Kristal Lee

Reposted from New Kids on the Writer's Block:

I’m a paranormal writer. Not because it’s the hot ticket right now, but because I have a dark, ghoulish side that revels in the supernatural and fantastical. Lately, I’ve heard the buzz that paranormal is a saturated market, that it’s a fad, and that it won’t last in today’s changing market.

Hmmmm. That’s something to consider, but I’m not worried. Why? Because if paranormal is truly a fad, it’s a very loooong running fad.

Last weekend I attended a paranormal workshop sponsored by the Central Florida RWA chapter. In attendance was NYT Best Selling Author, Heather Graham, and upcoming author Susan Blexrud.

One thing that I took to heart is that paranormal is not a new genre. Susan pointed out that the forerunners of paranormal fiction include Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelley, and Virginia Woolf.

Whoa! That means paranormals aren’t the new kids on the block after all. They have substance. They have staying power. They influence us more than most give credit.

Yesterday I read a blog article at The Hot Word Blog that talks about a newly discovered fish species called “dracula minnow.”  It’s only 1.7 centimeters in length and has fangs. And, the Danionella dracula is known to stab other fish. Geez, even scientists are getting into the paranormal, naming their discoveries after Bram Stoker’s infamous character.

Television shows such as Ghost Hunters, The Vampires Diaries, True Blood, and Merlin pull in large audiences each week ~a testament to the voracious fascination our society has with things that go bump in the night.

And authors such as JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer have sparked the next generation of paranormal enthusiasts, leaving me to believe that the naysayers spouting the demise of the paranormal in the world of fiction are mistaken.

I’m happy about that.
Werewolves and vampires and dragons, hurray! It seems they’re here to stay. And faeries and ghosts and gargoyles galore. Who knows what else is in store!

Are you a paranormal fan? Or not-so-much? Have any paranormal stories  inspired you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.
~kristal lee

My mom taught me that books are treasures. Now, when she sees the hoards of books that line my bookshelves, cover the furniture and sprawl along the floor, she teases that she never expected me to take those particular words so seriously.

You see, I collect books the way pirates collect treasure. Except for the robbing and pillaging part. (Just a reminder that pirating books is, well, ILLEGAL and punishable under the full extent of the law. Simply put...Don't Do It.)

Like any good pirate worth her salt, I know each and every book--errr...gold coin that I own and where's it's hidden, although that's generally in plain sight rather than buried in sand.

I love to read, I love to tell people about what I'm reading, and I love to write. So, when offered the chance to become a book reviewer, I jumped on board without a moment's hesitation.

One thing I've learned is that book reviewing is different than reading for pleasure because a credible review is so much more than I liked it or I didn't like it. I believe publishers, authors, and potential readers want honest feedback. And if a book isn't my favorite brand of rum, it's still my duty to evaluate its merit and worth without bias.

After I delve into the characters, plot, setting, relationships, and sensibility/believability of the story, I endeavor to explain not just what I liked or what I didn't, but why. The added bonus for me is that through this process I'm learning why NYT bestsellers are bestsellers and why others aren't and I'm hoping to use all that I glean to become a better writer.

Since I volunteer to review several books a month for The Seasons, and I have a to be read pile for my personal interests that could rival Jacob's Ladder, I've decided to use my blog as venue for the reinvestment of time spent reading and writing reviews.

When posting reviews at The Seasons, I'll follow their finely established rating system. However, when I post here, at It's KRISTAL kLEEr, I'll use the rating system I've developed consisting of gold coins for the book lover's treasure chest. Click here to preview my rating system.


Mark your calendars for the inaugural voyage of ...TUESDAYS TREASURES...and the christening post scheduled for October 19th, featuring Lauren Dane's upcoming release SECOND  CHANCES.

Ahoy, mateys. Happy Reading!

The Random Number Generator has selected a winner...

              JULIE SHUMWAY

Congratulations Julie!

Email your mailing address to kristal(at)kristalleeromances(dot)com and I'll get your prize out to you this coming week.

Thanks to all who participated in the "Passionate Ink" giveaway!

~kristal lee

(Reposted from New Kids on the Writer's Block)

More than two months have past since I attended the 2010 RWA National Conference. I'm still digesting information from the fabulous workshops and my learning of the craft continues. One of the books I picked up while there is Angela Knight's "Passionate Ink: A Guide to Writing Erotic Romance."

