Huge In East Texas

Posted on July 24, 2017 by MHP

The East Texas Writers Guild awarded April, Maybe June Third Place in the Young Adult: Book Cover Award category! Congratulations to our own Dave Workman, and to Shalanna Collins.

“The East Texas Writers Guild is proud to announce the top three winners in the Blue Ribbon Book Cover Contest for Young Adult novels.

Linda Pirtle, president of ETWG, pointed out that entries were submitted from across the United States from California to New Jersey, as well as from Great Britain, Australia, British Columbia and Ontario, Canada. It was indeed an international contest.”

Entries were judged by a team of artists and designers in the Dallas area.”

You can buy a copy of April, Maybe June right here.

Hello, Portland!

Posted on April 4, 2017 by MHP

We’ll be in Portland April 7-9 for the Independent Book Publisher Association’s Publisher’s University conference, because there’s always more to learn about this wacky business. We’ll be the ones with the MHP tattoos! (Not really. We’ll probably have some sort of identifying lanyards around our necks, though, so watch for that.)

Sorry for that deceptive Read More… link – that’s all there is. Except for this: Eileen Workman’s Raindrops of Love for A Thirsty World is arriving on April 20th – pre-order your paperback or Kindle copy today!

Into Our World of Anxiety and Fear Come the Raindrops of Human Transformation

Posted on April 3, 2017 by MHP

San Francisco, CA (April 20, 2017) –– A timely spiritual guide to surviving and thriving in today’s pervasive, gloomy atmosphere of alienation and fear, the new book, Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World, lays out a path to life‐long self‐actualization, and reconnection through a shared consciousness. The author, Eileen Workman, has summoned the profound wisdom of The Life Force in a series of loving messages. These communications come at an opportune time, as we drift in a sea of anxiety and worry, deeply shaken by recent political, economic and social crises, and starved for connection due to divisiveness.

A decade ago Workman experienced a startling spiritual awakening. Abandoning her high‐powered, highly‐paid role in the financial world, she opened up to a channeled gift of eloquent, soul‐stirring passages from what she calls LIFE –– “The Life Force” –– a field of energy and love that transformed her life and her relationship to humanity.

In four parts, Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World encourages readers to undertake selfexamination in a way that encourages them to fall back in love with themselves and learn to practice healthy self‐discipline, self‐awareness and self‐love.

Part I ‐ Soft Love: The Wonder of Self‐Realization
Part II ‐ Tough Love: The Challenge of Self‐Discipline
Part III ‐ Self‐Love: The Responsibility of Self‐Actualization
Part IV – Life Love: The Freedom of Self‐Governance

As receivers of these compelling, wise messages from LIFE, readers are exhorted to manifest their greatest gifts in the world, which is exactly what the author decided to do when she changed the direction of her own life. This personal transformation and connection to the limitless love of LIFE is the key to a rewarding, meaningful life.

Encourage others to realize that your amazing ingenuity and imagination, when filtered through the perspective of life awareness, holds the power to generate awesome new creative potential . . . This is why I encourage you to trust the living process . . . For you live within a self‐organizing, self‐scaffolding field of living love that manifests as light.

Speaking directly into the heart and soul of each reader, Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World enables them to wed their minds and hearts in a holy communion. That marriage enables us to move beyond the influence of collapsing social systems and political and economic hostilities. Through the clarity of our newly realized life purpose and enlightenment as received from the Raindrops of Love, we can transform ourselves and the world.

I know how confused you have felt . . . and how you’ve struggled to find your proper place in the world. I’ve watched you grow lost in the dramas of human society. In this precious now moment, you can reclaim your native tongue and commune with me in our mutual language, for the language of Life has been ever your birthright, Beloved.

About the Author

Eileen Workman spent sixteen years in the financial industry as First Vice President of Investments at a major Wall Street firm. After a profound spiritual awakening, she departed the high‐powered world of money and wrote Sacred Economics: The Currency of Life, which questions assumptions about the nature of capitalism. The book is about directing our attention toward the purposeful design of a more compassionate, cooperative, and abundantly flowing economic system from a spiritually‐driven perspective. “ . . . one of those rare individuals who not only talks the talk of the financial world because she worked in it, she also walks the walk of one who has made meaningful changes in her own life to reflect the ideals she believes in.” In her new title, Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World, Workman calls down the wisdom and the words of the Life Force, inviting us to embrace our fullest capacity as a species.

