My “go to” Author(s) When I Want to Relax and Take Time Out of My Real Life ................................ by Delsora Lowe

Unfortunately, for my pocketbook, but fortunately for me because I have access to so much variety in choosing romance books, I have a WAY too long list of favorite authors. So, I’ll name a few of my automatic buys: RaeAnne Thayne, Jill Shalvis, Maisey Yates, Cindy Kirk, Nancy Herkness, Peggy Jaeger, Vicki Lewis Thompson, Jen Gilroy… if I sit here long enough, I’ll keep adding to the list, which in reality is endless.

Plus, I belong to four writers’ groups, so those authors, too many to name, always have new books releasing or on sale for a short period of time. Because I love to support authors I know, those writers also become auto-buys for me.

Believe me when I say I have met many authors at writer’s conferences, and as a result bought and found new works to love. So, my list of go-to authors grows and grows.

I take a lot of chances on reading books on sale by unknown-to-me authors. Often, I end up adding that new author to my “want to read more” list. I rarely set aside a book in the midst of the story. However, there have been a few times when I did. I try hard to give each book I purchase a chance, because I always learn from reading, whether it is an idea on how to move the story forward, or a warning to myself on what doesn’t work for me personally, and therefore what not to do when I write a story.

Needless to say, I spend many nights in bed reading into the wee hours of the night, er…morning. Thank goodness for e-readers that balance on my lap.

Grandsons Slumber Party and Checking Out the E-Reader

What I do like about the stories of each of these authors named, is their style of writing—each unique in their own way. Reading these authors usually provides me with AHA moments throughout their stories. The kind of AHA, that gives me ideas for my own writing. I don’t mean having my characters do the same thing. What I mean is what their characters are up against gives me AHA ideas on how to progress my own story with moments appropriate to my character’s lives and personalities, and the story I tell about them.

INSPIRATION! I also learn what to cut in my own writing. I tend to over-explain, in my first drafts, So, by reading authors who are good at showing a story as it moves along quickly, teaches me or reminds me to make every word count. In other words, short and sweet, and move on to the next action in the manuscript.

INSPIRATION

If nothing else, I know when I read my favorite authors, I can sit back against my pillow in bed or cuddled up on the couch on a stormy day, and just get lost, away from the troubles of the world, enjoying the moments in someone else’s life—the characters, the locations, and the elements that bring each of these stories to life in so many different ways.

I know what to expect. And… I am never disappointed!

 

Who are your favorite authors? And why?

 

Overprotective big brother and ranch owner, Carter Peters, draws the short straw at a family meeting to buy his stepmom her sixtieth birthday present, never imagining he’ll get zapped with cupid’s arrow by a feisty southern belle, single mom, and lingerie shop owner who is so wrong for him and has off-limits written all over her. 

Amazon (also in print)   
https://www.amazon.com/Rancher-Needs-Cowboys-Mineral-Springs-ebook/dp/B07YXB5C4W/

Books2Read   
books2read.com/u/bxv56d

~ cottages to cabins ~ keep the home fires burning ~

Delsora Lowe writes small town sweet and spicy romances and contemporary westerns, from the mountains of Colorado to the shores of Maine.

Author of the Starlight Grille series, Serenity Harbor Maine novellas, and the Cowboys of Mineral Springs series, Lowe has also authored short romances for Woman’s World magazine (most recently, an Easter romance in the April 1, 2024 edition.) The Love Left Behind is a Hartford Estates, R.I. wedding novella with Book 2 on the way. A Christmas novel (The Inn at Gooseneck Lane) and novella (Holiday Hitchhiker – the youngest brother of the Mineral Spring’s ranching family) were the most recent releases. Look for book 3 of the cowboy’s series, as well as book 2 of the Hartford Estates series, to be released in 2025. 

The Old and the New

by M. L. Buchman

"What writers have most influenced your writing?"

As a writer, I get that question all the time. And I've had an answer that I've liked for a long time:

"Well, I'm not sure who influenced me, but I can tell you the writers who I've read almost everything they've written: Arthur C. Clarke, a lot of Heinlein and Asimov, the complete fiction of Ayn Rand and Herman Hesse (read in order), James Clavell (the only author I consistently bought in hardback even when broke because I couldn't wait), a lot of Nora Roberts and Susan Wiggs, Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. LeGuin... That's the heart of it. There's also King and..."

I'm a great re-reader too. Tolkien each decade, Atlas Shrugged every 5 years (my favorite book that probably changed my view of the world more than any other along with Clarke's The City and the Stars). Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle is another fav along with the Earthsea Trilogy.

Only recently have I noticed a real problem with that list...most of those writers are dead. Yes, I look forward to the next Susan Wiggs book, but partly its because I know just what kind of story I'll get.

