10 Years and a Great Conference

Every spring for ten years now, I've been at the LDStorymakers Writers Conference, which began as a tiny event (47 attendees) in a tiny venue (a small rented theater) and which has turned into a powerhouse conference that has to be capped. This year we had 450 attendees and a waiting list. I served on the committee for something like seven years, and one year I even co-chaired it with Heather Moore. It grows and improves each year, and it's a huge undertaking. (Next year, the conference is moving to a larger venue to accommodate up to 600, I believe.)

To catch up, I've blogged about the conference several times: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

For five of those ten years, I've attended the Whitney Awards gala, two as a committee member and three times as a finalist (one of those years, I won—still one of the highlights of my career).

I look forward to the conference for many reasons. I enjoy teaching about something I'm passionate about. I love listening to other writers and learning at their feet. I love rubbing shoulders with both aspiring and highly successful writers. It's exciting to see writers grow and progress in their careers.

But as I said on Facebook the other day, it's also where, in some ways, I find my people. Because face it: writers are a weird bunch, and only fellow writers really get it.

Even when the conference is close to home, I make a point of staying at the hotel, because putting the Mom hat on and taking it off several times a day is not only exhausting for me, but difficult on the kids. They have a much easier time when they know that Mom's leaving on Thursday and coming home Saturday night (or whatever the situation is).

This year I shared a room with Heather B. Moore and Sarah M. Eden. As fun as the conference is, it's also exhausting. One night we all lay in bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling in silence. We were all wiped. That's when Sarah said, "This is the lamest slumber party ever." And it was, but we were happy about it!

This year was particularly awesome for several reasons.

One fun part was our critique group going out to dinner together (minus two members). (I'll do a post soon to explain the butter churns on our matching shirts.)

Left to right: J. Scott Savage, Michele Paige Holmes, Annette Lyon, Sarah M. .Eden, Heather B. Moore.
(Not pictured: Robison Wells and Lu Ann Staheli)

Another was hanging out with my dear friend and accountability partner, Luisa. (How did we not get a picture together?) She lives far away, so although we keep in almost daily contact, we don't see each other very often. Even at conferences, it's often waves in the hall with promises to find a time to connect. And then we never do. This year we found time in advance and penciled it in, and it happened!

The Whitney gala was a delight. Having an excuse to dress up is always fun.

With Romance Finalist Krista Jensen

Seeing friends and colleagues is great too. And even though I didn't win (and was quite sure I wouldn't; Paige was up against some awesome books), I had a great time. This year I was part of the losers cheesecake pictures, which Janette Rallison invented.

A bunch of us finalists who didn't win, acting all upset. (Janette's face cracks me up!)

I even got to meet Ka Hancock, whose book I fell in love with. Can't wait to read what she publishes next!

With Ka Hancock, author of the finalist Dancing on Broken Glass. (READ IT.)

But the highest point of the whole weekend was our keynote speaker, Anne Perry. Friday evening she gave her keynote address, and Saturday morning she taught a 2-hour master class (which I luckily signed up for before it filled up).

Her keynote address was nothing short of inspired. I could have listened to her all night (and not just because of her lyrical voice and British accent). Her words touched my heart in a sacred place, in a way no one else has ever done. Anne Perry is  a fellow Latter-day Saint and a master writer, and she drew on both of those things in her address. I was near tears the entire time. It's an experience I'll never forget. She changed me.

Saturday's class was a pure delight; she was not only witty and entertaining but deeply wise. She taught a lot of things that I knew already on some level, but that she reiterated in a way that had me nodding, reminded on a higher level about why certain things are important in writing and how crucial it is to keep working. (Truth be told, it was also nice to hear that even Anne Perry must revise and revise and revise.)

At one point on Friday, I saw her eating a meal alone at a table. I knew her seatmates would arrive shortly; she was at a table reserved for them. I wanted to go up and say hello, to tell her how I admired her as a person, how I love her work and her voice, and how reading her books has inspired me to raise the bar on my own work.

