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I confess that by throwing up this post, I'm usurping our dear Shannon's blog post day, so before you start partying down, please go read her amazing thoughts on contests and waiting beneath this post. You'll be glad you did. Leave her a comment, too, because our Shannon, she's the real deal. We're grateful to have her here.
Now, fire up the grill and mix up a vat of margaritas, cuz it's official. The top twenty in Dorchester Publishing's Next Best Celler contest @ textnovel have been posted. And that gives us another excuse to party down here at the Textnovel Divas blog!
We did it!
Come join us as we cut up, share funny stories, tell how our stories began...whatever ribaldry happens to hit the comments thread. Got questions about the contest? About what it's like to write a textnovel? Want to know our dirty secrets? Go ahead, ask them.
We might even be up for a spot of textnovel-ish truth or dare if you ply us with enough margaritas! :)
With that said. Party on, dude-ettes!
Happy Holidays!
4 years ago
18 comments:
Woot! Chocolate martinis for everyone!
OMG. Gail, I had the best chocolate martini of my life at RWA DC. We walked down to a middleeastern sidewalk cafe downhill a piece from the motel and they had 5 dollar martinis. Honestly, I don't know how we got back *up* the hill, but they were the best chocolate martinis I ever had.
So yeah, I"ll have one of those in preparation to take you to the mat in the CHOCOLATE THROWDOWN. :)(wherein our readers can win a basket full of sinful yummies like chocolate body paint.)
So, finalists. Where did your story inspiration come from? I'm dying to know!
Fae Nights: I just started writing. I wondered what would it be like to be psychic and then have your boyfriend cheat on you. That lead to "how does one become psychic"? Then I had a dream that kinda fit into the first few pages of this story I was doing and went off on a tangent about the Fae and what the background for that would have been.
Yeah. I'm full of tangents. My mind, much like me, can keep going, going, going :)
My inspiration for my story came from "I would kill for a Big Mac." What can I say, I was hungry.
OK so The Hooded Man simply came from my thought as a 13 year old girl, "Why can't Robin Hood be a girl?" Turns out, She can.
Daughter of Fire come out of a love of fire and hawaii. hehe
Redeeming Characters sprouted from my brain child fantasy of having a man that actully gave a crap about my writing, and not just the reading it either, but the whole editing, telling me I don't suck, forcing me to sit and just do it package.
Now let me just ask, is anyone sorry about the one that didn't make it to the finals due to not enough chapters? I thought a dozen times about messaging her via textnovel to warn her, but this is a competition and those who read the rules and followed them are the ones who really wanna win! And deserve to win.
Am I a bad person for thinking that way? If so, I can live with it since Hooded Man squeezed in!
OMG. Muse Struck started from a combination of emotional fatigue after writing Wicked Temptation (a very angsty book, heart wrenching at times) and my absolute, utter complete writers block!
Jenn--I love your story, such a witty idea.
Gail...what can I say. It's STEVE! SO whatever it took to inspire him, have a double next time and see what happens--assuming our hearts can take it.
Robin--I'm a what if writer, myself. NOthing ever works out like I planned LOL!
Valorie--where's the beef *g*.? That is too funny. So was that cow a scottish heiffer or what?
Courtney....The hoodster rocks. And yes, what a concept--the boys got all the fun roles, damn it!
OMG, how stoked am I to see that "semi finalist" badge. I want to have it printed on all of my t-shits, and perhaps my underwear. I know, not finalist, but I'm just so happy to have made it this far!
I don't know about you, but I read the qualifications almost everyday on textnovel, just to make sure i wasn't screwing something up. I also have the Dorchester link to contestant rules saved in my bookmarks, *just* in case something was screwy with textnovel. When in doubt ask. It was a mistake. A sad mistake, because it could have been caught just by paying attention to the qualifications.
As authors, we have to have the ability to read the fine print, not just write it.
As for the chocolate throwdown, you all are going down. You see, I already have some experience with this chocolate thing, and you know what they say: You write best when you write what you know!
Yea for you girls!!! I mean Divas! I am so excited for all of you. Good luck for the next portion of the competition.
-Kim Connell
textnovel.com
Amazing inspy for all the stories. It's really kinda cool to see where everyone got there ideas!
Chocolate martinis indeed! Never had one, but if I ever meet one of you face to face at a conference, I'm reserving one for each of you! Until then, I will go without.
Stay was my son's doing. He loves the military and he's always going diving. Actually sitting on the rocks one day after he'd taken me for my first snorkling lesson, I watched him diving and boom the semblence fo Stay happened. It just rolled from there.
Candi, there's no better inspiration than the kind that comes from love.
Kim, thanks so much for coming by to party with us. I hope you won't be a stranger, we have lots of fun and informative events planned in coming weeks.
And Robin, doll, I can do things with chocolate you've only dreamed of. ;)
Ther we go, finally found my google account!
Of course I will be sticking around, all this greatness has got to rub off on me! I love hearing where people got there inspiration from! It's so amazing to me how you can just be sitting there one day and then bam! There it is!
I got mine from a group of boys in Denver that run around doing this thing called "pick up artists." They have a specific club name but I was sworn to secrecy so I named my group of guys after my favorite brewery Rogue, from Oregon.
Originally I was just going to do some sort of fiction on their club, which pretty much teaches guys how to become more appealing to women, which can't be a bad thing(!), then I thought, that would be a good cover for a spy agency! Thus my story was born. And of course I used a lot of them as the characters in the book. Fun fun fun, and they would kill me if they ever found out. No they would probably be flattered.
Is it wrong I am not a big chocolate fan?
-Kim
Kim,
That's excellent. Especially since you were sworn to secrecy. Sounds like a group my brother would run with. LOL.
Think they'd bicker about who was who from the story?!?!
Lancelot's Lady was an older manuscript that I had started a few years ago, then buried on my computer. Originally, it was a contemporary romance. I think that was the problem. My mind is usually drawn to the darker side--with idols like Stephen King, Dean Koontz and John Saul, can you blame me? ;-)
When I heard about this contest, I remembered my manuscript and decided it was time to air the cobwebs and dust it off. That's when I discovered how boring my original manuscript was.
Since I've published 3 novels with strong mystery themes, and two that are thrillers, I decided to combine my love of steamy romance and the fact that I have a knack in killing people off--or so my mother says. And I do mean that fictitiously...of course.
Thus, Lancelot's Lady was born--complete with new title, new characters (including the 'love-to-hate' villain Winston Chambers), hotter romance and a new island location to pump up the exotic.
The story grew from the original plot and practically flew from my head to the keyboard. I think I may have typed some of it while sleeping, although for the last 5 months, sleep has been a luxury. :-)
Probably what inspired me most was meeting my characters for the first time and letting them tell THEIR story. Those are always my best works.
Cheryl Kaye Tardif (aka Cherish D'Angelo),
bestselling author of Whale Song,
and debuting my romantic suspense Lancelot's Lady, a Top 20 semi-finalist
Cheryl--I completely understand the "dusting off" of a manuscript. I have a *few* file boxes full of novels I've started, then there are all of the novels I have on my 3 thumb drives.
So, everyone, fess up. Do you hoard all of your writing? If so, how much do you have?
I thought Demon was just going to be a short story. Um...no. Those characters were so loud.
I don't even know where they came from, it was like they sprung from my melon fully-formed like Athena.
And I will have another maritini!
Sarannah.....Muse was supposed to stop at 5K. Ummmmm....no.
Cheryl, thanks for stopping by! I don't normally read a lot of traditional contemp. romances but I have enjoyed yours and Candi's a lot. Maybe I need to rethink my reading habits. :)
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