Second Chance Love – First Class Storytelling

Storytelling

I adore Second Chance Love. The one that got away, or you let go because you knew they weren’t a good match for you. But that was then and this is now, and the nostalgia filter has performed a reality reconfiguration big time. Through that pink-purple, or whatever color combo suits your starry eyes, memory crush has morphed into whatever your dream combo may be. Mine is George Harrison meets George Carlin and imports Desmond Tutu for the heart chakra. That guy I would diet my literal behind off because of, pay every cent I have on plastic surgery for, and throw in several self-improvement courses too. Why? Because he’d be my Second Chance Love.

Who is your Second Chance Love? Is it a real-life person that actually exists somewhere between the layers of your experience, distantly or maybe not-so-distantly, past? Do you remember the actual name, or would you prefer to provide a new one? Do you remember the details of this heartthrob’s personal backstory, the poignant pathos of a stricken childhood made even more lamentable by painful recollections of puberty? Do you fancy yourself the one and only capable of healing said wounds? Or maybe you simply anticipate running into this individual at a high school reunion, or some such event, and wowing his/her knickers off, perhaps literally, with your scintillating present-day self.

I don’t know your answers to the above queries. What I do know is that you have the makings of a Second Chance Love story. Your reunion or sexy soul salvation or dreamboat heartthrob fantasy has storytelling legs that reach all the way to the ground and then some, because everybody loves a Second Chance Love story. Why? Because everybody has at least one such story of their own. Everybody has googled at least one hot-memory someone from their past, which means everybody is a hot readership opportunity for Second Chance Love storytellers.

In my latest novel,  A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5, Amanda Miller has unfinished business in Riverton, battlefields she didn’t conquer her first time around there. The most dangerous of those battlefields involves Mike Schaeffer, the young love she lost long ago. She wishes she could write an alternate ending to their story. “Look at me,” she’d say. “See the woman I am now. Don’t you wish you had noticed me back then? Sorry. You missed your chance.” Then she’d walk away without a backward glance, but it’s too late for that, too late for anything between Amanda and Mike. Or so she believes, until she sees him again.

I love Second Chance Love situations, not only for their market potential, but for their plot scenario potential too. They allow me to jump straight into the heart of the story without a lot of “meet-cute” at the beginning, when I’m supposed to be hooking the reader and grabbing her attention. I’m not a big fan of the meet-cute. Two attractive people meet in a cut, usually at least somewhat contrived situation and are attracted to each other. Sparks fly. Clever banter abounds. But where is the real story? What plummets the heroine into a dilemma so intense, dramatic and powerful she will have to scramble and struggle to escape. How is the reader hooked? Why is her attention grabbed?

I write romantic suspense so my lovers-to-be can meet over a dead body, which diminishes the cuteness factor considerably. Still, on first encounter, they might tend to circle one another bantering cleverly anyway. Three more of my Riverton Road stories refuse to follow that scenario. In A Wrong Way Home and A Vacancy at the Inn, heroine and hero were past lovers, though very briefly, and in A Year of Summer Shadows they’ve been eyeballing each other for quite some time.

Only A Villain for Vanessa is not a Second Chance Love story. Each of the others saves me a lot of work as a storyteller. The preliminaries are done with before page one. The “I’m so-and-so. Who are you?” part is past. More important, I have backstory to work with and develop. Backstory rife with conflict that gives my present-time front-story huge potential for intensity, drama and power. I’ve given myself a strong story advantage even before my story begins, and I’m in favor of advantages. The challenges of storytelling are enormous. I’ll take any help I can get. Second Chance Love stories are a great source of such help. Storytelling possibilities abound. Get out there and grab yourself some.

Plus, I love Second Chance Love stories because I believe life is all about chances, second or third or fourth or however many chances we need to succeed.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

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A Time of Fear & LovingDon’t miss this chance to read Alice’s new Second Chance Love story. A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5 is available HERE. You can find all of Alice’s books HERE.

What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving.

“Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.”
“Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.”
“The tension in this novel was through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“I never want an Alice Orr book to end.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

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http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
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Mentors Everywhere – Meet 4 of Mine

Author Spotlight

There are Mentors Everywhere. Life has taught me this. Whenever I am desperate for help. Whenever I have no idea what to do next, a mentor appears in the nick of time to rescue me from my ignorance. Even if I don’t know exactly what I need. Even when I’m embarrassed to reveal how little I know, I find Mentors Everywhere, and when it is career direction I lack, they usually come from career organizations.

I met Nancy Herkness at an NJRW (New Jersey Romance Writers) conference. She was the workshop leader, and I was being led. For many years, I had done what Nancy was doing and been one of the Mentors Everywhere myself. Now I needed mentoring, specifically with how to market my writing work. My problem wasn’t too little advice. My problem was too much advice. Get with this social media platform. Grab onto that attention-seeking gimmick. Nancy cut through the mind-whirling noise.

“Do this,” she said. “Don’t bother with that.”

I the latter needed most. A list of time sucks and energy burners that yield too little for the dollars spent and the effort invested. A busy woman’s To Do’s and To Don’t’s I could trust, because I trusted her. My sigh of relief was so profound it echoed through that hotel conference room. Nancy was proof there are Mentors Everywhere, and they don’t always have to be me.

I met Jean Joachim at RWA-NYC (the New York City chapter of Romance Writers of America). She is a common-sensible, no-nonsense woman too, with a city girl edge to match. In other words, we speak the same language, which made her the perfect next addition to my personal Mentors Everywhere team. Her advice was also direct and definite. She generously shared what had worked for her as a publishing-marketing author, and what had not. Through many phone conversations, I wrote down everything Jean said. Then we celebrated over cocktails.

“Listen more than you talk,” she told me, and I heard her.

Mentors Everywhere, including the Upper Westside, maybe especially there.

I met Paula Scardamalia at IWWG (International Women’s Writing Guild). A rainy-day version of their bi-annual Big Apple event, another venue where I’d been the teacher in years past. On this particular Saturday, I was damp and too sloppily dressed, visibly in need of being taught, when Paula reminded me by example that there are Mentors Everywhere. She used a tarot deck as the medium for her message, but beyond the cards her own right-on wisdom was unmistakable.

“Try a different direction,” she said.

As it happened, I had been trying too many directions. Writing a bit of memoir here. A few pages of literary fiction there. Paula’s words arrived, accompanied by a flash of recognition. I needed to settle on a single writing road. That flash was followed by another. I should return to the romantic suspense stories and series characters I love to create.

“And know that your work matters in the world,” Paula added.

The clouds of confusion parted. The very next day, I dove straight back into my Riverton Road Romantic Suspense series, and I’ve been swimming happily through the North Country ever since. Paula had proven, once again, that there are Mentors Everywhere.

I met Kayelle Allen at MFRW (Marketing for Romance Writers), the online forum where writers ask questions and other writers answer. Kayelle is the founder and guiding light of this many-faceted organization. I’d been lurking there for quite some time, reading all of her messages, before I mustered the nerve to ask if I might guest post on her immensely popular blog, RLF (Romance Lives Forever), and she agreed. My first visit to her blogsite nearly stopped my heart. I’d blundered deep over my head into unfamiliar territory. Everything was perfectly organized in minute detail and RTF (Rich Text Format), and I didn’t even know what that was. I stumbled forward anyway. My heart hadn’t stopped, but it was solidly planted in my throat, along with huge clogs of self-doubt.

“We all had to start somewhere,” Kayelle told me in one of several helpful emails.

There it was again. Mentors Everywhere. They were on my laptop and my cellphone and anywhere else I was savvy enough to search them out and pay close attention to their sage advice. Four busy women, and many others also, took the time to share their experience. Now, my own experience is far more productive, satisfying and enjoyable than before they appeared.

Look around you. Check out the resources I’ve mentioned. Research and discover others. When you do, pay attention to what they teach you. Take notes. Follow through on their good advice. Because there are Mentors Everywhere.  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

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Rocket through the result of Alice’s mentoring. Take the thrill ride that is her latest story, A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. You can find all of Alice’s books HERE.

