one is infinitely more intriguing than the hero of the story.

Nothing against Peter Pan, Luke Skywalker or our little runaway from Kansas, but the truth is, you could rewrite pretty much every one of these classics and put any character in the protagonist's seat, and the antagonist would still steal the show. 

A memorable villain can take a tale to epic proportions, even if the hero is an everyday Joe, or a boring do-gooder.  Did anyone ever really cheer for Dudley Do-Right?

Even if you've never read the book or seen the movie, you can probably tell me more about the whale in Moby Dick than you can the hero of that story.  Which would be whom, by the way?  Captain Ahab?  Ishmael?  It hardly matters, because either one is a mere sardine compared to the dramatic power of the great white whale.  Readers had to wade through too much information about the fishing industry when all they really wanted was a good shipwreck.

Despite all his cool transportation and wonderful toys, where would Batman really be without bigger-than-life archenemies to go to bat with?  Superheroes become superheroes by conquering supervillains. It's always disappointing when a bad guy in those stories is just a common street thug.  Even Dick Tracy was given crooks who at least looked weird.

A Joker for every generation: Cesar Romero (1966). Jack Nicholson (1989) and Heath Ledger (2008)

And it was only half in jest that I brought up villains having odd speech patterns. Silence of the Lamb's Hannibal Lecter's intensely calculated articulation contributed greatly to his manner of menace.  One feels he's so high above us on the intelligence scale that he can suck our mind right out of us.  The cackling of a witch or the grunts of a monster define them as creatures from our nightmares.  At the very least, a foreign accent tends to take us out of our own turf and into unfamiliar territory.

Not that every hero pales in comparison to his foes.  Indiana Jones's charisma and humor managed to outshine every nemesis. James Bond steals the screen no matter who's trying to shake and stir him. Name just about any detective or mystery series and the writer has taken care to give that hero or heroine enough personality to carry story after story.  But a memorable villain only makes it better.

The bottom line is, a good bad guy is good to find.  No matter who the star of your story is, give them a villain so unique and bigger than life that when your protagonist conquers them, they will earn the title of hero.

CREATING CHARACTERS…SOUTHERN FRIED OR NORTHERN BAKED?

By Kathi Macias

The temps were pushing triple digits when I met a friend who just returned from two weeks in Louisiana (yes, we Northerners actually say “Loo-wheezy-anna”).

She fanned her red face while she declared, “It was so hot down there! Here we bake, but down there they fry!”

Now, whether you say “Loo-wheezy-anna” or “Looz-ee-ana,” “all y’all” or “everybody,” we’re all the same deep down, aren’t we? Times and cultures and locations may differ, but human nature? Not so much.

I keep that in mind when developing characters for my novels, whether a third-century princess, an imprisoned Chinese Christian, a seven-year-old girl sold into slavery, an ANC rebel leader in 1989 South Africa with murder on his mind—or even a nice little mother-daughter team who return to the mother’s hometown of Bloomfield.

Did I have to make adjustments with each character? Absolutely. But my starting place was the same: the seven motivational gifts listed in Romans 12:6-8. This list summarizes the gifts God weaves into us as we are formed in our mother’s womb. They are called motivational gifts because they “motivate” us to behave/respond in certain ways. (See Discover Your God-Given Gifts by Don Fortune.) I originally used this knowledge in my job as a biblical counselor on a large church staff, but soon realized I could apply that same knowledge in my writing to help me develop believable, three-dimensional characters.

But that was just the starting place. Then it was time to get specific.

What type of book am I writing? Contemporary? Historical? Serious? Lighthearted? Mysterious? All these questions enter into my decision on how to individualize my characters. A character that has spent her life in San Francisco may have the same basic God-given motivational gift as her counterpart who is steeped in Southern gentility, but they are not going to think or speak the same way. However, when culture and geography are stripped away, they are going to be motivated to respond in similar manners.

When it came to developing my characters for Last Chance for Justice (a small-town Americana novel), I simply took a trip down memory lane to the little community where I grew up. But my newest release, The Doctor’sChristmas Quilt, was trickier. The Quilt Series consists of contemporary stories told against the backdrop of historical American women whose faith and courage made a difference—and still does today. The heroine in TheDoctor’s Christmas Quilt is Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman physician in America. The contemporary story deals with a female doctor who is strongly pro-life—until the situation becomes personal. In this case I had to keep in mind not only the characters’ basic motivational gifts but also how the time and culture differences might affect their responses to similar circumstances—all within the same book.

Being a writer is a challenge, but an exciting one. I very much enjoy developing and tailoring my characters to their specific times and settings—whether they be Southern Fried or Northern Baked.