On one hand, I told myself that she's human, and that she would welcome a friendly hello. On the other, a voice screamed in my head that She's Anne Perry! You can't do that! So I chickened out. I regret that now and probably always will.

I doubt she'll ever read this, and I may never have another opportunity to tell her what her work and her words this year mean to me, but I'll never forget this conference or the influence she had on me and hundreds of others.

WNW: An Excellent Issue. Single & Double Plurals.

I was first introduced to Mignon Fogerty (Grammar Girl) because of this grammar issue. She appeared on  Oprah to settle a viewer's complaint. (If you don't listen to the Grammar Girl podcast, subscribe already!)

Oprah and her best friend, Gayle, had gone on a road trip across the United States, and camera crews followed them. The result was several episodes of something they called "Oprah and Gayle's Road Trip."

A viewer wrote in saying that the title was incorrect; Oprah's name also needed a possessive, like so: "Oprah's and Gayle's Road Trip." She ended her note by saying she was an English teacher and therefore knew this stuff.

The viewer was brought on to tell her side, and then Oprah brought on Mignon to reveal the truth. Did the show get it right or wrong?

The show, not surprisingly, got it right. I doubt Oprah would have embarrassed her staff by bringing on a grammar expert to publicly point out a mistake.

But why was the title correct? Is there a time where making both names possessive would be correct?

First, yes, there are times when making both names possessive is correct. And there are times when it's not. It all depends on whether the ownership is joint or separate.

Let's set Oprah and Gayle aside and look at another example. Either of these sentences could be correct:
Jane and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.
Jane’s and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

Which you choose depends on context. We need more information about the bikes before we can make the call.

If Jane and Sally have a sporting goods store they own together, and in it, they have several bikes, then we have joint possession, and we need only one apostrophe. In that case, the first example is correct, because Jane and Sally are acting as a group of ownership. Together, they own the bikes. So:
Jane and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

But if Jane and Sally simply own different bikes (Jane’s is purple, and Sally’s is blue), we’re dealing with separate possession, so each girl needs her own apostrophe to show her ownership of her bike.
Jane’s and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

Another example: Let’s take Tom and Joey, who are brothers. Let's talk about their parents. Because the parents belong jointly to both boys, we don’t need to make both of their names possessive. We use a single possessive to show joint ownership:
Tom and Joey’s parents go on dates every weekend.

But what if Tom and Joey are buddies rather than brothers? What if both sets of their parents happen to be friends who hang out in a larger group together on weekends? Then the whole situation changes. Now we’re talking about Tom’s parents, and we’re also talking about Joey’s parents: four different people, not two. Now we need to make both boys' names possessive.
Tom’s and Joey’s parents go to the movies every weekend.

One way to remember this is by substituting the noun (bikes, parents) for an opinion. If two people share the same opinion, then group their names together as a joint possessive:
        Tom and Joey’s political views sparked controversy.

If Tom and Joey don’t agree on politics—let’s say Tom is a Democrat and Joey is a Republican—then both names need an apostrophe, because we have separate views:
        Tom’s and Joey’s political arguments sparked controversy at school.

Or you can always remember the Oprah viewer who was wrong. Oprah and Gayle took their trip together. It was their joint trip. Therefore, the title of those episodes needed only one apostrophe. If they’d gone on separate trips, we’d need two.


If you're from my generation, you can just think of a favorite movie to get this one right. Bill and Ted had a shared adventure. Therefore, their movie is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.



This topic and many more are new to the second edition of my grammar book. It's got more than double the word count of the original, with tons of new entries and many expanded ones to address more commonly asked questions I get. We're putting the final touches on it now.

Watch for it in May!

Cover Real and More

Three announcements today, all of which I'm excited about!

First off, this Saturday (April 6) I will be signing books for the first time in six months. I'll be at the University Village Deseret Book in Orem during Ladies Night from 6 to 8 PM, signing copies of Coming Home. Signing with me is good friend and awesome novelist Sarah M. Eden. Please come!

Second, yesterday I was notified that I won Utah's Best of State medal for 2013 in Literary Arts for Fiction. I'm thrilled! Long-time readers will recognize the award, because I received it way back in 2007. To get it again, after writing totally different works, means a lot to me.