What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving.  “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.”
“Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.”
“The tension in this novel was through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“I never want an Alice Orr book to end.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

Plan a Blog Tour – My Five Tries to Learn How

Promo Tip,

Plan a blog tour? For way too long, I had no idea I was supposed to do such a thing, or what it might be. I stumbled upon the yahoo self-publish group and began lurking there. I was amazed and grateful for how much information writers share with each other. As a writer of small town romantic suspense, this site was an internship on my laptop, especially the internship in book marketing I desperately needed.

Still, nobody said, “Plan a blog tour,” in those particular words. I did find out about guest blogpost spots and that I needed to acquire some, which brought up a scary question. Why would anyone want me on their blog? Nobody knew who I was. I hadn’t written a novel in sixteen years, and this was the first book in my first series. The Riverton Road Romantic Suspense series. By now, I know I should tell you the title.

Back then, all I knew was that I could barely find the nerve to ask for posting spots. I was nowhere near the Plan a Blog Tour stage. I’d still never heard those words, but I was aware of how to say “Please.” I did a lot of that until, lo and behold, I had seven appointments with guest post destiny. Too bad I had almost no clue what to post.

On my own blog, I mostly scavenged my many years as a workshop leader for material on how to write novels and get them published. I might have done more of the same in my new guest role if a kindly author I met at a conference hadn’t taken pity on me and said, “You want readers to get to know you and your work.” I responded with something like, “Exactly,” so I wouldn’t come across as a total airhead. What I really wanted to do was kiss the pointy toes of her chic pumps in gratitude, but she’d already disappeared, probably in search of more savvy company.

Meanwhile, in her well-shod wake she’d left a valuable suggestion. I should write about my work, which I took very literally to mean my work process. “I can do that,” I told myself, then set out to write posts about how I wrote. My favorite result was “The Struggle to Escape Chapter Twenty-Nine,” which appeared on Elizabeth Meyette’s blog.

The title basically tells the tale. I was quite far along into the book, and I got stuck. I can be funny, so I peppered the post with humorous bits, but I came closest to what I now consider the Plan a Blog Tour lynchpin when I brought my hero into the post. His name was Matt Kalli, and he said, directly to me, “You have to make something happen here.”

I understood he was referring to Chapter Twenty-Nine of his story, A Wrong Way Home. I didn’t hear him also prodding me to make something happen in Plan a Blog Tour terms. Consequently, with Book 2, A Year of Summer Shadows, I continued to wander pretty much clue-free through the blogosphere. Until Maria Ferrer, a publishing maven who always steers me right, gave me some good guidance by getting me to post an actual excerpt from my book on her blog.

Unfortunately, Maria’s sage advice was forgotten by Book 3. A Vacancy at the Inn is a Christmas story, and Christmas is a heartwarming time. Therefore, I wrote heartwarming guest post recollections from my personal life, about my brother Michael making holiday gifts from found fragments, me discovering Grandma’s recipe for Dandelion Wine, and so on. Barbara White Daille’s blog featured “The Best New Year’s Ever,” about a triumphal moment in my breast cancer journey, but I wasn’t yet traveling the Plan a Blog Tour trail.

Finally, in the middle of guest posting for Book 4, A Villain for Vanessa, I was taught the most powerful Plan a Blog Tour lesson of all. “It’s about the book, stupid.” Kayelle Allen, the amazing founder of MFRW (Marketing for Romance Writers), is too gracious to use such harsh words, but her Romance Lives Forever blog made the truth vividly clear, even to dim-bulb me.

A survey of her site taught me how to Plan a Blog Tour by showing me the essence of what to post at every stop on my itinerary. Interviews about the book. Blurbs for the book. Anecdotes featuring the book. And excerpt, excerpts, excerpts from the book, which were the huge clue I should have retained from Maria Ferrer’s guidance two books ago. At last, my best writer brain was listening, and at longer last, I heard.

The blog tour now happening for Book 5, A Time of Fear & Loving – eleven guest posts from October 16th through 26th – is all about the book. Each post is an excerpt from the story with a provocative, attention-grabbing introduction. I am spotlighting each post across social media, like here on Facebook. Stop by and check out the evidence that, with a lot of help from my author friends, I have now learned how to Plan a Blog Tour.   Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

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After blog touring, take the thrill ride that is Alice’s latest story, A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. You can find all of Alice’s books HERE.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/