Giant of the Oceans

Numbers don't necessarily count when you're taking on a giant--whether it's a corporate giant or something more personal. Mother Nature is perhaps the biggest giant of them all. This week a lot of "little" people are pitted in battle against Hurricane Ike.

There is little to be done against a hurricane except get out of the way. I've read a lot about people in shelters complaining about their accommodations. And some others complaining about their evacuation problems. So I want to ask something. Why take a space on the bus or train? Why take a space at a shelter? If you have a better plan, why aren't you using that?

It seriously burns my butt when volunteers and the government work their behinds off to provide a measure of safety against the giant only to have the very people they are sheltering complain. Dammit, if you can do better, then do so!

Since when is the government responsible for protecting people from storms? What strikes me is that hurricanes and tropical storms are a way of life for people who live in coastal areas of the gulf and east coast. They are not a sudden catastrophic event like a tsunami. They are annual events! So why are people always surprised? Why do they never have a plan?

I've been through several tropical storms and hurricanes in various locations. One of the first things we do when we move to a new location is make an evacuation plan. When hurricane season rolls around, we tweak our plan for any new variables that have crept in over the winter and spring. How is it that no one else understands the necessity to have a plan?

Some parts of the country have annual wild fires. If you know you're in a fire prone area, then you plan for that.

The government is we the people. It isn't some amorphous conglomerate that's responsible for our welfare. Every year, I watch people flocking together like a bunch of sheep waiting for the shepherd of big government to tell them where to go and what to do.

Yes, there are some people who don't have the means to evacuate. For them, the evacuation plan is wonderful. But I have to wonder about the people who are clogging the highways, sitting on the side of the road because they've run out of gas. Hurricane's don't sneak up on you. The media is blaring for days ahead about the dangers. Um, fill your gas tank! Get your personal papers and medications together! Stash a little cash in your wallet. Pack an emergency bag so you can grab it and go! Get a plan!

anny

Series...seriously?

Series…seriously?

Series…what can I say? A series is a series. It either continues or it ends. You either like them or you don’t. So there it is. What’s that? Do I have any more to say? Always. But to be honest, this topic bores the socks off me. Why? Because I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. You lot are smart. If I said series were good and you hated them you’d think what does she know? If I said they sucked – you would tell me I sucked. So, I’m not going to talk about series. Yes, the grip people are now slapping their heads. Stick to the topic. Come on…you knew I wouldn’t follow the rules.

I want to talk about when did we lose our balls? Okay – I mean metaphorical balls. When did we stop having an opinion on stuff and start writing about safe topics like series, and names and fluffy things that are pretty and innocuous? If we are saying Oh Get a Grip it means we are having an opinion, making a point, doing the eye roll thing after hearing something we perceive as dumb-arsed. Yes, I know, we’re all good girls and do not want to offend anyone. That’s fair enough but having an opinion does not mean people will get their knickers in a knot. Some of the best patronized blogs are the controversial ones in blogger land. They talk about who they hate, who they think sucks, and why, and they give opinions that make people get all hot, bothered and thinking. These blogs get read because they give people the vicarious thrill of reading gossip and being appalled or bemused.

Hell, think back to the Golden years of Hollywood when Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons were dishing out the dirt and making deals with Hollywood execs to shut up. People loved that stuff. The only series people were interested in then was the next chapter of scandal. Yes, of course we all hate gossip. It’s terrible, evil stuff and that’s why it has to be whispered at work or cc’d on email. No, me neither, I never listen to gossip.

And yes, you are absolutely correct – we cannot all be controversial. It would be anarchy. Anarchy is bad for the economy, your skin, law enforcement and the sales of chocolate skyrocket. But hells bloody bells are we so scared of saying anything even remotely challenging? How does anything ever get changed? Do we want people to think or just zone out? And yeah, people may hate your opinion or mine but give it anyway. Why am I ranting on a blog when I should be toeing the line and writing about series? Because I can. The women on this blog are top notch, tough as nails and smart as hell. I know in their hearts they want to bust loose and say something controversial. Maybe they will.

So there it is…my thoughts on series…who am I? Check out www.AmarindaJones.blogspot.com . I swear I will not discuss pretty things and I probably will swear as I am an annoying piece of work yet strangely loveable in a pirana kind of way. Take a squiz below…it’s my latest release. Yes, the heroine has many opinions.


Micah Blue out now at Ellora’s Cave


A demon has been waiting one hundred and twenty years for the next chosen one who commands the power of the sapphire. He will stop at nothing to make that woman his own. He needs her power to survive.

Ever since a fortune teller gave Micah Blue a lump of blue rock the drought in her sex life came to a screaming halt. Dark, erotic dreams of a stranger haunt her nights and a tattooed builder drives her wild with lust during the day. Both men are wicked. One wants to enslave her and one just wants to love her.