And finally, my expansion and major update to my grammar book is almost done! It'll be up for sale in both electronic and hard copy in time for the LDStorymakers conference, which is the first week of May. The word count is more than twice the original, with dozens of brand new entries and lots of expanded ones. The comma section alone is much longer, something readers have been asking for.

So: In celebration of being a month out from its release (and hey, to celebrate my award!), here's the brand new cover for the 2nd edition of There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd!

I Found My Writing Home

Publishing this post scares me, because the subject is so personal. I'm going ahead with it anyway with the hope that I can get across my meaning. Deep breath.

From my first attempt at writing in second grade, I began my journey making up fantasy stories. Many long-time readers will know that those early plots were largely inspired by Beverly Cleary and her mouse Ralph, resulting in several stories involving rodents.

Even in high school, when I co-wrote an entire novel with a friend, it was a re-telling of a fairy tale (this was waaaay before doing that was cool or commonplace).

The first novel I tried my hand at by myself as an adult: also a fantasy.

So it came as a surprise to me when I began getting ideas for books with a specifically Mormon angle to them. Of course, those ideas turned into the books that got published.

I did two contemporary novels that you could call romance, and I generally do, but I've never been entirely happy with that label. Not because I don't like romance; I absolutely do, as evidenced by THIS and THIS and the fact that we're doing more of Timeless Romance Anthologies and having a ball with it. Not to mention that I went on to do historical LDS novels, and every single one of them has a romantic element.

But those first two books especially had something else in them too, something I couldn't put my finger on, but which made me hesitant to classify them strictly as romances.

So there was Lost Without You, and then At the Water's Edge (although they were written in the opposite order). Then came the four historicals: House on the Hill, At the Journey's End, Spires of Stone, and Tower of Strength. Each of my historicals, with the exception of Spires, which is a romantic comedy in spite of the serious-looking cover, had that same "other" quality.

Then I was told not to write any more historicals. And I wondered what in the world I'd do next. I'd already started researching my next one, and I had to set it aside and find something else to write about.

Enter my childhood friend Chris and her husband's deployment, which in a roundabout way led to me deciding that I had to write about what it's like to be home with a soldier gone and in the line of fire. In categorizing that book, romance never entered my mind, because, well, it's totally not. Band of Sisters is clearly women's fiction.

Some people think romance and women's fiction are the same thing, but they're not. Not even remotely. Women's fiction doesn't have a love story as the primary arc, and it deals with issues and conflicts that wouldn't normally appear in a romance. I loved writing that book, and it even took the Whitney Award in its category that year.

Yet I still thought that one day, I'd return to my fantasy roots and write books for kids. That feeling was strengthened by the fact that here in Utah, we have more successful writers of youth fiction than probably any other state in the nation. Tons of New York Times bestsellers, a Newbery honoree, and more. Youth writers here are rock stars. It's the market and genre that are most respected in these parts, likely because Utah has a lot of kids, families are serious about literacy, and we tend to like clean books, which often means youth fiction. Take this piece in the news, for example. (In case you don't click over: a launch party for Brandon Mull with Tyler Whitesides, Richard Paul Evans, Chad Morris, and Christopher Paolini. NOT KIDDING.)

Then I had a good chunk of my critique group also writing youth fiction, and this one and this one have had significant success with it (young adult and middle grade, respectively) on the national stage.

Yet I also loved mysteries, and I had a bunch of cool ideas for some. I loved romance, and could see myself writing that. I loved historicals, and would be happy doing more. And so on. What on earth should I focus on?!

My publisher couldn't/wouldn't give me direction on what they wanted next besides no more historicals even after I handed over a list of ideas and asked which they'd be most interested in.

I floundered like a boat without a rudder. I had a total and utter writer identity crisis that lasted two and a half miserable years.

The go-to advice for this kind of situation is to write the kind of book you like to read. Problem: I read all kinds of books, and I enjoy just about every genre. So that suggestion was no help.

