Writing Conferences and Business Cards

A Catherine Noon

I am so excited to report that I am three places this week, but two came as a total surprise to me!  I’m exceedingly grateful to the fantastic bestselling author Delilah Devlin for extending us space on her blog.  I wrote some tips for getting the most out of writing conferences.

As a part of that exposure, Louise Rose-Innes of Marketing For Romance Writers asked us if she could cross-post our article!  Wow.  What a week, huh?

Thank you to Delilah and Louise for the exposure.  I hope you’ll stop by their blogs and let them know what you think; both have a lot of great content that I think you’ll like.

Our post on Delilah’s blog is here, and Marketing For Romance Writers is here.

Since it’s May (already??), my Writer Wednesday post is up at the Writer’s Retreat Blog.  I got asked a question about whether or not we should get business cards, and it got me thinking.  My thoughts resulted in an article (see why questions are so important?), here.

Earth Day: The Beauty of Everyday

A Catherine Noon

We are surrounded by beauty. Sometimes, we are surrounded by beautiful things without even knowing it.

The image I give to you today in honor of Earth Day celebrates the ephemeral and eternal. Taken by photographer Michael Clothier, it is a study in texture and contrast:

The model is photographed with bath tissue in order to develop the skill, as a photographer, of conveying texture within a black-and-white image where the paper is white and everything else in the image is darker. How do you get the paper’s texture to appear without losing the exposure of the rest of the image?

Earth Day is like that. How do we look around us at the natural world and realize that we are living on the only planet we have? The polar bears drowning in the Arctic cannot call on the telephone, or email, yet their plight is as urgent as any text message – more so, because if we continue to turn a blind eye to their fate we will soon follow them to oblivion.

It’s easy to succumb to a numb sort of despair or statis when faced with these kinds of problems. To my way of thinking, beauty is the same way: we know a beautiful painting or photograph, but we are, many times, blind to the everyday beauty around us. The image above appeals to me because of its contrasts: a lovely woman, pedestrian tissue paper, a sense of serenity, and the knowledge of the transitory nature of life in the form of throwaway paper.

As you go through your week, I invite you to remember you are part of a great circle, and not only the circle formed by this blog hop. It’s important to remember the role we play in that circle, but it is ALSO important to remember that to take solace, to read and laugh, make love and dinner, all of these things are just as necessary to life as is toilet tissue in the right context.

Happy Earth Day.

Reflections on RT and How To Benefit From It

A Catherine Noon

This week, I attended my first RT Booklovers Convention.  I learned a lot from my experience, and I figured I’d come up with a list for my next time.  I hope it might help you, too.

1.  Take backup.  Don’t go it alone.  Reach out and make contacts, either with folks you know ahead of time or folks you meet there.  People are friendly and willing to answer questions, and sometimes all it takes is a simple “Are you going to X Workshop?  Can I come with you?”

2.  Drink plenty of water.  I know that sounds like odd advice, but the hotel we were in had a very dry atmosphere.  It was easy to get a dehydration headache, and that’s a simple problem to solve.  All the conference rooms have water and cups available.

3.  Take notes.  Seriously.  There is so much you will learn, and not always in a workshop.  Don’t assume you will remember everything later.

3A.  Write notes on each business card as to where you met the person, what they look like, a few tips to help you remember them.  Otherwise, you’ll get home with a pile of cards and not be able to place the folks you met.

4.  Don’t be afraid to say, “I need to stop the ride and get off.”  So many people said to me that they felt overwhelmed.  On the one hand, that made me feel less alone in my own state of overwhelmed-ness, but it also made me realize that we were all collectively trying to bull our way through the convention.  That’s silly.  The sense of urgency we all feel is silly and unnecessary.

5.  You have two ears, two eyes, and only one mouth.  Listen and watch more than you talk.

6.  Have fun.  Remember that not everything is meant to be serious and cool; some things are meant to be light-hearted and frivolity.  Knowing how to keep the play alive is half the battle.

7.  Remember to be grateful.  Thank you to Kathryn Falk and her team for creating such an amazing, mind-blowing experience.  Thank you to the organizers, the presenters, and the attendees for collaborating to make this past week an incredible, intense learning experience.

A Little Somethin’

A Catherine Noon

In honor of Monday, I thought I’d share a little piece of flash fiction.  It’s posted on the Writer’s Retreat Blog. I hope you’ll stop by and take a peek. Happy Monday!

The Daily Round: Renewal

A Catherine Noon

Everyone is busy, these days.  “How are you?”  “Oh, my Gosh!  I’m so busy.  I have…”  The litany seems endless.  Work, kids, money troubles, the economy, politics and voting, reading, writing, blogging, promo…  We certainly do not lack for things with which to fill up our days.

Is this sustainable?

Many religious traditions maintain that there is a day of rest once a week, where even the Creator took it easy.  What a slacker!  Or, maybe, what a smart thing to do…  Renewal is an underrated task, after all.  We don’t “feel” as productive when we focus on it, we prefer to skip lunch and stay late, working around the clock and burning the midnight oil.  That, after all, is what gets the job done.

But what if, this year, we try something different?  What if, once a week, we stop?  Turn off all the geegaws of modern technology, banish the television (or at least commercials – the mute button is a thing of beauty, as is the DVR), and really rest.  Just one day a week.  What might happen then?

Try it, and find out.  After all, what do we have to lose?  Our stress?

What’s so good about all that stress, anyway?

This Week In Promo

A Catherine Noon

Here’s a quick update on what I’ve been up to, blog-wise, this week:

Nine Naughty Novelists invited Rachel and I to guest post this week, and I wrote about promotion and how to get started without becoming overwhelmed.

