Encouragement

Hey guys and gals

So, I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

It's been HOT here in Dacusville.

Still, we BBQ'ed and it was delicious.

Now that the "free" time is over with, I guess I'm going back to work.  As soon as I can, I'll update on the particular projects I'm working on.  I think (or I hope, at least) everyone will be pleased when it comes out.

Have a fantastic Sunday!!!

Semi-update

First of all, I swear I have the most loyal readers in the world.  Many of you have emailed, facebooked, or tweeted me to see about my extended silence.

I am alive, never fear ;o).

Life, as usual, seems to have sidetracked me.  I get caught up in homeschooling my daughter, completing freelance work, and working on the latest novel to grace my desk.

But I know it gets frustrating to have blog-silence for so long, so I will attempt to amend that.

I'll post tomorrow about the various projects I'm working on--for those who are interested.  Until then, I bid you all a good day until we chat again tomorrow.

A post a little less on writing and a whole lot more on life...(warning, not suitable for children)

Some may have noticed the social media blackout on my part lately.

Whenever I'm mired in a project I try to avoid (not always successfully) anything like facebook, twitter, etc., because I'm super good at using any excuse to procrastinate.  (No, really, I absolutely must read every single blog in my blogroll before I can even hope to create something magical myself...)

I'm still mired in a project.  And I'm gearing up for the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers' Conference.  But so much has been happening lately in the news that I had to post something.

Little known fact:  While I always wanted to be a writer, I also wanted to be a lawyer.  I interned with attorneys in high school.  I was accepted to Rutgers University with an eye to eventually acquiring my law degree there.  The reason behind this is simple.  I'm a justice junkie.

My two uncles (my mother's brothers) were murdered in NC by a man named Clinton Ray Rose.  We found out the awful truth the day of my 6th birthday.  I learned then that some people are evil.  There's no excuse.  There's no mitigating factors. Clinton Ray Rose walked into the campground where my uncles were staying and shot them multiple times.  I read somewhere that it took my uncle Larry minutes to die.  My uncle Richard had an expensive ring on his finger that Clinton Ray Rose couldn't pry off--so the murderer cut off his victim's finger to slake his greed and acquire a new-to-him piece of jewelry.

The man was caught--for a large part--because he was seen around the campground after the murders wearing my uncles' clothes, holding on to their possessions.

Clinton Ray Rose sits on North Carolina's death row.

I'm not okay with that.

I'll be 29 this June.  Even in the long, drawn out appeals process, twenty-three years dodging a well-deserved lethal injection is ridiculous.

People seem to feel the need to make excuses for why they support the death penalty.  I don't.

I remember so clearly reading a piece my mother did for the paper during Rose's trial.  In it, she talked about how the defendant would look at her, at my grandmother, and smirk when he was in the courtroom.  Smirk.

And for those who would argue that life in prison is just as effective, I feel I have to point out that Rose has 22 infractions (with presumably more to come...) while in custody.  This is not a man for whom rehabilitation is working.

I beg you'll forgive me because I've spent more time on our family tragedy than I intended.  I wanted to reference the upcoming death vs. life debate in the Jodi Arias trial.  I wanted to talk about the mother who lives two miles down the road from me and shot her 5-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, and then her husband.  I was hoping, perhaps, that by blurting the painful thoughts out they'd lose a little of the power of despair both crimes have inspired in me.

I see perhaps now that thinking was foolish.

The Alexander family, the Arias family, and the Simpson family (the aforementioned mother...both children are with God now, and the husband remains in critical condition) are forever changed.  My family is forever changed.

I won't apologize for wanting the ultimate justice in each of these situations.

We're charged as Christians to forgive.  After 23 years, I'm still working on that for Mr. Rose.  I might have been a child and unaware of the more heinous aspects of his crime at the time.  But I've seen the ripples the violence has had ever since.  One moment can change the entire course of a life...of a family, of a community's life.

North Carolina appears to have an unofficial moratorium on carrying out death penalty sentences, and for the life of me, I can't help but imagine Clinton Ray Rose thinks about that every day...and probably smirks.  I hope if/when it finally happens that I can be there.  Not out of a morbid desire to watch a man die, but so that I can be the voice for those who have been untimely and cruelly silenced.

In the meantime, I know that my God is sovereign.  His forgiveness covers and expunges the most egregious and unthinkable of sins.  And He knows much better than I what it will take to heal the holes, the ragged places in the hearts of those who have been left behind while loved ones have passed on.