Then one year for NaNoWriMo, I decided to write something totally wacky and weird and fun to shake myself out of the awful funk I was in. I drafted 50,000 words of a futuristic, science fiction-type young adult story. And it was a lot of fun. But contrary to my hopes going in, the experience didn't make my future writing path any clearer. (And no, that book will never see the light of day.)

Yet I knew I needed a clear path, something to sink my teeth into and identify as my own. I needed a map to plan my writing future.

I ended up deciding to write the sequel to Band of Sisters even though I had no assurance that my publisher would take it. They did (yay!), and Coming Home was released in January.

During the last year or so, a few things happened to cement my writer identity. One was researching and writing Coming Home. Another was being part of The Newport Ladies Book Club series with my novel Paige and the forthcoming Ilana. 

And then during the 2012 LTUE conference, Luisa and I went out to dinner to brainstorm. She knew of my identity crisis and suggested we hash it out over food. I brought along a notebook with ideas that included young adult fantasy, historical, romance, and everything in between. We picked a story with a really cool premise, and by the time we paid our tabs, we had a rough plot sketched out.

In writing that book, which I'll begin major revisions on soon, I finally came to realize that this was the genre I belonged in. It was women's fiction. And women's fiction is my home.

I realized that my first two books were women's fiction in disguise. That was the element I could never quite wrap up tidily in the romance bow. Women's issues popped up in my historicals too.

While I was thrilled to finally latch on to my writer identity, it came with a price. Remember, I live in the land where writers of youth fiction are rock stars and are most respected by colleagues. Even my own daughter recently asked if I could please write a cool book like the fantasy we were reading together, and it broke my heart to say that I'm writing for grown-ups.

Then there are those packed, celebrity-style launch parties like the one I linked to above. It seems that most writer events for fans tends to lean more toward youth fiction as well. There was one a few years ago that included my friend Janette Rallison (who writes YA), and at the same event was Scott Westerfeld and Stephenie Meyer, among others. Really.

I've had to come to terms with the side of my ego that would like acclaim. The reality is that if I become very successful with women's fiction, it will be with limitations. In some ways, I'd like my youngest to look at me like her hero, but that can't happen if I'm not writing kids' fantasy books. Which I'm not.

Plus, youth fiction has a crossover readership from kids to grandparents, while women's fiction is read almost entirely by, well, adult women. So the numbers are different: simply put, the sales potential for youth fiction is much greater. Unless someone waves a magic wand and I become the next Jodi Piccoult, I won't be getting rich writing women's fiction. (I wouldn't mind becoming the next Kristen Hannah, though... Seriously. Her interview in Writer's Digest pretty much blew my socks off and confirmed my writer identity.)

While I'm not greedy, I am a professional, and I do rely on the money I make through my writing. Making a conscious choice to essentially limit my potential income was hard.

I also had to choose to basically walk away from earning the respect of certain peers who almost look at youth fiction as the one and only true market. Would I like my ego to be stroked a bit? Sure. Could I write youth fiction? Sure. I love the genre, and I've developed  the chops over the gazillion years I've been writing to do it.

But when push comes to shove, I believe that I'm supposed to be writing women's fiction now. When I look at my list of story and research ideas, it's all women's fiction now.

I've wondered why, and why now. Why didn't I figure this out 18 years ago when I first started submitting? There may be several reasons, but I think a major one is the fact that while youth fiction isn't any easier to write than grown-up fiction (they're both hard to do well, and anyone who tells you differently is lying), in order to write good women's fiction, I simply had to be older. I had to experience more, see more of the world, encounter more situations, gain more maturity. On the other side, I've already been an adolescent. As long as I can write well and tap into that part of my brain, I could write youth fiction.

But I couldn't have written good women's fiction at 21, because back then I was barely a woman.

A bit of irony: Turns out that the old piece of advice was right after all. While I do read all kinds of books and love almost all genres, if I had to list my top books of all time, most of them are, yep, women's fiction.