You don't need to be an erotic romance writer to benefit from AK's how-to guide. It's written in an easy, down-to-Earth style that seems more like an afternoon tea with a writing mentor than a textbook.

One of the gems that I plucked from it's pages is a simple tip to avoid sagging middles. Ms. Knight's solution to this problem is "making a bad situation worse." In other words, up the conflict ante'. The middle should be the place where everything goes to he** in a hand basket. "[T]he action needs to ramp up with every scene so that each crisis is worse than one before."

In romantic fiction, love may conquer all in the end but until then it should throw everything into chaos. Love needs to complicate the external conflict so that it is much harder to defeat or overcome. If your story is sagging in the middle something must force the hero/heroine to jump from the frying pan into the fire. AK suggests to consider "the worse possible thing that could happen to [the] hero--given his particular emotional hangups--that he could still survive...[t]hen do it him." Be ruthless with your characters. Misery loves company and the readers will rally behind them.

The middle is also where lust begins to give way to love. As the pressure of the external conflict builds, a moment comes when the hero/heroine experiences an eye opening moment and realizes that he/she is in love and has much more to lose than when the story started. Falling in love should make the problem the hero and heroine are facing much more difficult to overcome and add unexpected consequences.

If your middle is sagging, take a hard look at the story's conflict. Conflict should drive the plot. If it doesn't, you're likely to experience a sputtering of your story. Check out your villain. Is he/she as three dimensional as your hero and heroine? Or a cardboard flunkie?

A weak villain undermines the conflict and sucks the ooomph right out of the plot. Your villain shouldn't be too easily defeated, unbelievable, and/or suffer motivational anemia.  His motivation should be as strong or stronger than the hero/heroine. One trick to creating a worthy villain is to remember that he is the hero in his own mind. He isn't evil for the heck of it. Something deep, dark and sinister motivates him to that end.  He has a cause, he has goals, and he can up the ante' if you let him. And, like a pair of big red suspenders, he can help hold up that sagging middle.

"Passionate Ink" is packed full of useful information and is an excellent resource for romance writers of every genre. If you're interested in winning a free copy of "Passionate Ink," please visit my website (www.kristalleeromances.com) and enter to win. The contest runs through midnight Saturday. Hope to see you there.

~kristal lee

After finishing "Passionate Ink: A Guide to Writing Erotic Romance" by bestselling author Angela  Knight (www.angelasknights.com), I decided that whenever I come across a particularly informative, wow-every-writer-should-have-this book, I'll post about it here. These recommendations will be about writing-craft books I've come across by browsing bookstores, talking with other writers, or at book swaps. "Passionate Ink" came to me by way of the RWA National Conference this year. I had the opportunity to attend Ms. Knight's riveting workshop and picked up a copy of "Passionate Ink" before I left. I'm immensely glad and grateful that I did. 


So, for my first writing-craft book recommendation, I give you "Passionate Ink." 



Bow down to Mistress Knight. Her guide to writing erotic romance should be on every aspiring romance writer's keeper shelf. Wait, forget the bookshelf, it's too far away. It should never be beyond arm's reach when tapping out your manuscript. Even if you aren't writing EroRom this how-to book is an invaluable resource, delving into characterizations, plotting, dialogue, voice, and the practicalities of the writing and publishing industries.

She uses excerpts from her works to demonstrate techniques and emphasizes why those particular caveats are important to the success of the story. I learn by association, so reading those enlightening tidbits after delving through the how-to's of those craft points are helping me more than hours of lecture time in a stuffy classroom.

Every writer worth her salt should know about GMC. Ms. Knight takes this a step further with her Romantic Conflict Chart. After using her simple guide on my current WIP, a little light went on and the Hallelujah choir began to sing. I finally understood why my story pooped out around Chapter 10. And more importantly, how to fix it.

If you're struggling with your manuscript, or you need some advice on how to spice things up, consider picking up "Passionate Ink." It's well worth your time and money. 
  
***CONTEST NEWS****
Because I believe that this book is such an excellent resource, I'm doing my first contest give-away. All you have to do is become a blog follower via Google Follows or Network Blogs and leave a comment. The contest runs through midnight, October 9th, EST. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator on October 10th and will receive a copy of Angela Knight's "Passionate Ink." 

Notice of Advisement-- "Passionate Ink" contains frank language and sexually explicit details. By entering this contest, you are asserting that you are at least 18 years of age, or the legal age of consent in your respective state or country of origin.