¹¹ Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. ¹² Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. ¹³ But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God. 

  Ecclesiastes 8:11-13 ESV

Our Regency Picture for the Day

Prince Regent, Future George IV / Prince régent, future George IV
by BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives

While, of course, I have never seen the Prince Regent--the ruler of England during the madness of King George III and before the man's death--I tend to believe this is a very flattering portrait.

Flattering and most likely inaccurate.

Many sources I've read on dear Prinny (as he was sometimes called by those close to him) indicate he would  not create a realistic portrait that was nearly as...well...unlike his corpulent self.

I suppose no one wanted to infuriate the almost-king by painting sometime realistic and lifelike.

Oh the days before photography...

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is the day impacts me the most during holy week.

Holy Saturday breaks my heart.

To even the most ardent, the most believing followers, Saturday had to look like the end of their world.  The man, the God-man they had listened to, abandoned all to take up their collective crosses and follow, was gone.  The stone stood firmly in place.  No sounds came from within the tomb.  Jesus was dead.

The disciples had anticipated Jesus would be an "earthly" king.  That he would vanquish the ruling Romans and lead the Jewish people in a long-awaited victory over their enemies.  Earthly kings aren't supposed to die.  They certainly aren't supposed to go without putting up an epic fight and killing thousands of shoulders with the power contained merely in his finger.  The meek, suffering Son of God they watched hang from the cross now truly seemed gone...without any intent to return.

Holy Saturday, to me at least, represents the darkest days in life.  Everything we've put our hope in has been ripped out from under us.  People we believed in have disappointed us.  Often it seems that God has broken his promise to give us life and give it to us abundantly.  The depressive pall that hangs over the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday permeates to this day.  We wander through life, feeling betrayed and leaderless.  What we believed in is gone.

We go to bed...expecting another day of grief ahead...

Fortunately, God wasn't/and still isn't through writing this story...

So, today, I'm going to use Holy Saturday as a day to come before God and be honest in my emotions, in my sorrows.  He knows them anyway, so hiding them from Him is pointless.  I'll lay my concerns at the foot of an empty cross, pouring out my heart and grief for the sins I've committed that made Calgary necessary in the first place.

But luckily, I've read the next page.  I know it doesn't end here.

And, tomorrow morning, my sorrows and sins will be cleansed by the blood of the cross.  And I'll celebrate a savior who loved me enough to endure a hell he, in his perfection, never deserved--but one he took in my place.

Sneak Peek into a New Project

Today's post is brought to you by unarguably the most talented member of the Goff house.

My five-year-old daughter Brie.

Like Mommy, she wants to be a writer.  Unlike me, she's not going to write romance...because, in her words, "Romances are boring and ridiculous."

So, she'll be writing unicorn epic novels.

Here's Brie's current WIP (which will be published under the pen-name Brie Celt--because my maiden name of Kellett is really tricky for a five-year-old to sound out ;o)

Brie's pushing for me to send this off to my agent to see if he'll considering repping it.  Honestly, I'm afraid she'd outpace me in sales by the end of the year.  Who can resist a delightful unicorn story?

Should I be offended that she wants to distance herself from me and my "boring...ridiculous" romances by taking on a pseudonym?

Welcome to 2013...almost three months later

Hope everyone is having a fantastic year thus far.  That you've conquered every resolution you made three-months ago.  Perhaps that you've even begun a new P90X lifestyle.  That when you step outside, it rains money one you (bills, of course.  I think coins would probably cause more concussions than they would pay for).

I've been remiss in chatting with you all.  (Well, isn't THAT a surprise? ;o)

Suddenly, I find myself with a bit more free time, so I'm making my fabulous readers one of my number one priorities--and not in the way that I make laundry a "No. 1 priority," which is that I keep promising to do it and then...okay, nevermind.

I'm thinking that I'm going to (possibly this evening if I work up the motivation) get you guys to pick out the next hero and heroine I'll be working on.  I'll post various pics (feel free to email or post comments of your suggestions), and we'll open the floor for discussion.  It's really helping me out as I haven't quite been able to pin down exactly how these two look.  So, for helping, I'll do something fun on here for everyone...giveaways, guest posts, etc.

Until then, I'm curious to hear what you guys want to hear.  More of my delightful grumbling about the writing process ;o)?  More of my tips and hard-earned experience (which may or may not be accurate...read at your own risk...)  Or just an assortment of hysterical happenings from my daily life? (Okay, yeah, I don't blame you guys for not wanting that one).  Just let me know either in comments or email.