WNW: Hypercorrection

On our last Word Nerd Wednesday, we talked about how Utahns say mountain and how some people over overboard in trying to be "right" (note the sneer quotes) by pronouncing the T. When my friend Jordan McCollum, who is as big a word nerd as I am (only more qualified, because she's got a degree in linguistics), commented in that post about hypercorrection, I knew I wanted her to elaborate on the topic and share it with my readers.

Don't know what hypercorrection is? Don't think you're guilty of it? Maybe, maybe not. It's worth knowing about. Read on!

Hypercorrection: If talking like this is wrong, I don't want to be right 

Guest post by Jordan McCollum 

Have you ever drifted out of your lane while driving? I know I have. The natural tendency is to quickly correct your course by pulling the wheel back the opposite way. But sometimes, a drifting driver jerks the wheel back in the right direction too much. The over-correction succeeds, but the vehicle shoots into the wrong lane or the car rolls.

The same thing happens in language. (Okay, with fewer fatalities.) Most people want to speak "correctly." But did you know there might be such a thing as "too right"? I'm sure we've all had an English teacher or other "friend" who corrects casual speech with prescriptivist usage and pronunciation.

Fortunately, sometimes, those friends are so right, they're wrong. (But not dead. Whew!)

Hypercorrection

Hypercorrection is the linguistic term for being "too right." Usually, hypercorrection comes about because the speaker knows the "rules" of the language, in pronunciation, usage, or grammar, but applies them in more situations than they should (hence clip at right).

Hypercorrection is a very common phenomenon. In fact, it's part of learning a language, too. If you've ever heard a small child suddenly start saying "goed" instead of "went," it's a form of hypercorrection. They're learning that you form the past tense by adding the -ed sound, and applying it in situations where you actually don't follow that rule.

Hypercorrection in pronunciation

A couple weeks ago, Annette blogged about how people pronounce "mountain." People see the T and believe that they pronounce it like you'd say a T in isolation, or at the beginning of a word. However, the American pronunciation of "mountain" uses a glottal stop instead of a "tuh" (and those are just two of the six ways T is pronounced in English words!).

Mountain isn't the only word that uses a glottal stop for a T. Most speakers of American English, in natural speech, will pronounce the first T in important as a glottal stop. (It shows up all over the place in lots of other varieties of English too, so no knocking on Americans.)

However, some American English speakers see the "T" and think the "correct" pronunciation must feature a hard "tuh" sound like you'd hear from a T at the beginning of a word (or in British English). But T is virtually never pronounced as "tuh" in the middle of a word in American English—we rely on four of the other "allophones" of T in the middle of words, and the glottal stop is just as valid a rendition of T as the "tuh."  So when you stick a "tuh" in the middle of "important," you start to sound a little . . . well, self-importuhant.

Phonologically speaking, this pronunciation is unnatural in all varieties of English (because in British English there's no 'r' there).

Another great example of hypercorrection is found in this clip from My Fair Lady, where Professor Higgins is trying to teach Eliza Doolittle to stop her dropping her H's at the beginning of words:



The "hever" is exactly the same principle—applying a correct rule (add an 'h' to the beginning of words that you pronounce as starting with a vowel) to an incorrect situation (a word that really does start with a vowel). Funnily enough, this same principle has changed the pronunciation of the name of the letter "h" in some varieties of English to "haitch." This is also influenced by the perception of h-dropping accents like Cockney as lower in prestige.

Another place I see this is when actors who speak a variety of British English get an American role. In many accents of British English, an R at the end of the syllable isn't pronounced, but in most varieties of American English, it is. So sometimes an actorrr tries a little too harrrd to stick those R's in therrre, verging on another popular dialect, Pirate English. Yarrr. (But yay for trying!)

Hypercorrection in grammar

The same principle applies to grammar (maybe even more so). For example, most speakers of English are taught from a young age that you shouldn't say "me" in subject position: Never "me and you went to the store." (Don't you just cringe?!) Always "You and I gave her the gift." But when we move the "me" into another position in a sentence, things get a little trickier: "She gave the gift back to you and I."

If you're not cringing again, here's a hint: it's "me" there. She gave the gift back to me / She gave the gift back to you and me. (Or if you're really having trouble, "She gave the gift back to us"!)