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Kathi Macias (www.kathimacias.com) is a wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, as well as an award-winning author and speaker. The Doctor’sChristmas Quilt is her latest book. A popular speaker at writers’ conferences and women’s events, she lives in Southern California with her husband, Al, who recently retired—making her a W.O.R.M.—Wife Of a Retired Man. Prayers appreciated!

Three Ways to Muzzle Your Internal Editor

By Connie Mann

　

Has this ever happened to you? You’re hunched over the keyboard, fingers flying as you picture the scene unfolding in your mind’s eye and then, wham. Your internal editor pipes up with, “Uh, are you sure that’s the word you want to use right there? I don’t know. How about a different one?”

Just like that, creativity screeches to a dead stop. Now all you can think about is that pesky word. Or phrase. Or awkward sentence structure.

As writers, we need our internal editor, no question. But only when we’re in editing mode. While we’re in creative mode and working on a first draft, we need a way to silence that pesky mood spoiler and muzzle our personal grammar cop.

How do we do that? Here are three strategies that work for me:

Write Fast

I know there are writers who can add 3-5 perfectly written, carefully edited pages to their manuscript at the end of every workday. If that’s you, I’m envious. My creative process is a far messier, less organized proposition. I apparently have the attention span of a gnat, because if I write too slowly, or go back to the beginning too often, I lose interest in the project before I reach the end. I have learned I need to dump that first draft onto the page as fast as I possibly can. That way I keep my head in the story and my excitement strong enough to pull me along from chapter to chapter—all the way to the final scene.

Write Early

Though I’ve tried to be a morning person, I’m really not. But I have learned to use this to my advantage. When I write early in the morning, my internal editor isn’t awake yet. Coffee cup in hand, I sit down at my computer and simply start writing the scene that’s playing in my mind. Doing this frees my creativity and I’m usually surprised by what I’ve written—especially without my editor chirping on my shoulder. Try it and see if it works for you.

This is a tough one: while you’re working on your first draft, don’t let yourself go back and tweak…at all. Re-reading a page or two to get back into the story is okay, but don’t start changing things or you’ll wreck your momentum. Just keep plowing forward. I’ve used this approach with every story I’ve written, including my new novel, Angel Falls. Those book-in-a-week or month-long writing challenges are a great way to gallop right past your internal editor and get to the finish line of your story.

Hopefully, these strategies will help you keep moving forward, so you can type THE END. When your internal editor squawks, let him or her know his turn is coming. When that first draft is out of your head, let her fix and tweak to her grammatically correct little heart’s content.

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Connie Mann loves variety, so she is an author, a blogger and a boat captain. She encourages women to reach their dreams through her blog: www.BusyWomenBigDreams.com and speaks on perseverance and the writing craft. She knows a bit about being stubborn since her new romantic suspense, Angel Falls, took 10 years to get published! She is an active member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Romance Writers of America and loves romantic suspense. She is also a United States Coast Guard-licensed boat captain, so when she’s not writing, she’s usually on Central Florida’s waterways with local school children or her fabulous family. Please visit her online at: www.conniemann.com Blog:www.BusyWomenBigDreams.com

Website: www.conniemann.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ConnieMannAuthor?ref=hl#!/ConnieMannAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaptConnieMann

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II8IWqaxakI

　

Do You Have An Algonquin Round Table Circle?

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

"The Vicious Circle" members as they called themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel in the Rose Room at, you guessed it, a round table. The year was 1919. The collaboration lasted almost ten years. They engaged in clever wordplay and wisecracking witticisms. Through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, their lunch discussions were reported across the country in a time when the latest celebrity gossip was not available on the Google homepage but was found in newspapers.

Membership was not official or fixed, many moved in and out of the Circle. The Algonquin Round Table included the following members: Franklin Pierce Adams, columnist; Robert Benchley, humorist and actor; Heywood Broun, columnist and sportswriter; Marc Connelly, playwright; Ruth Hale,  freelance writer who worked for women's rights (married to Heywood Broun); George S. Kaufman, playwright and director; Beatrice Kaufman, editor and playwright (married to George S. Kaufman); Dorothy Parker, critic, poet, short-story writer, and screenwriter; Harold Ross, "The New Yorker" editor; Jane Grant, journalist and feminist (married to Ross); Robert E. Sherwood, author and playwright; John Peter Toohey, publicist; Alexander Woollcott, critic and journalist; Tallulah Bankhead, actress; Joseph Cookman, journalist and drama critic (married to Mary Bass); Edna Ferber, author and playwright; Margalo Gillmore, actress; Margaret Leech, writer and historian; Neysa McMein, magazine illustrator; Harpo Marx, comedian and film star; Alice Duer Miller, writer; Donald Ogden Stewart, playwright and screenwriter; Frank Sullivan, journalist and humorist; Deems Taylor, composer; Estelle Winwood, actress; Peggy Wood, actress and there may have been more.