Lucky Number Ten

Hey everyone!

I know it's been quite a while since I last posted.  That's simply because our lives have been rather chaotic with post-surgery stuff, collapsing lungs, and pneumonia...but God has been merciful, and Daniel now appears truly on the mend.

So first, I want to thank you all for your prayers.  Your words of kindness, of consolation, of encouragement have meant more to me than I could ever aptly express.

Along with the stress, however, there has certainly been excitement.  And again, I owe my gratitude to all my readers.

Family Fiction Magazine in their Mar/Apr edition listed me as one of the "Top Ten Essential Voices in Regency Romance."

Then, for Family Fiction's Readers' Choice Awards, (listed in the May/Jun edition) I was listed in the Top Ten list for "New Author of the Year."

So, since I was 10th on both lists, I'm thinking I might have a new lucky number on my hands here ;o).

Now, i'm hoping everyone will forgive me for being slack in responding to messages, or sending out promised packages, etc.  I'm getting back on schedule, and hopefully, I'll have everything caught up in the next week or so.

Until my next post, I just want to say THANK YOU again.

I truly have the BEST readers in the world!

Launch Party for Engaging the Earl

Hi everyone!

I'm writing this from the waiting room at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.  Today is my husband's major surgery to have his first rib resected (don't ask, even explaining it makes me cringe) and to replace the main vein in his chest because its been damaged by being pinched and having the blood clots.

So, since I have Wi-Fi and some extra time (and a ridiculous amount of nervous energy), I'm posting about the launch party coming up this Saturday, March 10th, 2012 for my newest Regency Inspirational romance, Engaging the Earl.

Here's the official press release from Fiction Addiction:  LAUNCH PARTY AND BOOK SIGNING

And here are the details below:

What:  Launch Party and Book Signing for Engaging the Earl by Mandy Goff

When:   March 10, 2012 from 5pm-7pm

Where:  Fiction Addiction
             1020 Woodruff Rd.
              Greenville, SC

Contact Info:  If you have any questions, call Fiction Addiction at 864-675-0540 or email at info@fiction-addiction.com.
                      Or feel free to email me at MandyKGoff@gmail.com

Copies of Engaging the Earl will be sold for $5.75.  If you would like an autographed copy but are unable to come to the party, please email me or contact Jill at Fiction Addiction.

I hope all can attend!  Everyone is welcome, and there will be cake and punch provided.
             

Epilogue has been combined

Hi everyone!

Just a note to tell everyone that the epilogue for The Blackmailed Bride can be found via a page link at the top of this blog.  Where there were two parts and two separate pages previously, I combined them for ease of viewing.

An update on everything (writing/personal/etc) will be coming later today.

Thanks again for all the prayers!

And finally...Epilogue, Part II

Below is the link for Part II of the Epilogue for The Blackmailed Bride.

Hope you all enjoy!


Part II of Epilogue for The Blackmailed Bride


And if you missed the first part of the Epilogue, the link for that is below:


Part I for Epilogue of The Blackmailed Bride

Slight Delay

First, I would like to apologize for not having Part II of the Epilogue to The Blackmailed Bride posted already.

As those of you who follow me on twitter or on Facebook might know, since the beginning of the year, my husband has been struggling with having both a blood clot in his arm and one in his shoulder/chest. This, of course, has resulted in several surgeries, an extended stay in ICU, and basically mass chaos at our house while we wait for these clots to dissolve.

We discovered earlier this week that my husband is being sent to the Medical University here in SC (about 3+ hours away from our home), so my life has been in a bit of an uproar, trying to pack enough clothes for an indefinite period of time, making sure to spend plenty of time with my four-year-old daughter who will be staying behind with my sister while we are gone, and basically trying to make sure I have everything done before we leave.

So, I heartily apologize for not having the second part of the epilogue posted yet. That is my priority either as the last thing I do when I go to bed tonight, or the first bit of business in the morning. Fortunately, the hard work is already completed; I just have to do a proof before I post it.

But to all my fans/readers, I apologize for being off my game.

But I would ask that you keep my husband and family in your thoughts and prayers. From what I understand, the surgery he is having done is very risky and rare (only about 15 of them done a year in the whole country). And while I am not a person that usually vents all the "woe-is-me" moments in my life online, I am hoping that you will all join me in believing for the best!