Eventually, some people try so hard to speak "correctly" that they end up talking like this:

For our one year anniversary, my girlfriend caused myself to go to a Yankees game, with whomever amongst our friends can go. But, the Weather Channel just changed their forecast and the skies are grey, so we might go with the girl that lives next door to see the movie, "Iron Man 2".

I—just—I—oh, where to begin?

We all want to talk correctly. But keep in mind that hypercorrection isn't "extra right." It's actually wrong.

What do you think? What are your favorite examples of hypercorrection? How do you see good grammar principles go bad?

Photo credits: wrecked car—Niels Heidenreich; pirate—Kate Haskell

An award-winning author, Jordan McCollum blogs about writing craft and the writing life at JordanMcCollum.com. She holds a degree in American Studies and Linguistics from Brigham Young University and now makes her home in Utah with her husband and three children. Catch up with her writing links, word nerdiness and crazy life on Twitter, @JordanMcCollum.

WNW: Utahns and "Mountain"

Today we have another edition of Word Nerd Wednesday inspired by where I live: Utah.

That, and the idea of judging people based on their accents. But we'll get to that part in a minute.

Many people love poking fun at the Utah accent, as if it's somehow inferior and unique to their own speech. I did a post some time ago about how, in words with a long A followed by an L, the A is often changed into a short E, so sale sounds like sell, and whale sounds like well.

I had a lot of readers telling me that this was a only Utah thing. (Actually, it's not. It happens in a lot of places. But I digress.)

As I've mentioned here before, everyone has an accent (yes, you, too). Standard English pronunciation doesn't exist in nature. Actors often work at developing what we think is "correct" American English. And they work hard at it.

Another interesting tidbit is that national news stations, for some reason I don't know, have a lot of big-name anchors who hail from the Midwest, so many Americans hear that accent and view it as the standard. This is why people from Ohio and thereabouts often swear that they have no accent! (But oh, they do. They do!)

I recently found this report on a study done at Brigham Young University, not surprisingly, addressing a common pronunciation seen here in Utah: the mysterious dropping of the T in words like mountain and the city name Layton.

It's become such a joke that I regularly see newscasters going overboard in pronouncing the T. "As you can see, the inversion has made it hard to see the . . . moun-Tains."

They almost pause before the T and then accentuate it so the word comes out totally unnatural sounding. But I'm sure they do that because hoity-toity viewers have written in, saying that come on, please don't fall for the  lower-class Utah accent! Speak correctly! Use the T!

But the study found that most Americans drop the T.

I know; you're thinking that Utahns say mountain differently than you do! Maybe. The key is that Utahns drop the T in a different way than the the rest of the country.

Here comes the mini lesson. I promise it'll be brief and easy.

When we speak, air vibrates our vocal chords. When the air is cut off, the sounds stops. Simple, yes? Sometimes as we speak, we purposely block the air for a split second.

For example, think of casual conversation when you use a sound to say no: "Nu-uh."

Say it aloud. Do you hear how your voice stops between the vowel sounds? It's more like Nu. Uh. When we stop the air (and hence, the sound) during speech, it's called a glottal stop.

When Utahns drop the T in mountain, there's a glottal stop in place of the T, followed by the air (and sound) continuing through the mouth.

What do other Americans do? They drop the very same T. Here's the difference: After the glottal stop that cuts the very same T, they release the air through their noses, creating a softer sound than releasing it through the mouth.

So contrary to the belief of some people, the ones who love snickering over the Utah accent, the majority of Americans don't actually use the full T sound in words like mountain. It's not just Utahns who drop that T.

Instead, Utahns release the same glottal stop through their mouths instead of their noses.

Listen to the difference yourself:
Through the mouth (Utahn)
Through the nose (other areas)

Please note that neither way of saying mountain is more or less correct, and that both drop the T, just in different ways.

It's amazing to me how such a small thing can stir up such scorn and debate, especially when every single area of the country has these kinds of quirks.

My purpose for bringing up issues like this is in the hope that we'll be more understanding and less critical of one another, less judgmental over something as simple as the way another person uses a single word.

