IWSG - July

It's the first Wednesday in July, so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group. 

The awesome co-hosts for the July 2 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Natalie Aguirre, Cathrina Constantine, and Louise Barbour!

This month's question is interesting:

Is there a genre you haven't tried writing in yet that you really want to try? If so, do you plan on trying it?

To be honest, I think I have tried writing across most genres at one time or another. I do daily flash fiction challenges using prompts and often the prompt includes a genre (for example, this week I had to write fan fiction for one prompt and sci-fi for another), so I've experimented a lot across genres. Often these prompts are quite challenging for me because I'm not a huge fantasy or sci-fi reader, so when I have to write in those genres, it's a stretch.

But, that's really what doing these daily flash fiction challenges are for. To both keep my writing muscles limber when I don't have time to dive into my current project, and to stretch me in directions I might not otherwise go.

I don't think I'd ever write a sci-fi or fantasy novel, but never say ever, right? An idea might grab hold of my brain and not let go. I think it's unlikely, though.

What about you? Is there a genre you've never written that you're gagging to try?

Weekly Goals 30-6-25

 I got some writing done over the weekend, but not as much as I would have liked.  There just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I need to do at the moment.  It's my ideal situation to have one book about to release, one I'm trying to sell, and one I'm working on, but it does create a lot of work.

I'm busy contacting reviewers and doing marketing stuff for the one about to release,  querying the one I'm trying to sell, and attempting to find time to write the one I'm working on.  It's a lot.

And this week is more of the same.

I only had one more rejection for A Stranger to Kindness over the weekend, so that's good.  And I've had three reviewers say they'd like to review Standing Too Close so far.  

So this week, my goal is to just keep it up.  Work on the new book, write to reviewers and send out a query or two each time a rejection comes in.  I've been playing with different versions of the query again, seeing if I can make a better one by mashing together a couple of different ones.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 27-6-25

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things.

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend! 

With having had a holiday on Monday, it was a short week, but busy.  Lots to do at work, and I'm starting to send ARCs of Standing too Close out to reviewers as well as continuing to query A Stranger to Kindness and keep working on the new book(s).  Not much spare time, I tell you!

Only more rejection this week, so far.  They all seem to come on Sundays, though.

I have my girlfriends coming around for a potluck on Saturday, which should be fun.  Otherwise, it's just a regular weekend.  Hopefully I'll get some writing done in there somewhere.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: What the Woods Took

I know you're not supposed to judge books by their covers, but the cover was what attracted me to this one.  Then I read the blurb, and knew I wanted to read it. I'm kind of fascinated - in a kind of horrified way - by wilderness therapy programmes.  So a wilderness therapy programme as a setting for a horror with monsters?  Go ahead and take my hard-earned money.

The book opens with Devin, an unruly foster kid who's been in trouble for years, being dragged out of her bedroom by a couple of strangers  Next thing she knows, she's deep in the Idaho woods with a group of other, equally confused kids.  Eventually, a couple of counsellors tell them they're in a wilderness therapy programme and they have fifty days to survive out here and to change their destructive behaviour.

Initially determined to escape, Devin keeps herself apart from the other kids, especially the bitch Sheridan, a lavender-haired bully who does her best to tear apart every exercise the group undertakes.  But as they get deeper into the woods, strange things start happening.  Faces from their pasts start appearing amongst the trees.  And then suddenly, both counsellors disappear, leaving the kids alone with no map and no certainty that the food drops they've been receiving will still come.

As they try to figure out how to save themselves, it becomes apparent that perhaps the shape-shifting monsters creeping between the trees are not the most dangerous threat they're facing.   it might be each other.

This was one of those books that so beautifully weaves together real life and mythological horror.  It's eerie and atmospheric and has some excellent characters who really grow and change across the course of the book.  Some of the "issues" that brought the kids to the therapy camp were a little slight, in my opinion, but that probably reflects more on those kids' parents than on them.

So, overall, I would recommend this one.  It's creepy and fast-paced and quite genuinely scary in places - although not always in the ways you would expect.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place.

Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction—one everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways—and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.

Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there’s something strange about these woods—inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves—and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.

Atmospheric and sharp, What the Woods Took is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone—or something—new.

Weekly Goals 23-6-25

 I shouldn't have said anything about not getting rejections on Friday.  I got three in a single day over the weekend.  So I sent out a handful more yesterday.  I think I may need to tweak the query again because this one really doesn't seem to be doing the trick.  Just not sure what else I need to add.

Made some progress with the new book over the weekend and tested my idea about the diary pages blowing away with one of my CPs, and she thought it was a great idea.  So I'm going to write a couple more random entries that can go in between where I left off and where the next big thing happens, and then I can start writing the meatier stuff.

I have a writing day ahead of me today, so I'm hoping to get a good chunk done.  I also have to decide if I want one of the things I thought I might write in Devon's section to happen.  The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's the right choice for the story.

I have a busy week ahead with a lot of film-related stuff to do, so probably won't get a chance to write much again until next weekend, so I had better get some real work done today.

With Standing Too Close on pre-sale, I'm going to try and ramp up social media a bit to get it out there.  I've sent all the materials to the publicist doing a little book tour for me around the release week, and I will start reaching out to reviewers who have enjoyed my books previously to see if they'd like a crack at this one too.  I have ARCs, if you'd like to review it.  Just shoot me an email.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 20-6-25

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things.

