Today is Open Mic Day for Writers.  You’re welcome (and encouraged) to post Comments and Questions related to writing.  I won’t be able to answer until next week, but you’re free to answer each other as you like.  We have some smart people visiting this blog, many of them published authors.  I”m sure they’ll help out.

Have at it!  I look forward to reading your comments when I get back from the Soul Expressions Author Tour.

I found some wonderfully exciting news on Dee’s Christian Fiction blog–drum roll, please–Stephanie Perry Moore’s Payton Skyy series of teen novels is being made into a series of Direct-to-DVD movies by Tyler Perry!  This is great news!

I’ve bought the Payton Skyy series several times over the years.  I even bought it for my niece TWICE!  She called me up and said, “Aunt Angela, you already gave me these books–years ago.” I admit to getting a little sheep-faced at that, but when I saw them in hardcover at Black Expressions, I had to buy them.  Well, dIdn’t I?

I recently purchased (around Thanksgiving, I think) Stephanie’s pre-teen series, Carmen Browne, for a younger niece (the aforementioned niece’s sister).  To make up for giving the older niece the duplicate Payton Skyy books,  I tossed in the first books from the Perry Skyy Jr. series, figuring she’d love a series about a boy.

I realized today how long Stephanie Perry Moore has been writing young adult Christian fiction, particularly African-American young adult Christian fiction.  She is truly the godmother of the genre.  (Note she has at least one series, Laurel Shadrach, that stars a Caucasian pre-teen.)  Come to think about it, Stephanie is a pioneer in African-American Christian fiction, in general, as her first book came out in 2000 when the genre was first starting. 

Congratulations to Stephanie!  Let’s all be on the look-out for the DVDs.

I haven’t been to a Romance Writers of America (RWA) Conference since the year Awakening Mercy was a RITA finalist. I think that was 2001 in New Orleans.  UPDATE: You can find the 2008 RITA winners HERE!

This year they’re in San Francisco and The Today Show paid them a visit. Nora Roberts and Beverly Jenkins made the tape that was shown on the show.

Thanks to Anika at WriteBlack for the heads up!

When I signed the contract for Up Pops the Devil in June, I was given a September 1 deadline.  I hate to confess this but I missed my deadline.  The good news is that I knew I was going to miss it so I was able to inform my agent who informed by editor who gracefully gave me a three-week extension. 

I made the September due date and submitted my manuscript via e-mail at 7:30 am on Monday, September 24.  I’ve figured out that I do better with Monday due dates, as they give me the weekend to focus totally on the manuscript.  Since I have a full-time job, this is very important. I can’t take full days during the week to work on my writing so weekends are precious.

For those of you wondering, I submit my manuscript as a single Word document with one-inch margins, using Times New Roman with a font size of 12.  As I’m writing the manuscript, I have a separate file for each chapter (Using Word’s master document feature to view/print them as a single document), but once I send it in, I consolidate the chapter files into a single file and that’s the way I work on the manuscript from that time forward.

So I turned my book in on September 24 and settled back thinking it would be around Thanksgiving before I got back a revision letter.  Now Thanksgiving is a perfect time for me because I’m out on Thanksgiving break.  Well, guess what happened?  You’ve got it. 

(more…)

The most important part of my writing rituals include consuming massive amounts of espresso and clearing my mind of outside stuff.  Not easy.  Today I wrote at one of these ADD-style bowling alleys with 100 blaring TV screens and and my four kids.  They bowled and ate expensive hamburgers.  I wore noise-silencing headphones and wrote.  This is far from perfect, but the hardest thing for me is when someone talks to me, when my head is already talking to me, so the busier I can keep the kids (especially during summer!), the better.

I write seat-of-the-pants, but I know my theme and my main characters starting out.  After chapter one, all of it changes, and I’m left to follow.  So my rituals include staying in the book for a very long time, wondering what my characters will decide.  Sometimes, just like if I have to make a big decision, I have to learn about their struggles from books, websites, interviews and find out what they’d decide.  (I’ve read three books on demons and two on faith for this one!) That’s what slows me down the most.  I also try to immerse myself in great reading when I’m in a book.  When I’m not writing, it’s People Magazine, Us, and other mind-numbing fare like that.  But during the book, I love to read about four books at a time (one in the car, one in the bathtub, one in bed, one on the back deck.)  Research books do not enter the bathtub.  That is sacred.

(more…)

Thanks so much to Angela for raising this topic. I’m a little shy about answering because my process doesn’t always follow a linear pattern. There aren’t any things I do every time except write down as much as I can when someone interesting shows up and starts talking or to find a pen and run for a corner when my brain starts playing the,”That’s what actually happened, but what if…” game. That said, here are some things that seem to be standard.

Sort of.

1) Verses. My best ideas come to me in church. The Shades of Style series was inspired by Isaiah 61 and Rhythms of Grace comes from Matthew 11:28 in The Message. Certain things in the Word just jump out during my prayer and Bible Study (and even in service!). Without Jesus, I wouldn’t have anything to tell. He’s the author and finisher of everything (even the little people running around in my head).

2) Voices. I’m a dialogue person and I hear my characters more than see them. Often they start talking when I’m running or in church or folding clothes. It may be just one line like Grace from my latest novel (Flowers danced the day I died). That novel began as a short story of two boys, black and white, who are much more alike than different. Next thing I knew they were grown up, had friends and then…there was Grace. When she started talking, everyone else was quiet, waiting patiently, nodding and pushing her to the front. Other times, like with Made of Honor, I have a plot and a person that I’m working on separately and God pushes me to put them together. Always though there’s talking. Usually food too. Good smelling food.

