In my upcoming release, Luckless Love, my heroine is returning from a year long road trip and searching for someplace to belong.Ā Wanting to belong to a community is a universal theme that I think appeals to readers, but when I started to write the book, I didnāt immediately leap to that theme.Ā I had to explain my reasoning for using it to my co-writerāJuel Lugo.
Luckless Love started out during COVID when Juel who is my business partner in real life and I took a script writing seminar on how to write a Hallmark movie.Ā We both felt that we could write one, and with too much time on our hands and since we were in each otherās COVID pods, we gathered around a computer and took notes on how to write a Hallmark movie.
What Are Your Co-Writer Goals?
Juel is not particularly interested in being an author.Ā She doesnāt want to do the work of putting words on a page, but she is endlessly interested in stories and structure.Ā As a life-long reader, and marketing expert, she knows that stories are what move the human psyche.Ā So our deal was that she would do the bulk lifting on inventing the plot. I would walk her through how to outline and then I would do the actual writing.Ā But that meant that we had endless discussions on our characters, their motivations and how to get them to fulfill their plot obligations.
I donāt know how other co-authors work together, but with over ten years of experience in working with each other, we managed to make it through the outline with very little disagreement.Ā Having both taken the seminar we both could recognize when we were deviating from the Hallmark pattern.Ā And then we could also agree when we were fine with leaving that path.Ā Hallmark has a lot of constraints about how serious or realistic things can be (donāt mention divorce or cancer!), which is understandable for their brand, but for writing a novel it can feel like the characters are lacking in depth.
Did We Make it the End?
So did we make it through the writing process with our friendship and partnership intact?Ā Absolutely. It was a fantastically distracting project during a time when we very much needed one.Ā It was also fun to take on a challenge that neither of us had done before.Ā The script version achieved a PNWA Literary Contest Finalist ranking and we are quite proud of our little romance novel.Ā Weāre looking forward to itās upcoming release on November 18.Ā Check out the links below if youāre also interested in a sweet romance, all about wine, second chances and finding some place to call home.
https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/LucklessLove-titleb-square-04.jpg10811081Bethany Maineshttps://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aug2016-Logo-op3-300x69.pngBethany Maines2024-10-09 04:15:112024-09-03 11:17:30Can I be a Co-Writer
As someone who works in a creative field professionally, Iām endlessly interested in how creativity functions. Where does anyone get their inspiration?Ā Heck, where do I get my inspiration? The Greek idea of a museāa goddess who comes by to inspire an artistāmakes sense to me because sometimes ideas do feel external to myself.
Well, how did you come up with that?
Well, first I was doing the laundry while listening to Pandora (canāt get away from those Greek myths today, can I?) and the song used the phrase ābad for businessā which reminded me of Risky Business, which made me think of Tom Cruise, and then I started to wonder why so many people were confused by the original Mission Impossible plot.Ā Thirty minutes later, I was jotting down an idea about what would happen if a demon burst through the floor of a non-profit fundraiser.Ā Basically, I came up with the idea by having a lived experience and feeding it all into the hopper of my brain and letting everything pinball around like one of those kidās mower toys with the balls that go pop-pop-pop.
So You Live With that Brain All the Time?
I do!Ā And I like it!Ā I worry about people who canāt connect completely random dots.Ā Donāt they get bored just going from A to B to C?Ā Itās so much better to go A to Q to C to R.Ā But thatās not to say that creativity is just something that happens.Ā There are ways to lure the muse into the house and trap her in a box.
To be clear, Iām referring to a computer where my muse has full reign to create whatever she wants. We are not shoving women in boxes over here. (I never saw Boxing Helena, but I have been troubled by it since I read the back of the box in a Blockbuster in the 90s.Ā Who greenlit that?!Ā Donāt Google it.Ā Youāre happier not knowing.)
The trick is to gather both the correct input (Read books! Watch movies! Experience the creativity of others!), and make sure I have the space and time to create. But probably my number one trick is to look for a problem to solve.
What problem?
I love James Bond, but when I wrote my first novel, there werenāt a lot of female spies in the marketplace.Ā So I solved that problem.Ā I wrote Bulletproof Mascara about a girl who starts by selling make-up and ends up saving the world. Check out my my full catalog to see what other problems I’ve solved.