Then I begin to think about my own writing. I feel like I'm just at the very beginning of my career. I'm starting my 60th novel this week, and I finally feel as if I'm getting some idea of what I want to ultimately write.

It's not that I'm not thrilled with what I've written. #59 hits the bookshelves on October 30th and I love it! It has a level of characterization and storytelling that I'm terribly pleased with (well, as pleased as I am with any title I've written).

www.mlbuchman.com/books/midnight-trust/

For me, my discovery of story (probably best as a topic for another time, so I'll just dip in a little here) is done by telling stories. Some writers think, some outline, some plan... I write and see what happens on the page. As I'm building craft (and fans--thank you very much), I'm also slowly unwrapping the core stories I want to tell.

Is it a voyage of self discovery? I think it is, and that's actually the key to my thoughts about writing at the moment.

I have been reading the (mostly) past masters and perhaps exploring my past self. But now, at the take-off point of my writing career, as I move forward into the next stage of my writing and my life, I realize that I need to read the new writers. I need to explore Ken Liu in science fiction. I just finished the latest William Gibson (yes, he's been writing a while, but his writing still pushes hard at the edges). Neal Stephenson's Anthema is one of my favorites from the last decade. But still, I need to find newer and fresh voices.

So, I'm moving soon. And I've decided it was a perfect opportunity to be lightening my load. After a lot of debate...I sold all of my fiction books. (Okay, I kept Atlas Shrugged.) Whole bookcases went away. Ninety percent of the fiction I still own in paper is now my own.

Why did I do this? Because I wanted to open the space in my mental shelves for new writers as well as my physical ones. For new words. I want to find people who are exploring the limits of their craft and the outer reaches of story. I've tried reading the "fiction as art" books as I think of them. I find them to be too disjointed, perhaps simply not to my taste.

For me, fiction must be accessible and filled with heart. Be it a romance, a thriller, SF, or high fantasy is less of an issue. The fiction I write will always meet those two criteria. But I wouldn't have read those "art" books if I hadn't been seeking "the new." I want to hear fresh thoughts in storytelling.

Everything evolves. From The Illiad's poetic capture of an until-then oral tradition to Hao Jingfang's Hugo winning Folding Beijing, storytelling has evolved immensely. She (the 7th bestselling book of all time--ahead of The Da Vinci Code and all but the first Harry Potter--once the most popular book in the world) is nearly unreadable just a hundred and thirty years later. It's not that the language is too arcane, rather that the style of storytelling has evolved so drastically.

I want the new. I need the new!

...any suggestions?

M.L. "Matt" Buchman has over 50 novels, 70 short stories, and a fast-growing pile of audiobooks out in the world. M.L. writes romance, thrillers, and SF&F…so far. Three-times Booklist "Top-10 Romance Novel of the Year." NPR and B&N "Best 5 Romance of the Year." RITA finalist. As a 30-year project manager with a geophysics degree who has bicycled solo around the world, he is awed by what's possible. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.

Why My Brain Hurts Every Fall

by M. L. Buchman

Growing up (I'm about to date myself here rather badly), two of the funniest television shows in history were on for the same years. Both were using humor as social commentary and I miss both of them (no matter how dated they've become). They were Rowan and Martin's Laugh In and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

It is from the latter that I get this month's topic:

Okay, now that we have that out of the way...

There is something about the fall. Each year I gear up for it, and each year it slams me unexpectedly up side the head.

Yes, it's writer conference season. They're never in the spring for some reason, and only barely in the summer.

Romance Writer's of America national conference is technically in the summer (late July), but what really happens is you go to RWA when the summer is warming up, barbecue season is in full swing, and the summer to-read pile is only lightly covered in dust. You don't come out the other side and go, "Oh, wasn't that fun. And look, it's still July."

No.

What happens is you stagger home from to some distant location, so full of new information, that it is leaking out of your ears and spilling on the terminal floor for the airport janitors to vacuum up in the night. You spend August digesting this new knowledge and trying to turn it into action lists.

September is suddenly here, leaving me to wonder quite what did happen to summer. Then other conferences crop up. I spent the end of September at Novelists, Inc. This year was particularly surreal as I live on the Oregon Coast, and this years two big conferences for me were less than 100 miles apart in Florida.

RWA can be fun (except for the loss of all the new information that poured out on the runway taking off from the Orlando airport). It includes newbies, wannabes, working at it folks, and seasoned pros. Always a fun time.

Novelists, Inc. (for which you still haven't wholly recovered from the loss of the last half of summer) is almost entirely the seasoned pros. What was curious, interesting, and educational at one conference is suddenly deep, intense, question-packed, probing, and intense business discussions from 7am to midnight--at least when I got to bed that early.

Okay, after leaving more brain cells behind on the beach, this too is survivable.

