Need Manuscript Makeover?

http://www.manuscriptmakeover.com/

My friend, Elizabeth Lyon's new book on doing a manuscript makeover is out. Elizabeth helped me with my first novel, A Three-Turtle Summer. Working with Elizabeth is like taking a four-year course in fiction writing from an ivy-league school. If you're a writer, and Elizabeth doesn't live next door to you, get this book and devour it. I did. Oh, and she has other wonderful books on nonfiction writing, book proposals, and marketing.

Still no word from Tom Hanks. I told David Southwell, an author from the United Kingdom, that I joined Facebook so Tom would discover my stories. I figure I'm a You've Got Mail kind of writer.

Many writers nowadays would be delighted if their books jumped straight from keyboard to film. A lot of us feel that there is more talking about books than the actual reading of them going on. After all, we're storytellers. We began telling stories around a smokey fire in a cave somewhere, so why should we resist the new technology? I'd never want to see books go away entirely, but there's something very appealing about the medium of film.

I have some readers who are just now reading my second novel, As Brown As I Want: The Indianhead Diaries. That's more than partly my fault because the book was mis-labled. The catalog says it is fiction, but it is really a (hilarious) fictional autobiography. This is the kind of mistake that happens when an author moonlights as her own agent.

Custer thank yous:
Tantara Records (http://www.tantararecords.com/, email:info@tantararecords.com ) for permission to use the lyrics to Go My Son. They have a beautiful website with music to suit every taste (well, I haven't seen any headbanger music there, but they have everything else.).
The Comanche Nation (http://www.comanchenation.com/ ) for their help with the Comanche language.

Quote du jour:

"A mob is no less a mob just because it's with you." John Adams, John Adams, HBO special production

Decorate those dust bunnies!

©Joyce Stevens, 2006
You saw this coming, right?

Order now!
Custer and His Naked Ladies
by Janelle Meraz Hooper

When her husband unexpectedly dumps her, Glory boards an Oklahoma-bound plane at Sea-Tac Airport. On her way to the ticket counter, she takes the framed photo of her husband out of her gym bag and dumps it--frame and all--into the nearest garbage bin. She has wasted too many years on a man who doesn't want her, and her biological clock is beginning to pound like a powwow drum. iUniverse, $15.95

Email your name and address to me and I'll send you an autographed bookmark!

11-01-07- Okay, let’s get on with it. Organize those shopping lists. Decorate those dust bunnies under the bed. Dye those roots on your hair. Christmas is coming! But we still have some time for a blogger chat...

Writing tips-
Take a break- If you’re between books, and feeling burnt out, take a break. I learned this from Elizabeth Lyon (A Writer’s Guide to Fiction). I always tended to think I was being lazy if I wasn't writing. Now, after my fourth book, I’m realizing that it is a good idea to take some time off to recharge my batteries.

Writing green- scan your research from books and put it in a folder. Then, copy it to a disk. Piles of paper printouts are wasteful and can get lost—causing us to reprint the information—that we then lose again before the writing project is finished.

Quote du jour:

“The first time I met Karen Nichols, she struck me as the kind of woman who ironed her socks.” Dennis Lehane. Prayers for Rain, courtesy of Elizabeth Lyon, author