Short stories are their own art form and while I enjoy writing them, I will frequently wait for inspiration to strike rather than trying to force one into existence. And this year, I’ve only had one short idea that I wanted to work onāThe Rage Cage.Ā However, once I do have a story, I really like to give it a chance to exist out in the world. Submitting a story is usually a long wait for a stack of rejections which may or may not be kind.Ā And usually I take a spreadsheet approachāpick my targets, check my deadlines, read all the lists, and be strategic about my submissions.Ā But this time I had barely finished The Rage Cage when I saw the deadline for this Larceny & Last Chances Anthology was quickly approaching. The fourth anthology from Superior Shores Press has a theme could not have been more perfect for my story. But even more desirable, the promised wait time between submission and rejection was only a few weeks. I leaped into action to get the story proof read and formatted per the instructions and turned it in. And then I had to wait…Ā Fortunately, The Rage Cage was accepted and I could breathe a sigh of relief.
Larceny & Last Chances features twenty-two stories that must include, yes, you guessed it, theft and a final chance at something.Ā In The Rage Cage my heroine Amber has a dog, a Dutch oven, and finally a plan.Ā Amber’s life has been complicated by poor choices, but when she realizes that she’s not entirely to blame for everything that’s gone wrong, she decides to pick herself up and steal her last chance at happiness and maybe sobriety.
The Superior Shores Anthologies have been nominated for multiple awards and I’m excited to have been included.Ā You can find all of the anthologies — The Best Laid Plans, Heartbreak & Half-Truths, Moonlight & Misadventures, and now Larceny & Last Chances –– at all book retailers.Ā (But here is a quick link to Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UmMrvV )
Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense
Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk
Sometimes itās about doing the right thing. Sometimes itās about getting even. Sometimes itās about taking what you think you deserve. And sometimes, itās your last, best, hope.
Featuring stories by Christina Boufis, John Bukowski, Brenda Chapman, Susan Daly, Wil A. Emerson, Tracy Falenwolfe, Kate Fellowes, Molly Wills Fraser, Gina X. Grant, Karen Grose, Wendy Harrison, Julie Hastrup, Larry M. Keeton, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Gregory Meece, Cate Moyle, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Kevin R. Tipple, and Robert Weibezahl.
Last year, I connected with a Canadian film director who was looking for a fast, funny, crime-centered short script. Of which I had… zero.Ā But what I did have was a stack of short stories.Ā So I transferred one of my short stories to script format.Ā He loved it, optioned it (that’s put it on hold in movie terms) and then produced it. It was a fantastic collaborative process and I loved seeing what he did with the script.Ā Once the short film was complete, it was submitted to a variety of film festivals (including Sasqwatch Film Festival).Ā Unfortunately, I wasn’t near to any of the festivals that accepted the film.Ā And I wanted to see MY movie on the big screen.
But finally…
Then it got accepted into the Sasqwatch Film Festival in Vancouver BC.Ā Which is well within driving distance for me in Washington State. So we farmed out the kiddo to my brother and invaded Canada!Ā And then, after four hours sitting down in the car, we sat down in a darkened theater and watched Suzy Makes Cupcakes and a slate of other shorts.
So, it’s about cupcakes?
No. It’s about crime. And cupcakes.Ā But mostly it’s about a woman who got married young to an abusive jerkwad who works for a crime syndicate.Ā Suzy wants out of the life and away from her husband, but how to do that? Well… you come up with a plan, you make some cupcakes and then you see where the day takes you.Ā But you do it all in twelve minutes or less because this is a short film after all. The short story version of the story made it’s debut at Noir at the Bar in Seattle and you can hear me read it in the recording from KUOW.
Was Sasqwatch everything you hoped?
Yes, actually it was. While it was a bit weird to hear people saying words that I made up, it was so fantastic to see it on the big screen. The director Jayson Theirren also flew into town and we got to meet in person for the first time.Ā Afterwards, we all got drinks and talked movies, movies, movies.Ā Then my partner and I went out for dinner, ate too much, and had a lovely evening out in Vancouver sans child. So basically, it was all that I hoped for and more.
