SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT by Joyce Hart

OUR SINCERE CONGRATULATIONS TO:

Jane Kirkpatrick as the winner of the USA Book News best book for 2010 in the General Fiction Category for The Daughter’s Walk, published by Waterbrook/Random House. She also has been nominated for the Career Achievement Award by Romantic Times, and the book Log Cabin Christmas in which Jane has a novella made the NY Times bestseller list.  The publisher is  Barbour Publishing

Congratulations also to Lisa Harris as a finalist in the Inspirational Mystery/Suspense/Thriller at Romantic Times for her book, Blood Covenant, published by Zondervan.

Would You Read On? hosted by Diana Flegal

We welcome your comments today. Scroll down for last weeks author reveal.

Chapter One

The thrumming in her head started at the Essex County line and crescendoed into a pounding by the time she'd reached State Route 74. She wiped one hand, then the other on her jeans and gripped the steering wheel of her rented SUV. She was in control. She was Emily Hazard, assistant art director at an award-winning New York City advertising agency. Not Emily Hazard, the klutz-queen jinx-deluxe of Schroon Lake Central High School.

She drove through Hazardtown, the four corners community in New York's Adirondack Mountains that her ancestors had settled two centuries ago. Little remained to show the bustling logging town it had once been. A new name on the diner told her it had changed ownership again. The gas station convenience store proclaimed Souvenirs Here in a big red, white and blue roadside sign. Kitty-corner, the Community Church sat as it had for the past one hundred and fifty years with its double entry doors that had originally separated the women parishioners from the men. As a teen, Emily had made a point of entering through the men's door. The newish brick volunteer fire department building occupied the fourth corner. Ironically, the old clapboard hall had burned down when she was in college.

Paradox Lake came into view on the left. A patch of blue nestled in the greens and browns of the hardwoods and mountains surrounding it. Her heart beat double-time. As she came around the curve to Hazard Cove Road, a mama duck and her ducklings waddled onto the highway. She hit the brake pedal and sensed the pickup truck behind her before she heard the screech of its brakes. The truck touched the back bumper of the SUV and nudged her forward just short of the little family.

Last weeks First Page was bravely submitted by author Cindy Sproles. Her agent is excitedly shopping around her manuscript.

Eliminate Overused Words by Andy Scheer

In case you couldn't attend this past weekend's Indianapolis Christian Writers Conference, here's an editing tip I picked up from keynoter Angela Hunt. It's a variation on advice I've seen for years. But the spin she puts on the technique gives it application across a broad spectrum of our writing tendencies.

All writers gravitate toward certain pet words and phrases. Really good writers recognize their tendencies—and do something about it in their process of revision.

In Angela's case, she knows that in her drafts she tends to be a “Wasian.” When she looks at a page of her prose, she finds that too often she uses the word “was.” Such as: “The cat was on the table.” The verb indicates placement, but nothing else. To enliven her prose, she wants a more substantial verb: “sat,” “lay”--almost anything but “was.”

The way Angela discovers her wases involves a simple global change command with her word processing software. To make the word stand out, she types in a command to automatically change each “ was ” to “ WAS. ” Appearing in all caps, the word can't stay hidden.

(Notice she changes each instance of “space” + “was” + “space.” Otherwise she'd flag innocuous words such as WAShing.)

With that simple command, every use of “was” jumps out. She can easily scan the page and identify which she should change and which can remain. (Despite her claims to be a staunch Anti-Wasian, I'm sure she leaves a few.)

You say you're not a Wasian—fine. Maybe you're a Thatite. Or the veins of your writing run thick with Very-cosities. If you don't know your tendencies, ask the people in your writers group. They know, even if they have been reluctant to tell you.

Don't try to catch these as you write. While you'll capture a few of your pet words, you'll primarily stifle your creativity and cripple your productivity. Afterward, just do a “save-as” of your draft, then key in your “find and replace” function (On my software, it's Ctrl + F). Then brace yourself for how many time that term appears in ALL CAPS.

What's your tendency? In my case, I need to change ( to PAREN.

What are you seeking? by Linda S. Glaz

FAME! FORTUNE! FUN!
What are you seeking when you sit down to write?

Do you write because you have to; like you have to breathe? Because you long for the day when a printed book arrives in the mail with your name on it? (I know, that sounds awesome...)

There's no right or wrong, no good or bad, but what prompts you to sit behind a computer, sometimes for hours and hours pounding away at the keys? I've been told by a few wonderful folks it's to promote God's kingdom and then I read a few of the stories. OUCH! They promoted everything but...And that's okay, just say you're writing to write. Or to make money, or to have people see your name in print. Whatever drives you.

A couple years ago when I was fairly new to inspirational novels, I reviewed one by a "Christian" author. I hoped she might be slightly outside the box, as I love edgy fiction, but edgy in my world, and edgy in hers...hmmm. Big difference. My world of edgy doesn't include enough "private" scenes to make a porn-star happy. YIKES! And it did. Needless to say, I didn't finish that particular review.

