Writers tend to fall into one of two categories: plotters, who come up with detailed outlines for their stories before they ever start writing, and the so-called pantsers, who fly by the seat of their pants and dive into their books with no plan at all.

Cooking is actually similar.

There are the ardent recipe followers, who measure every teaspoonful, never deviate, and would rather quit a recipe than try to complete it sans one ingredient (no matter how inconsequential, no matter if a completely good substitute is available). And then there are the people who add a dash of this and a pinch of that, cooking more by instinct than design, tasting and adjusting as they go along.

I’m somewhere in the middle, both at my desk and in the kitchen. My writing process involves something author Roxanne St. Claire, who honed this technique, calls a “story plan.” It’s an adaptable, flexible road map for the story, providing a loose structure and a direction, while still leaving room for the intoxicating rush of discovery that makes winging it so addictive.

And when I’m at the stove, I love to start with a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks or chefs, and then add my own spin by changing it up on the fly, going by what tastes good at the moment. Recipe calls for orange marmalade? Great, but I have this fabulously special bergamot marmalade in the fridge—wonder what it would be like to use that instead? Or . . . the recipe calls for half a cup of chocolate chips—but wouldn’t it be better with twice that amount? (Note: In my experience, more of a good thing isn’t always better; sometimes it’s just more. One major exception to this: chocolate.)

In my latest Recipe for Love novel, On the Steamy Side, the celebrity chef hero, Devon Sparks, rediscovers his own palate with the help of the heroine, Lilah Jane Tunkle, and her homespun Southern family recipes. That experience enables him to start innovating with food again, and helps him become the kind of cook he always wanted to be.

I love combining the security of knowing where I’m heading with the freedom of endless possibilities. What about you? Do you follow a recipe or your own tastebuds? Or maybe you’re a hybrid, like me?

Give us the straight dish, and you could win an autographed copy of my new novel, along with a signature Recipe for Love apron and spatula set!

http://www.louisaedwards.com

Asking a writer what she thinks of a bad review is like asking a fire hydrant what it thinks of a dog. Your pleasure in all those happy, glowing reviews of your book can plummet when you stumble upon that one blot on your record. It might be a snarky reader comment on a blog or review site. Could be it was in a major print publication–major pain. Your friends, your agent and editor will come to your rescue, reminding you of all those kudos and pointing out that any review, good or bad, helps with publicity. But other writers know that blot on your record is going to haunt you like a bad credit rating.

Putting your fiction out there invites everyone, from the most casual reader to a seasoned reviewer to offer an opinion. Some reviewers delight in spreading snark, and seem to consider it an art form. I’m more partial to Guardian critic James Wood. In a recent interview in Publishers Weekly, he said, "I think as I get older, I don't know what this is about, but I think as I get older I'm more aware of the danger of being involved in an occupation that hurts people's feelings. I agree that, on the hierarchy of sins, it's not very high, but still, is that what you want to do? I often blithely like to quote the Kingsley Amis thing, and I try to live by it myself, that a negative review should spoil your breakfast but not your lunch. But I know perfectly well that a bad review spoils more than my lunch—my dinner and a few weeks of dinners."

Fancy that–a reviewer with a conscience.

Better to just treat it like a fart in church. Hold your breath for thirty seconds, and the smell goes away. Deep breath...now, hold it! Simple, huh?

Sometimes reviewers speak in code. They often do find fresh ways to critique a novel, but if you read enough reviews, you’ll come across certain phrases, again and again. For your convenience, I’ve compiled this handy glossary of reviewers’ terms.

spare - 12 pages long; still costs $24.95
sprawling - 624pp of mental vomit
elegiac - see "watching paint dry"
precious - cute, gimmicky
tragic - hit yourself in the head with a hammer; usually means something small and cute dies
grotesque - ugly people having weird sex
unconventional - incomprehensible; see "impenetrable"
challenging - PhD required
quirky - reviewer didn’t get it
irresistible - see "addictive" and "poorly written." It’s a page-turner, but you’ll feel dirty after reading it.
deliciously filthy - see above
private tragedy - incest
TV evangelist - always a villain
limned - reviewer learned a new word and wants to try it out
eponymous - reviewer wanted to use a word no one can pronounce
pseudonymous - ditto, with a silent p
thought-provoking - preachy
religious fundamentalists - loonies
searing - read at arms’ length
turgid prose - reviewer was dying to say "turgid" because it sounds vaguely naughty, like a cross between "turd" and "rigid"
uncensored - lots of swear words
well-researched - boring
exhaustively researched - really boring
gender-bending - weird sex
leisurely - slow
slow - leaden
charming - slight
studied - no typos
restrained - no emotion
original - no punctuation
with brio - bouncy but probably meaningly language
fresh - same old stuff but the reviewer can’t help liking it

So readers! What do you think of book reviews? Do you pay attention to the good, the bad, the indifferent? Sound off, please!

I will be giving away a signed copy of THE SUMMER HIDEAWAY to someone who comments. It's currently #7 on the NYT!

http://www.susanwiggs.com/

My new book El Patrón is finally available! I am so excited about this book. It has been a journey to see this book in print. I'm gonna "blab" for a minute about this book's journey, and then maybe you will understand why I refer to it as a journey.