Ned Langford, builder and part-time garbage collector isn’t about to the let the love of his life be taken from him. He will do whatever it costs to thwart a demon and keep Micah at his side.

www.amarindajones.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AmarindaJonesNewsletter/
Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?

As Easy As 1, 2, 3,

I love a good series. When I find memorable or even likeable characters, I think it’s great to be able to have grand adventures with them again, as long as the author can keep the stories fresh. I experience déjà vu enough without having a book trigger the feeling with a rehashed plot.

Another thing that will kill the thrill for me is to read the first couple books in a series and pick up the anxiously awaited next installment only to have it suck… big time. You know what I’m talking about. You recognize the characters names and even the environment, but the plot and pacing are so piss poor, you can almost feel the pressure the writer must’ve been under to put out something… anything. I wonder if they experienced a feeling of dread as they sifted through their final edits, knowing that the work they held in their hands fell far short of the tales they’d released before. I pray I never have to experience the sensation.

As a writer, I’m now giving serious consideration to trying my hand at a series of my own. I have characters from a certain novel who have endeared themselves to me so much, I just can’t bear the thought of letting them fade into a distant memory. They still have secrets to share with me, tales to be told and havoc to be wreaked. My only dilemma is whether or not there is enough original material there to actually justify a series.

How many ways are there to kill a man? How many different sorts of monsters can come out of the shadows before the reader begins to wonder what kind of a world the hero and heroine live in? How many trials and tribulations can I subject them to before they decide they don’t want to play with me anymore?

I guess we’ll see…

Qualified Yes

Series can encompass a variety of different things. As a kid growing up, I loved the teenage mystery series—Trixie Belden, Donna Parker, the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, heck, even the horribly dated Bobbsey Twins. Nancy Drew was the one exception. Never could stand her. These books followed the same characters through a variety of adventures, hopefully learning a little something with each episode. I graduated to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and the Mrs. Pollifax books when I was a little older, and those are much the same, except with adult characters and situations. Then I discovered fantasy and science fiction. The Narnia books, Lord of the Rings, Robert Aspirin’s Myth Adventures, and so many more. Still the same concept though—same main characters, different stories.

But in romance, series usually don’t work that way. For a romance to be a romance, you have to take two (or sometimes more) characters from not being together, to their happily-ever-after. That’s pretty final. Although I have read a few great books where the romance continues to grow and evolve in a second book, (Jayne Ann Krentz has a couple good examples of this) that’s about the limit if each story is really a romance. So a series takes a different turn. Usually it’s a common world, town, family, or group (a Navy Seals team, perhaps) that have overlapping stories. Each book of the series features a different character finding that HEA. So each book as a unique hero and a unique heroine. One of the great features of this kind of series is that you get to peek at the HEA of earlier couples. It can be kind of like catching up with old friends.

From a reader’s standpoint, I love series. I love seeing that couple A is still together a few years later, maybe with children, or still helping to save the world. I still have the first romance series I ever collected, Roberta Gellis’ fabulous Roselynde Chronicles. She broke a rule in this series, too. The first two books had the same heroine. Yep. Her first HEA wasn’t so ever-after. Husband number one was much older and died while the heroine was still in her 30’s, leaving her to remarry a man much closer to her own age. I’m not sure you could get away with that in today’s market, but as Ms. Gellis was one of the founders of the historical romance genre as we know it, she did. I had the chance to meet her at last year’s RT convention, and practically genuflected at her feet.

Series have problems though. They can go on way too long. Then they run the risk of being repetitive or jumping the shark. There are a couple of very big names that I used to run right out and buy on release day. Now I get them from the library if I bother at all. I totally respect author Linda Howard who said she wasn’t writing any more books in her MacKenzie (sp?) family series, because she didn’t want to have to kill off the parents. Sometimes, you just have to let go. And who knows? If she hadn’t, we might not have had all the NEW wonderfulness she’s written since.

As an author, I am learning about the pitfalls of series. Writing the last of my Crazy H trilogy was hard. There was a lot I’d written in that couldn’t be changed, so I had to write around a lot of things I might have changed if they hadn’t been set in stone by previous books. I had to really work to make this heroine different from the other two—can’t have them all blending together. Even names are a bigger challenge. But sales-wise, there’s a definite plus. When Always a Cowboy came out, sales did spike again for books one and two in the series. And when you’ve written a character who’s just too cool to say goodbye to, it’s nice to be able to give them their own HEA.

So yes, I’d have to say I’m in favor of the series concept, both as an author and as a reader. But if I ever drag one out to the point of absurdity, will somebody please let me know?

Hesitant: The Series

I have always enjoyed reading series. I like to get attached to characters, watch them over come obstacles and prevail in the end. Series such as Harry Potter, Anita Blake, and The Gunslinger have always been favorites of mine. I have even been known to stand in line for all three in hopes of getting their latest installment as soon as possible.

But that is as a reader.