Can I be a Co-Writer
/in Craft, Life, Romance, The Stiletto GangA Co-Writer Spills the Beans
Luckless Love started out during COVID when Juel who is my business partner in real life and I took a script writing seminar on how to write a Hallmark movie.Ā We both felt that we could write one, and with too much time on our hands and since we were in each otherās COVID pods, we gathered around a computer and took notes on how to write a Hallmark movie.
What Are Your Co-Writer Goals?
Juel is not particularly interested in being an author.Ā She doesnāt want to do the work of putting words on a page, but she is endlessly interested in stories and structure.Ā As a life-long reader, and marketing expert, she knows that stories are what move the human psyche.Ā So our deal was that she would do the bulk lifting on inventing the plot. I would walk her through how to outline and then I would do the actual writing.Ā But that meant that we had endless discussions on our characters, their motivations and how to get them to fulfill their plot obligations.
I donāt know how other co-authors work together, but with over ten years of experience in working with each other, we managed to make it through the outline with very little disagreement.Ā Having both taken the seminar we both could recognize when we were deviating from the Hallmark pattern.Ā And then we could also agree when we were fine with leaving that path.Ā Hallmark has a lot of constraints about how serious or realistic things can be (donāt mention divorce or cancer!), which is understandable for their brand, but for writing a novel it can feel like the characters are lacking in depth.
Did We Make it the End?
So did we make it through the writing process with our friendship and partnership intact?Ā Absolutely. It was a fantastically distracting project during a time when we very much needed one.Ā It was also fun to take on a challenge that neither of us had done before.Ā The script version achieved a PNWA Literary Contest Finalist ranking and we are quite proud of our little romance novel.Ā Weāre looking forward to itās upcoming release on November 18.Ā Check out the links below if youāre also interested in a sweet romance, all about wine, second chances and finding some place to call home.
Creativity
/in Carrie Mae, Life, The Stiletto GangIs it Creativity or Goddess?
As someone who works in a creative field professionally, Iām endlessly interested in how creativity functions. Where does anyone get their inspiration?Ā Heck, where do I get my inspiration? The Greek idea of a museāa goddess who comes by to inspire an artistāmakes sense to me because sometimes ideas do feel external to myself.
Well, how did you come up with that?
Well, first I was doing the laundry while listening to Pandora (canāt get away from those Greek myths today, can I?) and the song used the phrase ābad for businessā which reminded me of Risky Business, which made me think of Tom Cruise, and then I started to wonder why so many people were confused by the original Mission Impossible plot.Ā Thirty minutes later, I was jotting down an idea about what would happen if a demon burst through the floor of a non-profit fundraiser.Ā Basically, I came up with the idea by having a lived experience and feeding it all into the hopper of my brain and letting everything pinball around like one of those kidās mower toys with the balls that go pop-pop-pop.
I do!Ā And I like it!Ā I worry about people who canāt connect completely random dots.Ā Donāt they get bored just going from A to B to C?Ā Itās so much better to go A to Q to C to R.Ā But thatās not to say that creativity is just something that happens.Ā There are ways to lure the muse into the house and trap her in a box.
To be clear, Iām referring to a computer where my muse has full reign to create whatever she wants. We are not shoving women in boxes over here. (I never saw Boxing Helena, but I have been troubled by it since I read the back of the box in a Blockbuster in the 90s.Ā Who greenlit that?!Ā Donāt Google it.Ā Youāre happier not knowing.)
The trick is to gather both the correct input (Read books! Watch movies! Experience the creativity of others!), and make sure I have the space and time to create. But probably my number one trick is to look for a problem to solve.
What problem?
I love James Bond, but when I wrote my first novel, there werenāt a lot of female spies in the marketplace.Ā So I solved that problem.Ā I wrote Bulletproof Mascara about a girl who starts by selling make-up and ends up saving the world. Check out my my full catalog to see what other problems I’ve solved.
A Little Larceny…
/in Anthology, mystery, The Stiletto GangIs it Larceny or Just Larcenous?