What I'm trying perhaps not all that well to say is, just because something has a particular label doesn't make it so. Believe me, I learned the hard way, red face and all. I'm rambling here a bit, so I'm gonna sign off, but think about it...why do you write?

And are you able to admit to yourself, to others, to your readers, why you began in the first place? And why you keep going...

Twitter Test Drives a New Timeline Feature

For those of you still trying to figure out Twitter--how to use it and how to make the most of it in building your platform, soon you will have more new features to discover. Apparently, Twitter is test driving a new timeline on a few accounts, which allows users to expand conversations and see who and how many people retweeted a message from inside the timeline. Mine isn't one of the test drive accounts, but I'm interested in what might happen when it is officially rolled out and I'm affected. This is why I'm sharing this info with you.

I've attached a video below, which demonstrates the new feature. Are you using Twitter? Is your account one of the test driven ones? If so, please share. If not, what other questions do you have about Twitter? I'll try to help if I can.

Previously Published? by Terry Burns

I was just talking with a client that casually mentioned that a book I've been pitching for some time has been in print before. WHAT?

I need to talk about this just in case there might be another instance of that hanging around. He didn't think it mattered because he discovered it wasn't as good as he wanted so he pulled it.

It does matter. If I represent a book as a new project and a publisher finds out after they buy it that it has been in print before they are not going to be happy. More so, the contract is going to have a clause in it that will cover this and if I don't know the prior history that isn't going to jump out at me, and the author probably doesn't know to look for it, so then we have erroneous information in a legal contract and could get the author, me, the agency all sued for misrepresentation. And I probably get thrown out of the Association of Authors Representatives which has a very strict code of ethics.

Why would they care? What publishers want to buy is first rights. Once a book is in print no matter how it was printed it is published and once a book has been published the first rights are gone. A book can only be printed for the first time once. That includes e-publishing. If a book is put on Kindle before it goes to print the first rights have been used. A lot of publishers won't buy reprint rights so that reduces the market too.

Everyone immediately says "but I retain the rights." It doesn't matter who owns the rights, the first rights are gone. You can't own something that has already been consumed.

There are a lot of ways to deal with a book that has already been in print, but hiding the fact that it has been published is not one of them. I know in each case it is being done innocently, but that is no defense before the law. The best way to handle it is a major rewriting so that it is a completely different book with a new title so it can be offered as a new project. Even then I prefer to say that it is "based upon" an earlier book that was a very minor project just to cover us all.

I just needed to toss this out for everybody to be aware of. That's why I ask for prior history of a manuscript to bring this to light if that is the case. So if you are going to be submitting to us, a major part of the prior history of the manuscript is whether it has already been published or not, no matter how it was published.

Would You Read On? hosted by Diana Flegal

Critique groups and other writing blogs are challenging one another by asking the simple question: Would You Read On? We here at Hartline are happy to have been an inspiration to some of them and thank our readers for their critiquing comments and re-tweets.

First Page:

Early Spring, 1898 Wadalow Mountain, Tennessee

Married at 13, a mother at 14, widowed and childless by sixteen. Ain’t nobody should have to learn life like I did. No soul should have to claw their way back from the bowels of hell, scared and scraped up like I was. If I can keep that from happening to anybody else, then I can live up to my name—Mercy. That’s why I’m teaching you different. They don’t call me Mercy Roller for nothing and I’m givin’ you my side of the story. My story of redemption at the hands of a so-called godly man who made his bed with evil and called his actions righteous. Because of him, I became the very thing I hated most and the trek back through the mire wasn’t easy for a young girl in her teens. In one swift act of vengeance, I lost what was left of a childhood and I was bound tight with the chains of guilt.

I was never the same after the morning Pastor took on judge, jury and Jesus. I made some mighty harsh decisions—decisions out of fury, hurt and fear. Decisions I’d grow to regret. Decisions I’d have to find redemption for or learn to live with. I chose redemption.

Redemption’s a mighty big word for simple folk but that’s what I was after. That’s where I was going. The good book says we can get salvation through our works or at least get a start on it, so that’s what I did. I went to work.

Life ain’t much different here on the mountain than it is in the valley. A man’s lucky to have a horse and wagon, lucky to have a shack with a tin roof. There are sinners on the summit and sinners in the foothills and I reckon Pastor Roller planned on washing every sin from every man.

I spread a blanket over a stand of grass and brushed down the wrinkles. Momma carried an apple pie in one hand and a basket full of chicken in the other. The aroma spun in the breeze meshing with Mrs. Taylor’s fresh sourdough bread. It couldn’t have been a prettier day for a man to repent and then go down to the river for baptizing.

Would you read on?

Last weeks author shall remain anonymous.