(more…)

I’ve noticed how much my “writing ritual” has evolved over the years. When I first started writing full-time (I used to work at BellSouth full-time and then left after 18 years of service, no retirement just stepped out on total faith), I had the entire twenty-four hours to write if I wanted or needed to.

I would get started around 6 a.m. typing practically nonstop until around 2:30 p.m. I would take a break, get something to eat maybe and start dinner for my husband, and then be right back at it again. Most times I might be working until around midnight, especially when I was on a roll and didn’t want to stop. I loved it!

I had chosen to stop watching television in 1998 when I concluded it really steals a lot of your time and can be a true hindrance to you getting anything done. I chose back then to sow that time into my own dreams instead of someone else’s whom I didn’t even know. When I would read a book, it would most times be one of nonfiction. Although I write fiction, I found that nonfiction had a way of releasing my creativity, so that’s what I would do to relax and it would free my mind.

(more…)

I’m pleased to annouce that I’ll be hosting guest authors from time to time on the blog.  This will be a chance for you to meet some new authors in a format a bit different than the usual blog interview. 

We have three guest bloggers this week: Vanessa Davis Griggs, Marilynn Griffith and Kristin Billerbeck.  All three are wonderful authors and I’m sure you’ll enjoy their work. 

I’ve asked each author to address the topic, Writing Rituals, in their own way.   You’ll remember that I did a post on this topic last week.  If you missed it you can catch it here.

Vanessa is up first on Tuesday, followed by Marilynn on Wednesday and Kirstin on Thursday.  On Friday, all the commenters on the guests’ posts will be entered in a drawing to win a free book from one of the guests.  That’s right, you’ll have three chances to win. 

The good news is that you have until Friday at noon to comment.  In other words, if you miss Vanessa on Monday, you can still comment on her post by Friday at noon and be entered in the contest.  The same with the other guests. 

Don’t forget that I’ll be giving away another two copies of Up Pops the Devil on Friday, as part of my continuing Book Giveway contest.  So the more comments you make, the more chances you have to win.

Let’s make our guests feel welcome.  Be sure to tell your friends to visit with us.

In 2006 when I signed with my agent, Natasha Kern, I was in the middle of a two-book contract with Walk Worthy Press and Warner Books (now Hatchette Book Group). With the demise of the Walk Worthy / Warner agreement in late 2006, I found myself with an agent but without a publisher.  For a while, it looked like I might be staying with Warner but by the end of the first quarter of 2007, we knew that was not going to happen.

At that point, Natasha began aggressive action to find me a new publishing home. We talked extensively about the possible paths she saw for my writing career and my personal goals for where I wanted to be. Independently, we came up with lists of publishers that we thought positioned to get me to where I wanted to be. As an agent, Natasha was knowledgeable about which editors would be most inclined to like and appreciate an “Angela Benson” story.

Natasha then went to work contacting editors. The good thing about an agent is that they can do simulatenous submissions. That means they can send a proposal to editors at multiple publishing houses at the same time (letting them know, of course) while authors submitting their own work are required to submit to one publisher and wait for an answer before submitting to another.

The feedback started flowing in pretty quickly. Natasha had conversations with the editors who expressed interest in the proposal. These conversations were crucial in learning the ideas and strategies the editors had for the book and for my career. By early May, we had accepted an offer from Carolyn Marino at HarperCollins.

(more…)

If anyone had asked me if I had any writing rituals, I would have answered with a resounding NO. I would have been lying.

As I was reflecting on how I started on Up Pops the Devil , I realized that at some point early in the process, I pulled out Donald Maas’ Writing the Breakout Novel and gave it a review. Then I realized I do this with EVERY book!

As one would expect, the book is BIG on conflct. One of the things Mass talks about is  "inherent conflict." The best examples I can give of this are the growing numbers of books set in churches, or what I call, "church fiction." Placing characters with severe moral problems and hypocrisies in a church immediately heightens the conflict. It’s one thing to have adultery, fornication, lying and deceit going on, but it’s taken to a whole other level when it’s going on among folks in a church because church is not the place you would expect to find such activity. Or most people wouldn’t. The same could be said for the "urban lit" phenomenon. If your story takes place on violent streets or in violent neighborhods, you’ve heightened its conflict. With "inherent conflict" you add to the tension of your story because of the setting you choose. John Grisham did it with his mob lawyers in The Firm.

You can do this in Christian fiction by putting your Christian characters in situations that are or seem to be at odds with their faith. In Up Pops the Devil, my protagonist, Preacher, has a jailhouse conversion. Right off the back, you begin to wonder if it’s real.

Another thing that Maas discusses is "advanced characters," or something like that. Here he talks about having characters take on multiple roles to enhance conflict. For example, the antagonist and protagonist are related or have some shared history. Or the hero and heroine come from fueding families.

I used this one a lot in Up Pops the Devil . The story is about Preacher, his sister, his fiancee’, one of his old girlfriends and a new friend. It’s one thing to become a Christian and have to deal with friends who aren’t Christians. In that case, you can cut them off. It may be difficult, but you can do it. You can’t exactly cut off your sister or your fiancee’ or doing so is much, more difficult. Because of the difficulty, the conflict/tension is heightened in the story. Then there’s Preacher’s old girlfriend. Well, it’s one thing to have to deal with her, but it’s a whole other thing if she’s married to his Christian mentor. Again, heightened conflict.

Those are just two points from the Maas book. I think it’s good reading for any writer so consider giving it a try.

Now that I’ve told you about my writing ritual, you can tell me about yours. Who’s going first?