~kristal lee 

 

(Reposted from New Kids on the Writer's Block.)

I've been struggling with my WIP lately. In my head, the story spins endlessly. When I type it out, the story runs in every direction but the one I first imagined.

What I've found is that it's easy to come up with a story. It's much more difficult to get it out of my head and into a tale that other people would want to read. Desperate to figure out what was wrong with my "baby", I broke down the chapters I've penned and poured over the character worksheets. To my surprise, I found that I don't have a much of a plot. I've developed the internal conflicts but the external conflict is too nebulous to be much of a driving force and thus the story fizzles instead of dazzles. Well, crap, I chastise myself. I've invested all this time in this WIP and all I've been doing is walkin' the dog.

Margie Lawson explains walking the dog, as she learned it from Jameson Cole, as the unnecessary busyness of a scene or chapter. I have a whole lot of stuff going on, but nothing that really matters. What happens in those pages does not deepen the characters or move the story forward. It meanders along with no destination. Well, double crap. My story is on vacation and I need to bring it home. Back to the storyboard I trudge.

I think of Jennieke's post The Importance of Plot and Julie's post Plotter, Panster or Planner. I've learned that my plot "planning" needs a lot of work. The things that I need to pay more attention to, the story and character goals and external conflicts, not just the HEA. After all, the story is about how the hero and heroine get to their HEA, not walking the dog along the way.

~kristal lee

Blogging at New Kids on the Writer's Block today. (Reposted)

Backstory is what happened to your characters before the story begins. As writers, we labor over each important detail of their lives. It’s a birthing process and when our babies emerge fully grown we feel the need to share every little detail.

While we may love the backstory, a reader doesn’t. At least not in chunks big enough to choke Rottweiler. Historical information is passive and diverts attention from the present.  That’s not to say that backstory isn’t important. It is. The challenge is in giving enough information without boring the reader.

When wading through the mire of backstory dumps, the reader may give into distractions. Skim ahead. Or….Aaack! Put the book down.

To keep the story moving forward and avoid slowing the pace, bits of the character’s past can be introduced through dialogue. This keeps the reader engaged as the story unfolds. Show character reactions through body language as they disclose those past secrets or learn of them.

Write tight. Avoid unnecessary words and fillers. Keep the backstory active. Include only what the reader must ABSOLUTELY know. Eliminate the interesting tidbits if they aren’t important to the present story.

Margie Lawson, in her Deep Editing online workshop, suggests creating a separate file on the backstory. For your eyes only. Keep it brief, though. Highlight what’s critical for the reader to know in order to understand the story. Put those important details on a fresh page. Then, slip pieces of this information into the first third of the book. Keep it active using dialogue and be careful of relying on history for present motivations. Characters need fresh stimulus and responses to keep the story current.

After all that work on character development, it’s tough to whittle the juicy details to bare bones. So, how do you handle presenting backstory without snoozing and loosing the reader?

~kristal lee

It's Plinky time!

If you could be any character from any book you've ever read, who would you be?
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I would want to become Grace Alexander, the heroine in Sherrilyn Kenyon's Fantasy Lover, because Grace ends up with Julian. The sexy half-god, Spartan warrior, turned love-slave with a heart and eyes only for her.

Fantasy Lover is my all-time favorite paranormal romance book. I read it at least 2-3 times a year and I fall in love all over again.

Julian springs to life from the pages of an ancient manuscript that Grace's witchy friend gives her as a birthday present. From full moon to full moon, Julian is determined to fulfill Grace's every sexual fantasy. Only she isn't cooperating. Grace is a sex therapist determined to set Julian free from his tortured past by pushing him out of the bedroom and into the world again. "Sure, love can heal all wounds, but can it break a two thousand year old curse."

I won this award from Sarah Hoss at http://heart-of-romance.blogspot.com. I want to thank her for the award and I hope she knows how much I appreciate it!

So now I pass it on. These are the ladies and their blogs that I follow and enjoy.

Put the Kettle On
Camryn Rhys
Angels and Demons and Portals. Oh My!
Nancy's Notes from Florida
Terry's Place
New Kids on the Writers Block
Deb Sanders
K.C. Burn
Renee Lynn Scott
Southern Sizzle Romance


This is how the award works.
Accept the award, post it on your blog along with the name of the person who has granted the award and a link to his or her blog. Pass the award on to other blogs that you enjoy and and contact the blogger to notify them of your choice.

