Monthly Archives: July 2009
Jeannie Lin wins 2009 Golden Heart for Best Historical Romance Manuscript!!
Romance Divas is beyond excited for Jeannie Lin.
Not only did she make her first sale to Mills and Boon on Wednesday while at conference, but at last night’s 2009 RWA Awards Ceremony she took home the award for Best Historical Romance Manuscript!!!
What a fabulous week she has had. She is an amazing author, and I think there will be many more like it ahead.
Congrats Jeannie!
RD Forum Outage
Looks like we’re currently having an outage on the RD forums.
I’ve opened a ticket with our hosting provider, Invision Power (the same guys that developed the forum software). I’ll keep updating folks on Twitter with the #RomanceDivas hash-tag. You don’t need to have a Twitter account to keep updated, but it’s a good way to chat with others while we wait for the site to get fixed.
Hopefully they get it back up and running soon. Not the first time it’s crashed during NGTCC, so we may just have more traffic on the forums than usual.
Today – workshops with Linnea Sinclair and Joey W. Hill
What’s on the schedule today for the Romance Divas “Not Going To Conference” Conference?
Take a deep breath, because this is a big day. We’ve got two amazing authors talking about craft and career.
- LINNEA SINCLAIR – Going Deep – Writing Deep POV
- JOEY W. HILL – From epublishing to New York Publishing
I know what I’ll be doing all day. How about you?
A Diva “First Sale” at conference!
Huge congrats to Diva Jeannie Lin. She got “The Call” while in D.C. for conference – she’s sold to Harlequin Mills & Boon!
Be sure to check the forums for more news, rumor, and gossip coming out of the conference in DC.
The “Not Going To Conference” Conference is underway on the forums as well. Today begins Ona Russell and Steve Hockensmith and their historical workshop “Perils and Pleasures of Historical Research”
Registration is always free at Romance Divas!
Divas at the “Readers for Life” Literacy autographing
Are you going to be at the “Readers for Life” Literacy autographing in Washington, DC on July 15th? Be sure you stop by and say hi to these Divas who are signing their books!
Gina Ardito
Eden Bradley
Lilli Feisty
Jennifer Haymore/Dawn Halliday
Victoria Janssen
Crystal Jordan
Kate Pearce
Robin Rotham
Shelli Stevens
Interior Monologue: The Enemy of Romance?
(Donald Maass will be conducting a special two-hour workshop based on The Fire in Fiction at RWA National in Washington D.C. Check the official schedule for time and location.)
Interior Monologue: The Enemy of Romance?
by Donald Maass
Do you skim some romance novels? You are not alone. Do you want readers to skim through yours? Well, duh. Who would?
How, then, do you ensure that readers will devour every word of your novels? The answer is a technique called “micro-tension”. This type of tension is not plot problems, or scene goals, but rather the constant, line-by-line tension that causes readers to worry what will happen in the next few seconds.
Micro-tension can be created in a thousand ways, big and small, but its application to interior monologue is especially important in romance fiction. Romance novels portray the inner life of their characters in rich detail. Intimacy is what romance readers crave and romance novels deliver…
…except of course when we are skimming. A frequent source of the problem is interior monologue that “churns”, meaning that it merely repeats thoughts and feelings that are already obvious to the reader.
Effective interior monologue adds fresh worries, new questions and previously unseen dimensions to the issues at hand. It is not inner turmoil. Inner turmoil makes characters weak and is tiresome to read. Unfolding new dimensions to problems, however, makes characters look smart. That kind of interior monologue is exciting to read. That stuff you don’t skim.
Look at it this way: In a passage of interior monologue are you merely going over what your heroine already feels? If so, then readers are likely to skim. Are you on the other hand adding apprehension, questions and inner conflicts that are new? Ah, now we want to read every word.
The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great
by Donald Maass
Description: In his new book, New York literary agent Donald Maass illuminates the techniques of master contemporary novelists. Some authors write powerhouse novels every time. What are they doing differently on the page? Maass not only explains, he shows you how you can right away use the techniques of greatness in your current manuscript.
Author bio: A literary agent in New York , Donald Maass’s agency sells more than 150 novels every year to major publishers in the U.S. and overseas. He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2004) and The Fire in Fiction (2009). He is a past president of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc.
The Fire in Fiction from the publisher.
The Fire in Fiction from bn.com
The Fire in Fiction on amazon.com
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=a0d9db38-69e4-483f-87be-3ff018ee314d)
Congratulations to Romance Divas co-founder Kristen Painter on her sale of her urban fantasy book Blood Rights to Orbit in a three book deal! Kristen is represented by Elaine Spencer of The Knight Agency.
Not Going to Conference?
Not going to the RWA conference in DC this month? Let Romance Divas bring the conference to you!
Site registration is free – if you aren’t already a member of the best free romance writing community on the web, sign up today!
Workshops from some of the hottest talent in writing will make you glad you stayed home!
Marley Gibson
Joey W. Hill
Steve Hockingsmith
Carrie Jones
Shayla Kersten
Josh Lanyon
Rowan Mcbride
Jet Mykles
Patti O’Shea
Ona Russel
Linnea Sinclair
Sasha White
Don’t miss it!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=2d6acb58-a182-4433-9ad4-db2cda3621a9)
