This morning, Karen and I got up early to head to Richardson for our monthly DARA (Dallas Area Romance Authors) meeting. Author Kat Baldwin gave a workshop on plotting for pantsers, along with a number of suggestions on what we can do to make our writing better. I've spoken about being a pantser before, but for the benefit of those who don't know, a pantser is a writer who writes by the seat of his pants. It isn't a comfortable way to write. Plotters outline, use tools, know where they're going. Pantsers live in doubt and chaos, trying to create order as they go rather than impose order from without. (I was pleased that Kat Baldwin said 'oh, please,' about the frequent comment that characters went in directions authors didn't want them to. I mean, come on, characters aren't real, they're characters). Anyway, Kat had some great ideas on how to use plotting tools that plotters use (e.g., Goal, Motivation and Conflict, Scene and Sequel, Three Act Structure...) as check-back tools for pantsers rather than plan ahead tools for plotters. Good stuff.

Afterwards, Karen dropped me off at the Bridge Academy where I directed the Saturday game. Only 3.5 tables today...not very good. Lots of people are doing vacations these days, which I think explains the dropoff. I'm going to be working a lot of games next week because my boss (Donna) and the other academy director (Mark) are going to San Antonio for a regional bridge tournament.

Joshual Calkins-Treworgy's MOTOR CITY SHAMBLER is written up in eBooks just published. Congratulatons, Joshua. Here's his book: www.booksforabuck.com/sfpages/sf_09/motor_city_shambler.html. Here's eBooks Just Published: http://www.ebooksjustpublished.com/.

I'm going to make DAMNATION OF THE REALM by Joshua Calkins-Treworgy the www.BooksForABuck.com book of the day. A former paladin was corrupted by a wizard but that doesn't mean he goes along with evil. Wtih the death of the wizard, he's still a dread knight, but he's not going to roll ove and let the wizard's apprentice become the realm's ruler...not if he can help it anyway. But what can one skull-masked ex-knight do? Only $3.99. (Available in HTML, Adobe Acrobat PDF, Mobipocket, eReader and Microsoft Reader formats). Here's the link: http://www.booksforabuck.com/sfpages/sf_08/damnation_of_the_realm.html. Here's the cover (cover design by Karen Leabo):

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