~Kristal Lee

Blogging about echo words at New Kids on the Writers Block. (Reposted)

Ever stood in a cave, hands cupped around your mouth, and hollered "Hellllooo"? Did you hear an echo? If you did, your echo was intentional. You called into the emptiness of the cave just to hear your voice bounce back to you.

Echoes don't occur only in caves. They can occur in writing, too.

Sometimes a writer will intentionally use repetitive words and phrases for emphasis, but I'm not talking about those stylistic choices. I'm talking about those unintentional repetitions that annoy the reader. Echo words and phrase.

It's easy for verbs to become echo words in our writing. Take a look at the following examples.


He gave her a sour look. She looked frazzled.. Sarah watched him looking through the items in the box.

He whispered. The trees were whispering in the wind.

He paced the room. He paced like a cage tiger. She walked so fast it was hard to keep pace with her.

Regret washed over him. Overwhelming sadness washed over her.

Rick turned to leave. Abby turned to face her. She turned away. Valerie turned to hide her face...yada, yada, yada).

Of course, not all echo words are verbs. Adjectives rank among them too. Recently, I was reading a yet to be released book for a review. The book was good, but the author overused the word visceral. Now, visceral is an unusual word and isn't common in every day language. Using it once would have been an attention getter...in a good way. It's a powerful, descriptive word. Seeing the word repeated a couple of times in nearly every chapter annoyed the heck out of me. I began wondering if the author understood the meaning of the word, or if she was simply so enamored with her own vocabulary and showing off. It's not a good thing to irk your audience.

We all have echo words that we should be cognizant of in our writing. A couple of divining tools that I use to point out those little hiccups are the "Find" function in Word and Wordle.  The "Find" function is self-explanatory if you are familiar with Word. It works best if you're aware of the echo words that fly from your fingertips onto the page. Wordle is a website that creates word clouds. You copy/paste your WIP into its designated box and it will show you which words are repeated the most by the size of the word. This has been an amazing tool for me to find the echo words that slipped past my brain in revisions. Wordle is a free website. Check it out at www.wordle.net.

Do you find that your WIP is infected with echo words? What are they? And, what methods do you use to extract them?

~ Kristal Lee

I'm excited to have Camryn Rhys, erotic romance author and Golden Claddagh winner blogging about erotic romance and the quest for recognition of this up and coming genre.

A big welcome to Camryn:

When I sat in the Golden Heart/RITA Ceremony at RWA Nationals this year in Orlando, I found myself imagining what it had been like ten years ago, fifteen or twenty years ago, to be nominated for a RITA. Well, it turns out, they didn't even have "RITA"s twenty years ago.

Well, twenty-one years ago, anyway.

In 1989, the top award in Romance Fiction was called "The Gold Medallion", and there were only eight categories (as opposed to today's twelve). The romance genre looked very different in 1989, and I should know, I was reading it, even at my tender age of ---- don't you wish I'd tell you?

You may wonder why, in the midst of such a beautiful and touching ceremony, I was musing about how different the RITAs looked. It's because of a conversation I had with a bunch of Erotic Romance authors at the Passionate Ink party a few days prior. It went something like this:

"Why isn't there a RITA or a Golden Heart for Erotic Romance?"
"I think they voted on that last year, with the epubs stuff."
"Yeah, I heard it's not a real genre."
"I heard that, too. Someone said 'erotic romances are welcome in any category, just like any other heat level of romance.'"
"But erotic romance isn't a heat level."
"You're right. It's a genre."
Being new to the genre, I asked, "What makes it a genre and not a heat level?"
"Think about it. Most 'sensual' romances, you could make non-explicit, and most sweet romances, you could make more explicit, and they'd essentially be the same story. No matter what the heat level. In erotic romance, the explicit language isn't a trapping, it's part of the love story. Their erotic love story *is* the story. If you take it out, there's no more story."

So I sat at the RITA ceremony thinking about the past because I was wondering about the future. I wondered when RWA would choose to validate a quickly growing genre that does herald itself as a genre, and not a heat level.

