First Word

Who likes change? Most people shy away from change, and for good reason. It can feel nebulous and scary. I've been going through a number of changes. I've felt really off-balance most of the time. I started to pull inward (and to my friends who noticed, sorry it's not personal). Pulling inward has a lot to do with personal healing. Expending energy outside of myself, became difficult. I had to pull in toward my reserves, meditate, ground and find my center. I had some amazing spiritual revelations over the weekend. And when I say amazing, I really mean mind-boggling. I won't say specifically what those were other than they are personal and profound. I did come to this point in the road where the word "unconditional" resonated. In healing myself, I realized that to be connected to the outer world again, I need to learn not to put "conditions" on things, not to place expectations, and certainly not to demand. And when I say this, I mean not just on oth...

I actually slept in until 10:00 a.m. here. Are you shocked or what? I slept 12 full hours! Why is this so thrilling? Well, I've spent my forties with horrible insomnia. For me to be able to not only fall asleep but stay asleep is a wonderful relief! If you have insomnia then you know what I'm talking about. Being in Southern California also killed my allergies. I walked around with a perpetual sinus infection in Sacramento -- land of trees and pollen. Now that I am living in what is essentially a concrete jungle, I am no longer struggling. I hate to say it, but that alone might be worth the move. The only downside is not being able to regularly hit Tre Bella Spa in Auburn and see Cheryl Mullick for raindrop treatments that keep my arthritis and my overall health in check. I am a wee bit concerned about that one. My hand is bothering me a bit, and I haven't had any problems in two years. So, I am going to make it my mission to get back up north soon and see Cheryl. If you...

All right, so we've had over 400 views on the California Girl Chronicles trailer. I need to keep promoting it, so please make sure you cl ick here to view it. It's hot! and sexy!  The following is an excerpt for the second book in the series, Brea's Big Break. Enjoy! Book two is set to release in summer 2012. Kale soon returned to Arizona for more on-set work. Other staffers from the office went with him so the place was quiet. I didn’t mind. I was able to get a lot of work done, and believe me, the pile of notes for rewrites had only grown. I’d heard, though, that they were actively casting the movie and that Johnny, the hot man I’d met in the hallway, had won the Drew part. As I rewrote Drew’s scenes, I wondered if he would see the movie. It occurred to me as I wrote the female lead that her words might make him feel the least bit repentant, but somehow I doubted it since Drew never expressed remorse. I was staring out my office window thinking about this when I h...

It's Friday morning ... I need something new to obsess over with ya-all. Seriously, I haven't been out networking much lately and just hanging with the masses typically gives me plenty of fodder to chew on.  I definitely have an itch to have some serious fun. Maybe it's time to call a girlfriend and go out and paint the town. I mean, I'm living in Marina del Rey after all. I can certainly find something I'm sure to entertain myself with. I hate it, too, when I'm not my cantankerous self. Lately, life has gotten much too serious. I need a big giggle-fest. You can't cage a butterfly for too long! Just saying!! I am also looking into starting a new writer's group down here, but I need to find a consistent venue where they don't charge. The joy of the group is the whole let's just get together and discuss our favorite topics. If you live in Southern California and you have a venue to offer, send me an email at info@3LPublishing.com. I did finish th...

I don't watch very much television. I love HBO on Sunday nights, but right now the choices outside of the new show VEEP seem like slim pickings. Speaking of VEEP , I have to say the scene where Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character does the best "WTF" contortion and tosses the coffee was classic. Her comedic timing was outrageously perfect and proves her physical comedy is brilliant. I loved it. If you haven't seen VEEP yet, I recommend you take a peek at it. The awful show Girls , on the other hand, is very likely to find its way into my "don't-watch" list. My friend and associated Sonja Fisher was over last night, and she was showing me how to DVR (yes, I am not DVRing), and I told her she had to watch the awful sex scene in the opening of Girls' second episode. I put it on for her to watch, and the look of horror on her face closely mirrored my own the first time I watched it. She said and I quote, "That's not even funny? Why is this thing...

I had the most amazing conversation with a children's book author. We are both about the same age, and she was divorced and on the dating scene. We were talking about some pretty personal stuff, but she gave the best advice about being newly divorced and dating again. First and foremost, she advised me to have fun. The cliche "life's too short" applies here. Then she looked at me and told me something really spot on. She said, "Just let your legs dangle. Hang from the air and don't know if you're going to fall or not. Be uncomfortable!" I absolutely loved her advise. She's right! Sometimes we all just need to let our legs dangle, feel afraid of heights, and just go with it. She reminded me that nothing is promised and guaranteed. You never know what comes next. You might try and control everything around you. You might try and find all of those guarantees, but ultimately you can't know. Her advise really means to relish and enjoy the unknown ...

