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Escaping the computer

Every year I take a few weeks off in March where I don’t WRITE. I am one of those writers who writes everyday. I love writing. I can’t not write.

That is why I have to take a vacation from my computer.

By the time we leave Montana in March, I am champing at the bit to go somewhere warm. I’m sick of snow. Even sicker of the same drab colors I see out my window.

Usually I am also drained. I’ve written a bunch of books and I desperately need a break.

For twelve years we have packed up the tent and the boat and taken off for Florida. We have dragged the poor boat through blizzards, across glare-ice coated roads and finally through pouring rain to get to sunshine. We even dodged tornadoes a couple of years.

This year we decided to do something different. The boat is warm and snug in the garage at home and I am watching the surf roll in – far from the mainland.

More…

Tagged with: B.J. Daniels, Redemption, rejuvenation, sliderpost, Vacation
Posted in B.J. Daniels, Writing Life

I Dream Plots, Not Necessarily Good Ones

I don’t know about other writers, but I dream plots. Often I wake up in the middle of the night caught up in one of these intricate dreams and think, “Wow, this is a great book.”

I dream entire plots. It must be the writer in me. Half asleep, these book dreams, complete with lots of layers of story and plot, seem amazing. However, when I am actually awake, they tend to fall apart.

Last night I had a dream that even asleep I realized was a good mystery. I liked all the characters and I really wanted to know how it ended – until I realized that the “prize” everyone was so determined to find was no Maltese Falcon. It was a meatball.
I have no idea what that was about except it could be the diet I’m on.

My daughter and I were questioning recently where crazy dreams come from. I have very bizarre dreams and so does she. Years ago when I was doing a book about people who kill while sleepwalking, I learned that it is often hereditary. Sleep walking and weird dreams – not killing people while asleep, though it could be hereditary too. Maybe those people didn’t get a chance to reproduce.

I used to be a sleepwalker. At college, I would wake up at the top of the stairwell and wonder where I’d been. My daughter said the same thing happened to her – but she would wake up outside. Scary at the time.

Some dreams are pretty easy to figure out. After I sold my first book, a friend and I went to a writers’ conference on the west coast. I woke that night standing on my bed, hands against the wall, screaming. In the nightmare, I was on the outside of a spaceship, clinging to the rough metal. The spaceship was turning slowly and I was about to drop off into…that’s just it, I didn’t know what was out there. I do now. No wonder I was so terrified. ☺

It didn’t take much to figure out that dream. I was headed into alien, scary territory.

My favorite dreams are the ones where I get to fly. Those are supposed to be happy dreams, that all is well in my world. I want more of those.

The other dreams I often have, when I’m not writing books in my sleep, are ones where I have a baby and I keep forgetting where I left it. Something important that I’ve forgotten? Who knows since I don’t have a baby I’ve forgotten anywhere.

I did have a dream once about this small group of women who lived on a cul de sac. That one was a lot like Desperate Housewives – long before the show. Except in my dream, my character discovered what had happened to all their husbands. Pretty scary stuff, my dreams are often made of.

Do you dream plots? Have nightmares? Walk in your sleep? Do you think dreams are trying to tell us something about ourselves?

Tagged with: B.J. Daniels, dreams, Redemption, romantic suspense
Posted in Miscellaneous

Why not 2013?

I can tell it’s January. Everywhere I look I keep seeing the same two words: Diet. Exercise.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick of seeing them and feeling guilty. This is the time of the year when 99 percent of us have both words on our list of New Year’s resolutions. It isn’t even about weight. Everyone needs exercise and a healthy diet. It should go without saying huh.

I usually have an excuse why I can’t stay on an exercise or diet program. That excuse is a “book deadline”. Even a nutritionist told me that I shouldn’t try to diet, exercise and meet my deadlines at the same time — that it puts too much pressure on me.

I can laugh about that now since I am ALWAYS on a deadline. She had handed me “The perfect excuse.” And believe me I’ve used it enough times in the past.

But this is 2013 and I am ready for a change.

It’s funny how sticking to something seems to work. It’s like when I start a book. If it isn’t working, I often think about the next one. That plot always seems like it will be easier to write.

But ultimately, I come back to the book that is going to be due soon, and I write it.

Diet and exercise is no different than writing a book. Both require staying power – especially when it gets hard. All the other times I’ve tried to stay on a diet and exercise plan, I would do it for a while. When it got to the point where I realized it was going to take continued work, I quit. The difference between it and the books I write, I didn’t go back to it.

But I realized something recently. Sticking to anything is tough. Writing books is the hardest work I’ve ever done. Sure there are times in the middle of a book when I’ve painted myself into a corner and don’t know how to get out and I want to quit. But I don’t.

So doesn’t that mean I should be able to stick to a diet and exercise program — even when I’m on a deadline?

One week in, I’m not saying I have this figured out. But if I’ve learned anything after writing sixty-nine books, it is that some times you have to tough it out. I’m tired and sore from working out, my stomach is empty or at least it thinks it is, and I just lived through a book deadline — all in the same week.