And Part II of the Epilogue to follow...promise =)

((Also, I understand that some members of the LIH bookclub have already received their copies of Engaging the Earl. While I mentioned it in the "Dear Author" letter, I just want to reiterate that I welcome ALL feedback. You can reach me through the various methods on the "Contact Me" page at the top of the screen, or you can send an email to mandy@mandygoff.com.

Epilogue for The Blackmailed Bride (First Installment)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

In honor of this day of love, I've been authorized to post an epilogue to my first Love Inspired Regency, The Blackmailed Bride.

Since I can't be too sweet, however, (it goes against my nature ;o), I'll be posting the epilogue in two installments. (Got to do something to keep the suspense up, after all).

Below is the link to the static page with the first installment. Watch for the second installment coming later today!


Epilogue for The Blackmailed Bride, Part I


Enjoy!

Trailer for Engaging the Earl

Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.

The Synopsis: My Nemesis

I like to think that somewhere, there exists a support group for people like me. People who would rather peel off their fingernails one-by-one than work on writing a synopsis. Or perhaps, I'm just being melodramatic.

I don't know what it is. I appreciate the function the synopsis serves. I admire a finely constructed summary that encapsulates the driving points of a novel. But I absolutely hate having to write one for myself.

Maybe the problem is I'm too much of a "write as you go" sort. I'll have a general outline in mind, but it's not until I put pen to paper that the story really fleshes out in my mind. When "in the zone," I've topped out at 15,000 words in a day. So why is it taking me weeks to come up with a synopsis that doesn't make me want to puke when I read over it?

Anyone with synopsis-writing coping mechanisms? Some jewels of wisdom for the journey? Commiseration, perhaps?

What part of the process do you find most difficult?

Writing Wisdom Wednesday: Mechanics Matter

As writers, we have a lot to think about.

Crafting beautiful imagery.

Creating believable characters.

Spinning dramatic storylines.

Maintaining an authentic voice.

And the list goes on.

One of the most important elements of creating notable fiction (and nonfiction) is utilizing proper mechanics.

Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most frequently overlooked pieces of the writing puzzle.

Now, someone out there is laughing at me. (Probably my sister…stop it Meg!) And that’s because my turbulent relationship with the comma is fairly well documented. Pull any essay from my Freshman year of college and you’ll wonder why I didn’t drop out of the English program and become an accounting major instead (I’m even worse at Math, unfortunately).

The day I got back the first essay of my college career, I was confused by the big letter at the top of the page.

D.

Contrary to my first thought, it didn’t stand for Delightful.

Then, as though I wasn’t devastated enough, my professor informed me that the paper “should have been an A. But your mechanics were awful.” I’ll admit it…they were atrocious. However, it does take a special kind of skill to make 28 mechanical errors in about 3 pages.

I’d like to say that I learned from my (grammatical) mistakes immediately, but that would be a lie.

I went from acing high-school papers to being thisclose to failing. And I had as many excuses as I had misplaced commas.

I was taught to put a comma wherever you would take a breath if you said the sentence aloud. And I’m an asthmatic. So I take breaths A LOT.

Okay, maybe I can’t punctuate to save my life. But the content is sound. And that makes it okay. Content’s the point, right?

It’s a stylistic decision. “Once you know the rules you can break them.” Isn’t that what they say? Well, that’s just how I roll.

But that was the problem. I didn’t know the rules at all. And all the superb content in the world wasn’t going to get me an A on a paper as long as I was incapable of mastering the fundamentals of the craft.

The same applies to writing fiction. So, since I love lists almost as much as I love comma splices, I’ve compiled a couple of grammatical DON’TS.

1) Don’t underestimate the value of proper grammar. I’ve often heard about managers who will discard the application of a highly qualified candidate based on errors in the cover letter. I’m assuming for some, at least, the publishing industry has similar standards. The competition for aspiring writers is stiff. Don’t let something as fixable as bad mechanics kill your chances.

2) Don’t assume that whatever you have to say is so brilliant that your creativity and artistry will outshine your lack of technical precision. Improper punctuation can render the most powerful and moving prose confusing and nonsensical.

3) Don’t trust that Word’s Spelling/Grammar check can do the do the job for you. While I’d probably get sued if I said that the Grammar check is designed to exponentially increase the number of errors in your document, I will—from personal experience—suggest that you not hinge your story’s grammatical success or failure on the recommendations of a computer.

4) Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you don’t have to employ proper mechanics because “that’s an editor’s job.” If I hadn’t learned how to properly insert a comma, it’s unlikely my manuscript would have even been considered for publication. While I’ve never been an editor, so I can’t speak with certainty, but I would imagine that lack of attention to the technical business of writing comes off as laziness or ignorance. Besides, editors are extremely busy people (something I didn’t fully appreciate until I saw the publishing process from start to finish). Editors probably don’t mind clearing out the occasional slip up or typo, but their time is too limited to worry about teaching writers how to write.