I personally know a woman who has an accent in English because it is her second language, although she knows it better than most native speakers. When she first came to the States, some people on first meeting her thought she had to be dumb because she had a strong accent.

The reality: She had an advanced education that included something like half a dozen languages. By the time she was eighteen, her education was the equivalent of an associates degree.

In later years, as her accent softened (and, I believe, as the country softened in its attitudes), people started to see her intelligence, and some people assumed she must have a Ph.D. or two in her pocket. They were finally listening to her words, not her accent.

It's safe to say that the idea of judging someone based solely on their speech hits close to home, because that woman is my mother. And I can guarantee that no matter what her accent is like, she's smarter than many of us!

(Love you, Mom!)

The "Danger" of Copying

(Plus lots of news. But first the copying part.)

I've been going to the same medical clinic for our family's needs for over 18 years, so the staff know us pretty well. Our doctor and his long-time nurse especially have followed our family from the time I was expecting my first child, through all my subsequent pregnancies, kids' bouts with RSV and croup, and so much more.

As a result, Dr. S and Nurse T have followed my writing career from almost the beginning, when I liked to write and tried to get publish, along the bumpy road of lots of rejections to finally being accepted, and today they always ask what's coming out next and when.

The last time we saw Nurse T, she asked something different that has stuck with me, and I realized it's a question many readers may have, so I thought it worth addressing in a post here.

Paraphrasing her, she asked, "Isn't it hard to find new things to write about so you're not copying other writers?" She added that it's probably hard to ever read much, because of the fear of copying someone else's style or story.

Is reading a danger for writers? And is it hard to find new ideas? The short answer: No and no.

The longer one: Writers by their nature tend to be curious people. We see a news report about a natural disaster and picture the victims or even put ourselves into the situation and wonder how we'd deal with it. We hear about a horrible crime and wonder what made the criminal do it, and what the victim was thinking. We get story and character ideas from places like songs, newspaper advice columns, and old cemeteries (check, check, and check on each of those for me).

So no, writers generally don't worry too much about being totally original. We're always seeing the world in new and interesting ways, and almost by definition, our perspective is original. On the other side, there's the old saying that there are no new stories, just new ways of telling them. That is what a good writer tries to go after: telling a story, familiar or not, in a new, fresh way. Think of how many great fairy tale re-tellings there are today. Take that number and multiply it by all the writers and stories out there.

The real meat of the issue is this: Nurse T was wrong in assuming that reading will cause a writer to be unoriginal, because the exact opposite is true.

Turns out that writers who don't read much are the ones who end up writing the same old hackneyed plots that have been done to death. I've seen such writers pump out book after book, not realizing that not only are their books cliche, but they're basically writing the same book over and over again. They write cliched characters and worlds and conflicts.

These writers are missing out on an amazing universe of creativity that's out there for the taking. It's almost as if the universe has layers of cool fiction, and we all tap into it on some level, and that the deeper you go, the broader the options become. So the more you open your mind to literature, the deeper into those layers you travel, and the broader your potential scope for story fodder. Stay in the shallow areas, and you've been where every other writer has waded at some point: in the totally unoriginal, cliched mass of washed-up stories.

I've also seen how reading a lot can teach a writer what has been done before, and that means both what's been done well, and what's been done poorly. A young fantasy writer unfamiliar with the tropes of the genre is far more likely to do a veiled copy of Tolkein (trolls and dwarves and elves!) than someone who's been reading a wide range of fantasy for years.

It may sound counter intuitive, but the more literature you read, the more you fill your mind and imagination with images and ideas, and therefore the more likely your brain is to come up with brand new possibilities to throw together.

It's like taking apart several cool Lego creations and then dumping the pieces into a bag, shaking them up, and then removing the blocks one at a time to make something new. Sure, the blocks all came from other sources, but your creation is totally different and fresh.

So to answer Nurse T (I didn't give her this long of an answer at the time; I swear), I don't worry about copying other writers. Not at all. I worry about plateauing in my skill, about not out-doing myself with my next work. I worry about not staying fresh, about not reading enough, especially of the really good stuff out there, because I know good literature will get into my subconscious and make me a better writer.