All kind of things happened this week that could have made me quit. But I didn’t. I’ve proven I can do it for a week. I can feel my progress. I feel good realizing I’m tougher than I thought I was. I want to keep at it.

I know there will be bumps in the road but I’m tired of saying that one of these days I’m going to get in shape. I’m beginning to sound like people I know who say that one of these days they’re going to write a book.

Are you tired of having the same list of New Year’s resolutions? Do you keep putting off something you really want to do thinking you’ll do it some day in the future?

Why not do it in 2013? It will be one less thing you have to put on your list come Jan. 1, 2014.

So write down that one thing you really want to accomplish this year for the very last time — and then come the end of 2013 stop by one of my blogs and tell us what you did. We’ll celebrate!!! This is our year!!

Tagged with: 2013, B.J. Daniels, Forsaken, New Year's Resolutions, Redemption
Posted in Miscellaneous

BOOK REVIEWS: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE EVIL

Something happened recently that along with upsetting me – got me thinking about book reviews.

A reader, not one of mine actually, accused me of writing my own reviews.

She was convinced I had written not just one review but five – giving myself something like four 5-star and three 4-star reviews.It was so ridiculous I didn’t even know how to respond.
I usually don’t respond, but this was so silly.
I wanted to say to her: why wouldn’t I have given myself seven 5-star reviews if I was going to write my own reviews? What’s with the three 4-star ones?
While I can laugh about it now, it upset me even though she apologized when she realized she was wrong. No one likes to be accused of something they didn’t do.

But it brings up an interesting issue: REVIEWS.
THE GOOD:
My very first review was on my first book, Odd Man Out. I got 4 ½ stars from RT Magazine – and when my editor told me, I thought that was out of 10! I’d never seen an RT Magazine because they hadn’t gotten to Montana yet.
Since then I love getting a good review. It encourages me, making me believe I might have done something right. But the crazy thing is that often a book that sells the best, didn’t get a great review.
So the bottom line is that reviews often have no effect on whether or not a book sells well. Or whether or not it is a good book because ultimately

it was only one person’s opinion.

HOWEVER: if you get a bunch of reviews, it does seem to help sales on sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Apparently we all want to read a book that a lot of other people have read even if some of the reviewers hated it. (Check out the reviews of Fifty Shades of Grey if you don’t believe me. Of the more than 15,000 reviews almost half are bad ones.)
We all love good reviews and greatly appreciate the kind words of our readers. I’ve had some make me blush. Anyone reading them would think my mother had written them. She didn’t, I swear.

THE BAD:
A lot of writers tell me they never read their reviews because a bad review can throw them into a tailspin for weeks. I read all my reviews, especially the less than glowing ones, because a little positive criticism never hurt anyone.
I remember one review that said something like: This writer has a secret baby in all her books!
I thought, “That can’t be true.”
But guess what, apparently I like secret babies of all ages.
So, yes, I read all my reviews. As a writer, I spend so much time locked up in a room with my characters, that I appreciate getting feedback from readers.

THE JUST PLAIN INSULTING:
Then there are the ignorant reviews.
I remember one where the reader made fun of me saying I must incapable of remembering my characters because I had to put a list of them at the beginning of my book. Uh, all Harlequin Intrigues have a list of the characters at the beginning of each book.
It is REALLY hard not to comment on those kinds of reviews.

THE EVIL:
I always feel bad for reviewers who write hateful reviews. I suspect those people aren’t very happy. I’ve noticed that if you check their other reviews, they often have the same things in common: 1-star and a lot of anger.
As writers we are at the mercy of reviewers. They can write anything they want about us and our books. Smart writers don’t respond to the hateful ones.
I am always flattered when a reader takes the time to write a review about my book. Part of the joy of being a writer is having a reader enjoy my books.
But while reviews probably help sell books, I like to believe that a good book will sell itself. That readers who love the book will pass it on to a friend. And that reviews don’t matter all that much.

THE INTERESTING THING ABOUT REVIEWS:
I don’t think we trust reviews anyway. If they are too nice, we think the author got her relatives and friends to write them. And if they are mean-spirited reviews? Jealous aspiring writers.
The only way to judge a book ultimately is to read it yourself. As writers we know we can’t please everyone. But it sure is nice when we please most of them. It’s even better when they read our book and write a nice review. 🙂

Tagged with: B.J. Daniels, Book reviews, Redemption, Unforgiven
Posted in Miscellaneous

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Allison Brennan

Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-four romantic thrillers and mysteries, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the Max Revere series. She lives in Northern California with her husband and five children.

Maximum Exposure
February 4, 2014

Two years before the events in Notorious, Max travels to Colorado Springs to investigate the disappearance of a college student. Frustrated over the lack of interest from both friends of the victim and campus authorities, Max tags along with the leader of search and rescue and his dog through the beautiful and deadly Rocky Mountains in the hopes of finding answers. Every answer she finds leads to more questions--questions neither the police nor the college want Max asking.
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