I’m sure there are more points to make about the importance of grammar. But frankly, I’ve rambled on longer than I intended. In closing, however, I will assure you that it’s not impossible to become a Grammar Superstar. Is learning about it fun? No, not really. Can employing it be a pain? Absolutely. Will you find grammatical errors in this post? Perhaps if you look closely.

But if you do, remember, the mistakes are intentional. Again, that’s just how I roll.

Checking in on the Go...

We've now got a mobile template for this site!

So now, you can check in and see what's happening from your cell without having to deal with pages being too large to load, font being too small, etc.

Yay for technology.

And tune in tomorrow (from your phone if you like!) for Writing Wisdom Wednesday on Friday (running behind this week...surprise, surprise...)

What's on the playlist Friday

Another song that I enjoy listening to while I work--especially in the sentimental, drippy-emotional scenes!

Writing Wisdom Wednesday: Finding your voice

“A writer's voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more.
A writer's voice, like the stroke of an artist's brush,
is the thumbprint of her whole person,
her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms."--Patricia Lee Gauch

After I graduated with my B.A. in English, I was at a loss for what to do with myself. I knew I wanted to write, but that was accompanied by a restless sense of not knowing what the next move should be. So, approaching the dilemma from a scholarly angle, I decided I would go get my MFA in creative writing.

So I picked out my top school and began to prep the required application materials. After writing my first piece of short fiction, a piece I knew would swing wide the doors to this prestigious program, I sent it to my former advisor (and now VBFF).

I was shocked at her response.

“Umm, Mandy…what was that?”

At first, I assumed she was in awe of my fiction-writing ability. While she had been my professor for numerous writing courses, Cheryl had only read my creative non-fiction. Perhaps she was dazzled by the brilliance of my work.

Yeah…that wasn’t it. At all.

The piece was a disaster. It was pretentious, abstract, and…awful. I had written what I thought would be impressive to the admissions board. I stifled my own voice for the sake of adopting someone else’s.

A while back, I wrote about the importance of being yourself as a writer. So to build on that concept, today, I’m going to give four practical tips to help you find your writing voice. Now, as a preface, let me say that there is no foolproof way of finding/developing your voice...so these tips are just things I think will aid you in the journey to discovering who you are as a writer.

1) Read.

Read everything you can get your hands on. The best writers are usually avid readers. Read your favorite authors; figure out what it is about their way of writing that entertains you. Read some authors you can’t stand. Try to pinpoint what you would do differently to make the story they’re telling more appealing to you. Use this as a way to strength your own writing.

A word of caution here: The point of this part of the process is not to find someone whose style you can copy. Readers can tell if your voice is authentic or is a pale imitation of someone else’s.

2) Analyze your personality traits.

Are you witty? Serious? Talkative? Introverted?

If you’re not certain, ask your friends how they would describe you.

This step may seem silly, or unnecessary, but understanding your personality is an important step to finding your voice. The way you are in real life is going to manifest in your writing. For example, my talkative nature tends to crop up in my writing as wordiness. I never use only three words when I can describe something in twenty. So I know I'll never write like Hemingway, who never uses more than like 5 words in a sentence.

3) Read what you’ve already written.

Go through previous stories, essays, etc. that you’ve written. If you’re new to the writing world and are trying to find your voice, go through anything you can get your hands on, journal entries, even old emails. Also, pay attention to how you verbalize information…how you relay a story to a friend.

This step is important because it gives you the opportunity to read how you write when you’re not worried about how it’s going to be perceived by an audience (or an admissions board!). Perhaps you’ll realize that you’re incapable of using words with less than four syllables. Maybe you’ll discover that you tend to address any issue with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Whatever it is, the traits you’ll find are your best tools to building your own authentic voice.

4) Write.

Always the most important part of being a writer!

To quote the cliché, “Practice makes perfect.” And practicing writing makes for a polished voice as well. So, write, write, write. And when you’re sick of writing, do it some more!

There's my advice (for what it's worth) on finding your voice. And I have to say, I never did apply to that school. Instead, I worked on fiction that I loved, that was me. And while I may not have an MFA, I have to say, I'm not disappointed at how everything ended up!

So what about you? Any struggles finding your voice? Any tips on getting there?