Today I was over at Silken Sheets and Seduction for my regular bimonthly post (I post on the first and third Saturdays there). Since it’s my husband’s birthday this week, and we’re going away for this weekend once he gets up and around, I decided to share some of my thoughts about mini-vacation planning. It’s my opinion that mini-vacations are necessary parts of serenity, and don’t necessarily need to cost money. It’s all in how we think about it. “5 Tips for Planning a Mini-Vacation.”

Enjoy!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

A Catherine Noon

Welcome to the Valentine’s Day Blog Hop!  In celebration of the day, I’m sharing a short flash piece, below, originally written for a story challenge.  I hope you enjoy!  Click the image, above, to visit the other talented authors with blogs in the hop.  You’ll be glad you did!

Zeta woke to the lovely strains of Chihuahua in full bark, accompanied by the symphony of shrill hungover White trash.  God damned trucker hotels.  The barking cut off with a yelp and sympathy for the stupid animal burned through Zeta’s chest.

Figured.

He rolled out of bed and took a piss, then set the coffee on to brew.  He moved the owner’s manual for the ancient Helium tank back onto the bed.  The tank itself sat there like a huge, half-rusted torpedo from the sixties.  Here’s hoping the thing worked as well as a torpedo, or Monroe was gonna kill him. 

Thank God that dump had water pressure.

Then again, heavy water pressure on bruises wasn’t the sort of thing a man wanted to wake up to…

He managed to grab the bottle of vodka from the counter next to the coffeemaker without dripping too much water everywhere.  Some half-drunk yuppie kid gave it to him last night at the bar, wobbly with martinis and Zeta’s blowjob.  Kid wasn’t half-bad at it himself, Zeta’s lower brain reminded him, but he swigged the vodka instead of focusing on his morning leftover reaction. 

Didn’t taste nearly as good as it had the night before.  The label read “Grey Goose Vodka” with a picture of a fjord and geese flying overhead against some mountains.

Mountains…

Hell, he tried everything else…

Then he heard it.  The door rattled and jiggled, then the unmistakable turn of a key.  He snatched his gun off the towels by the toilet and waited, heart pounding.

“Hey, gorgeous, I’m back!”

The aroma of eggs, bacon and coffee hit Zeta’s nose like a steam train and his stomach yowled like a starving cheetah.  Christ.  Why did his assailant have to bring food?  He’d be a helluva lot easier to shoot if he’d been some snaggle-toothed asshat with body odor.

Of course not.  It was the yuppie from the bar.

Christ.  How the hell much Vodka did Zeta drink?

And what the hell was the kid’s name?

“I know you said you’re in a hurry to get to Oxnard, so I got breakfast for us.  Oh, good.  You’re almost done.”  The yuppie set the food on the table by the window and grinned at Zeta.  His large brown eyes crinkled at the corners, and smile lines just starting by his mouth gave him a friendly appearance. 

Yup, he was as hot now as he was in the bar, vodka or no vodka.

And he was stripping…  A steady pile of discarded clothing littered the floor behind him as he approached Zeta.  “You just let ol’ Chico wash your back, hmm?”

Zeta stubbed his toe getting out of the shower.  “No, I really can’t.  Monroe will kill me if I’m late.”  He paused, a towel in his hands.  “You go by ‘Boy’ in Spanish?”

Chico shrugged, stepping into the water but not quite closing the curtain all the way.  Man, he had a nice ass!

“My nickname is Chico, so that’s what I put on my fake I.D.  You really go by the letter ‘Z’?”

Zeta flushed.  “My name’s Alex.”

“’Xander’ begins with an ‘X’.”  Chico winked.  “And my name is Pedro.”

“To my best friend in grammar school, Xander sounds like a ‘Z’.”

“What was her name?”  Chico finished in record time and joined Zeta on the mat to dry off.  He pulled the towel out of Zeta’s hands and finished his back with quick movements that reawakened all of Zeta’s senses, then slapped his ass.  “Go eat while I finish.  We have to get on the road.”

“How do you know it was a girl?”  Zeta dressed in jeans and his Elvis t-shirt, sandals and a belt.  He stuffed the rest of his clothes into his duffel and then went to investigate the food.

“Because no dude would name you Zeta.”  Chico bent and kissed his neck, then whispered in his ear.  “So hurry up and eat, will ya?  I want to see if you make as much noise driving when I go down on you as you did last night.”

Zeta’s heart started pounding.  This was seventeen kinds of stupid, but damned if he wasn’t gonna do it.  Monroe didn’t have to know about his new partner, and besides.

It would make the drive go a lot faster.

He grinned at Chico, chewing a bite of bacon and eggs, and the most gorgeous yuppie Latino on two legs grinned back.

Damn fine truck stop.

Several Recent Articles

A Catherine Noon

Happy Bredesmas!  As we pause to take stock as February winds on and January just goes “poof,” I realize that I haven’t shared my recent articles with you.  Shame on me!  I figured I’d make up for it by listing all of them in one post, rather than an individual post for each one.

In January, the theme for the Beyond the Veil blog was “Inside Publishing.”  While I don’t really feel like I could be characterized as being “inside” publishing, I share my views in “Aunt Noony’s Inside Look at Publishing.”

For the Silken Sheets and Seduction blog, I wrote “Happy Bredesmas.” I share a little about what the holiday means to me and talk about one of my favorite crafts, candlemaking.

Bestselling author Delilah Devlin was kind enough to host Rachel and I again as guest bloggers, for which we wrote “Be Like a Groundhog; or ‘What To Do After the Resolution.’”

I had two articles on my publisher’s blog, one as a guest for another author who couldn’t make their regular post.  In it, I talk about how I organize my novels despite not using a formal outlining process.  “Hate Outlines? Timeline!” Then, today, I share “Squeezing It In:  5 Tips for the Overstressed Neterati.”

Enjoy!