I think when you watch a sex scene it's supposed to at least be sexy and not sort of make you grimace. On last night's episode of the new HBO show Girls , it opened with the possibly the unsexiest sex scene I've ever watched. Last week, I let you know that while this show is the critic's darling, I wasn't overwhelmed with its appeal. In my quest to give it a second chance, I watched the second episode. Here is how it opened: boyfriend is pounding (and I mean pounding ) Hannah. As usual, she doesn't come across like she's enjoying this. He is saying all sorts of unappealing fantasy stuff to her, and at one point, he takes his hand and smashes her face to the side. I was not the least turned on. I was completely disgusted, and my first thought was, "That was completely unappealing." He disrespects and degrades her. She degrades herself, too. I didn't see the exact point except to show young women what? Don't let your boyfriend behave this way...

Why should you sign up for something like a screenwriter's workshop or hire a script coach? I always like to tell new writers that they really only have five pages (it's supposed to be 10 pages ... but the truth is most readers only last through five pages) to capture the reader's attention. If you blow the first 10 pages, you're completely out of the game. And what are those pages supposed to contain? You can mess up so many different elements in your script and be immediately eliminated as a prospect before you've even had a just to shine. Issues with even something as simple as formatting communicate to the reader. If you don't know formatting, what it immediately says is you don't know what you're doing. Again, you're eliminated before you have even had a chance to have the script read. Many writers might argue it seems ridiculous to be shut out of the game with a reader not even reading the story. Well, it doesn't matter what you think about...

I am sleeping regularly again! Imagine that one! I know I have some other insomniacs who have commented on my late-night posts in which I have consistently whined about my inability to sleep. It started about eight years ago, and I recently made some major changes in my life that to my utter delight are producing the ability to sleep. Is it complete exhaustion? It's possible since I've been slightly overwhelmed almost every day. Is it happiness and peace of mind? That's possible, too, since these changes involve a lot of transitions in some very positive directions. Even with my workload being a little over the top, I have started to find a lot of peace. The real lesson here: if you have unresolved issues in your life maybe it's time to resolve them. I do believe that the resolution, actions to change my life, and forward motion are what have brought me a great deal of peace. Unanswered and unresolved questions tend to hang out in our minds like uninvited interlopers. I...

You can always tell how much sex a writer gets by how much they write about it in their novels. I can honestly say that George R.R. Martin is a complete and utter virgin. ~ Davidson Howarth I thought this would make a great blog topic and definitely in line with the psychology of the author influencing the page. I took a class on this once in college. The idea is that our psyche influences our work either consciously or unconsciously. I laughed when I read my fellow author Davidson's post, because, of course, what would this make me when I have a book ( California Girl Chronicles ) loaded with sexual content? I figured at least the literary equivalent to a slut LOL. I think the truth is that writers aren't going to write about something they are not interested in or that they don't think makes a great story. I suppose I wasn't going to write a contemporary romance in a culture where no one has sex or is not interested in sex. Mind you, 70 percent, according to a medi...

So my favorite Swedish delight Alexander Skarsgard has repeatedly acknowledged that he could be unemployed as quickly as he has been employed (see Wet Paint article). He has said this in dozens of interviews in just different quotes and ways to acknowledge what happens in La La Land with the meteoric rise of stars and the often disappointing and unceremonious crash to "planet reality". Now here is what Skarsgard is doing right that will make it much less likely that he will find his career nothing but a crater pit. He has focused more on quality than quantity, having starred in some terrific indie flicks including Melancholia and the okay Straw Dogs .  Outside of the mega popcorn flick Battleship, he returns to smaller and more artistic fare with the release of What Maisie Knew , The East and Disconnect -- all of which sound immensely interesting. I even saw a picture where he padded up in an ugly "gut" suit for Disconnect , which demonstrates his complete lack ...

You know running a business can often be fraught with mayhem. I think, though, now things are a little more organized and running and smoothly -- especially since my new operations manager, Bo Bradley took over the 3L Publishing functions that I hate to do. Well, my last person who sat in the chair that Bo now occupies did not post the California Girl Chronicles title correctly in the distributor Bakers and Taylor catalog of titles, which equals disaster on sales. The bookstores didn't have the correct information. I was slightly distraught when no orders came in and I couldn't understand why until Bo informed me of the huge  and costly mistake (this among some other egregious and costly mistakes ... ah, the perils of business). Well, now that the problem has been rectified, we finally received our first official bookstore order. It was a higher than average number! Now it makes sense. California Girl Chronicles has always, in my opinion, been the type of book that if you pu...

