Christmas in July

I'm one of the twenty authors to help post the ROMANCE BOOKS "R" US Blog. And this month (From July 1 to July 31), we're throwing a contest to win

A SONY eREADER... and other prizes.

Cool, huh? Well, I think so. Anyway, there are three steps to follow to enter the contest.

1 - Join the RBRU Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancebooksrus/

2 - Become a follower at our blog : http://romancebooksrus.blogspot.com/

3 - And send us a list of RBRU's 20 authors' names (or their second pen name) and one book title by each author to email address: contests.rbrus@gmail.com.

(HINT, HINT) Our TWENTY Authors and their websites are:

1. Amber Skyze

2. Annie Alvarez

3. April Ash (OR) Marianne Stephens

4. Cindy Spencer Pape

5. Claire Ashgrove

6. Cornelia Amiri/Maeve Alpin

7. Donica Covey (OR) Jinger Jackson

8. Fran Lee

9. Gina Ardito (OR) Katherine Brandon

10. Jean Hart Stewart

11. Katalina Leon

12. Kenzie Michaels/Molly Daniels

13. Linda Kage (ME! My books you can list are...The Stillburrow Crush, The Trouble with Tomboys, Delinquent Daddy, or Hot Commodity)

14. Paris Brandon

15. Polly McCrillis/Isabel Mere (If this URL doesn't work, try http://www.pmccrillis.webs.com/ )

16. Renee Vincent

17. Sandra K. Marshall

18. Sandy Sullivan

19. Tina Donahue

20. Vicky Burkholder (OR) Victoria Allen

FOR the detailed rules of the contest, click HERE.

This may sound like a lot of rules for one measly contest, but don't forget you really could win a SONY eREADER...and that's no small potatoes.

Okay, then, I'm done promoting for the day. Good luck. I hope you have a great weekend.

Lessons Learned...The Rejection Way - #6

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy,
Was he?

This poem reminded of one of my rejection letters, probably because I repeat the silly saying a million times a day to my baby (Hey, they say it's good for an infant's brain development to hear lots of rhyming verses. I have to say it's not so good for Mom's sanity however. But anyway...)

One editor told me I needed to develop my showing-and-not-telling abilities a little better. She went on to explain that she'd highlighted text in my story where I was telling instead of showing. I was stunned she'd went to so much work for my little ol' story and I was really excited about revising her highlighted spots.

Except...when I opened the document, only the words WAS, WERE, HAVE, and HAD were highlighted.

Interesting teaching technique, huh? I thought so. It certainly opened my eyes to how much I actually do tell instead of show.

Though ninety percent of WAS/WERE in a story could most certainly be crumpled and thrown in a trash can, I think there are still a few instances where WAS is the best word choice.

Like in the first few lines of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone :

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

Other times, it can be fairly easy to fix a was/were and have/had problem like in the sentences:

He was a dog once. Now he was human.

Which can easily turn to...

Once a dog, Rover now roamed with the human crowd.

And...that's all I have to say about that. Be on a lookout for those sneaky telling words.

Hope you have a Happy Independence Day