Conference in Your Jammies: the rwa national alternative

For those not going to National, Romance Divas is having its own online conference...which you can attend in your jammies!

Are the RWA threads getting you down? Is bitterness creeping in the closer July gets?

Well, come on down. You're the next Diva on I GET TO HAVE A CONFERENCE IN MY JAMMIES!!!!!

That's right. Starting July 14th instead of sweating on an airplane or negotiating your pricey room, you'll be logging in with your PJ's on and a cup of coffee in hand. We know how to do you right.

Sign up here. http://forums.romancedivas.com/

and come to the conference here. http://forums.romancedivas.com//index.php?showforum=110

Look who we got to come and give us the benefit of their wisdom. (FOR FREE!!)

SCHEDULE FOR THE NGTCC

July 14th

Josh Lanyon Kicks off the workshop "ENOUGH TO MAKE A GROWN MAN CRY. Characterization, Motivation, and POV in m/m fiction."
The Bar will Open!
Kick off the NGTCC door prize drawings.

July 15th

Rowan McBride, Shayla Kersten and Jet Mykles continue the workshop "ENOUGH TO MAKE A GROWN MAN CRY. Characterization, Motivation, and POV in m/m fiction."

Ona Russel and Steve Hockensmith team up to do the Historical workshop " Perils and Pleasures of Historical Research".

More awesome door prizes.


July 16th

Rowan McBride, Shayla Kersten, and Jet Mykles "MAKING A GROWN MAN CRY"

Joey W. Hill "Epublishing to New York: One author's journey"

Linnea Sinclair "Going Deep: Writing Deep POV"

July 17th
Rowan McBride, Shayla Kersten and Jet Mykles "MAKING A GROWN MAN CRY"

Linnea Sinclair "Going Deep: Writing Deep POV"

Sasha White Q&A "Burnout: How to avoid it and how to handle it."

More door prizes.

July 18th
Rowan McBride, Shayla Kersten and Jet Mykles "MAKING A GROWN MAN CRY"

Linnea Sinclair "Going Deep: Writing Deep POV"

Y.A. workshop, CARRIE JONES and MARLEY GIBSON "Creating Believable Teen Characters"

HEAD GAMES: WRITING DEEP THIRD POV FOR MAXIMUM IMPACT

Reading is a vicarious experience, right? That means as a writer you need to immerse the reader into the heart, mind and skin of the character, and there’s no better way to do that than Deep Third Point Of View. Deep Third is often likened to First Person POV for its emotional intensity and intimacy factor. But it’s also a sure way to keep readers (and agents and editors!) turning pages. Award-winning Bantam Dell author Linnea Sinclair will take you on a journey through the flavors of Third Person, explain why Deep Third works, show you how and when to use Deep Third, how to know when Deep is Too Deep, and share tips and tricks to keep readers sobbing, giggling, gasping and grabbing… for more of your stories!

BIO: Winner of the prestigious national book award, the RITA, science fiction romance author Linnea Sinclair has become a name synonymous for high-action, emotionally intense, character-driven novels. Reviewers note that Sinclair's novels "have the wow-factor in spades," earning her accolades from both the science fiction and romance communities. Sinclair's current releases are GAMES OF COMMAND (PEARL Award winner and RITA finalist), THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES (PEARL Award Honorable Mention), SHADES OF DARK (PEARL Award and RT Reviewers’ Choice Award winner) and HOPE’S FOLLY.

A former news reporter and retired private detective, Sinclair resides in Naples, Florida (winters) and Columbus, Ohio (summers) along with her husband, Robert Bernadino, and their thoroughly spoiled cats. Readers can find her perched on the third barstool from the left in her Intergalactic Bar and Grille at www.linneasinclair..com.

Hope to see you there! ~Linnea

We’re At Least Boldly Trying…

Last week we engaged in a good bit of dialogue on the science fiction romance sub-genre and where it was going—given SFR's odd parentage and proclivity to bounce back and forth across the aisles of bookstores. What was really neato-peachy keen—in addition to all the terrific input here on the blog—was the fact that Robin D Owens, Patti O'Shea, Susan Grant and Gena Showalter (and yours truly) then spent this past weekend at the Divas' forum, participating in a Science Fiction & Futuristic Workshop-melee-grand free-for-all that was top notch fun and top notch feedback. You have to register for the forum (it's free) but you can read the entire weekend's worth of posts and comments. If this sub-genre's important to you, I recommend it.

Some of the things that became apparent through this energetic discussion were that the sub-genre is still hard to pin down and define; its audience is comprised of two fairly divergent groups (SF and romance); and there's still a huge interest in stories generated in SFR/RSF/Futuristics.

We also realize that SFR/RSF/Futuristics is a mouthful. "Whaddya reading in SFR/RSF/Futuristics these days?" just does not elegantly roll off the tongue. So who are we? Sifroms? Romsifs? Futroms? The latter sounds as if we can be a couch or a bed. Sciroms? Romsci? That's kind of cute: romsci as in rom-skee. Maybe too cutesy sounding.

So perhaps you can see the problem. We don't even know what to call ourselves. Other than one big honkin' good bunch 'o books.

I'm rather partial to Jacqueline Lichtenberg's intimate adventure other than it could be misheard as a section of a department store that sells negligees. Not necessarily a bad thing, that…

Continuing on this push for exposure, we have this week (poor Susan!) a week with Susan Grant at the HQN site. Woman is going to be totally forumed-out come next weekend. She may have to recruit Her Mewness to do the typing. So please do log in and go continue the buzz, and tell her Linnea says "Yarp! Yarp!":

"Author Susan Grant joins us in a discussion of her out-of- this-world heroes and her latest novel, in the Otherworldly Men series, How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 Days"

http://community.eharlequin.com/webx?50@@.4a84c12e

So let's all make sure Sue really gets no sleep and go pound her with questions and comments. And let's keep the buzz going.

Hugs all, ~Linnea

http://www.linneasinclair.com/

ps: I would have added purty pictures today but Blogger is telling me it's having technical issues. I so know the feeling...