I'm going waaaaayyyy back now. In 1991 I gave birth to my first son Alex. He was six weeks premature and had some health issues that dictated that I stay home with him and not work at the time. I was fresh out of college with a degree in journalism. I chose journalism as my major because my parents didn't think creative writing would be lucrative and since they were footing the tuition, I acquiesced. However, the bug to write fiction never stopped biting at me. So with my baby at home and the urge to write a book, I took a correspondence course through Writer's Digest (these were the days before I had a clue about the Internet). I finished that novel, and sent out submission to agents and actually had some good feedback but ultimately it was rejected. Two years pass and by then I had a rough and tumble toddler and a new baby on the way. I was now working at our family business, but I still had that need to write. What I would write, I didn't know.

Well as things would have it, some very interesting events took place in my life during that time. I won't divulge but let's just say I might have known someone who was married to someone who had a cousin who knew someone in the Mexican Mafia a.k.a the drug cartels. I had read The Godfather series and found the history, etc., of the Mafioso interesting--I didn't want to be involved with that lifestyle though, so I stopped knowing that person who was married to someone who had a cousin who knew someone in the Mexican Mafia a.k.a the drug cartels. But the idea of a book about them intrigued me. I did some research and I sat down with my then six month old baby either in my lap or in a swing next to me, while my two-year-old made a fiasco out of the house. I had just acquired my first laptop. With my baby at times in my lap, I hunted and pecked my way through the first draft of El Patrón. Then my life kind of bottomed out. I went through a divorce, I lost my home, I had to file a bk because I was left with a ton of debt I had been unaware of in my youthful naivete (that's a nice way of saying I was a pretty dumb twenty-something). I took a year off from writing and went back to work for my family.

But writing is a passion and once you have it, you want to write. You always come back to it. So, eventually I wrote another version and then another of this big book (450 typed pages). I had the fortune to attend the Maui Writer's Retreat and it was there that someone in the industry said, "Oh no. Organized Crime books and family sagas don't sell." Funny how The Sopranos were on a year later and we all know how unpopular that series was. Instead of focusing on Patrón, I wrote two thrillers, a children's book, and then Murder Uncorked, which was the first book I sold to a publisher. But the characters of El Patrón kept nagging at me. After putting out a few mysteries, I decided to take another crack at El Patrón. I revised it two more times and utilized my Yoda (my freelance editor Mike Sirota). This was three years ago. But then, more mystery book contracts came in and my focus was back on them. I have now written nine mysteries and after finishing up the latest one "A Toast to Murder," and then putting out "Happy Hour," I thought now might be the time to see if El Patrón will fly. I hope I'm right.

For those of you who are used to reading my comedic mysteries, be prepared that this book is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy different. I'm not a writer who only wants to write one type of book. I want to write good stories--stories that compel me, wake me up in the middle of the night yelling at me, "WRITE ME!" So, if you do decide to join me on this journey, just know what you are getting into--this is a saga, and there are some not so nice parts, and there are some steamy scenes (compliments of my dear friend and a wonderful writer Jessica Park, who is the go to girl when you need to ramp up a sex scene. Oh boy, talk about blushing! I can hear J.P. now--you're such a prude." Yeah I know). But on the flip side now that I've told you this book isn't all laughs and light, it is my favorite book out of thirteen of them. These characters have been screaming at me for 15 years now, and they wouldn't leave me alone. So, even if only a few of you here buy the book and read it, I'm good with it.

If you want to check out the book trailer from El Patrón, please visit my website at http://www.michelescott.com.

Cheers,
Michele

I have been driving around, running errands and trying to figure out what to blog about today that would seem worth the trouble of someone going out of their way to read it. And then I remembered what today was. March 15. Do you know that we have Shakespeare to thank for not having to file our annual income tax today, but a month from now (Bear with me. My graduate degree is in Shakespeare and I don’t get to use it very often)? Originally, separating you from your money took place on March 15th of the year but apparently the Internal Revenue Service (love that last word) was sensitive way back then and took offense at all the “Beware the Ides of March” jokes (courtesy of Julius Caesar) that came its way so the date was changed to April 15th. Sadly, the only trauma attached to that date is that it is the deadline for filing for the previous year without a penalty.

Forgive me but I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit grumpy this morning (or actually, this afternoon). I feel like this every year when I have an hour stolen out of a schedule that already requires a shoehorn in order to squeeze anything additional into it. My day begins at 4 when I hit the day running (people to feed and get out the door, a dog to run after, loosely disguised as “taking the dog for a walk”) and usually doesn’t stop until ten or eleven that evening. I am not one of those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed morning people, but I have resigned myself to getting up at an hour when even God is asleep. That would be the aforementioned 4 A.M. Getting up at 3 because the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. cannot get themselves to do away with something that came into being in modern times in order to “conserve coal in wartime” is more than just a bit disconcerting, it’s downright annoying. It is also enough to make me groggily contemplate moving to Arizona because Daylight Savings Time doesn’t exist in Arizona (possibly because they might have a “No Stupidity Zone” there, I’m not sure) However, I am so pale (I have seven little men following me wherever I go) I am fairly certain that my skin would instantly turn into leather if I were exposed to the Arizona sun for more than ninety seconds. So I am doomed to being groggy for more than six months a year (the Powers That Be in their infinite wisdom have extended Daylight Savings Time on both ends, beginning it sooner and ending it later) until some kind legislator with pull decides that perhaps the public at large has better things to do with their time than attempting to reprogram their DVRs (VCRs in some cases)twice a year and just end this “Spring forward, Fall back” nonsense once and for all. Hey, it could happen. I’m an optimist and still believe in Santa Claus.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go over to my mother-in-law’s and try to explain to an 85 year old woman why her “magical” VCR didn’t tape her favorite Soap Opera. Pray for me.

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Marie Ferrarella

http://www.marieferrarella.com/