As an erotic romance author who also writes in other genres, I know when a story idea is an erotic idea and when it's not. It has nothing to do with how much sex is in the book. Putting more sex scenes in doesn't make a book erotic. If you think that, you need to read some erotic romance. I read a fantastic erotic romance novella, once, by Leigh Court, where there is essentially no sex until the last 20 pages (which is almost straight sex, but still... it was a long buildup). And it really was fantastic. Why?

Because the love story of the hero and heroine was an erotic one. Their sexual awakening was part of their  love story, and it was integral to the story (to their story) that the book be structured the way it was. Take away all the sex, and their relationship could never have happened. That's not true of non-erotic romances, even the super steamy ones.

Erotic romance novels have plot structures deeply rooted in the physical relationship between an h/h. A man who has dishonored his wife and vows to seduce her back. A woman who faces marriage to a man she hates decides to seduce the man she's loved for ten years in the hopes that she can have one good sexual experience before she's consigned to a loveless marriage. A man who so loves a woman that he offers to have a threesome with her and her husband, just to be in her bed. A woman who would become a werewolf, but needs to release her sexual energy in order to change for the first time. A man who regrounds his magic by having sex with an enchanted woman.

The sex is not just a trapping to books like these. It is integral to the very structure of the book. Without the sex, the plot completely disintegrates. While non-erotic books might not be quite as emotionally engaging without sex, they should still at least make sense without it. Erotic romance needs sex.

Preferrably lots of sex. Multiple ways. Maybe with multiple partners. And we're not averse to a little bondage, kink, or play. That's what erotic romance is all about. The sexual journey.

So I do hope that someday, RWA will acknowledge that erotic romance is not a heat level, it's a genre. And as a genre, it deserves to be honored as such. I also hope that I can be the first recipient of an Erotic Romance RITA. Let's say 2015. Yeah, that can be my goal.

Of course, in order to win a RITA, I need to get published first.

Better get on that. ;-)
Camryn

Visit Camryn at Camryn Rhys ~ Putting the H-O-T in History  and at New Kids on the Writer's Block.

If you're looking for a seat of your pants, harem scare 'em flick, Zombieland isn't what you're looking for. However, if you want a good laugh and don't care about a mindless wandering plot, then Zombieland is exactly what you need.

Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslyn run from zombies and ditch each other in this ridiculous spoof. If you haven't guessed already, then let me advise you that I didn't pick this movie to watch. Hubby did. 'Nuff said about that.

Being a good sport, I settled back in the recliner. Lights dimmed. Surround sound blaring.  He likes to  recreate the movie theater experience. I cringe as the French door panels rattle.

Lots of non-nonsensical shenanigans filled the TV screen and for the first third of the movie, I kept asking where's the plot. According to IMDb, the plot is "searching for family." Really? Hmmm, I didn't get that.

But, I didn't need too.

Once I gave up on trying to figure out the plot, the story arc, the character motivations, and so on and so forth into infinity, I found myself enjoying the madness. It was funny. At times, ironically stupid. No way in creation was it believable, but it was entertaining. And that's the point, isn't it?

Entertainment.

The reason we watch movies. The reason we read books.

An audience wants to be entertained. Whether its a deliciously decadent Scottish historical romance, a down and dirty western, a flight by night paranormal suspense, or a life and death medical drama our audience wants to be taken away from the realities of their daily lives and escape into another reality. That reality doesn't need to be true to life. It simply needs to be entertaining.
~Kristal Lee

Blogging today at New Kids on the Writer's Block. I'm discussing the rhetorical device, anadiplosis.
(Reposted)

One way a writer defines and distinguishes her voice is through the use of rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices can make your voice sing. There, I've already used one of the devices. Can you guess what it is?

I'll reveal it in a moment. First, I want to explain what rhetorical devices are.  Rhetorical devices are techniques the author uses to convey emotion, heighten tension, emphasize a point. The goal of rhetorical devices is to connect with the reader. To evoke an emotional response so that they connect to the character, to the story.

There are multitudes of rhetorical devices. During the next few weeks, I'll be discussing my favorites. I do suggest that if you aren't familiar with rhetorical devices to grab a book or two on the subject and take Margie Lawson's Deep Editing workshop.

So, let's look at my opening sentences:

One way a writer defines and distinguishes her voice is through the use of rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices can make your voice sing.

Notice how I ended the first sentence and began the next with "rhetorical devices." I did this for emphasis. To catch your attention. To make the words buzz in your head so that you would remember them. I hope it worked.