Wow, what an impressive group of creative thinkers and artists made up this group. The members had much success, but it was for this specific time and place. Talk about the value networking. It was a golden time for these writers. They produced some of their best work during these years. Wouldn't you have liked to have been an attendee to one of their luncheons? 

Edna Ferber, the author of Show Boat and Giant said she realized "The Algonquin Round Table Circle" was gone when she arrived for lunch one day in 1932, and found their famous round table occupied by tourists, a family from Kansas. Ms. Ferber wrote her Pulitzer Prize winning book, So Big and many other books and stories during the height of the group’s daily meetings. It makes me wonder how many ideas bantered around the Rose Room found their way onto the pages of her novels and all the other writer members. Often writers' groups wane as members move toward other venues and that was the case with "The Vicious Circle." Its time had come and gone but the repartee among them forever influenced their future work.

Writers' groups can be a wonderfully supportive and an expanding experience for any writer at any stage in his/her career. However, if you have a bad experience with a writers' group, you may need to keep searching for a more inclusive group. Look for a group that offers consistent instruction on the craft of writing, the business of writing, paired with opportunities to expand and showcase the members' individual talents.

Riding the Review Roller-coaster

By Karen Witemeyer

One of the biggest adjustments for me as I transitioned from unpublished to published author came in learning how to handle reviews. Listening to a critique of your work is never easy. Anyone who has entered a writing contest and received feedback can attest to that. But when your book is published and available for public consumption, your feedback no longer comes to you in the privacy of an email. Now it comes in public forums for the whole world to see.

So how do you handle the ups and downs of books reviews?

Option 1 - Avoid the roller-coaster all together

Some authors have wonderful self-control and simply elect not to read reviews. Positive or negative. If you can resist the curiosity burning in your brain, this is a wise option. The good reviews won't puff you up with false pride and the bad reviews won't destroy your confidence with their stinging criticism.

Option 2 – Stay on the kiddie coaster

You don't want to get discouraged, so you opt to read only the 4-5 star reviews on Amazon and the blog reviews that are written by people you know. While this option offers a lot of encouragement and warm fuzzies, I would caution against it because it's too easy to start believing your own press. When you read only gushing, glowing reviews, you start to feel like you've arrived. You've mastered the craft. This attitude can be destructive to an author's career. If you're not constantly growing and seeking to improve, you become stagnant and predictable and lose the spark that earned those glowing reviews in the first place.

Option 3 – Hang on and enjoy the ride

This is the option I prefer, though the ride can get pretty bumpy. The highs are breathtaking and glorious, but the lows are just around the corner. The key to enjoying the review roller-coaster is to face it with as much objectivity as possible and to armor your heart in advance. No matter how fabulous your characters, how action-packed your plot, or how stellar your craft, there will be readers who don't like your book. Accept that fact now and gird your loins for the reviews those readers will write. Yes, they will still hurt. But if you've prepared in advance you can read them with enough objectivity to look for nuggets of truth that will help you improve your writing in your next novel.

One other note I will mention about reviews: NEVER respond to a negative review. No matter how careful you are, it almost always comes across as defensive or as a case of sour grapes. If you need to commiserate with someone, do so in private with a critique partner or a trusted friend, but train yourself in first aid so you can bandage the wound and move on. Who knows, maybe you’ll laugh with your writing friends and brag about finally getting your first 1 star review as an author’s rite of passage.

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Winner of both the ACFW Carol Award and HOLT Medallion, CBA bestselling author, Karen Witemeyer, writes Christian historical romance for Bethany House, believing that the world needs more happily-ever-afters. Her books include Stealing the Peacher, A Tailor-Made Bride, Short-Straw Bride, To Win Her Heart, and Head In the Clouds. She is an avid cross-stitcher, shower singer, and bakes a mean apple cobbler. Karen makes her home in Abilene, TX with her husband and three children. Learn more about Karen and her books at: www.karenwitemeyer.com.

Blogs: http://petticoatsandpistols.com/ and http://writespassage.blogspot.com/ 
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/KarenWitemeyersAuthorPage 

REVIEWS

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief for Southern Writers Magazine

Reviews: Every author wants them for their book. But, they want good reviews. After all, if your books get good reviews on Amazon the people will come and buy your book.

Some people tell you not to ask your family to put reviews on Amazon…is that called a ringer? Frankly, if my Aunt Harriet told me she liked my book, that it was riveting and she couldn’t sleep for three nights after reading it, you bet I would ask her to put her review on there. Aunt or no aunt that is information people need to know about my book. She didn’t have to tell me anything after reading my book unless I asked, and then she could have said, “Yes, I did read it, it was good.” So obviously, she meant every word.