# # # #

Book Information

Title: Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World
Pub Date: April 20, 2017
Author: LIFE, as shared with Eileen Workman
Publisher: Muse Harbor Publishing
List Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-61264-207-9
Format: Quality Trade Paperback and Kindle
Distributor: Ingram
Information: www.warwickassociates.com
Subjects: Spirituality, Personal Growth
Rights: World

Basic Plotting (Part 2)

Posted on March 29, 2017 by Dave Workman

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A notebook for fiction writers and aspiring novelists. An editor’s perspective.

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It’s all about the drama, dahlings.

Books and blogs about “plotting a novel” are as ubiquitous as leaves on a summer tree. I suspect some of these efforts are actually very good. Others? Not so much. That being said, let me cut to the chase. Good plotting can be explained in one word: Drama.

Yup. Tension. Uncertainty. Double-cross. Forbidden love. Hatred. Amnesia. War. Politics. A sinking ship. In other words, drama. It’s all about the drama, dahlings. That’s the secret ingredient; a very, very important element of successful fiction. Writing a book that’s lacking dramatic impact? It probably won’t (IMHO) sell.

And don’t confuse drama as “some little ruckus” that one sprinkles sporadically around a story. Drama isn’t a garnish. Nor is it specifically reserved for those dark, thunderous Shakespearean epics where witches cackle, swords clash and treachery abounds. Drama can be as aloof as a secret glance, a snicker, a subtle movement. Drama is a constant that should infuse every fictive work. That should be a rule—and so now it is! Rule #27. Make drama your novel’s constant companion. It lurks upon every page—either undulating or overwhelming—ready to spring or having already sprung, hiding, panting, waiting to lunge again. Drama can shout or whisper to the reader. Sometimes it even hides in plain sight, waiting for the perfect instant to snatch away banality. To dissolve normality.

And yet, don’t confuse drama with impending tragedy. Yes, a tragic tale is fraught with drama. A child’s death, a war, an emotional breakdown, a marital conflict… all dramatic, fictive situations that a writer can utilize to build a story. But what about light-hearted romance? What about comedy? Realize that every romantic tale is laden with great gobs of interpersonal drama. And comedy, even slapstick comedy, is simply drama interpreted through a playful or joyous lens. But it’s still about drama, first and foremost.

Don’t believe so? Think of any comedic film. (I’ve discovered that remembering a film sequence is far easier than remembering a specific snippet from a book. And easier to dissect as well.) For instance: Notting Hill. Lovely romantic comedy—and filled with drama. The Holiday? Filled with drama. Annie Hall? Filled with drama. The Princess Bride? It’s a Wonderful Life? The Hangover? Drama. Drama. Drama. And drama. Remember Finding Nemo? The little guy loses his mother and 99% of his siblings. Gets lost at sea. Almost eaten by a shark. Captured and confined to an aquarium. Makes a daring escape. It’s funny—but it’s also constant drama!

Groucho Marx once said,“Comedy is when you slip on a banana peel. Tragedy is when I slip on a banana peel.” And yet both banana-based scenarios contain drama—both genres must provide a continual tool bag of genre-specific dramatic moments to survive, and to thrive in its fictive form.

Refer again to Rule #8, which states, in part: Keep your characters moving. You’re either pushing characters toward drama or pulling them away again.

I can’t really give a writer much additional structural information on basic plotting. Have an idea? Play with it! Test it! My personal belief has always been: write what you feel, write what you want. (So long as it’s dramatic, of course.)

And do understand that dramatic plotting isn’t always about remarkable external circumstances, about drooling zombies or horrific wars or big ships slowly sinking. Good plotting is also about (and sometimes only about) great character development. (Check out these flicks: The Madness of King George. Or Before Sunrise. Or Pride and Prejudice. Beautiful films, with stories predominately carried by superb dialogue. Or meta-classics like Mindwalk and My Dinner With André.) I’ve often said that if you lock two interesting people in a closet and give them great, dramatic dialogue, I’d rather read that book than about all the Transformers in the world.

