DEVIL'S DANCE has been released on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. The audio book will be out by the end of the month. That is really exciting after all these years of working on the manuscript. Barnes and Noble online has listed it for release on August 28 and they list the release date for THE DEVIL'S DUE as September 28.
But, here is the good news. They are offering a super pre-release price, so check it out. I set up a Tiny URL link to the page on their site to make it easier to find: http://bit.ly/B-N-Adams
After spending so many years committed to writing these books I feel like doing a dance myself. But then, I was drummed out of ballet school when I was a little kid. Like most five-year-olds, my mother thought I would be a graceful gazelle, and the costumes were cool. Well, I did have great pointe and do to this day. I just didn't have anything else. After that she enrolled me in the Krasner School of Dramatics and Singing. With a voice destined to go off tune and at that time in my life a very shy nature...that's not true anymore...the Krasner experiment was a flop as well.
When I did find my true passion, it was writing. I invite you to read DEVIL'S DANCE and THE DEVIL'S DUE. Afterwards, I would love it if you posted reviews either on blogs or Amazon or both.
Thanks,
Arliss
P.S. At least I don't trip over my own feet anymore, but unlike my protagonist Jen Connor, I never would have made it past barre exercises in ballet!
Showing posts with label kidnap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kidnap. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Thursday, July 30, 2009
THE BENEFIT OF BELONGING TO A WRITERS' GROUP
While I'm on the subject of Jen, I think this is a good time to talk about the benefits a writer can enjoy from belonging to a good writers' group. I belong to several, but the first one I joined, and still belong to has proven invaluable.
We occasionally get speakers, but more often the program is devoted to critiques by the members present. Four or five readers can read for fifteen minutes at each meeting by signing up at least a day before the meeting...generally you allow more lead time, because the list can grow very quickly and must be limited to no more than six.
A couple of years ago, when I read the scene with Jen coming out of a drug-induced sleep while she was being held captive, one of the members was very helpful. He commented that I'd described something more like coming out of a high on LSD, not being shot up with drugs to control a young girl who had been kidnapped.
Later he took me off to a side, after the meeting, and said that years before he'd done many kinds of drugs and was speaking from experience. Then he gave me something extremely valuable that allowed me to write a convincing scene.
He asked if I'd ever had surgery that required being put under, and I said "yes". Then he said, "Well try to remember how you felt when the anesthetic began to wear off. That would be more what your character would be experiencing. She wouldn't be hallucinating or on a trip.
As I rewrote the part I realized he was so right. The next time I read for critique, I read the rewrite. He said, "Now you've got it right. Now anyone who's been there will believe she really was drugged to control her."
That reading produced another unexpected critique from personal experience. One of the members said, "You describe her confusion when she realized she wasn't in her own bed. Here's what you don't know. I do. I was kidnapped."
Wow. You can't just say, "Hey, I need to speak to someone who was kidnapped and woke up bound and gagged, " then expect to get people who will tell you what it was like. That's information that could be pretty hard to get.
This woman proceeded to tell me that she found herself taking inventory...fingers, toes, what could move, what couldn't, things like that. And, once again, I rewrote what was happening to Jen, who was Katherine at the time, so that it also had a ring of reality from the point of view of someone who had been there.
Reader interest depends upon creating characters that the reader cares about...not one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Writer's groups are great for feedback, and I also learned to start asking around. Now if I have a question about what something would be like, besides internet research, I talk to people to see if I can find someone who went through it. Then, like an actress, I prepare for the part and feel it as I write.
--ARLISS ADAMS
We occasionally get speakers, but more often the program is devoted to critiques by the members present. Four or five readers can read for fifteen minutes at each meeting by signing up at least a day before the meeting...generally you allow more lead time, because the list can grow very quickly and must be limited to no more than six.
A couple of years ago, when I read the scene with Jen coming out of a drug-induced sleep while she was being held captive, one of the members was very helpful. He commented that I'd described something more like coming out of a high on LSD, not being shot up with drugs to control a young girl who had been kidnapped.
Later he took me off to a side, after the meeting, and said that years before he'd done many kinds of drugs and was speaking from experience. Then he gave me something extremely valuable that allowed me to write a convincing scene.
He asked if I'd ever had surgery that required being put under, and I said "yes". Then he said, "Well try to remember how you felt when the anesthetic began to wear off. That would be more what your character would be experiencing. She wouldn't be hallucinating or on a trip.
As I rewrote the part I realized he was so right. The next time I read for critique, I read the rewrite. He said, "Now you've got it right. Now anyone who's been there will believe she really was drugged to control her."