So I need to revise the California Girl Chronicles script ... why haven't I done it yet? Well, let's see how many distractions can I come up with? Oh, yeah, I run 3L Publishing and have five books running in parallel. Okay, that is a serious distraction that has to be attended to. I'm plugging along yesterday and got an enormous amount of work done ... wait! A pile of laundry ... can't leave that be. And now my laundry room is across from my office so that is going to be a constant reminder to just pile it in. Now since I finally relented to the texting revolution every single of one of my friends texts me. Now I am answering emails AND texts. Did I tell you I pride 3L's reputation on quick response times? Yes, we guarantee a response within 24 hours and typically I keep my email open on my desk so I can respond within the hour. Customer service is critical, and my clients feel they have my full attention when I respond to their needs right away. Now what? All rig...

I watched Girls last night on HBO with high hopes. It was positioned as the new Sex in the City series about four girls living in New York. The reviews were great! I thought, "Finally! A new Sunday night show for my viewing pleasure!" Well, I am sad to say that I found Girls a moping, depressing, self-entitled mess. The jokes weren't funny. The main character Hannah, a slightly overweight moping case of the millennial generation, was just everything I described. She debases herself with her loser boyfriend who doesn't text her or call her for that matter. She just drops in on him, and he then proceeds to eventually demoralize her in a bad sex position that looked terribly unsexy. If she was enjoying anything, it sure didn't come across that way. She talks a lot and spends most of the episode sort of everyone's dumping ground except for her roommate which she has an odd intimacy with down to the two of them in the bathroom together and even sleeping in the s...

Tonight the new series Girls airs on HBO, and I will take time out of my busy work to take a look. This series follows young women (who think it's okay to be called "girls" is this post modern feminist world) as they struggle in New York City (a la Sex in the City with no budget for shoes) to establish their careers. These girls are not sexy, but more your average and perhaps not particularly attractive group. The main lead actress is slightly pudgy and definitely nothing to turn heads. From the trailer, she comes across as sardonic and sarcastic. I will watch the show with an open mind and see if I like it. This continues the season of the great flawed female characters, which my heroine in California Girl Chronicles falls into that category for sure. My young California Girl though is attractive and possibly not real, but she definitely faces real problems we can all relate to. I had a 19-year-old girl at the convention pick up the book and turn to page one and laug...

That's one crazy pirate! Once more reporting from the floor of the last day of the RT Booklovers Convention. The big book fair with the likes of mega author stars like Charlaine Harris, my favorite book series Sookie Stackhouse, and Anne Rice among others are here signing today. Also, among the crowd of interesting characters, we have a pirate running around posing for pictures. Since I could barely look at him without cracking up, I couldn't bring myself to pose, but I did snap off this funny shot (enjoy). Other crazy characters are running around, too, and there are over 600 attendees running around. We are hoping to get at least 20% of these readers to purchase my book California Girl Chronicles so we come home empty handed. I would also go get the new Charlaine Harris book except I would have to stand in line with like 200 people, and I'm just not quite devoted enough. Although it would be great to have her new book to read on the plane ride home. I am also excited...

I am once more reporting from the RT Booklovers Convention floor, and people openly and freely talk all around me. Here are two classic lines overheard in a really loud conversation. "I have always married older men," and "We were out with a bunch of swingers." I am telling you friends, I am so vanilla wafer, and as Bo now says, "VW". Since when is it commonplace to discuss multiple marriages and swinging like I said yesterday it's what you ate for breakfast? And since it is breakfast time here in Chicago, this was their actual breakfast conversation. I don't know whether I'm shocked that they said it all blase or that they discussed it in their booth space ... loudly. Whatever happened to boundaries or just why are we talking about such personal information so out in the open? I am just saying ... totally VW. And here I thought that being a somewhat liberal Californian that I was adventurous and fun. Hmm ... maybe not so much. And these people...

So I am at the RT Booklovers Convention, and I am laughing and listening and taking it all in. I am surrounded by authors and readers, and friends the things I've heard this week ... where do I get started? Okay, here is today's funny, "Every writer needs a pirate dictionary." All right I had no idea that as a writer I needed a pirate dictionary. What have I been missing out on all of these years? Now I must rush an order on Amazon for sure. "One pirate dictionary, please." Then I ran into two guys in the lobby yesterday where one was teasing the other about his "Texan" friend texting him so much. He says, "Yeah, ride 'em cowboy!" I was leaning over getting coffee and glanced at them. The guy says, "Oh no! She heard us. He's straight." Yeah, right! Like my dear friend texted me, "Like a wet noodle!" Speaking of friends, don't you love it when your friends are funny, too! Lots of funny texts going back and f...