As a writer, I do not have the attention span to sustain worlds, or even characters, beyond one set moment in their lives. I don't know if it's because after the first book I want them to live happily ever after, and they can't do that if I keep pulling them out of retirement and forcing them into dangerous situations. Or if it's because I am lazy and like the ready made excuse above to get out of doing it. Whatever it is, I don't see a lot of series in my future. But I hope that others continue to write them because I totally enjoy reading them.

That being said, I just finished a book over the weekend (thank you ,thank you). It was so much fun to write, and I fell so in love with the men in it, that I had to promise myself I would revisit them at a later point to actually push myself into finishing. Not necessarily a sequel, but perhaps pulling one of the secondary characters out and giving her a book of her very own. I may never do this, but telling myself I could, admitting that I love Jarrod and Mitch so much that I have to check up on them from time to time, gave me the push I needed to write the last 5k of the book.

So when it comes to series I suppose I am on the fence. I love to read them, but it would take something or someone pretty special to make me want to do that much work. ;)

XoXoXo
Dakota Rebel

Series: Hate to Love 'em

I'm not a series junkie. In fact, I get miffed sometimes when there's a book I want to read which is part of a series. Why? Because I don't want to be drawn into a large, unending spiral of stories which will nag me to be read.

There are also the times when I pick up a book, read the blurb and think: "Wow, this one sounds great. I HAVE to read it." Only to find out it's number three or four in the series and to get the full affect, it's recommended I read the preceding ones, which don't interest me in the least. I almost always put that book back.

Now, here's the hypocritical part. I write in series. The Marriage Series wasn't intended to be one because of the above reasoning. I only meant to write Marriage Mart but my critique group and publishers insisted that the secondary characters have a story. Because I loved them too, I submitted to that request. I thought for sure it would be my only one.

I backed out of six more books for the Marriage series. There were supposed to be three off-shoot books for the peripheral females in the three books, those characters with cameos were to get a story and it would have been called the Companion Series. The peripheral males, particularly the men the Ester hung around in Marriage Mart, were supposed to receive stories in a Corinthian Series. But alas, Kelly Kirch is disappearing and I revoked the books before contracts occurred. I'm not sorry though I do wonder what I would have written for them.

As it turns out, I'm making headway into the inspirational market. And what comes out? Another series. I don't have a name for this one yet, but the first book is titled FOR MURDER, BY OWNER and will be written by my new pen name, Kelly Marstad. The series will follow four women, sisters, who still live with their mother and slowly move out, finding what life and faith have to offer them. It's been fun and instead of it being a romance strictly between woman and man, it is also a romance of the family. I want the reader to fall completely in love with the Hickerty family. Accomplishing that will be my primary concern.

Now if anyone can explain why I hate to read and commit to a series but seem drawn to write them, I'd love to hear it!

Never-Ending Series

Some people love to read series books. Others hate them. And a few--eh, they can take them or leave them. Writers are much the same. Some writers make a deliberate decision to write stand alone books because they revel in developing new characters, settings, and conflict. Others become enamored of their cast and enjoy getting to knew them better from book to book.

I, myself, follow both lines. I enjoy the details of setting up a new book--the characters, setting, the world building--and I also enjoy exploring the peripheral characters in succeeding books. There are advantages and disadvantages to series writing. There are readers--like me--who are relatively rigid about reading series books in order, even if they are, in essence, stand alone books. If the number of books in the series grows too large, new readers who may discover the series after a number of books are released feel like there are too many to purchase in order to "catch up." That is a valid concern. I have two series currently with several books in each. The books in both series could be read as stand alone stories. I worked very hard to make that so. But I freely admit that the readers enjoyment of the stories will be enhanced if they read them in order.

On the other hand, the advantage to a series is the immediate familiarity with the cast of characters. For a reader who has read Nora Roberts' In Death series, the varied interesting cast is comforting and familiar. Because the reader knows the characters' backstory, there are some things that don't have to be explained. For the reader who has limited time to read, series offer them the enjoyment of reading, while allowing for a certain shortcut in figuring out characters' motivations. I think that might be the attraction of reading a series.

Now writing them is an entirely different horse of another color. While it might initially be more work to invent a new world with characters and background, it is a lot of work to maintain that world through book after book. The devil really is in the details. Lots and lots of details that seem to increase exponentially with each new book. Tons of details that depend on how elaborate the world building was to begin with. My series do not take place in the contemporary world so even the smallest details must be cataloged... plants, animals, buildings, laws.

My current work in progress is a stand alone time travel. There are days when it seems to me that there are more details for this one story than all of my series books together. Yet, I know that isn't true. Already, one beta reader has commented, this will be a great series. Excuse me? No. Stand alone. One book with a beginning, a middle, an end. Finished. Because unlike a stand alone, series never seem to be finished. There's always one more character that beckons. One character that begs you to tell his or her story.

Series can be never ending.

anny