This technique is called anadiplosis (an-uh-dih-PLO-sis), the repetition of the last word or phrase in a sentence to begin the next.

Using anadiplosis can empower your writing. Make it memorable. Make it stand out from the slush pile.

Cherry Adair, NY Times bestseller, uses anadiplosis in her best seller, Black Magic.

"The Archon paid him. Paid him ridiculously well. But he'd be ley hunting if he were doing it for free."

She could've wrote: The Archon paid him to ley hunt, but he would've done it for free.

See how use of anadiplosis made her sentence more powerful, more evocative.

Now you try. Take a paragraph of your current WIP that needs a little ummph and empower it with anadiplosis. Share it in the comments. If you've naturally used anadiplosis in your current WIP, show us too.

Happy Writing!
~kristal lee

Over the last few weeks, I’ve blogged at New Kids on the Writer’s Block as Kaelee Morgan on the topic of writer’s voice. Mostly, because I wanted to understand what it is, if I had one, and how to develop it. I’ve learned that #1, we all have a voice, and #2, we have to learn what it is before we can develop and refine it. Like a songster’s voice, a writer’s voice begins with the raw basics and is refined through practice. How refined that voice becomes depends on the practice. Only perfect practice produces a perfect result.

As writers, we MUST learn the craft of writing in order for our practice to be spot on. Our writer’s voice becomes more defined once we’ve mastered how to use writing tools and we begin to shape and use those instruments according to our natural style.

Writer’s voice is as individualistic as we are. A familiar reader should be able to pick up anything we’ve written and identify it with us. Voice is that distinctive.

Don’t believe me? Pick up a book written round robin with several authors. When reading the book, you get a clear sense of when the author has switched. The sentence structure is slightly different, the word choice, even the tone. There is distinction in voice.

I began pondering this uniqueness, the individuality, and imminent recognizability. Not only in voice, but who I am as an author.

When I decided to pursue a professional writing career, I made the choice to use a pen name, Kaelee Morgan. It wasn’t a hard decision. Looking back, it was easier than it should’ve been. Almost without thought, really.

I told family members and friends that I was using a pseudonym, they all asked why. I glibly answered, because I have a day job in the public arena with a large and politically “hot” agency. Self-protection, self-preservation I deemed it.

I hit the bulls-eye with the self-protection, self-preservation bit. But not because of the crap about the day job.

Looking back at my much younger years, I remember writing, writing, writing, and signing my work as Anonymous. Not because I was embarrassed by what I wrote, but because I was embarrassed to be complimented. I wrote a short story in school that my teacher raved about, to everyone. Before long, my story was the talk of the school. In a good way, but the attention was a tad overwhelming. Overwhelming because there’s a vulnerability in writing out your heart and everyone scrutinizing it.

A pen name provides a layer of protection. Some authors choose pen names out of reasonable necessity. Or perhaps because they write in different genres or for different publishers.

I chose a pen name out of fear. Not fear of rejection, but fear of recognition. Kinda backward thinking, I know. Especially considering that I’m not a shy person, nor do I have a problem with self-confidence. I do, however, like privacy.

While studying voice, I dug through the Hope chest to rediscover short stories, creative writing assignments, poems, and research papers from my past. And there I found my voice. Raw and in need of refinement, but definitely my voice.

Somehow, over time, I lost some of what makes me, me, in writing. Maybe this had something to do with me opting for a pen name, maybe not. Most likely not. But, the lesson learned in studying voice is that I just gotta be me.

Shakespeare wrote “a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.” I suppose that’s true, but would that flower be as endearing to the masses if called a bloody thorn stalk? Somehow, I don’t think so. The essence of the flower is constant, but our perception of it changes.

After meditating on this for quite some time, I decided that come what may, I want to be known as me. I don’t need an alter identity to shield from the public eye of my day job or from family or friends. In reality, I was only hiding from me. So, I’m foregoing the pen name, Kaelee Morgan.

I’ve changed everything over to the real me, Kristal Lee. No layer of protection now. No cushion to hide behind. Nothing but the simple, direct, often quirky, me.

I’d love to hear from those who’ve chosen to use a pen name, or two. Why did you decide to use a pseudonym? If you use more than one name, do you notice a change in your voice, or does it remain consistent?
~Kristal Lee

**Reposted from NKotWB

I was playing on Plinky and came across this prompt: What movie always makes you cry?'