Even when I read a book with my writer/edit hat on, it's a fantastic thing. I can read a powerful scene and analyze it: Why is this scene so effective? How did the author create that effect? What can I learn?

Did you read a book that knocked your socks off? Can you figure out why it knocked your socks off?

I remember my good friend Heather Moore saying that every time she reads Anne Perry, she notices an improvement in the quality of her own descriptions. I don't know too many writers who are so keenly aware of the effects of their reading, but whether you notice them or not, the effects are there.

Even reading bad books can be useful, so long as you use them as lessons to learn why a book isn't good, what the writer did wrong. And so long as bad books are the minority of what you read.

The fact is, writing is part talent, part art, and part science. Plus a bit of luck thrown into the mix. It's not some ethereal, unknowable thing (although I admit that it feels magical at times).

To be a better writer, I believe you must do two things, neither of which are ethereal and unknowable:

• Read often and broadly. 
• Write often.

I could add a lot of other things to the list: study the craft, attend writers conferences, find a critique group and other trusted readers. And all of those are important; all of those things can help immensely. But those two things--reading and writing--are the ones everything else hangs on. They are the cornerstones your writing house is built on.

As Stephen King has said, if you don't have time to read, you don't have time to be a good writer. 

I'd add that if you do have time to read a lot, then as long as you're also writing a lot, you're on your way to being a better writer. Not the kind that copies or create cliches. 

Finally, some housekeeping (read: lots of news!):

Timeless Romance Anthologies

I'm part of Timeless Romance Anthologies, along with Heather Moore and Sarah Eden. Three or four times a year, we'll be putting out novellas with sweet (meaning clean) romance novellas as e-books. We hand pick three other writers for each collection. The result is that for under four dollars, you get a book the size of a regular novel with six great stories.

The Winter Collection went live last fall (filled with great historical romances set in the winter), and the Spring  Vacation Collection (featuring contemporary romances all with a spring vacation theme) debuts on February 1st. It's been a blast to be part of the anthologies. The first one got rave reviews, and we look forward to putting out more of them. Watch for Spring Vacation Collection in a couple of weeks, and then the Summer Wedding Collection a few months after that.

To keep up to date with the anthologies, be sure to like our Facebook page.

New Release: Coming Home

The long-awaited sequel to Band of Sisters is finally out! Titled Band of Sisters: Coming Home, the book picks up about five months after the first book ended, when the deployment is over and the men come home. A good friend of mine, a military wife herself, said that I could have written a whole trilogy about re-entry, and when I did the research, she was right. (But this is the last book!) 

Note that if you haven't read the first book, you can read this one without being totally confused. I purposely reintroduced the wives, particularly because it's been almost three years between books, so even readers who know the first one may not remember all of the wives clearly. Plus, there's a handy reference page at the front, where the wives are listed by age with their husbands' and children's names. If you read Coming Home first, you will learn much of how the first book ended. Not a crisis, by any means. You really can start with this one. 

I don't know of any plans to put the first book into another printing, but Band of Sisters is available as an e-book, for about $5 below the print version. 

Newport News

The Newport Ladies Book Club is moving forward with the second set of books coming out this year. The only title that has a firm release date so far is Shannon, by Josi S. Kilpack, which will hit shelves in May. My contribution, Ilana, has officially been accepted, as has Heather's Ruby. Julie Wright's Tori should be official soon, and shortly after than we should have the release dates lined up. One book may be released earlier than Shannon; we don't know for sure yet. To keep up with the series, be sure to check the Newport blog (link below) or like the series Facebook page.

A 9th Newport Book!

We plan to do a final reunion book after all eight novels are out, a volume where all eight book club ladies come together so readers can find out what happened to them. I know a lot of readers want to know about Paige's future; I can't wait to tell you all!

Along the same lines, The Deseret News recently interviewed the Newport Ladies authors and published a feature article about the series in both their print and online editions. Be sure to read the blog post Heather did about the experience as well as the actual article.