Being an author and listening to advice is like trying to decide which piece of ‘chocolate’ to choose out of that box of candy. When we receive advice, we want to evaluate it and determine if it is to our benefit or detriment. Also, look at each piece of advice on an individual basis pertaining to the situation.

So when family, friends or foes read your book, you can ask them what they thought. Just don’t be afraid of them rejecting your book or not liking something in general. Not everyone is going to jump up and down raving about your book.  Who knows, there may have been things they really liked and raved over and yet still had some things they didn’t care for, and still this would make a good review. You see it gives the person reading it some valuable information that just make push them into buy that book, to see what that person was saying.

Overall, I do suggest that you send out on your Facebook, Twitter and other Medias you use as well as your blog and website invitations for your readers to send you back information after reading your book, have them tell you what they liked most about your book as well as things they didn’t. This is a good way to find reviewers. Most of them will be delighted you asked them to post their review on your website as well as Amazon.   

Be creative. You can do drawings for autographed books; you can name a character after them in your next book. Your readers who are fans will be happy to help spread the word about your book.

Tried and True Writing Advice

By Marie Moore

“Write what you know” has to be the most-worn-out piece of writing advice that exists.  And the best.

Trying to somehow conjure something that you have never experienced, smelled, or seen can be managed, or course, but without authenticity your story may lack that strong sense of realism that only personal experience brings.  Think of a Yankee actor trying to sound Southern. Think of a man describing giving birth.

Each of us tends to sell our life situations short, viewing our own careers and environment as deadly dull, plodding and mediocre.  Yet great writing comes from the simplest of situations.  One doesn’t have to lead a glamorous life for our circumstance to be interesting and insightful, even exciting, to the reader. Do you like to fish? Consider the humble fisherman in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

My chosen genre, the cozy mystery, is tailor-made for a person who doesn’t exactly live in the fast lane.  I set up a scene, using stuff that I know, kill off a victim, and I am off and running.  Easy, right?  Well, not exactly, but it is made much less difficult and more believable by utilizing places that I know as settings, and by giving my protagonist a job I once held.

The “write what you know” thing works for me.  For fifteen years, I owned and managed a retail travel agency.  And I’ve been reading cozy mysteries since I was a kid, reading under the covers with a flashlight after my mom said “lights out”.  So when I decided to follow my dream of writing such a mystery, I made my protagonist a travel agent, thus providing her with a vehicle for discovering and solving mysteries around the world, in places that I had visited.

Wait a minute, Marie.  That might work for you, but I am a garage mechanic, working in a body shop.  How can I write a mystery about that? What?  You never heard of the body in the trunk?  Of course you can write a mystery!  Write what you know.  Put those hard-earned details in there and the reader will believe it when you open that crushed trunk of the Beemer with your crowbar.

In my former career, I sailed on over 19 cruises.  I know ships.  So my first book, Shore Excursion, was murder on a cruise ship. My latest book, Game Drive, is murder on safari in South Africa, and I have been there as well.  Those are exciting settings, no doubt about it, but exciting settings are totally unnecessary for an exciting book. 

The part that is necessary is that the setting and the people in them seem believable.  Team realism with imagination and the magic begins to work. Even the mundane life of an old lady in a tiny village in the country can make a great book if the things that unfold before her seem real.  Think of Dame Agatha Christie writing about Miss Marple in the village of St. Mary’s Mead.

My best advice remains the old saw.  Write what you know, whatever that might be. Look around you, crank up the imagination, and put that pencil to paper. Try it! Who knows, bail bondsman, you might just turn out to be the next Janet Evanovich!

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Marie Moore is a native Mississippian. She graduated from Ole Miss, married a lawyer in her hometown, taught junior high science, raised a family, and worked for a small weekly newspaper—first as a writer and later as Managing Editor. She wrote hard news, features, and a weekly column, sold ads, did interviews, took photos, and won a couple of MS Press Association awards for her stories. Marie opened a travel agency, and sailed on nineteen cruises, and visited over sixty countries. The Sidney Marsh Murder Mystery Series was inspired by those experiences. She has done location scouting and worked as the local contact for several feature films, including Heart of Dixie, The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag, and Robert Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune. She and her husband now live in Memphis, TN, and Holly Springs, MS. Game Drive is the sequel to Marie’s first novel, Shore Excursion which introduced amateur sleuth Sidney Marsh, Both books were specially chosen for the onboard libraries of Holland America and Seabourn Cruise Lines, and The Travel Institute’s Bookstore. Her website is at www.MarieMooreMysteries.com