Until this week. Now it's October and I'm on the other side of the podium. I'm co-teaching a Business Master Class for 50 students who all think that I have the answer. I'm having trouble telling them that the answers they really want are sprinkled on runway at Tampa International's runway 19Left and that I'm not really expecting them to catch another flight any time soon.

Thank goodness there was nothing else going on. Other than a short story every month, the launch of a new Delta Force novel, writing the next Henderson's Ranch novel, completely revising my 2018 publishing schedule--twice--based on the first two conferences of the fall...

They say that if you want to learn, teach. So, finishing up day 3 of a 7 day conference, I wonder what I will have learned by the end of the week. Because it seems that I didn't learn enough at RWA and NINC or...I wouldn't be teaching all this week. I have a theory that next year will be easier, that I'll manage to spread my learning year round...but then that's what I thought last year.

So, I'll just leave you with one final thought. Fall is fast sliding toward winter and...

M.L. Buchman started the first of over 50 novels and as many short stories while flying from South Korea to ride across the Australian Outback. All part of a solo around-the-world bicycle trip (a mid-life crisis on wheels) that ultimately launched his writing career.

Booklist has selected his military and firefighter series(es) as 3-time “Top 10 Romance of the Year.” NPR and Barnes & Noble have named other titles “Top 5 Romance of the Year.” In 2016 he was a finalist for RWA's RITA award. He has flown and jumped out of airplanes, can single-hand a fifty-foot sailboat, and has designed and built two houses. In between writing, he also quilts. M.L. is constantly amazed at what can be done with a degree in geophysics. He also writes: contemporary romance, thrillers, and SF. More info at: www.mlbuchman.com.

Learning Like a Loon (-atic)

by M.L. Buchman

Actually it was a Greater Scaup that was most recently added to our "birds seen out the window" list, but we thought it was a Loon at first and that fits the title better. Somehow "Learning Like a Scaup (-atic)" didn't quite get across the concepts I've been thinking about. I could make excuses like "they were out near the limit of my spotting scope," but actually I'm just a pretty crappy birdwatcher who likes making lists.

Greater Scaup (Calibas at Wikimedia cc)

So, while I have no idea how a Loon learns (or a Greater Scaup for that matter), I know how a lunatic does. In the last two weeks I:

• Finished and published a novel

Latest Novel
More info (click here)

• Finished and published a short story

Latest Short Story
More Info (click here)

• Drove to Emerald City Writer's Conference (five hours away in Bellevue, WA), taught two sessions, attended 4 others, and talked to dozens of authors at length about the business and craft of writing.
• Drove back home to the Oregon Coast where I was one of four primary instructors in an 8-day business Master Class with five other instructors and 35 pros. Ninety-one hours of learning later (because oh man do you learn when you teach), my brain had been turned into a sponge (the mushy rotting kind that you really should have thrown out before you wiped up that latest gooey sauce) and I felt like a lunatic.

So what did I learn in this mad extravaganza of knowledge seeking? Tons.

1. This world of modern publishing is all about change. Eight hours of the class sessions I was part of teaching were based on news and learning by the instructors that was under three weeks old. If you can't handle change, what in the world are you doing in this business?
2. Space clauses in contracts. No, not more room. Space as in outer space. If you think I'm joking, check out this article: The Economist. "Universal rights" are now starting to appear in territory clauses. So, is a parallel dimension in our universe? How about the other side of the event horizon on a black hole? Inquiring minds want to know...at least us lunatic ones.
3. Nothing trumps good quality except, well, better quality. I was part of a small discussion group one night where no one in the circle had under ten years in the industry or under 20 novels; several of us had twice that. Consensus? Quality is 95% of what matters. All of the other 5% is about getting it out there for readers to appreciate. Write and publish your next book.

So then, being a brain-dead lunatic Scaup-pretender, I caught up on some of the backlog on the DVR...and the learning kept going:

1. "Fear never conquered anything." -Tim Gunn, Project Runway
2. "[Story] needs a clear focal point." -Tim Gunn, Project Runway. He was talking about the story of a garment, but it holds for a story of words as well. Not that a tale needs a single focal point, but it does need a clear one for the reader to focus on.
3. "The secret is to show them how much fun you're having." -Pharrell, The Voice. The amount of writing wisdom on this show is just amazing!

Best Quality!

No Fear!

A Clear Story!

Have Fun!

Man, I can only begin to hope that's what I'm putting in my stories!

Coming Dec. 1
"Phenomenal! Breathtaking!" -RT -4-1/2 stars
"Memorable characters and pulse-pounding action!" -PW
More info (click here)

As it it, I'm a still a little too much of a Scaup-atic to keep my Loon under control!

My question? Do you have an outer space clause in your life?