Can you guess what came to my mind? Probably not in a zillion years, but try.
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Okay, here it is….
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Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Yep, that’s right. You didn’t guess that did you?

I always, always cry at the part where the other reindeer are laughing at Rudolph because the black cover comes off his nose and it’s glowing red. It breaks my heart how cruel reindeer can be.  Really, who knew about the mean streak in Santa’s magickal beasts. The ones that pull his sleigh full of toys, delivering  joy to so many girls and boys on Christmas Eve. Go figure!

Now, tell me…what movie always makes you cry and why.
~Kristal Lee

According to folklore, a faery ring is an arc or circle of mushrooms that appear during the night and are thought to be gateways into the faery realm. These areas were believed to be places where faeries met to get down and boogie.

So, not only does my backyard have the Best Grubs in the Neighborhood, apparently it's a favorite night spot for faeries who want to kick up their heels for a little ditty.

All I want to know is why I wasn't invited to the party. By the number of faery rings decorating the yard, it was a doozie of a wing-ding.


~Kristal Lee

Blogging at New Kids on the Writer’s Block as Kaelee Morgan– on Voice and Sensibility.
(Reposted)
 
“Voice, at its most basic level, is the sensibility with which an author writes. It’s a perspective, an outlook on the world, a personality and style that is recognizable even out of context.” ~ Nathan Bransford

   Writing craft guru Dwight Swain writes “each of us experiences and responds to life differently, in a manner uniquely and individually his own. As a writer, your task is to bring this heart-bound feeling to the surface in your reader: to make it well and swell and surge and churn.” (page 7, Techniques of the Selling Writer).

So, how do we make it well and swell and surge and chum?  With our voice.

First, there’s the matter of style. Choices a writer makes with words, sentence structure, figurative language, and how emotion or conflict is layered.

Personality should also be present on the page.  For me, personality is reflected in the tone, setting, and theme.

Originality is a must. As I mentioned in a previous post, To Thine Own Voice Be True. Be yourself. Write what comes natural. Write what you know. Don’t be an imitation. Only Nora can be Nora. Aspire to be You.

Enrapture and provoke. I call this the Calgon, Take Me Away syndrome. Whisk the reader away from their every day life. Help them experience your character’s world as if they were there, in the middle of the story. As a participant, not a bystander.

Be consistent and in control. Know your characters. Know their story. Weave a tale that only you can tell. And tell it fresh. Tell it with power. Tell it with confidence.

In my endeavor to define my own voice, I’ve started to understand that it isn’t something you study like grammar and vocabulary. It’s recognized through practice, the same way a vocalist discovers, develops, and strengthens their range by singing and experimenting. So a writer must write and explore. Figure out what feels natural. What doesn’t. Write, write, write. And then write some more. Read what you wrote when you first began writing and compare it to your current work in progress. You will begin to see and hear your writer’s voice.

Rachelle Gardner explains in her blog that finding your voice “is a process of peeling away the layers of your false self, your trying-to-be-something-you're-not self, your copycat self, your trying-to-sound-a-certain-way self, your spent-my-life-watching-television self. It's like going to psychotherapy, delving deep and allowing the real you to emerge, only in this case you want it to find its way on to the page.”

So, tell me.  Have you peeled away the layers to discover your  true voice? What have you learned in the process that makes your voice unique?

Brave little basset had an eventful day last week. Stalking through the back yard with his investigative nose, he had a run it with a SUO (snake of unknown origin).


I call it a SUO because I didn’t see the darn critter, but brave little basset came trotting in the house with a swollen snout and two tiny pricks on the side of his nostrils. He seemed utterly unconcerned about the incident. Didn’t know what the fuss was about. Only wanted to go back outside and hunt for whatever he could find. Lizards and frogs. Butterflies and dragonflies. He’s not picky. He’ll chase them all with abandon.

After a trip to the vet, a day of observation, and antibiotics, brave little basset was eager to return to his backyard adventure zone. He zipped through the grass, around the hedges, and along the fence until he was convinced no SUO remained in his territory.

And still, he hunts. Ever watchful. Ever diligent.

As aspiring writers, we face many challenges. The sting of rejections and critiques that point out our flaws, our weaknesses, and all the other nit-picky stuff in between, is enough to send us dashing behind any obstacle that puts a barrier between us and our critics. Sometimes we become afraid to go back out and try again.