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend! And it's Matariki.

Standing Too Close is now available for pre-sale.  Very excited by that!  Pre-sales are so important for an author and really help a book launch well, so if you have a spare $5 lurking in your pocket, I'd really appreciate it if you'd pre-order this beautiful little story.  Think of it as a treat for your future self.  Come 8 August, you'll probably have forgotten you bought it, so when it shows up in your e-reader, it'll be a nice surprise.

Haven't got as much writing done during the week as I had hoped to, but plan to get some real time over the next few days.  Our Board gifted us an extra day of leave on Monday, so I plan for that to be a writing day.

I think I'm a little stuck because I know where I want to go with the story, and what happens when I get there, but I can't figure out how to get there without having to write a whole pile of journal entries that don't really drive the plot.  At this point, Arlo's used up all the pages in his notebook and is writing his journal on whatever paper he can find - receipts, newspaper, movie tickets - so it would be realistic if he lost a bunch of them, but is that a cop out?  I felt like I could just re-start at a point where he gets a new notebook and then we could skip over a couple months where nothing much happens.  thoughts???

Had two more rejections for A Stranger to Kindness this week.  So, I sent out a handful more queries.  Beginning to think this is going to be just like the last two books I queried and get no requests.  Which is so frustrating when I know the book is good.  I guess I just don't know what agents and publishers are looking for anymore.

What are you celebrating this week?  

Books I've Read: The Sunset Crowd

 

I picked this book up at the library because it sounded like it could be a fun read. I mean, Hollywood in the 1970s?  Kind of right up my alley, right?  

The book is told through the eyes of Bea Dupont, a New York rebel who wound up in LA after a stint is an exclusive Swiss boarding school and a failed attempt at college.  Making a living as a photographer, Bea is part of the downtown LA scene because of her profession, but isn't wholly a part of it.  her position behind the lens gives her a unique perspective and it from this viewpoint we meet the rich and famous characters that populate her world.

There's Evra, the daughter of Hollywood royalty who has turned her back on movies and makes her living by clothing the elite and famous from her iconic store, Sunset on Sunset. She parties with models and rock stars and sleeps beside the hottest up and coming screenwriter in Hollywood, Kai de la Faire.

Bea is Kai's oldest friend, having been to school with him in Switzerland. He wa the subject of her first great photograph and she's harbored a crush on him since she was fifteen.

When Theodora Leigh steps into Sunset one day, returning costumes from the Paramount lot, she catches everyone's eye.  Not only is she strikingly beautiful, but she speaks perfect mandarin and ushers through a $30K sale in Evra's store without blinking an eye.  

Before long, she's a part of the crowd, using every connection and invitation to advance her dream of producing a movie.  It's not until the group reach the Riviera and the Cannes Film Festival that the truth starts to be revealed and Theodora's facade begins to come down.

This was a fast-paced book full of intrigue and jealousy.  Theodora was a delightful villain, the depth of her ruthlessness and ambition revealed little by little as the pages turn.  And this is a rarified world few of us ever get to experience, so it was fun to get taken to these glamorous places and events, and to brush shoulders with the rich and privileged.

I do have to say, I wasn't a huge fan of the ending.  I was there until they left Cannes and the delightful series of reveals that sent Theodora's facade crashing, but everything after that didn't quite ring true to me.  And after watching Bea hang on the fringes for so long, I really wanted her to get her moment in the sun.

But, if you liked Daisy Jones and the Six, this is a pretty good comp title for that, and you'll probably enjoy it too.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

From Rodeo Drive to the French Riviera, Karin Tanabe's The Sunset Crowd is a tale of survival and reinvention, of faking it until you make it, and the glittering appeal of success and stardom, as it seeks to answer that timeless question―who gets to have the American dream?

Money and fame: in 1970's Los Angeles, everyone is fighting to reach the top, but very few have the talent, ambition, and luck to get there.

Meet LA darling Evra Scott. The daughter of an Oscar-winning director and a Brazilian bombshell actress, Evra is the city's reigning style queen. By day, she's at the helm of Sunset on Sunset, the store beloved by Hollywood's young and beautiful. By night, she's on the arm of Kai de la Faire, Hawaii's hottest export, and the screenwriter of the moment.

Enter Theodora Leigh. The twenty-something Paramount assistant looks like a big screen star, but her sights are firmly set behind the scenes, as she fights to become a movie producer in a town where sex and sexism sell. Theodora's got the talent and instincts, but she's not willing to wait. Luckily, getting ahead by any means necessary is LA's mantra.

Observing it all is Bea Dupont, a photographer for Rolling Stone and Vogue, who never misses the party, but always keeps to its fringes. A Manhattan blue blood turned West Coast bohemian, Bea holds Evra's Sunset crowd together. She's also Kai's oldest friend, and she's harbored a not-so-secret flame for him since they met at an elite Swiss boarding school.

But in Hollywood, no one stays on top forever. And it's not long before Theodora's unrelenting ambition sets in motion a dramatic quest for power in an industry that is as glamorous as it is duplicitous. From Rodeo Drive to the French Riviera, The Sunset Crowd is a tale of survival and reinvention, of faking it until you make it, and the glittering appeal of success and stardom, as it seeks to answer that timeless question--who gets to have the American dream?