Category Archives: Writers Life

A Whole Lot of Being Nice – Ask Alice Saturday

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Question: What does it take to get the most out of a writers’ conference?

 Answer: “What it takes is a whole lot of being nice.”

Hug imageI put that response in quotation marks because I heard those words from another author. Sabrina Jeffries giving an uplifting talk at – you guessed it – a writers’ conference.

Summer is conference time. Small retreats and huge gatherings punctuate June through August for many writers. Civilians – as in non-writers – are off to the shore or the mountains or the campsite. But we pack up our notebooks and our hopes and head for a convocation of scribes.

What most of us are hoping is that we’ll find the key to getting our work published or better published. I say that isn’t the most important thing we find at these gatherings whether they take place in a grand hotel or a modest cabin or anywhere in between.

The most important thing we find is each other. We make the most of a writers’ conference by maximizing that discovery. We writers are our own most natural allies. Why is that so true? It’s true because we understand one another from the inside.

We understand what it’s like to labor in the formidable publishing marketplace. We understand what it’s like to struggle toward getting our work published and keeping it published. We know how it feels to suffer rejection and disappointment. We also know how it feels to experience the joy of our accomplishments whether they’re large or small.

We also understand we need support in these hard struggles we’ve chosen. We understand that because we need the same support ourselves. With this understanding comes an obligation. Our obligation is to reach out and give what is needed – a little bit of niceness to our writer friends.

All it takes is a few words in a few sentences of encouragement and kindness. Over the several days or even the single weekend of a conference these few words at a time will add up to what Sabrina inspires us toward – a whole lot of being nice.

Our need to succeed tells us to be nice to the max to the agents and editors and instructors we line up for to pitch our projects or sit in front of taking notes. We long to recruit them to become our allies on the inside of the publishing world. In the meantime let’s not forget the allies we already have on the inside of the writing world.

Give what you can. A word of advice or a commiserating ear or a shared laugh – and definitely a hug. As you scurry from class to class or from appointment to appointment take a moment to touch another writer ally with your own whole lot of being nice. I guarantee you will experience a whole lot of feeling good in return.

RR

P.S. My biggest writers’ gathering gig this summer will be teaching a course titled How to Stop Shooting Career in the Foot. Six sessions of sharing everything I know about how to get out of your own way and get what you need out of writing and publishing. That happens July 24th through 31st at the International Women’s Writing Guild 38th Annual Summer Conference in Litchfield CT. For more information visit www.iwwg.org.

RR

My next novel is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Launching with summer on June 22nd at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 13th novel and I couldn’t have done it without a whole lot of being nice from my author allies. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

 

Ryder Rides On

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Ryder Syvertsen cover imageMemorial Day is for remembering and on Saturday we remembered an author friend of ours – Ryder Syvertsen who wrote most of his books as Ryder Stacy.

We gathered at a Brooklyn Heights brownstone church in the reception area quaintly referred to as the undercroft. Ryder would have had a witty wisecrack to make about that word. Possibly something to do with the region of the afterlife he expected to inhabit. Ryder was a witty guy. Smart and verbal so his humor was always crackling and on point with a cynical edge that managed to be free of malice – at least of the personal kind.

I can’t imagine Ryder in a church but I can imagine him in Brooklyn where he spent some of his best years. I can imagine him in other contexts too because he was four months older than I am. We grew up in the same times. Though he lived his most formative teen years in Greenwich Village while I was in Northern New York – in a town much like Riverton in the series I’m writing – wishing I could get to Greenwich Village.

Ryder wrote series too. His best known as Ryder Stacy is The Doomsday Warrior Series. Survivalist Science Fiction “set in a Ruined Earth America” his obit says. Ryder died on February 28th after a protracted illness. He wasn’t well enough long enough to catch the indie publishing wave now roaring like a tsunami through the book world. But I can imagine him here with us. Ranting for out with the old and in with the new. And letting his freak flag fly.

Ryder did have a freak flay and a party-down soul too. I knew him mostly from writers’ group parties where he claimed to come because they were “the cheapest drunk in town.” I always understood that he was really there – as we all were – to be among our tribe. The tribe of storytellers that began when language began around campfires where we told our tales in exchange for a shank of whatever might be roasting in the flames.

Ryder wrote in that longstanding noble tradition. So do I. So very possibly do you. Sometimes supper isn’t easy to come by. Ryder struggled with wife Paige Lewis through some lean years. Many of us can identify with that. Ryder isn’t struggling any more. But his tales are still being told. Search for Ryder Stacy or Ryder Syvertsen on amazon.com and you’ll find his stories there.

Buy a book or several. I believe that’s the memorial Ryder would love best. Maybe he’s loving it right now from the place of wild imagining and raucous parties and writing tribe companions where he is bound to be.

RR

 My own latest story is A WRONG WAY HOME – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #1 – Matt & Kara’s Story. Available at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 12th novel and Ryder would definitely want me to be telling you about it here as I tell you about him.  Alice Orr –

 

Why I’m Counting Down to Summer – Riverton Road Monday

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A Year of Summer Shadows - Final Cover -JPG file smallIt’s all about the learning curve – or at least a lot of it is about the learning curve. And independent publishing has a steep one. In fact getting my own books out there is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

A Wrong Way Home is out there in the world right now. I needed my ice axe for scaling that mountain because it was almost vertical and sometimes I felt cold and alone and desperate for a toehold. I slipped – meaning I made mistakes. So many that I’m releasing a revised version later this year. But it will still be Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series – Book #1.

A big thing I learned on this curve climb is that it’s a good idea to write a series. Current wisdom is that readers love reading a series. What’s most important to me is that I love writing a series. I live in Riverton as surely as my characters do. When the Kalli family sits down to dinner I’m right there with them putting my two cents into the conversation then writing it down.

Book #2 – A Year of Summer Shadows – was even more fun to write. I’m hooked deeper in than ever. I want to order a scone at Ginny’s Coffee Corner. I want to stroll around the Promenade in the July sun. But most of all I want to save these people I’ve grown to care so much about from the dangerous force that murders Finley Yates in the Prologue and is hell-bent to kill others too.

Plus there’s Mark and Hailey’s love story. I’m reminded of an old song. “If you don’t believe I love you look at the fool I’ve been. If you don’t think I’m sinking look at the hole I’m in.” These two could sing those lines to each other on every page. Or we could sing those lines for them as we wonder how they can possibly get as together as we want them to be.

Now I’m wondering how I’ll stand the wait until June 22nd. That’s a big day for me. A Year of Summer Shadows launches – along with summer on June 22nd. I’ve got a lot more climbing up that steep learning curve before then. The most precarious part is getting the word out that this launch is happening. The first step on that path is telling you about it here.

I’ll edge out further onto a perilous perch and ask if you’d like me to send you an Advance Reading Copy so you can review the story on Amazon and Goodreads. Wow! Am I in danger of falling off this mountain Orr what? If you’re interested just email me your regular/ground mailing address at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. I’ll send you the print version and sign it too.

I’m suddenly feeling a bit oxygen deprived from the altitude and I need to save my breath for counting down. One day. Two days. Three days. Before I know it June 22nd will dawn. It will be the second morning of summer and the first day A Year of Summer Shadows steps all the way off the ledge into the world. I’ll be there. I hope you will too. Mark your calendar please.

RR

Forgive me for mentioning one more time that my next story is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Launching with summer on June 22nd at amazon.com/author/aliceorr and on other digital platforms too. This is my lucky 13th novel.  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com