So, yeah, successful plotting is a combination of great dialogue, great timing, great suspense (comedic or tragic) and certainly great writing in general. Good drama is larger than life. Deeper than reality. Great plotting is the result of daydreaming that begins with a single, simple “what if?” concept.

Remember Rule #27. And don’t confuse drama as “some little ruckus” that one sprinkles sporadically around a story. Drama isn’t a garnish. Drama is your story’s constant companion.
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Basic Plotting (Part 1)

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Dave Workman

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A notebook for fiction writers and aspiring novelists. An editor’s perspective.

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“I want to write a book, but…”

The fiction writers that I know, we’re all daydreamers at heart. The obstacle confronting us is that—well, we’re all daydreamers at heart. And, sorry to say, but daydreams don’t magically turn into completed novels. The truth is that daydreams—those misty thought-bubbles from which all novels spring, and the reality of churning out a book—sitting down to actually write a few hundred thousand words—requires two completely different facets of a writer’s personality. Two very different abilities.

Our Right Brain—that artsy-fartsy, huggin’ and feelin’ hemisphere—is content to sit on a comfy couch all day, dreaming about pirates or unicorns or maybe what happened that one night at summer camp. Our Left Brain—the logical, mathematical, factual part—pays the bills. Sets the alarm clock. Saves for rainy days. For many of us who write (or sing or paint or photograph or philosophize), our Left Brain may be underutilized—and is probably suspicious of why we’ve chosen to write a novel and how this career choice is going to pay for the kids’ college tuition. Yet it must, sooner or later, take the cerebral baton from our Right Brain and run with it.

And trust me, that race will be a marathon.

As previously mentioned, passing the baton from our Right Brain creative self to our Left Brain logical self is where a great many novels stumble and fail. A hazy notion may sprout, may grow a leaf or two, but then the idea of developing an entire tree’s worth of leafy green ideas fills us with dread and discomfort. Many of us will—either temporarily or permanently—dissolve back into a safe, complacent daydream. Should we never attempt writing again, we’ll always wonder, …what if?

And writers do sometimes plow through those fears, push themselves to go the distance and even become published authors. A few even become household names. But each one of us, sooner or later, has to take the chance and write those few few words, then paragraphs, and pages. And for some of us, even though the fear persists, a stronger emotion takes over. Maybe it’s the risk of a dare, or the sense of impending accomplishing or (and ain’t nothing wrong with this…) an intense yearning for fame and fortune.

However, it’s important to understand that the process of “writing a book” begins long before the physical act of writing begins. For those wannabe writers who fall in love with the concept of being published, and then sit down to write a story—only to discover they don’t know what to write about—just realize that those writers are deep diving into the shallow end of the pool. Attempting to climb a ladder with the bottom half the rungs missing. Framing a roof before pouring a foundation. And attempting many other lame clichés as well.

My suggestion? Allow yourself sufficient time to establish enough of a story to solidify a few solid ideas. You not have concocted an entire story, but it’s useful to have determined at least an inciting incident and whatever the resulting results. Or establishing a character’s personality enough to ground readers who this person might be, and what’s the motivation? In other words, have a few scenes or chapter’s worth of material stored up so that when you first sit down to write, you’re not staring into some endless black void of uncertainty. For many writers, having a vague semblance of a plot or a strong character personality is enough for the Left Brain to intuit where the Right Brain is coming from. And that’s all it takes!

Another option? Don’t think of yourself as sitting down to write a novel. Think of yourself as writing a short story. Don’t worry about what might happen 200 pages later—stay in the moment and write what that particular moment brings. Give your brain a pleasant little jump start, perhaps 1000-2000 words… and see where that leads you. Very often that short-story-of-an-idea will soon expand in scope and complexity—and now you’re on your way… to all that aforementioned fame and fortune.

Refer again, should you desire, to: Where To Start. And: Focus on the Now. And: First Drafts.

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