After getting over the overwhelm of walking into a crowded convention and having no idea where to go, I started to settle down and look around. I had to grin as I realized that it is always smart to reach out to your target audience. This place is teaming with thousands of romance readers hungry for the next big thing. Of course, I am more than happy to supply them a copy of my contemporary romance book California Girl Chronicles . All of you authors or even business people who sell products take heed. Nothing is better or smarter than to go right to your consumer. I am constantly telling people (especially on social media to target, target, target). Find a convention or event that puts you right in front of your target audience and let the sales begin. I am confident we are going to have great success selling the book and meeting prospective authors, too. We are on publisher's row, which means people will be inspecting and considering us as publishers. If you need help marketing o...

Today's reaction to once more celebrities and people in general who cannot keep anything at all to themselves is Rihanna's public confessions of "crushing" on both Liam Neeson and Alexander Skarsgard. I don't know about you but when I had a crush on people, I didn't tell everyone in the press (or my every friend). I find that kind of embarrassing. Why in the world do people famous or not need to verbally vomit their innermost thoughts all over the place. Can someone like Rihanna enjoy her crushes and keep it private? Or is it yet another publicity stunt to get press ... or both. I know I keep going on about this on the blog, but I am awed by the fact that so many people just don't keep their private thoughts private anymore. Isn't it kind of fun to have a little "secret" all your own? I mean, Rihanna might as well scream across the high school gymnasium, "Hey! Alexander you're hot!" And isn't that almost akin to a cat call b...

Are you an aspiring screenwriter eager to learn from a real professional how to transform your ideas into words that eventually light up the silver screen? Scott D. Roberts, writer, producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary, “Gas Hole,” narrated by Peter Gallagher among his dozens of other screenwriting credits, is coming to Roseville to host a screenwriting workshop titled “How to Write Screenplays that Sell.” The workshop is scheduled for May 10 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., 3721 Douglas Blvd., Roseville, CA 95661. Roberts will walk the class through an information-packed workshop designed to help writers adapt books into scripts or write original screenplays. “How many times have you said, ‘I have a great idea for a movie?’ This workshop will allow you to take it from idea to reality,” he said. “There is definitely a blueprint that studio executives follow, and I will help map out your blueprint.” Roberts’ workshop will cover: •     ...

I am very, very fortunate in that I am working with a tremendously talented individual to get the California Girl Chronicles pilot into shape. I just read the notes on it, and I have to say, it's a completely different take on what I wrote -- and that is a good thing. The one thing I learned a long time ago, know what you don't know and learn! Sometimes as we become more experienced with our writing and hone our skills, we get a little self-satisfied. You think, hey I've published some 35 books and sold two scripts. I should know this stuff already. Well, only a person with a lot of hubris and major ego thinks there is nothing else to learn. I used to play that game "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" (the board version) with my family and consistently won. No, not because I knew all of the answers. I knew I didn't know and was willing to admit it, and since I was playing against folks who actually might have had more knowledge, but who didn't know when to j...

I just read in Play magazine some of Alexander Skarsgard's comments on the need for privacy. In this social media saturated world we now live in, our every thought, craving or idiosyncrasy can be revealed to the world. You don't have to be a famous movie star interviewed in major magazines to tell the entire world your inner-most private world. You can blog about it, post it on Twitter or Facebook, or heck just write a newsletter and send it out. It's easy enough to reveal your privacy to the world in this technology era where instant gratification takes on a whole new meaning. Let me caution you, though. Do you really want the entire world to know everything about you, including what you ate for breakfast? Do you really want a prospective employer to see you dancing drunk on tables? Does that leave a good impression? Probably not! Here is the deal, you don't need to tell the world everything! Keep some of it for yourself. Enjoy that you can still have a private life....

I was quoted last year in Success Magazine for having said that very phrase. Opportunities present themselves all of the time to us. We have to decide yes or no. I have noticed most people (based on fear) will say no. The average person is risk-adverse and won't dive in the deep end of the pool. I spent the first 20 years of my career being risk-adverse and saying no about 90 percent of the time. In 2006, my "adverse" nature changed almost overnight. I am one of these people who stews on visions for a long time. What happens is an idea takes root, and I visually start to see it happening in my mind's eye. While on the surface some of my decisions seem sudden, I can assure you nothing ever happens on impulse here. I have been considering it for a good long time, and then what happens is the opportunity to seize the day knocks! In the past, I wouldn't have "answered the door." Now that I have learned to live fearlessly when the chance to go forward with a...