Short stories are their own art form and while I enjoy writing them, I will frequently wait for inspiration to strike rather than trying to force one into existence. And this year, I’ve only had one short idea that I wanted to work onāThe Rage Cage.Ā However, once I do have a story, I really like to give it a chance to exist out in the world. Submitting a story is usually a long wait for a stack of rejections which may or may not be kind.Ā And usually I take a spreadsheet approachāpick my targets, check my deadlines, read all the lists, and be strategic about my submissions.Ā But this time I had barely finished The Rage Cage when I saw the deadline for this Larceny & Last Chances Anthology was quickly approaching. The fourth anthology from Superior Shores Press has a theme could not have been more perfect for my story. But even more desirable, the promised wait time between submission and rejection was only a few weeks. I leaped into action to get the story proof read and formatted per the instructions and turned it in. And then I had to wait…Ā Fortunately, The Rage Cage was accepted and I could breathe a sigh of relief.
Larceny & Last Chances features twenty-two stories that must include, yes, you guessed it, theft and a final chance at something.Ā In The Rage Cage my heroine Amber has a dog, a Dutch oven, and finally a plan.Ā Amber’s life has been complicated by poor choices, but when she realizes that she’s not entirely to blame for everything that’s gone wrong, she decides to pick herself up and steal her last chance at happiness and maybe sobriety.
The Superior Shores Anthologies have been nominated for multiple awards and I’m excited to have been included.Ā You can find all of the anthologies — The Best Laid Plans, Heartbreak & Half-Truths, Moonlight & Misadventures, and now Larceny & Last Chances –– at all book retailers.Ā (But here is a quick link to Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UmMrvV )
Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk
Sometimes itās about doing the right thing. Sometimes itās about getting even. Sometimes itās about taking what you think you deserve. And sometimes, itās your last, best, hope.
Featuring stories by Christina Boufis, John Bukowski, Brenda Chapman, Susan Daly, Wil A. Emerson, Tracy Falenwolfe, Kate Fellowes, Molly Wills Fraser, Gina X. Grant, Karen Grose, Wendy Harrison, Julie Hastrup, Larry M. Keeton, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Gregory Meece, Cate Moyle, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Kevin R. Tipple, and Robert Weibezahl.
Release Date: June 18, 2024
Buy Link: www.books2read.com/larceny
A Happy Birthday
/in An Unseen Current, Free Book, Life, mystery, Paranormal Romance, The Deveraux, The Stiletto GangSasqwatch!
/in Action Movies, General Writing, Life, Scripts, The Stiletto GangThe Sasqwatch Film Festival
Last year, I connected with a Canadian film director who was looking for a fast, funny, crime-centered short script. Of which I had… zero.Ā But what I did have was a stack of short stories.Ā So I transferred one of my short stories to script format.Ā He loved it, optioned it (that’s put it on hold in movie terms) and then produced it. It was a fantastic collaborative process and I loved seeing what he did with the script.Ā Once the short film was complete, it was submitted to a variety of film festivals (including Sasqwatch Film Festival).Ā Unfortunately, I wasn’t near to any of the festivals that accepted the film.Ā And I wanted to see MY movie on the big screen.
But finally…
Then it got accepted into the Sasqwatch Film Festival in Vancouver BC.Ā Which is well within driving distance for me in Washington State. So we farmed out the kiddo to my brother and invaded Canada!Ā And then, after four hours sitting down in the car, we sat down in a darkened theater and watched Suzy Makes Cupcakes and a slate of other shorts.
So, it’s about cupcakes?
No. It’s about crime. And cupcakes.Ā But mostly it’s about a woman who got married young to an abusive jerkwad who works for a crime syndicate.Ā Suzy wants out of the life and away from her husband, but how to do that? Well… you come up with a plan, you make some cupcakes and then you see where the day takes you.Ā But you do it all in twelve minutes or less because this is a short film after all. The short story version of the story made it’s debut at Noir at the Bar in Seattle and you can hear me read it in the recording from KUOW.
Was Sasqwatch everything you hoped?
Yes, actually it was. While it was a bit weird to hear people saying words that I made up, it was so fantastic to see it on the big screen. The director Jayson Theirren also flew into town and we got to meet in person for the first time.Ā Afterwards, we all got drinks and talked movies, movies, movies.Ā Then my partner and I went out for dinner, ate too much, and had a lovely evening out in Vancouver sans child. So basically, it was all that I hoped for and more.