Free Online Writing Workshop

Using Birth Order to Create Compelling Characters with Abby Gaines

"In this workshop, we’ll look at how birth order affects the adult personality of your characters—what strengths and weaknesses they’ll have. A youngest-son hero might have been a spoiled brat when he was a kid, but now he’s charming, people-oriented, and he has a completely different set of problems from his domineering oldest brother. Then there’s the complex, secretive but extremely loyal middle child...."

Purple Prose - Pros and Cons

I've been working on a romantica novella lately and I often have to stop during the love scenes to contemplate my language choices. Should I use flowery purple prose or clinical terms? How about raunchy ones? For me, this all depends on whose head I'm in. Is the scene written in an innocent heroine's POV? Or is it the alpha male tough guy? Or perhaps the hero or heroine is somewhere in between (as is usually the case).

But I wonder what readers prefer. Is it too jarring to call a body part something raunchy? Is less detail spelled out better? Do you prefer the bedroom door closed all together or just cracked open a bit? Personally, when I read a sex scene I don't want a play by play, but a little detail, a few hints at what's going on. I'd rather use my imagination to fill in the blanks.

Truly purple prose went out with big eighties hair, but I sometimes like it, particularly in historicals.

What about you? How do you like your love scenes?

Read An E-Book Week, March 9-15, 2008

"Carbon Footprint"

"Environmentally Friendly"

"Green"

Have you considered these words when it comes to your reading material? We're encouraged to buy, use and dispose with the environment in mind. While it's easy to recognize the negative impact of excess packaging and chemical content in many of the products we purchase, it's not so easy when it comes to books, magazines and newspapers.

We do have alternatives other than paper for our reading material. Many books, newspapers and magazines are created electronically. No trees are cut to produce them. No ink is used to put the words on the page. No fossil fue lis used to run presses or trucks to move the books around the country. Heated storage facilities are not required to warehouse e-books as they remain within your computer.

March 9-15th, 2008 is Read An E-Book Week. The week is set aside to educate consumers about reading electronic books and other reading material. E-books are delivered to the end user electronically. They are read on devices such as the new Sony portable reader or Amazon's Kindle. They are destroyed with the push of a delete button, without ever taking up room in a landfill.

It takes 24 trees to produce a ton of printing paper, the type normally used for books, 12 trees are harvested for a ton of newsprint. Up to 35% of books printed for consumers (down from nearly 60% several years ago) are never read. They are used for window dressing in book stores, and eventually returned to the publisher for disposal in landfills. Given that a mature tree can produce as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year, a serious alternative to paper books, magazines and newspapers needs to be considered. That alternative is e-books.



Before purchasing your next paper book, magazine or newspaper, consider your carbon footprint commitment. Read electronically. Read An E-Book Week, March 9-15, 2008. For more information please visit www.domokos.com/readebookweek.html

Two Releases and An Epiphany

This is a busy few days for me. I have two erotic romance short stories being released from The Wilder Rose Press. Desert of Desire and Blackout are fun, hot reads. It's really exciting to have two so close together! But I had an even more exciting thing happen the other night. Well - it's exciting if you're a writer. I had a huge epiphany about my WIP. You see, I was trying to figure out my hero's inner conflict - a conflict that would nicely compliment the heroine's. As I drove home from dropping my daughter at Girl Scouts, I nearly drove off the road. A flashing light bulb surely appeared over my head. His conflict came to me and so perfectly mirrored the heroine's and fit with the book title, that I almost cried with joy. Sometimes it happens like that - the answer just comes to me at the strangest moment.

What about you? Have you ever gotten such a terrific story idea or filled in the missing puzzle piece that made the whole picture gel?