Some writers are natural-born storytellers and very good at translating their thoughts onto the page. I recently got to read a true professional's screenplays. I noticed something about the writing that stood out. Now I have read more scripts and manuscripts than I can count. When I read this writer's work, I was impressed and struck by a clear and distinct rhythm or "beat" to his ability to tell the story. It was in musical terms "pitch perfect," and as educated reader it stood out in an organic and unforced way. It is really hard to explain without showing an example, and it's not the sort of thing a simple example will explain anyway. I will try though. Each of the acts of the screenplay had a natural progression like going over a bell curve. As you "drove" up and over the curve, each point was punctuated right where it should be. I would say it's almost like building up to a mini-climax of sorts and then coming back down, but that is no...

A few days without a cable hook-up and I was forced to dig into my DVD collection for entertainment. I decided to go back to season 1 of True Blood and re-watch. Since I really only like the Eric Northman/Sookie Stackhouse romance, it meant having to endure the original Bill/Sookie romance. I have to say the initial heat between the couple was there, but then you know Bill turned into such a controlling ass and got all paternal and "protective" to the point where you really started to dislike his treatment of Sookie as if she were a child. It's also pretty interesting reflecting on the show through the lens of the proceeding seasons that revealed Bill's true intentions from day one, which were not so honorable in that Queen Sophie Anne sent Bill to procure her. Then you have Eric Northman's interest in her and the difference in how he treats her. He lets her speak for herself and make her own decisions. He doesn't try to control her and he respects her. For t...

Sorry Friend-Os ... I have been offline moving my office to Marina del Rey, home of beautiful spring weather and cool ocean breezes! I am one block from the marina and ocean -- pretty cool! I have just moved through yet another reinvention. I would say this reinvention is my third major change in six years. Some people resist change and think it's scary. Not me! Once I form a bold, clear vision (see my book Second Bloom on the 3L website under books ), I go for it. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of time to formulate how I want to go forward. Both my personal and professional lives have been drastically altered! I am moving forward full steam ahead, and I intend to network and dig in deep in Southern California. One thing I'll share is that the process of change can be unpleasant, but then the net results are often well worth it. Now 3L Publishing can expand its reach even further. We still have our operations manager Bo Bradley running the Sacramento office and doing h...

Ah, HBO is whetting our appetites for more True Blood , and yesterday they released a new trailer with ... egad the actors in it ( click here ). Yes, of course, I watched it. And I've read the books, too. So I could sort of tell between the spoilers and books what might be going on this fine season. If you hate spoilers, stop here. All right so we have some digging going on! Let's bet on one of two things. Tara is getting turned OR they are burying Debbie Pelt's body OR both. Remember in the books, they bury Debbie's body on Sookie's property. I would imagine we might have a little of that going on. I do thinking turning Tara is the most obvious choice, so I'm sure the writers are more imaginative than to take the most in-your-face road with that storyline ... or I could be wrong. Sometimes the obvious choice is great when you have plenty of exciting storyline to explore from it. Watching the ultra-angry Tara act on her "nature" might be extremely int...

The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming book, California Girl Chronicles: Brea's Big Break. It will be on sale on the 3L website in limited supply in the next several days.  5 Kale soon returned to Arizona for more on-set work. Other staffers from the office went with him so the place was quiet. I didn’t mind. I was able to get a lot of work done, and believe me, the pile of notes for rewrites had only grown. I’d heard, though, that they were actively casting the movie and that Johnny, the hot man I’d met in the hallway, had won the Drew part. As I rewrote Drew’s scenes, I wondered if he would see the movie. It occurred to me as I wrote the female lead that her words might make him feel the least bit repentant, but somehow I doubted it since Drew never expressed remorse. I was staring out my office window thinking about this when I heard a voice come from behind me. “ Are you busy?” I turned around to find Monica standing in the doorway, which surprised me since she...

I figured right from the beginning of the trailers for Battleship that my favorite actor Alexander Skarsgard would not last the entire film. Now other reviewers are suggesting the same thing ( click here ). Why did I think this? Because the star of the film is consistently in the trailer and there is a scene where they supposedly blew an air cannon right at Skarsgard's face. Since we didn't get to see much of him in the rest of the clips (well, no appearances at all), I just put two and two together, which equals someone kicks off. Now I'm slightly annoyed at this prospect because I am only going to see the film to watch my famous Swede. I mean, Battleship is not really shaping up from the previews to be a film I'm eager to see. Hey, but here is my major complaint. Skarsgard appears in the enticing film Melancholia , and wham! Half the film he isn't in it. Now he's in another big film, and I suspect he isn't in most of it, too. Hey producers out there, we ...