Watching brave little basset patrol the yard I realized that writers must be fearless in their endeavors. Nothing should slow us down or deter us from our paths. We will get stung along the way, probably many times over, but it doesn’t have to deter us.

~Kristal Lee

It’s alligator season in Florida. Everyone’s secured their hunting permits and readied their bang sticks. Gassed up the airboats and motor boats. Filled up the coolers with drinks.


While enthusiasts spent the night tracking and wrestling gators on the still, blue waters of Lake Okeechobee, hubby and I snuggled in for an evening watching the Lake Placid movies. Might have been more realistic if the setting was Lake Placid, FLORIDA where there are real alligators and not up in the North East. And someone should have taken the time to at least google alligator behavior and habitats.

Another thing I notice was the confusion between alligator and crocodile. The two are not interchangeable. Like a rat and a squirrel. Both are rodents, but they aren’t the same rodent.


Loved Betty White in the original. John Schneider didn’t quite steal my heart in #2 the way he did in the Dukes of Hazzard (the original TV show, not the movie remake). Yancy Butler was the tough, go-getter cougar that I expected her to be in #3.

So, what did I learn about the craft of writing watching this monstrous trilogy?

It’s not enough to simply make something larger than life. You have to make it believable or it becomes farcical. Monsters, even supernatural ones, should come equipped with predictable behavior traits. Random chaos doesn’t apply, because if you want to get into the quantum matter of things, there is order even in chaos. But, that’s another topic.

Everything in the universe adheres to rules and patterns. When world building or monster making, that is an important fact to remember. It should be the foundation of your creation.

Without a core structure to support all the fantastical things that a writer can imagine, the creation falls apart. Think of the human body without a skeleton, a skyscraper without the steel supports, a jellyfish without its fibrous membranes. Take out the internal structure and what’s left is a puddle of goo.

Plan your monsters carefully. Give them strengths and weaknesses and use those to their advantage and against them. The stakes for the hero/heroine should be high, but not unobtainable. They can’t be defeated at every turn and then suddenly defeat the monster in the last second using the same weapons, cunning, etc., that failed them time and time again. To do so is the result of lackluster writing and an underactive imagination. Trust me, if the writer isn’t interested in investing the time needed to carefully craft their monsters, the reader/viewer won’t be either.

Blogging at New Kids on the Writer’s Block today as Kaelee Morgan: To Thine Own Voice Be True -
(Reposted)

I like post-it notes. Whenever I come across a phrase or a quote that I find enlightening or inspirational, I write it down on those tiny colored pads and stick them on my desk. On my bulletin board. On the bathroom mirror. On the refrigerator door, etc. into ad infinitum.

One of my favorite quotes is by Ingrid Bergman, "Be yourself. The world worships the original."

Les Edgerton tackles this sentiment in chapter four of his book, Finding Your Voice: How to put personality in your writing. He states that many writers follow the pack to the detriment of their writing instincts because they've been educationally programmed to do things the proper way. This leads to formal, text-book style writing. It may be technically correct, but doesn't showcase voice. When one reads it aloud, it doesn't feel natural.

If something doesn't feel right in your writing, trust that feeling. Your gut is saying, "Hello! Did you develop a sudden case of writer's laryngitis? Cuz I can't hear your voice no more."

Les suggests reading your work out loud to friends and family and ask them to comment when the "hear" your voice. Once those sections are identified, read them aloud again until you become accustomed to the sound and the rhythm of the words. This will put you in tune with yourself.

He also suggests selecting a writing sample from your WIP and marking out all the adverbs and adjectives. "Adverbs and adjectives are the hockers of your voice." I love that sentence so much I have to type it again. "Adverbs and adjectives are the hockers of your voice." (Yep, that's definitely going on a post-it note for my netbook.)


Once these phlegm balls are cleared from your writing, the true essence of what you wrote will shine through. The pace will be faster and the writing more alive. It's okay to go back and sprinkle a few adjectives into the prose, but sparingly and use stronger adjectives when possible. And ex-nay on the adverbs. "They bring bad karma and are rarely aligned with the planets." --Oh yeah, that's going on a post-it note, too.

The important thing to remember is to be the same person on the page that you are off the page. Don't use words that you wouldn't use naturally when talking to people. Don't adopt a writing style that doesn't mesh with your personality. Learn the rules so you will know when, where, and how to break them. Trust your gut. And above all, to thine own voice be true.