That reading produced another unexpected critique from personal experience. One of the members said, "You describe her confusion when she realized she wasn't in her own bed. Here's what you don't know. I do. I was kidnapped."
Wow. You can't just say, "Hey, I need to speak to someone who was kidnapped and woke up bound and gagged, " then expect to get people who will tell you what it was like. That's information that could be pretty hard to get.
This woman proceeded to tell me that she found herself taking inventory...fingers, toes, what could move, what couldn't, things like that. And, once again, I rewrote what was happening to Jen, who was Katherine at the time, so that it also had a ring of reality from the point of view of someone who had been there.
Reader interest depends upon creating characters that the reader cares about...not one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Writer's groups are great for feedback, and I also learned to start asking around. Now if I have a question about what something would be like, besides internet research, I talk to people to see if I can find someone who went through it. Then, like an actress, I prepare for the part and feel it as I write.
--ARLISS ADAMS
Saturday, July 11, 2009
ABOUT THE CONCEPT
Recently I watched a Dateline program about a teen who was kidnapped by someone she thought was a friend and then delivered to a house where she was raped repeatedly. The first thought that popped into my mind was, "It's still going on." They brought out the fact that for years and years girls have been kidnapped by people they knew and sold to so-called "white slavers". These girls aren't the ones who come to this country and literally work off their passage. They're American citizens who aren't any different than the teen who might live down the street from you.
I knew that the program wasn't far fetched, because the first little spark of an idea that eventually became the cornerstone of my book was actually inspired by a story not very different than the one on Dateline. But, the story I knew of happened about fifty years ago.
So, Jen Connor, the protagonist in "A Dream Lost", while a fictional character, could have been any of many girls who have lived through this horror, and some who didn't survive. As I created Jen, I knew she had to be naive, vulnerable and beautiful. She also had to have the ability to reach inside herself and find strength she didn't know she had, because without it she couldn't survive.
Every day I had different ideas for this story, but remember, I didn't know how to write fiction at the time. So I wanted to use every device, every cliche, every flowery bit of language my brain could create. Ah, the words and the story flowed, and I created more characters, never realizing what a hack job I was doing.
Jen started out as Shawn, and with every revision, every re-write, she had a new name. From Katherine, to Sandra, her names ran the spectrum until I settled upon Jeanette (a popular name of her era), with the nicknames of Jen and Jenny. The more I learned about the craft, the more she became a person to me. No longer a one-dimensional cardboard character, I really began to care about her and the torment she was going through.
I discovered that when I wrote Jen's scenes I felt her emotions and pain. Sometimes, I would be sitting at the computer crying as I wrote because a situation was so unbearable. People who have read the drafts must have felt what I did, because everyone became very protective of her. Would she make it? Would she survive? Quite frankly I wasn't sure myself.
In those days, I didn't write with a plot sheet or outline. I just sat down and wrote, so some of the things that happened were as much a surprise to me as they were to her.
Okay, that's where we leave off today. Watch for the next post.
--Arliss
I knew that the program wasn't far fetched, because the first little spark of an idea that eventually became the cornerstone of my book was actually inspired by a story not very different than the one on Dateline. But, the story I knew of happened about fifty years ago.
So, Jen Connor, the protagonist in "A Dream Lost", while a fictional character, could have been any of many girls who have lived through this horror, and some who didn't survive. As I created Jen, I knew she had to be naive, vulnerable and beautiful. She also had to have the ability to reach inside herself and find strength she didn't know she had, because without it she couldn't survive.
Every day I had different ideas for this story, but remember, I didn't know how to write fiction at the time. So I wanted to use every device, every cliche, every flowery bit of language my brain could create. Ah, the words and the story flowed, and I created more characters, never realizing what a hack job I was doing.
Jen started out as Shawn, and with every revision, every re-write, she had a new name. From Katherine, to Sandra, her names ran the spectrum until I settled upon Jeanette (a popular name of her era), with the nicknames of Jen and Jenny. The more I learned about the craft, the more she became a person to me. No longer a one-dimensional cardboard character, I really began to care about her and the torment she was going through.
I discovered that when I wrote Jen's scenes I felt her emotions and pain. Sometimes, I would be sitting at the computer crying as I wrote because a situation was so unbearable. People who have read the drafts must have felt what I did, because everyone became very protective of her. Would she make it? Would she survive? Quite frankly I wasn't sure myself.
In those days, I didn't write with a plot sheet or outline. I just sat down and wrote, so some of the things that happened were as much a surprise to me as they were to her.
Okay, that's where we leave off today. Watch for the next post.
--Arliss
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